george h. w. bush

"Read My Lips , No New Taxes!!" , the most famous words George H. W. Bush ever uttered. He said it at the 1988 Republican National Convention as he struggled to unite his party for the coming race for President against a surging Michael Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts.  Dukakis was a whopping 20 points ahead of George Bush the sitting Vice President. While Ronald Reagan had grown to have a good relationship with his Vice President, those around Reagan and the conservative wing of the Republican Party he represented did not trust George Bush. He had to bring them into the fold if he had any hope of catching and defeating Michael Dukakis. So Bush made a promise, a promise he would have to break for the betterment of the country. 

He would live to hear those words again. 

This is the story of the 1990 Budget Deal that led to George Bush reneging on his promise to not raise taxes. It would lay the groundwork for much of the division among the various factions within the Republican Party that still lingers to this day.  Robert Cahaly, of the Trafalgar Group National Polling Firm, says much of what you see today in the modern political landscape is found in the coming 1992 election divisions that would eventually cost George H. W. Bush his Presidency. As he points out the Ross Perot voters of then are Republicans now, and 20% of the Republicans then are Democrats now. 

The decision to go back on that pledge had a profound effect on the Republican Party.  It led to the "America First" anti establishment campaign of Pat Buchanan, and in the remnants of that campaign are the seeds of the rise of another political figure nearly three decades later, President Donald Trump.  That is a story we will tell in our next season of shows but for now here is where it all started. 

In this episode we go back to the very start of it all, the 1990 Budget Deal that may very well have laid the groundwork for the boom of the 1990s, but it did so at the expense of the unifying principles of the old Republican Party, and in that split, lay the seeds of the populist party of Donald Trump we see today. 

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It is the season 12 premier episode and with such a long gap since our last Bush episode we thought we would start by looking at the life of George Bush , from his love of Golf and his family connection to the game, to his military time in World War 2, and his time as Vice President, up to the moment in our timeline when Bush enters his second year in the Presidency. 

It is in 1990, when President Bush meets with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to sign the Arms Reduction Agreement at a Summit in Washington D.C.  The relationship had come a long way and it was clear the Cold War was thawing out and the relationship between the struggling Soviet Union and the United States was in fact getting much warmer. 

In this episode, we look back at the thawing of tensions in the Cold War and listen in on the historic press conference with George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, as an era of peace begins to be taking shape. However,  things would soon take a very different turn. 

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This is a housekeeping show to let everyone know when the George Bush series will be returning to the podcast. It will also fill you in on what we have been doing and what else we have in store over the next few weeks. 

We hope you are enjoying the various new things and subjects we have been trying to cover. Please let us know what you think. 

Randal 

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Coming in 2024, the second part in our three part series looking back on the Presidency of George H. W. Bush. 

In this series "The Sweep of History" we will look back at some of the most historic moments of the 20th century, as Communism breathes its last and one of the two Super Powers, the Soviet Union, comes crashing down. Though it all happened without a war and without the United States having to fire a shot. 

In this series we will also look back at the Gulf War, the textbook example of how to fight a war in the modern era, the Clarence Thomas Hearings, and the Soviet Coup attempt that helped bring about the total collapse of Communism throughout the World. 

It was a dramatic year and a half. 

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This is the start of our two part Season 11 conclusion, A BLOODY CHRISTMAS. Two major events occured at the sametime over the Christmas holidays in 1989, the invasion of Panama, and the Romanian Revolution. Both were bloody affairs and both were plotlines no novelist would have ever made up. 

In this episode we look back at the invasion of Panama and its dictator Manuel Noriega, described by one Cabinet Official as "The Mouse that Roared" . He actually declared war on the United States that December as though the Panamanian Army was a match for one of the two Superpowers on Earth.  The situation got worse from there and after a military officer was killed and another was wounded and his wife attacked, George Bush had had enough. 

In this episode, we will take a look at Noriega's life and regime, and then lead you through the events that led to his ouster and the invasion.  Noriega himself proved hard to find for several days until turning up at the Vatican's Consul office where he held up for a few weeks before finally surrendering in January 1990. 

He was then taken back to the United States where he was tried on drug smuggling and money laundering charges, the first former head of state, tried for criminal acts outside of his own country.  It was an interesting end for "The Mouse that Roared" 

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Deng Xiaoping was the People's Republic of China's Paramount Leader for over a decade.  A decade,  in which the nation rose from a backwards, isolated, command economy,  Communist Nation, to the front doorsteps of becoming an unquestioned World Power.  It is hard to find an argument against Deng Xiaoping's status as one of the most important figures in the history of the 20th century.

While all of that is true it is also true that most Americans probably know almost nothing about him and the remarkable life that landed him in the position to lead the World's most populous nation almost singlehandedly for over a decade.  He had been politically shunned more than once during the years of Mao Zedong. His own son was tossed from a building and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair because of it. He was even forced at one point to wear a dunce cap, and shipped off to the Chinese hinterlands.  

However, once Deng Xiaoping assumed power, in his 70's, he moved quickly to change the nation into an industrial an economic power. While other leaders like Chairman Mao are more famous none are as important to the nation we now see as our chief rival as the most powerful nation on Earth. The fact that China is now the number two economy in the world, moving quickly to fill the power vacuum around the world created by the end of the Cold War, can be directly attributed to the  leadership of this one man. 

This episode will introduce you to him. We will hear from many of the American diplomats who dealt directly with Deng Xiaoping while he was in power,   and we will listen in on the news coverage available when he passed away in 1997.  Ironically, Deng Xiaoping was often overshadowed by others. So often,  Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai have been  lauded for their roles in Revolutionary China,  the outreach they did to President Nixon and the United States, and the dominance they held in China for so many years, all of which  often overshadowed Deng Xiaoping's role in the eyes of the World, and even in his own country.   It is my opinion, and the opinion of many historians, that  eventually  his mark on World history will probably be far more consequential than any of the rest of the leadership China has had to this very day. 

Here in this episode we put  the spotlight on Deng Xiaoping,  and his axiom " To get Rich is Glorious" 

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In this episode we hear from George H. W. Bush as he addresses the nation in his Inaugural Address in 1989. 

It would begin a single term in office that would see the face of the entire world change dramatically from its start to its finish.  The final triumph for a generation of American Leaders who rightfully could be called the Greatest Generation. 

We will also see one of America's Greatest leaders leave center stage as Ronald Reagan flies away to California after laying the foundation for the triumphs to come. 

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In this episode we do a deep dive on one of the most famous speeches ever given by an American President. It was when Ronald Reagan went to the Berlin Wall, just as Mickael Gorbachev had loosened up restrictions on the Soviet and Communist world, and demanded that Gorbachev prove he was serious about change and tear down the wall that divided the people of East and West Germany. 

We found a lecture from the Ashbrook Center with Reagan Speech writer Peter Robinson where he tells the story of how the speech came to be, and how the famous line "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!!" was placed in the speech and the efforts of the State Department and several of Reagan's closest advisors to remove it even though Reagan himself was determined to leave it in the speech. 

Then you can listen to President Ronald Reagan as he addresses Berlin in one of histories most consequential addresses in its entirety. A speech that laid the foundation for the story to come and the fall of communism around the world. 

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In this final look back at the phone calls of Richard Nixon with Alexander Haig it is December of 1972 and January of 1973. The end of the War for America in Vietnam seems at hand. We will hear the two men work on these final problems and issues concerning getting an agreement to end the war. 

We will also hear them as they learn of the death of President Nixon's predecessor Lyndon Johnson and the ultimate irony that he would die literally on the eve of peace and not live to see it for himself. 

This is an extraordinary look inside the White House at one of the most difficult times in all of our history, listening in on two of history's most significant players. 

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In this second episode on General alexander Haig , we will listen in on the phone calls between the President and the Assistant National Security Advisor Al Haig. These are the calls from 1971 and they cover several different subjects from the theft of the Pentagon Papers, to issues in Africa, to the Indian - Pakistan War.  Plus the war in Vietnam. 

We have used some of these calls in our earlier series on Vietnam and some are shared here for the first time. What you will hear is a President in firm control of his foreign policy and the adept way Alexander Haig assisted Henry Kissinger in carrying it out.  

These next three episodes are a chance for you to hear the thinking and the strategy of an American President during war time working to get our troops and POW's out and how the same President handles a various array of issues and problems.  these are the calls between Nixon and Haig and we hope you will enjoy them and find them insightful too. 

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This is the first episode in a four episode special series looking back at the life of General Alexander Haig.  Haig served several Presidents, working most closely with Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. He has been a major player throughout the time periods we have been covering throughout the entire storyline of our podcast. He has been such a large player throughout the run of our series and  we thought here at what will be his last major appearance in our timeline that now was a time to look back at Al Haig, so that you could get a full picture of this man who played such a major role in four major historic moments in our nation's history: The Vietnam War, Watergate, the Nixon Pardon by Ford, and The Reagan State Department. 

To say Alexander Haig was a major player in all of these events would be a major understatement. All three of these Presidents relied on Haig for advice an understanding of the World. Over the final months of the Vietnam War, Haig helped guide the President to the conclusion, as we shall see in this special series, and it is alleged he may have also later helped guide Richard Nixon out of the Presidency.  Haig's role in the Nixon years, especially, is not without controversy, some of which I was unaware of when I started this podcast several years ago. 

In this episode we will look back at several historic moments from the life of Alexander Haig.  We start first at the moment that most likely ended his political life when he stepped up to the cameras and insisted he was incharge of the government after the assassination attempt on President Reagan.  We will hear from the man himself, from an interview he gave while attempting to run for President in his own right in 1988. We will hear of his role in the pardon of Richard Nixon from Gerald Ford, and we will hear of his successes as Secretary of State including his role in trying to prevent the Falklands War. 

But it is his role at the end of Vietnam, and at the end of the Nixon Administration itself that has engendered the most controversy, including accusations that at some point he may have been involved in a spy ring against the President from the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and also that he may have been a secret source for the Washington Post's journalistic team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, while also managing the Nixon White House as its Chief of Staff.  We will examine it all here in this first of four episodes on General Alexander Haig. 

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We open this episode looking back at the hostage release just after President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office in January of 1981. It was a moment of deep relief for the entire country and former President Jimmy Carter deserves much credit for the the tireless way he worked to insure it would happen just as he was leaving office. President Reagan made it a point to allow Carter to fly to Germany to greet the hostages. 

Then we move on to March 30, 1981, a date which shook the city of Washington D.C. and the entire nation. It was a day I remember vividly, for when I got home from school the television was running nonstop with coverage of the assassination attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan. 

Reagan had just completed his speech at the Washington Hilton to the AFL-CIO and was headed back to the Presidential Limousine when shots rang out. John Hinkley Jr, a deranged young man, in love with actress Jodi Foster, shot four times gravely wounding White House Press Secretary James Brady, also hitting Thomas J. Delahanty a D.C. Policeman, and Timothy McCarthy one of Reagan's Secret Service Agents and also hitting the President. What ensued was both our government's finest hour and several moments of chaos. 

In this episode, we tell that story and let you relive the moment as it happens, in real time, as we see the White House Pressroom give confused answers to questions, as the Vice President is being flown back from a trip to Houston , Texas. We also see the forceful presence of a main character of our show's past re-emerge in General Alexander Haig who would step up to calm the nation and end up committing political suicide instead.

 It is a fascinating story at crisis point moment that would change the Reagan Presidency and the Reagan - Bush relationship, from two former foes working together for the betterment of the nation, with some level of apprehension, to relationship that would blossom into a full friendship between the two leaders of our country. 

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In this special edition we relive the Inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States. It was a moment in which the country was looking for new leadership and moving away from its near four and half decade run with liberalism.  The coverage of the day was glowing and as we covered in Season ten it looked very apparent that our hostage crisis in Iran was coming to a close. 

It was with this backdrop that Ronald Reagan would address the nation. It is one of the most inspiring Inaugural Addresses in history. We provide it here for you in its entirety. It was the dawn of the Reagan era, and it would be the beginning of a generation of Americans who had led our country since the end of World War 2, in one final struggle with the communist world. 

As we shall see, it would be that generation of American leadership's greatest triumph. 

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In this episode we look back at the end of two campaigns in 1980, the Democratic race between Senator Ted Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter and then the end of the general election between Carter and former California Governor Ronald Reagan.  It was one of the most exciting races in modern American history and it was, almost until the end, much closer than history has portrayed it. 

The Democratic race was a bitter fight and that bitterness would linger for decades after the race was over. As we show you in this episode Ted Kennedy would, after delivering his famous concession speech, stall coming to the hall to congratulate Carter, leaving the convention organizers stuck for nearly a half hour, stalling the dropping of the gavel in order to get, what is commonly called in the political world, the money shot, of Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter together on the podium to present a unified message for the country. They finally got the picture but John Chancellor of NBC News summed up the obvious, "Ted Kennedy is there but he didn't look happy about it" 

Then we move on to the closing days of the race. Jimmy Carter was actually still in a close race with Ronald Reagan. It took literally into the final days for an agreement to be struck for a the one and only debate between the two men to occur. It was then in the final minutes of that debate that Ronald Reagan asked the historic question that would undo the Carter campaign, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" It resonated with the public and with hostages in Iran, an economy struggling, and inflation high, the Carter campaign collapsed. 

In 1980, Ronald Reagan would be elected the 40th President of the United States of America, and George Bush would be his Vice President. 

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On this day in 1992, during a campaign stop at a New Jersey elementary school, Vice President Dan Quayle misspelled the word “potato.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode we fast forward some 20 years to 1996, when Gerald Ford's running mate would be a weekend away from the election day when he would carry the banner for the Republican Party. Bob Dole was giving it his all in a race against a fairly popular, but considerably flawed, incumbent President, in Bill Clinton.  The polls had Dole down by a considerable 20 points and it seemed after giving his lifetime to the Republican  Party its elected leadership  was starting to keep its distance from its struggling nominee. 

But on this final weekend, Bob Dole decided to give it everything he could come up with and started out on a 96 hour nonstop campaign until the final vote would be cast to try and shake the race up. The polls were indeed tightening. Dole had some further issues with an independent candidate named Ross Perot, who was making his second try at the White House and again hurting the numbers of the Republican candidate. 

It was with this backdrop that the men that Bob Dole had fought for his entire career showed back up to help him in the twilight hours of the 1996 campaign. It was the final political battle of the World War 2 Generation that had created the American Century and it all began at a rally in Dayton , Ohio featuring Bob Dole and two Presidents we either have or will put the spotlight on in our podcasts, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Here is a fun episode commemorating that event, those final days of the 1996 campaign, and the memory of this collective group of leaders that created the American Century we have enjoyed. 

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Meg uncovers the shocking double life of one of New York's most esteemed judges. Jessica appreciates Andy Kaufman, from Foreign Man to Tony Clifton: "T'ank you veddy much."

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On this day when the world says farewell to Queen Elizabeth 2nd, we thought we would pay tribute to her in a uniquely focused way. We will look back fondly on her relationship with the United States of America. 

Queen Elizabeth has been the one constant in an ever changing world. Through all of that change, and 14 American Presidents, Queen Elizabeth has reigned with desire to maintain a good relationship with the United States. In so doing, she became as beloved in America as she was in her own country and commonwealth.  , even though America is a country that 200 plus  years before had a revolution to get away from a Monarchy. The Founding Fathers would probably be shocked.  

So today, as she is laid to rest, we honor her with a look back at how often she took the time to honor us in the United States, from visits, and meetings with our Presidents, to remembering our nation at its lowest moment, to even one of the funniest stories about the Queen and two hapless American tourists that will leave you laughing. 

God Save the Queen!! 

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