Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
—Aristotle
I never met a man who had a better understanding of himself, or of his role on the world stage, than President George H. W. Bush. He was simply comfortable in his own skin. The President knew who he was, both his strengths and his weaknesses, a trait that gave him wisdom to make the right and often courageous decisions.
Such a moment occurred on November 9, 1989, the day East Germans took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall that had divided them from the West for twenty-eight years. As the end of the Cold War appeared closer than ever, the time for jubilation seemed appropriate. Why not celebrate? After all, military expenditures had cost the United States an estimated $8 trillion since the end of World War II, and almost one hundred thousand Americans died during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
But the President refused to dance on the ruins of that wall, even when goaded.
“You don’t seem elated,” one reporter commented hours after the wall had started to fall.
I’m elated, the President deadpanned, never smiling during a ten-minute press availability that day in the Oval Office. I’m just not an emotional kind of guy.
In truth, President Bush was elated, as were all of us in the White House. It was a thrilling moment. Upon learning of the history-shaking development in Berlin, I quickly concluded a meeting at the State Department with a toast to this historic moment and then dashed over to the Oval Office to meet with the President and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft before the press was invited in.
Though upbeat, the President was wary. He wanted to avoid a boastful act that hard-liners in the Soviet Union might misconstrue as arrogant triumphalism. Chest-thumping, he worried, could hinder future negotiations with our longtime rivals in Moscow. Worse, it might spark a violent response like the one that had occurred earlier that year at Tiananmen Square in China.
Instead, the President’s self-awareness allowed him to demonstrate heroic restraint. Although criticized by some at home for refusing to take a victory lap, he was able to move forward with even more dramatic victories, including the reunification of Germany as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the first reduction of nuclear arms by the United States and the Soviet Union; and the eventual peaceful conclusion to the Cold War.
The summer after the Berlin Wall fell, another critical moment arose. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein sent his troops into neighboring Kuwait. Three days later, the President resolutely responded: This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.
By then, he had already started to mount international opposition. Within hours after the invasion, President Bush had convinced the United Nations Security Council to unanimously condemn the heinous act. Four days later, the Security Council imposed sanctions. The President also ordered US military forces to the region.
In November, however, Iraq’s troops still remained in Kuwait, and it was evident that the sanctions alone would not get the job done. A more forceful response would be needed to end this stalemate and liberate Kuwait.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was encouraging an end of talks and the start of military action. She opposed seeking another United Nations Security Council resolution, one that would allow for military action if Saddam did not pull his troops out of Kuwait. Thatcher didn’t believe that such permission was needed, and she feared seeking it risked rejection. “Oh, George!” she told him. “Let’s just go do it!”
The President was willing to go it alone had the situation warranted it. But he understood the serious implications of attacking a member state of the United Nations to settle what then was a regional dispute.
His was the right way forward. With support of the Soviet Union, which had formerly been a strong ally of Iraq, the Security Council set a January 15 deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and empowered other nations to use “all necessary means” to force Iraq out of Kuwait after the deadline. When congressional approval soon followed, the President had both domestic and foreign support.
The rest is history. The United States led the largest international coalition since the end of World War II to liberate Kuwait in forty-two days. Once again, the President’s wise decision to forgo hubris had paid off.
George H. W. Bush got a healthy dose of self-awareness from his mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, who constantly reminded him about the consequences of his actions. She lectured him not to gloat. She was more concerned about how his baseball team at Yale University did than his individual performance. Don’t act like you know an answer to a problem, she advised, go out and find a solution. With her voice always in his mind, he led a life focused on job performance rather than self-aggrandizement. It is one of the many character traits that made him a fine human being as well as a great leader.
Sadly today, modesty and mindfulness have become vanishing virtues as braggadocio and pomposity too often rule the day. And so I am glad that Jean Becker has collected stories from those who knew President Bush and weaved them together in her book Character Matters: And Other Life Lessons from George Herbert Walker Bush. Her wonderful book is a reminder that the Boy Scout qualities of loyalty, kindness, truthfulness, and bravery are not antiquated vestiges of the past. They remain critical components of a successful human being.
After reading this book, people will understand why I am confident that history will remember George H. W. Bush as the best one-term President in American history, and one of the very best Presidents of all time.
I bless the day, all those many years ago, when I met this wise and honorable gentleman. And I bless the day the American people elected him President to safely guide us through one of the most dramatic and dangerous periods to ever confront our great nation.
James A. Baker, III
Secretary of State
1989–1992