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Explore how President Bush followed Reagan's path amid domestic challenges and the reshaping of global politics post-Cold War. Learn about Bush's leadership transition and diplomatic endeavors during a crucial era of change in America's history.
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Aim: How did President Bush continue the policies of President Reagan?
Introduction • By the early 1990s, Americans were preparing for more changes in direction. • Americans were celebrating the end of the Cold War and watched the Soviet Union break apart. • On the domestic front, they continued to experience high unemployment, budget problems and changing social patterns. • Many Americans began to look for new approaches in both foreign and domestic policies to take the United States into the 21st century.
1. A New Presidency • Ronald Reagan had given the United States eight years of conservative leadership. • The presidential election of 1988 would decide if the American people would stay with conservatism or strike out in different directions.
1.1 Voters Choose George Bush • Given the Iran-Contra scandal and the rising deficit, Democrats thought they had a good chance in the election of 1988. • The Democrats, however, failed to follow up on their advantages. • In the early stages of the campaign, so many Democrats became candidates that it was hard for one from another.
Jesse Jackson, the party’s liberal African American candidate and a powerful speaker, was one of the finalists. • At the nominating convention, Jackson lost out to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. • Chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate, Dukakis presented himself as a cool manager who made his state prosper. • Dukakis nominated Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his vice-presidential candidate.
The Republicans gathered solidly behind George Bush, who had been Ronald Reagan’s vice-president for eight years. • Bush chose young Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate. • The Republicans painted Bush as a tough candidate who would stay with Reagan’s policies, including lowering taxes.
In November, the Bush-Quayle ticket took 54% of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes. • Michael Dukakis received 112 votes and Bush won in a wide victory.
Election of 1988 The states in blue voted for George Bush and the states in red voted for George Bush. George Bush became the 41st President of the US in 1988.
1.2 Bush Commands World Stage • During the campaign, Republicans focused on Bush’s long experience in foreign affairs. • As President, Bush took an active role in dealing with other nations of the world.
End of the Cold War • Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had started government and social reforms inside the Soviet Union when he became leader during the mid-1980s. • Seeing these changes, other nations controlled by the Soviet Union demanded they, too, receive the same changes and reforms.
In June 1989, only six months after Bush had taken office, Poland held free elections. • Non-Communist leaders of Lech Walesa’s Solidarity movement won control over the government. • Soon after, people in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and East Germany rose up against their Soviet-style governments. • In November, Germans tore down the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the division between East and West Germany. • Germans soon began to reunite their country.
Gorbachev refused to use force to crush the uprisings in Eastern Europe. • President Bush offered moral support and modest financial aid to Eastern Europe’s new governments. • In November 1990, Bush discussed the future of Europe in a meeting with 32 European nations. • Bush wanted to bring in a new era of democracy now that the Cold War was over.
Breakup of the Soviet Union • Early in 1990, some members of the 15 separate republics that made up the Soviet Union began pushing for independence. • Gorbachev was unable to stop this independence movement. • In August 1991, hard-line Communists in Moscow-who feared the end of the Soviet Union and objected to Gorbachev’s reforms-tried to overthrow Gorbachev. • Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, rallied the people to protect Gorbachev and save the spirit of reform.
While events unfolded in Moscow, the United States and other Western European nations recognized the independence of these nations. • By the end of September, all 15 members of the Soviet Republic had declared independence. • Then on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned his authority ending the Soviet Union. • Boris Yeltsin succeeded in bringing 10 of the old republics into a loose federation called the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Voices for Freedom in China • The spirit of democracy reached as far as the People’s Republic of China. • In the spring of 1989, a million people gathered in the capital city of Beijing to demonstrate for freedom. • On June 4, however, government authorities sent in tanks and soldiers in a bloody crackdown that killed hundreds of students in Tiananmen Square.
The demonstrations ended, but Deng Xiaoping, the aging leader of China, refused to make any changes in the communist system. • The Bush administration protested the government’s violence but did not break diplomatic ties or trade agreements with China.
More World Changes • During the last term of the Reagan administration, Congress had banned imports from South Africa and prohibited Americans from investing there. • The ban protested apartheid-a policy of segregating the Black majority and keeping it under the control of the white minority.
In 1990, South African President, F.W. de Klerk released the popular Black leader Nelson Mandela from prison. • The following year, de Klerk began repealing the rules of apartheid and that led to President Bush lifting the economic sanctions against South Africa.
In Latin America, the pro-communist regime in Nicaragua held free elections in 1989. • In the election, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, a political moderate and pro-American leader, defeated the Sandinista candidate and she was able to assume the presidency peacefully. • Ten years of Sandinista rule ended.
1.3 United States Military Actions • President Bush exerted his leadership in foreign military actions. • Bush used some of the arms that Reagan built up during his presidency.
Panama Invasion • In December 1989, Bush sent some 26,000 troops to the Central American nation of Panama. • The mission was to remove General Manuel Noreiga, the President of Panama from power. • Noreiga had refused to leave office even after the people of Panama voted him out in a national election.
American troops captured Noreiga and brought him to the United States, where he stood trial on earlier drug-trafficking charges. • Many people applauded the invasion of Panama. • Some people, especially in Latin America, criticized the invasion because the United States used force and that innocent civilians were killed in the process.
Persian Gulf War • One year later, President Bush ordered American forces into a much bigger military action. • In August 1990, the President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, sent his army into taking over neighboring Kuwait. Kuwait’s main export was oil. • Bush saw this move by Hussein as a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East while threatening the shipment of oil.
Bush worked with the United Nations and our allies to decide how to respond. • With the help of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, President Bush organized Operation Desert Storm. • He planned to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Secretary of Defense-Dick CheneyGeneral of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-Colin Powell Both Dick Cheney and Colin Powell were instrumental in our organizing and enforcing Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Cheney is now vice president while Colin Powell was Secretary of State under George Bush. They were instrumental in planning Operation Enduring Freedom.
By January 1991, the United States had flown more than 400,000 troops and their equipment into Saudi Arabia. • The Americans joined soldiers from other nations that belonged to the coalition (temporary alliance) to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. • Hussein and the Iraqi forces dug in along defensive lines near Saudi Arabia.
On January 16, Operation Desert Storm—and the Persian Gulf War—opened with a massive air assault. • American and allied bombers, flying day and night, pounded Iraqi troops, depots and targets near and in Baghdad. • After six weeks of war, General Norman Schwarzkopf overran the Iraqi forces.
American casualties were light. • One hundred hours after the ground war began, President Bush declared a cease fire. • Iraqi power was damaged and Kuwait was liberated.
General Schwarzkopf, General Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney
