George W. Bush Biography

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(born July 6, 1946, New Haven, Conn., U.S.) 43rd president of the United States (2001–09), who led his country's response to the terrorist September 11 attacks in 2001 and initiated the Iraq War in 2003. Narrowly winning the electoral college vote in 2000 over Vice Pres. Al Gore in one of the closest and most controversial elections in American history, George W. Bush became the first person since Benjamin Harrison in 1888 to be elected president despite having lost the nationwide popular vote. Before his election as president, Bush was a businessman and served as governor of Texas (1995–2000). (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, presidency of the United States of America.)

Early life

Bush was the oldest of six children of George Bush, who served as the 41st president of the United States (1989–93), and Barbara Bush. His paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut (1952–63). The younger Bush grew up largely in Midland and Houston, Texas. From 1961 to 1964 he attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., the boarding school from which his father had graduated. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University, his father's and grandfather's alma mater, in 1968. Bush was president of his fraternity and, like his father, a member of Yale's secretive Skull and Bones society; unlike his father, he was only an average student and did not excel in athletics.

In May 1968, two weeks before his graduation from Yale and the expiration of his student draft deferment, Bush applied as a pilot trainee in the Texas Air National Guard, whose members were less likely than regular soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War. Commissioned a second lieutenant in July 1968, he became a certified fighter pilot in June 1970. In the fall of 1970, he applied for admission to the University of Texas law school but was rejected. Although Bush apparently missed at least eight months of duty between May 1972 and May 1973, he was granted an early discharge so that he could start Harvard business school in the fall of 1973. His spotty military record resurfaced as a campaign issue in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

After receiving his M.B.A. from Harvard in 1975, Bush returned to Midland, where he began working for a Bush family friend, an oil and gas attorney, and later started his own oil and gas firm. He married Laura Welch, a teacher and librarian, in Midland in 1977. After an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978, Bush devoted himself to building his business. With help from his uncle, who was then raising funds for Bush's father's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Bush was able to attract numerous prominent investors. The company struggled through the early 1980s until the eventual collapse of oil prices in 1986, when it was purchased by the Harken Energy Corporation. Bush received Harken stock, a job as a consultant to the company, and a seat on the company's board of directors.