Former President George H.W. Bush Dies at 94

[abefroman329]

In just eight months, George and Barbara are together again in heaven. I figured it would be a matter of time before he went not too long after she did.

My mom survived about 2 1/2 years without dad.

Both my grandmothers outlived their husbands for decades, as did my paternal grandmothers' sisters. What's rare is for a husband to outlive his wife for a significant amount of time.

[US71]

In just eight months, George and Barbara are together again in heaven. I figured it would be a matter of time before he went not too long after she did.

My mom survived about 2 1/2 years without dad.

Both my grandmothers outlived their husbands for decades, as did my paternal grandmothers' sisters. What's rare is for a husband to outlive his wife for a significant amount of time.

My dad got his "final" wish, to go before mom. He couldn't see living without her.  My mom's uncle, Will, lived 7 years after Aunt Fannie passed. Of course, he found himself a girlfriend after a couple years so she probably helped.

[Beltway]

In just eight months, George and Barbara are together again in heaven. I figured it would be a matter of time before he went not too long after she did.

My mom survived about 2 1/2 years without dad.

Both my grandmothers outlived their husbands for decades, as did my paternal grandmothers’ sisters. What’s rare is for a husband to outlive his wife for a significant amount of time.

My dad has outlived my mother by 8 years, and he is 92 now and is doing well.

[abefroman329]

Of course, he found himself a girlfriend after a couple years so she probably helped.

Yeah, that's the key right there; my grandmothers and great-aunts outlived their husbands by decades without remarrying or (AFAIK) dating.

[vdeane]

Thats true, but what does America really stand for nowadays? Seems like everything is for money nowadays.

Money is the foundation of the economy. If it was suddenly meaningless, we'd have a problem.

It certainly didn't used to be as dominant as it is now, though.  It used to be one thing among many.  Now it's the only thing.

Save the world and get the boot...LOL!

To be fair to Attlee, we were overdue another election having not had one since '37, and the war was all but over so the war coalition was rather pointless. He proposed at the Labour party annual conference that he wanted an election in Autumn, with the war coalition Government ending when it was called. Churchill, pretty much immediately after hearing what Attlee had said to his party, decided he needed to capitalise on the nations mood towards him personally post-VE day for the unpopular Tories* to have a hope of winning the election and so the next day went to the king to resign as PM and dissolve parliament (ie call an election) - which the king did, before asking Churchill to build a caretaker government to run the country until the election.

Churchill stayed on as Tory leader despite presiding over its (still) biggest loss - because it wasn't about him that they lost. And he turned it around - making Attlee's government very wobbly in 1950, and then winning a majority (of seats - Attlee's Labour got more votes) in 1951. But, old and unwell, his peace-time premiership was not good (it's generally considered to be pretty terrible). All the issues that had plagued his political career were still there - stubbornness, not being liked by the Tories, etc. But he had that "this is the guy who won the war" respect that meant that he was untouchable wrt getting rid of him unless you were his wife or the Monarch (George VI may have suggested retirement in the few months between election and death, but after that Liz was a young girl and needing to learn the ropes, while also in awe of Churchill) - and even then the stubborn man would likely reject it. He finally went in '55, and his prodigy is seen as the worst PM of the 20th century** (the poster boy of someone very highly qualified, well trained with lots of experience - and then turning out to be totally rubbish), because - unlike Churchill - his role during WW2 (as Foreign Secretary) doesn't get the focus, but his mistakes do.

Churchill was the right man for that one job we applaud him for, but really not good at any other office he had. We, like 50s Britain, give him pass after pass (and that was more so once he was dead) - as they somewhat did pre-war - even he admitted he was politically finished after Gallipoli in 1915 and the abdication crisis of 1936. OK, he worked hard both times to rehabilitate himself (returning to the army and making forays into no-mans land in WW1 despite his high rank to undo Gallipoli, leading the anti-appeasement campaign in the run up to WW2).

*They'd been leading the government for a very long time, and so had so much baggage making them unpopular. You get this in the US and was one factor in why Bush 41 was a one term presidency.
**Churchill is either ranked right near the top, or in the middle, depending if the experts (scholars, politicians, etc) remember his third stint in the 50s. Attlee is always first or second - with either Thatcher or Churchill beating him if he's not top.

When I was taking AP US History in high school, the teachers suggested that the Soviet Union would not have been able to hold influence over their occupied areas had Stalin been dealing with FDR and/or Churchill instead of Attlee and Truman.  Makes me wonder if the Cold War would have been different (or even prevented entirely) had Churchill's government held out a little longer.

[triplemultiplex]

When I was taking AP US History in high school, the teachers suggested that the Soviet Union would not have been able to hold influence over their occupied areas had Stalin been dealing with FDR and/or Churchill instead of Attlee and Truman.  Makes me wonder if the Cold War would have been different (or even prevented entirely) had Churchill's government held out a little longer.

I don't buy that for a minute.  The Soviet Union wasn't about to relinquish control of territory gained for anyone.  Stalin was too much of a paranoid fuck to leave open the possibility of a reconstituted Germany threatening him again.  The Germans attacked the Soviet Union twice in 3 decades; Stalin's primary goal post-war was to prevent that from happening again.  As such, the Cold War was inevitable.  And frankly, it was the better outcome than if the hotheads had their way in the 40's and we all plunged into war again over control of a bombed-out Berlin.

As for Bush Sr, he's one of those Presidents that looks better in retrospect.  Mostly because of how much more terrible his progeny was, but H-Dub played it cool while the Soviet Union imploded and knew better than to start an endless occupation in the Middle East.
That "Willy Horton" ad, though; that set the stage for a lot of bullshit we are still suffering from.  Right, it wasn't an 'official' campaign ad, but c'mon; it's ignorance to honestly believe that politicians aren't 100% in cahoots with those outside groups.

[gonealookin]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

[english si]

When I was taking AP US History in high school, the teachers suggested that the Soviet Union would not have been able to hold influence over their occupied areas had Stalin been dealing with FDR and/or Churchill instead of Attlee and Truman.  Makes me wonder if the Cold War would have been different (or even prevented entirely) had Churchill's government held out a little longer.

Churchill and a post-Hiroshima US and a bit more time for Winston to persuade Harry might have been able to limit Stalin (though via a Hot War seems about the only way). While Attlee definitely wasn't pro-Stalin (the UK's left-most PM is the only one who went to war against the Red menace - Korea), he hadn't necessarily gained Churchill's immense dislike of him* - though Clement would have known Churchill's concerns, and that he got it right the last time. But there also wasn't the Churchill myth, nor would Attlee and Truman have had built a relationship until too late (especially as they came to power a little after).

Yalta in early '45 was where (to Churchill's horror) FDR appeased Stalin and gave him the Sudetenland (and the rest of Czechoslovakia), let him anschloss Koningsburg, and let him finish his 1939 invasion of Poland. Churchill was at the beginning of the next conference between the three powers, but was replaced midway though by Attlee. Sir Winston was enraged by Stalin taking over Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, but all 3 western leaders there had two choices - open war with Russia, or letting Stalin get away with it. The USSR had enough air superiority (and was pretty close to nukes) so the threat of mushroom clouds would have been pretty meaningless and would have done nothing to curb Stalin.

*Churchill was open to attempts to thaw the Cold War a little when Stalin died during his third stint as PM, but his government didn't want to. Stalin, like Hitler, wasn't - in his experience - someone who you could do a deal with.

[Scott5114]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

[jon daly]

Stock market is closed, too. But I still have to work.

[Brandon]

When I was taking AP US History in high school, the teachers suggested that the Soviet Union would not have been able to hold influence over their occupied areas had Stalin been dealing with FDR and/or Churchill instead of Attlee and Truman.  Makes me wonder if the Cold War would have been different (or even prevented entirely) had Churchill's government held out a little longer.

Churchill and a post-Hiroshima US and a bit more time for Winston to persuade Harry might have been able to limit Stalin (though via a Hot War seems about the only way). While Attlee definitely wasn't pro-Stalin (the UK's left-most PM is the only one who went to war against the Red menace - Korea), he hadn't necessarily gained Churchill's immense dislike of him* - though Clement would have known Churchill's concerns, and that he got it right the last time. But there also wasn't the Churchill myth, nor would Attlee and Truman have had built a relationship until too late (especially as they came to power a little after).

Yalta in early '45 was where (to Churchill's horror) FDR appeased Stalin and gave him the Sudetenland (and the rest of Czechoslovakia), let him anschloss Koningsburg, and let him finish his 1939 invasion of Poland. Churchill was at the beginning of the next conference between the three powers, but was replaced midway though by Attlee. Sir Winston was enraged by Stalin taking over Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, but all 3 western leaders there had two choices - open war with Russia, or letting Stalin get away with it. The USSR had enough air superiority (and was pretty close to nukes) so the threat of mushroom clouds would have been pretty meaningless and would have done nothing to curb Stalin.

*Churchill was open to attempts to thaw the Cold War a little when Stalin died during his third stint as PM, but his government didn't want to. Stalin, like Hitler, wasn't - in his experience - someone who you could do a deal with.

To be fair to FDR a bit here, he was very (and visibly) ill at Yalta.  The war and the traveling for the war had taken a massive toll on him by this time.  My guess is that he was willing to agree to almost anything at that time to end the war sooner, perhaps before he would die.  He wasn't really in a position to stand up to Stalin at Yalta the same way that Churchill could and would have.

[english si]

He wasn't really in a position to stand up to Stalin at Yalta the same way that Churchill could and would have.

Off-colour joke intended?

To be fair to FDR, all he could was either:
1) do what he did and let Stalin take over Europe east of what Churchill later called "the Iron Curtain"
2) do what Churchill did and denounce Stalin's but don't actually go as far as do anything to stop him
3) go to war with the USSR

2 is all bark and no bite - with the same outcome as 1. Thus 1 is a perfectly legit option if 3 isn't an option. 3 is a massive risk and victory would come at a great cost - there was a reason it was called Operation Unthinkable.

Threatening with nuclear war could have worked post-Hiroshima - the Soviets withdrew from Iran in 1946 very quickly - but at Yalta FDR couldn't let on about nuclear weapons (the Brits, despite the closeness of the alliance, found out when everyone else did).

Or as I said:

Churchill and a post-Hiroshima US and a bit more time for Winston to persuade Harry might have been able to limit Stalin (though via a Hot War seems about the only way).

Though, Churchill's problem with FDR was not that he chose no more war (option 3),* nor that he didn't publicly signal virtue (option 2), but the lack of reluctance with which he decided that option 1 (as I've called it) was the way to go, without much private protest about Stalin's imperialism. That there wasn't even a lack of fight (which you'd get from an ill man), but more a willingness to let Stalin get away with it.

*Something that Bush 41 did to everyone's confusion at the time, but his son showed not invading Iraq was a good decision.

[DaBigE]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

There's bound to be a few, but from what I have read, it's an honor bestowed for all former presidents. Hell, even Nixon got a day of mourning.

[oscar]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

There's bound to be a few, but from what I have read, it's an honor bestowed for all former presidents. Hell, even Nixon got a day of mourning.

And so did Ford, who didn't even serve a full term (he took over in the middle of Nixon's second term, and lost his re-election bid to Carter).

[US71]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

There's bound to be a few, but from what I have read, it's an honor bestowed for all former presidents. Hell, even Nixon got a day of mourning.

Which is something the current incumbent gets to look forward to in another 20-something years

[abefroman329]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

There's bound to be a few, but from what I have read, it's an honor bestowed for all former presidents. Hell, even Nixon got a day of mourning.

Which is something the current incumbent gets to look forward to in another 20-something years

Along with a Presidential Library - again, even Gerald Ford got one, despite serving as President for ~2 years.

[Beltway]

To be fair to FDR, all he could was either:
1) do what he did and let Stalin take over Europe east of what Churchill later called "the Iron Curtain"
2) do what Churchill did and denounce Stalin's but don't actually go as far as do anything to stop him
3) go to war with the USSR

4) Demand that Soviet troops leave the non-Soviet countries within a set deadline of 2 or 3 years (after all millions of troops can't just turn on a dime), or else they will be driven back to the USSR.  State "this is not war with the USSR because we are not going to enter your country".

[hbelkins]

USPS is closed tomorrow for the "National Day of Mourning".  Do schools not close for that anymore?  My recollection is that we got two days off pretty close to each other when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson died within a month or so of each other.

Is anyone really so broken up about a has-been President dying that we need to stop doing business for a day in bereavement? I could see it being necessary if a sitting President died (especially in a JFK-type situation, folks are likely to be shaken up), but I can count the number of times that I thought about George H.W. Bush at all, in an average month before this one, on one hand. This seems more than a little silly.

There's bound to be a few, but from what I have read, it's an honor bestowed for all former presidents. Hell, even Nixon got a day of mourning.

And so did Ford, who didn't even serve a full term (he took over in the middle of Nixon's second term, and lost his re-election bid to Carter).

I think it's done more to grant a federal holiday to ease traffic in DC. One of my FB friends and a forum participant who lives there said the amount of traffic he's seen justifies government offices being closed. And it's certainly not fair to give federal workers in DC a paid day off while federal workers elsewhere have to work. We run into the same thing in Kentucky when a governor is inaugurated. The parade shuts down much of Frankfort, so they close state offices. State employees elsewhere get the day off, too. One year they floated the idea of just closing Frankfort and making employees in the other 119 counties work, but you can imagine how that went over due to the fundamental (un)fairness issue.

[english si]

4) Demand that Soviet troops leave the non-Soviet countries within a set deadline of 2 or 3 years (after all millions of troops can't just turn on a dime), or else they will be driven back to the USSR.  State "this is not war with the USSR because we are not going to enter your country".

That's still basically 3) (or 2 if it works). The first Gulf war was still war with Iraq.

But I doubt it works as a ruse - you'd need to threaten the motherland with nukes (so 2-3 years too long as any bluff would get seen through, and Soviet nuclear program might develop) as Stalin is fine with throwing men (especially if they are foreign) at problems, and has the superiority with conventional weapons anyway.

[AlexandriaVA]

Air Force One* carrying Bush's casket just flew right over my apartment in the South Arlington/West End Alexandria area (I-395&VA-7 in roadgeek terms)...pretty neat...real low, real loud.


*It's only AF1 when the sitting president is on board, but you know what I mean.

[catch22]

I fully expected a bunch of discussion over whether or not Trump will go/will be invited to the funeral, but I wasn't prepared for the "Bush 41 had JFK assassinated" garbage that's washed up several places today.
Where do people dream up this stuff?

Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy.  Vincent Bugliosi's book _Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy_ nailed it with 53 pieces of evidence supporting the case that Oswald alone fired the shots, and then he spent the second half of the book listing every conspiracy theory that he could find and then debunking them.

Was one of the 53 "Oswald was aiming for the Governor of Texas, missed, and hit JFK instead" ? Because that's the only one I've heard that accounts for a) Oswald acting alone and b) Oswald pulling off such a difficult shot when he was such a lousy marksman.

Oswald enlisted in the Marine Corps in October, 1956.  Like all marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting.  In December 1956, he scored 212, which was slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter.  In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman.

It was not a difficult shot, you don't even need to be a trained infantryman (like Oswald) to kill someone at 50 to 70 yards with a high-powered rifle at essentially point-blank range (in windage and elevation) for that rifle.  A WWII rifle designed to hit and kill soldiers at 200 yards.

And, having been up the the Sixth Floor Museum (which I recommend by the way), and looking out that exact window, Oswald had to be a complete idiot to miss that shot.  As it was, he did miss at least one that struck the pavement.

I'd always been under the impression somehow that the distance of the shot was much longer that it actually is.  A couple of years ago, I stood at that same window looking down at the "X" painted on Elm Street and thought something like, "It'd be hard for me to miss."

I second the recommendation about the museum.  Very well done.

[Beltway]

4) Demand that Soviet troops leave the non-Soviet countries within a set deadline of 2 or 3 years (after all millions of troops can't just turn on a dime), or else they will be driven back to the USSR.  State "this is not war with the USSR because we are not going to enter your country".

That's still basically 3) (or 2 if it works). The first Gulf war was still war with Iraq.
But I doubt it works as a ruse - you'd need to threaten the motherland with nukes (so 2-3 years too long as any bluff would get seen through, and Soviet nuclear program might develop) as Stalin is fine with throwing men (especially if they are foreign) at problems, and has the superiority with conventional weapons anyway.

So basically the USSR declared a cold war on the other Allies in 1945 and claimed these other countries as part of the Soviet Bloc. 

Germany was a special case as was Japan, where they were occupied by allied powers for 5 years to make the transition to a new peaceful government.  France, the United Kingdom, and the United States released the part they occupied to become an independent nation in 1949.  The USSR didn't release their portion until 1990.

I will grant that the USSR lost 20 million people in WW II and basically wanted a thousand mile wide buffer between them and the rest of Europe, and while I can conceptually understand that, it is outrageous that they held these other nations under their military control for 45 years after WW II ended, and technically it didn't end until 1990.

[oscar]

I think it's done more to grant a federal holiday to ease traffic in DC. One of my FB friends and a forum participant who lives there said the amount of traffic he's seen justifies government offices being closed. And it's certainly not fair to give federal workers in DC a paid day off while federal workers elsewhere have to work.

That's SOP for Federal inaugurations. Unless something changed since I retired in 2011, Federal workers in much of the DC metro area (not limited to DC itself) get that day off, but Federal workers everywhere else are SOL.

[D-Dey65]

That leaves Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, & Obama.  Interesting note, Carter has outlived not too only his successor, but his successor's VP as well.

Another interseting note is that both he and Bush were born in the same year.

When Richard Nixon died, I was sure that Ronald Reagan would be the next former President to go, simply because Reagan was two years older than Nixon, and I was right. After that I was convinced Ford would be next because he was the same age as Nixon (only younger by about seven months), but then Clinton had his first big post-Presidential health scare, and I wasn't as sure of who would go next anymore.

As it turned out, I was still right.

Then when I heard about Jimmy Carter's health problems, I started thinking it might be a toss-up between him and Bush.

Respect.  Do not make threats of any kind.  --sso

I don't know where you got the idea that I was making any threats with this post.

[hbelkins]

That leaves Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, & Obama.  Interesting note, Carter has outlived not too only his successor, but his successor's VP as well.

Another interseting note is that both he and Bush were born in the same year.

When Richard Nixon died, I was sure that Ronald Reagan would be the next former President to go, simply because Reagan was two years older than Nixon, and I was right. After that I was convinced Ford would be next because he was the same age as Nixon (only younger by about seven months), but then Clinton had his first big post-Presidential health scare, and I wasn't as sure of who would go next anymore.

As it turned out, I was still right.

Then when I heard about Jimmy Carter's health problems, I started thinking it might be a toss-up between him and Bush.

Respect.  Do not make threats of any kind.  --sso

I don't know where you got the idea that I was making any threats with this post.

Seriously. And some people wonder why some complain about over-moderation here. I don't see any threats. Just speculation based on the realities of aging.