Former US president George HW Bush, who helped steer America through the end of the Cold War, has died at age 94, his family announced late Friday.
“Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died. George H. W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens,” said a statement released by former President George W. Bush.
“George HW Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for.”
Bush’s passing comes just months after the death in April of his wife and revered first lady Barbara Bush — his “most beloved woman in the world” — to whom he was married for 73 years.
He is survived by his five children and 17 grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course, a family spokesman said.
Bush served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Prior to assuming the presidency, Bush served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.
Bush advocated a “kinder, gentler” conservatism.
The US leader was a foreign policy stalwart who declared a “new world order” in 1990 and drove Iraq from Kuwait but saw his military intervention in the Middle East serve as a harbinger of chaos to come.
He pursued policies that helped topple the Soviet empire and initiated military campaigns that ousted Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and crippled Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
The decorated war pilot and former CIA chief suffered the ignominy of being a one-term president, denied a second term over a weak economy when he lost the 1992 election to upstart Democrat Bill Clinton.
He voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat’s failed run against Donald Trump in 2016.
(With inputs from AFP)