Former U.S. President George Bush senior dead at 94

Former US President George Herbert Walker Bush has died at the age 94.

The World War veteran and former CIA director was sworn into office in 1988 after eight years as Ronald Reagan’s vice president.

He organised a global coalition to push Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and presided over the end of the decades-long Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Bush, the 41st president of the United States, lived longer than any of his predecessors.

His death was announced late on Friday evening by his son, George W Bush.

George H.W. Bush was a moderate Republican known for his diplomacy and ability to compromise with Democrats.

He was a symbol of a relatively collegial period in Washington that nevertheless set the stage for the divisive, partisan gridlock that now plagues the U.S. capital.

He grew up in the posh New York City suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, and was educated at exclusive private schools and Yale University.

Bush came to know war firsthand, leaving school at 18 to become the Navy’s youngest pilot in World War Two. He flew 58 missions off carriers in the Pacific, was shot down at sea and rescued by a U.S. submarine.

As the war neared an end in January 1945, Bush married sweetheart Barbara Pierce. They had six children.

After the war, Bush rejected a Wall Street job and, aided by his father’s business connections, moved to West Texas to start an oil drilling firm.

He made a fortune and began a rise to national prominence by winning elections to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas in 1966 and 1968.

From envoy to CIA chief – George Herbert Walker Bush, who lived a life of public service culminating in his single term as the 41st president of the United States, has died aged 94 pic.twitter.com/o36uae34XJ

— TRT World (@trtworld) December 1, 2018

He lost two races for a U.S. Senate seat but Bush’s star continued to rise within the Republican Party.