Ultimately, Bentsen defeated Bush, taking 53.5 percent of the vote. On March 30, 1981, while Bush was in Texas, Reagan was shot and seriously wounded by John Hinckley Jr. Bush immediately flew back from Washington D.C.; when his plane landed, his aides advised him to proceed directly to the White House by helicopter in order to show that the government was still functioning. In 1983, Bush toured Western Europe as part of the Reagan administration's ultimately successful efforts to convince skeptical NATO allies to support the deployment of Pershing II missiles.Reagan's approval ratings fell after his first year in office, but they bounced back when the United States began to emerge from recession in 1983. Biographer Jon Meacham writes that 'no evidence was ever produced proving Bush was aware of the diversion to the contras,' but he criticizes Bush's 'out of the loop' characterization, writing that the 'record is clear that Bush was aware that the United States, in contravention of its own stated policy, was trading arms for hostages'.
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