Washington: George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the US and father of the 43rd who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs, has died at the age of 94 in Houston, his family said in a statement on Saturday.
“Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died,” Bush’s son and also former US President George W. Bush said in a statement.
Before the family statement, the news of the former President’s death on Friday night was confirmed in a tweet by Jim McGrath, his spokesman.
Bush Sr. died less than eight months after that of his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush.
The cause of his death was not immediately known.
George Herbert Walker Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1924, reports The Washington Post.
He grew up in tony Greenwich, Connecticut, the second of five children of Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker.
His father was an Ohio native and business executive who became a Wall Street banker and a senator from Connecticut, setting a course for the next two generations of Bush men to follow.
His mother, a Maine native, was the daughter of a wealthy investment banker.
George H.W. Bush served as a fighter pilot during the Second World War in 1944, a Congressman, Ambassador to the UN, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and Vice President under Ronald Reagan between 1981 and 1989, before concluding his four-decade long political career by serving as the 41st US President from 1989 to 1993.
During his stint in the White House, Bush Sr. saw the end of the Cold War, the first Gulf War and the invasion of Panama while the Soviet Union collapsed and Germany reunified.
Despite military and diplomatic successes, he was unable to secure a re-election, and in 1993 he handed over the reins of the White House to Bill Clinton and retired to his home in Boston, Texas, along with his wife.
The former President was suffering from a form of Parkinson’s disease that left him on a wheelchair over the last few years.
He was also frequently hospitalised especially for respiratory problems.
In April, a day after attending his wife’s funeral, he was treated for an infection that had spread to his blood.
Bush senior was famous for sporting colourful striped socks. (IANS)