George H.W. Bush

**George Herbert Walker Bush** (June 12th, 1924 – November 30th, 2018) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from Texas from January 3rd, 1965 to January 3rd, 2001. The son of Prescott Bush, younger brother of Prescott Bush Jr., and father of George W. Bush, he was an influential member of the Bush dynasty. He was Texas's longest serving Senator, and the longest serving Senator from the Bush Dynasty. He was a candidate for President in 1980 & 1988, losing both times in the primary to Henry Murkowski & James Montagu Jr., respectively.

## Early life

George Herbert Walker Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts on June 12, 1924. He was the second son of Prescott Bush and Dorothy (Walker) Bush. His paternal grandfather, Samuel P. Bush, worked as an executive for a railroad parts company in Columbus, Ohio, while his maternal grandfather and namesake, George Herbert Walker, led Wall Street investment bank W. A. Harriman & Co. Walker was known as "Pop", and young Bush was called "Poppy" as a tribute to him. The Bush family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut in 1925, and Prescott took a position with W. A. Harriman & Co. the following year.

Bush spent most of his childhood in Greenwich, at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, or at his maternal grandparents' plantation in South Carolina. Because of the family's wealth, Bush was largely unaffected by the Great Depression. He attended Greenwich Country Day School from 1929 to 1937 and Phillips Academy, an elite private academy in Massachusetts, from 1937 to 1942. While at Phillips Academy, he served as president of the senior class, secretary of the student council, president of the community fund-raising group, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, and captain of the varsity baseball and soccer teams.

## Business Career

After graduating from Yale, Bush moved his family to West Texas. Biographer Jon Meacham writes that Bush's relocation to Texas allowed him to move out of the "daily shadow of his Wall Street father and Grandfather Walker, two dominant figures in the financial world", but would still allow Bush to "call on their connections if he needed to raise capital." His first position in Texas was an oil field equipment salesman for Dresser Industries, which was led by family friend Neil Mallon. While working for Dresser, Bush lived in various places with his family: Odessa, Texas; Ventura, Bakersfield and Compton, California; and Midland, Texas.

In 1950, his father won election to represent Connecticut in the United States Senate as a member of the Republican Party.

In 1952, Bush volunteered for the successful presidential campaign of Republican candidate Harold Stassen.

With support from Mallon and Bush's uncle, George Herbert Walker Jr., Bush and John Overbey launched the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Company in 1951. In 1953 he co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation, an oil company that drilled in the Permian Basin in Texas. In 1954, he was named president of the Zapata Offshore Company, a subsidiary which specialized in offshore drilling. Shortly after the subsidiary became independent in 1959, Bush moved the company and his family from Midland to Houston. Bush remained involved with Zapata until the mid-1960s, when he sold his stock in the company for approximately $1 million.

## U.S. Senate

While his father was serving as Senate Minority Leader, Bush waged a run for the U.S. Senate in 1964. Texas, at the time part of the Democratic stronghold in the South, had started to become fertile ground for southern Republicans following John Tower's election in 1961. Bush was up against incumbent Bill Blakley, who was seeking a 2nd full term. Bush vastly outraised Blakley, and, eventually, defeated Blakley in the general election. Texas was now one of the first ever Southern States to have 2 seats in the Senate occupied by Republicans, which was 'outrageous' to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had served in Texas from 1949-1961.

### Family

Bush & his father made a power duo in the Senate, although once the senior Bush passed away in 1972, his eldest son, and Bush's older brother, Prescott Bush Jr., was appointed. P. Bush Jr. & G.H.W. Bush were both highly respected members of the Senate due to the works of their father, and they would often collaborate on bills.