1980's Government and Politics | Bush, George 1924-

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
1981-1989

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1989-1993

In Reagan's Shadow.

Serving as vice president under one of the most personally popular presidents of the twentieth century, George Bush seemed colorless and ineffectual next to the charismatic former actor Ronald Reagan. Though he won election to the presidency as the heir to the Reagan legacy and had his image enhanced by international events largely not of his making, Bush ultimately took the blame for domestic woes that had their roots in his predecessors economic policies and lost his reelection bid in 1992.

Background.

Born in Milton, Massachusetts, and brought up in Greenwich, Connecticut, George Herbert Walker Bush was the second of the five children of Prescott Sheldon Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Prescott Bush became managing partner of the investment banking house of Brown Brothers, Harriman and...