George Herbert Walker Bush, the World War II veteran who was elected the 41st President of the United States and fathered the nation’s 43rd, died late Friday at the age of 94, his family announced in a statement.
Bush advocated a “kinder, gentler” conservatism, pursued policies that helped topple the Soviet empire and initiated military campaigns that ousted one foreign dictator and crippled another. He lived longer than any other U.S. president and presided over the demise of the Cold War.
Wife Barbara died April 17 at age 92. Their 73-year marriage was longer than that of any presidential couple in U.S. history. Their children included former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
A day after Mrs. Bush‘s funeral on April 21, the senior Bush was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital for a blood infection, a family spokesman said.
He had been taken there in April 2017 and in January 2017 for treatment related to pneumonia, family spokesman Jim McGrath said. During the January hospitalization, Barbara Bush was also treated there after experiencing fatigue and coughing. Their hospitalization came days after they had celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary on Jan. 6, 2017.
