from cnn

my grandfather was from st.

louis and he would come here every year and just loved it. loved it. he bought this as an unfinished point of land in 1896 or 1894 or something like this. they built both the piece of land sticking out in the ocean. that's the up and down bunks. my mom and dad, that was her wedding present. from her father that lived in that house. now it's our daughter's houses. it's a wonderful house.

>> get out of there. this is a horse barn. this is the secret service place. across from it right in here is another barn and where the house is on the end used to be connected to what we used to call the big house. we cut off, after one of the big storms, a storm came in and knocked it over and late '70s and my aunt who owned the place didn't want to restore it, so we bought it, bought the property and the house and we took out like six bedrooms off of here. that's a guest house out there, the -- governor jeb stays out there. up top of the dormitory were several beds and one of the great rooms in the house, it's just terrific. i was named for my grandfather.

i was g.h. walker bush. his sons and daughters called him pop. then i came along, i was little pop. poppy. so i was called poppy all my life. family is very important to me. i've been blessed all my life by a close family. grew up with a loving mother and father. three brothers and my sister and so we were very close, and we stayed that way. when somebody is hurting, everybody else hurts. when somebody is rejoicing, everyone else rejoices. i can't think of whait would be like in life without the strength you get from -- and the love you get from family.

♪ whatever i've done in life, the privilege to do, they have been there, taking pride and helping. i've been in boats all my life. you learn the currents, you learn the shore waters. that's where i'm at peace. i just love it. can't do any sports that i've lived my whole life doing. nobody asked me to be on the team any more. remember how i used to stand around? no, no, you. take you? you. you. i'm standing. nobody wants me.

because i can't move very well. this is a metaphor, but i miss it. boats, i'm still in the game and now i'm privileged to have a very fast boat, a very powerful boat. everyone wants to go on it. it's a wonderful, wonderful outlet for me. ♪ >> this is my father and i. great man. big, tall, strong guy. a wonderful person. he was a managing partner of his banking firm brown bothers and company. don d. rockefeller asked him to head the uso. my father was very active in the town government. he was the moderator of the greenwich town meeting which is the equivalent of mayor in those days. through him, we got the idea, you ought to do something. you ought to put something back in.

you ought to give something back. he was a strong fella. he had a great sense of humor. you know, he didn't tuck you in when you got hurt. mother handled all that. but he was -- he was there. and i think respect was the key word that we boys had for him and everything he did was star quality. i regretted that he never lived to see his son as president. that wasoo bad. i had a wonderful mother and my father. mother was the great inspiration. she could do everything. she was the fastest mother in the mother's races. she was the best pitcher on the mother's softball team. she was the best tennis player on her own right. she was a good golfer and a loving mother. she was just everything.

everyone loved her. again, she set an example all during my life. she had these kind of truisms that served me in good stead even when i got to be president of the united states. she said nobody likes a bragdocia. don't brag about yourself all the time. don't talk all the time. give the other guy credit. she set a great example for all of us. and if we got hurt, she would be there to lift us up and brush us off and get us back in the game. ♪ >> we were very privileged during the depression, we were very lucky. we went to a good school and avoided the horrors of the depression, you might say.

i enjoyed school. grade school and boarding school both. i loved the challenge of school. the friends you make in school. some of the friends i had in grade school are still friends. i was the littlest guy in our class. by little, i mean, shortest. between 12 and 13 years old, i sprung up. to be a string bean and i became one of the tallest guys in the class. a great experience. some people said i'm not going to let my kid go away to school that young. he'll forget the family. my eye. that's not true. got a lot of discipline. you had to be there. you had to do this. you had to do that. i don't think i would call

myself a classy student. i became a phi beta kappa graduate of yale and then i took a lot of easy sources. history, art, a few things like that. got good grades. but i wasn't what you would call a real scholar. sports was my thing in school. i used to go to watch the game. i'd watch babe ruth, i'd watch lou gehrig. my childhood desire was to have lou gehrig's mitt. if i could just get a mitt from that guy. we never met lou gehrig, i don't remember. so unlikely i would get the mitt. captain of the soccer team and football team and baseball team. i had three letters. yale, i gave you up soccer and played fall baseball. we had a good baseball team.

in college baseball, you had to have a good pitcher. we had two pitchers that went to the major leagues and so that was why we were as good as we were. >> do you have any crushes? >> girls? probably. but i was kind of a -- i wasn't a very forward leaning kind of guy with girls. i was admiring the figures, physiques very early on. a girl named joan kilner. you had to get in line. a girl named betty thurston. i think her father had a yacht

in those days which was not a huge thing and she wore a rubber bathing suit. i'll never forgot. something to die for. i've always like attractive girls. i was at a holiday dance and here was this beautiful girl. she was the life of the party and dancing and smiling. i said who is that? they said that is barbara pierce from rye. i somehow got up my nerve to ask her to dance and they started playing a waltz. i said i can't waltz. i saturday down and we chatted. i called her the next day and took her out. her father was a very successful publisher for a corporation. i don't think the mother liked me very much. but the father did, which was important. and barbara did, which was most important.

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i was at phillips economy andover my last year there. we had been to the chapel at a service and came out of the chapel and walking across the campus there when somebody said, "pearl harbor has been bombed." >> the japanese have attacked pearl harbor, hawaii, by air. the president roosevelt has just announced -- >> yesterday, the december 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. >> i was ignorant little guy and i didn't know much about what that really meant, but our

country was at war. i mean, it had been building up that something might happen, but nothing like this. and i remember the first assembly the next day, we were all trooped in and slouched into the assembly hall there, the whole school. the mastery was a tough guy. you play attention. during the star-spangled banner, i don't want to see you slouching around. today, when i see people, even reporters and people like that out there at the white house slouching when they play the spar spangled banner, i say, too bad dr. feast couldn't get a hold of them. i remember meeting the villain years later. i couldn't believe this little guy with kind of a guy you might see him going around with a butterfly net, a dainty little fellow, and he was the epitome

of all evil so we were going to get him. i think everybody wanted to participate. very, very few people tried to avoid the draft. >> we are now in this war. we are all in. all the way the most tremendous undertaking of our american history. >> and like most people in the country, i wanted to -- i wanted to participate. i wanted to go fight for my country and i decided that i wanted to go into the naval aviation, and so i signed up, took the oath of office on my 18th birthday, was sworn in as seaman second class and two months later, i was in the preflight school. a few months later, i was

commissioned an incident in the navy. my father took me down to pennsylvania station in new york, a great big guy, put his arm around me. first time i ever saw him shed a tear. but dad was there, you know, offering me his full support by i think he was a little shook up. he had been in the field artillery and been to france and under fire, so i guess he knew a little bit of what combat was like. maybe a lot. although he never talked about it, nor do we, nor do i, you know, when i came back. i didn't know one single person on this train. i was probably the youngest guy other. i went -- i wasn't petrified. i didn't want out. i wasn't looking how do i get out of this outfit. that was all modified about our country, about the need to do something, to be a part of something huge. and so it was -- it was fast track. we had to move fast because they needed pilots pretty bad.

flying solo in just a few hours of duel. it was kind of terrifying because these instructors were tough guys. i was 18. they were 20, old guys. there would be just get on, do this, do that! yelling at you. i had a long tube coming out of your ears. one-way communication. they could yell at you but you couldn't yell back. september 2nd, 1944, i had been flying over the target the day before. we got some aircraft fire coming in. i guess i was afraid. i think any time you're flying in combat, you're afraid to some degree.

i don't mind admitting it. you'd see this aircraft fire at you coming up at you and you couldn't do anything about it. these blasts. great big black clouds of anchor. we were told it was going to be rough and when we up there and we got hit. i felt this huge bst. the whole plane is shaking and it went forward like this. the neck thing i know, we were engulfed in smoke and i could see the flame going along between the main fuselage and the wing and that is where the gas tanks were, so i said this is hazardous. finish the mission. release the bombs. and then decided i could not -- i wouldn't stay in the air. i couldn't fly. so we made a circle, turned to the right, take the slick stream off the door which was the escape hatch for the crew men. i told them to get out. sent the may day message in case

there was somebody on patrol. jumped out of the plane. pulled the rip cord. gazed my head up against the tail of the airport. i was just fortunate it didn't take my head off. i looked up and, fortunately, the chute hung up briefly on the tail of the plane, i floated down to earth and got on the raft and i started paddling, setting the speed record and getting the hell out of there because the wind was blowing up toward the island. i wasn't afraid to die. maybe i was scared when all this was taking place. i know i was. i was throwing up in the water, paddling and stuff. and i sure didn't nt to be taken prisoner. then before long, a submarine surfaced nearby. i thought, i hope it's one of ours. sure enough, it was a rescue sub and they came up out of the sea, alongside of me. i went up on the tower and down into the submarine and the next thing i know, we're under the water. one of them it get out

apparently, according to the japanese reports, but they never know what happened to it. i think about it to this day. could i have done more? could i have landed the plane in the water? i don't think so. but, i mean, it's the way you second-guess yourself when somebody terrible like that happens. ♪ things in life are the real things. nature valley trail mix bars are made with real ingredients you can see. like whole roasted nuts, chewy granola, and real fruit. nature valley trail mix bars. 100% natural. 100% delicious.

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♪ >> would you have got the bomb if you were president? >> under those circumstances, no question. a lot of revisionism about that. a lot of people wringing their hands, did truman did the right thing? and in my mind, he did. he saved many, many american lives. of course, it's such a serious decision that i think history will say he did the right thing. plenty of people say they shouldn't have taken innocent lives. unfortunately, war does that. maybe not in that volume, in that number, but it was the right thing to do.

the minute that war ended was joyous there at virginia beach. the bells rang. barbara and i went off to church to count our blessings. and great excitement along the streets of virginia beach and all over the country. but then it shifted immediately and i went off to yale, to which i had been accepted before i went into the service and they just left that open so i could go back. i'm not sure i really did ever ask her to marry me. it was in kennebunkport. she claimed it happened on the wall. we have a wall running along the ocean into our house on the left side of the driveway and they maintains office that very wall

that i asked her to marry me. i don't remember it but it just happened. i mean, we announced owner engagement in the fall of '42, i guess. the wedding was a traditional church wedding in a presbyterian church and she was a beautiful bride and a lot of family around. even though it was war time. we went off on a honeymoon, to sea eyelid, georgia. it was supposed to be a warm trip but it was colder than hell. a traditional trip in those days.

i was living with barbara in a little apartment and we had just come back from the war and there were 13 families living there and you had to have at least one child to be in that building. one nigh this shows you the degree of our maturity after coming back from the navy, and one on the third floor said hurry on up. mrs. seymour is taking a shower. you can see her naked. mrs. seymour was about 75. we hurried up there and there she was, naked. doesn't sound great for college students trying to set an example for kids. ♪

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♪ ♪ now. when you were deciding what jobs to take after the war, what were you considering? >> finishing a living. so it really didn't matter what job. my options weren't particularly great because, you know, i wasn't a business graduate, i wasn't a road scholar, i didn't have any particularly --

anything to recommend me, but i remember getting turned down by procter and gamble. a great company. i reminded them a few years later when i was president. but i had a wife, i had a child, and was offered a job. my father had a friend named neil mallon who was chairman after dresser industry and said i ought to tell you what you ought to the? you ought to go to texas. they went to odessa, texas, that i had never heard of, and put you in a training program for our company. so i went all the way down there. we worked in the oil fields of texas, west texas, and out to california to some of his companies out there. we are talking about maybe a month at a time, two months, and it was very go advice and i learned a lot.

it was great training. and then they said we want you to go back to midland. there's a city sales man. i was a lousy salesman for that. i'm not even sure i sold a damn thing. but then i branched off on my own. ♪ and that was where i made a living in the offshore drilling business. we were innovators to the degree we were the first ones to use it. laterno jacked up rigs. >> as the construction starts,

the giant spud tanks that will rest on the ocean bottomed are assembled at the construction site. these tanks enable the platform to rest on soft bottoms. >> can you tell me how you chose the name for your oil company? >> yeah. it was a very, very serious thinking. movie came through down called viva zapata with marlon brando. we wanted a company that started with an a or a z within the phone book. so, i said how about zapata and so we called it that. >> how did you leave your business? >> challenges. full of challenges. i came down here from west texas and working and moving our offshore company here because it's near the gulf and this is the offshore capital really. i always had kind of an interest in politics. in midland i headed up the got

into it and i liked it. we had to take on some of those people and it was a challenge. i like a challenge. that's why i did it. ♪

this is barbara and george and me and our daughter robin. beautiful, innocent, young girl. and one day, barbara said you better come home. dr. wyvell wants to talk to us about robin. she had been tired and her legs were bruised and she said, i got some bad news for you. your daughter has leukemia. i had never heard of leukemia in those days. i didn't know what it was. i said what does that mean? it means, unfortunately, she will be going to heaven in a few months. nothing we can do about it. so i called my uncle who was a doctor at memorial sloan-kettering, a cancer doctor. she said you have no choice. you have to bring her up here and let us treat her and see if we can't extend her life. i got her into memorial hospital so back and forth from memorial to midland, texas. and prayed. i remember going to church out

there in midland and just praying until i hurt. please, save this young girl. and, of course, it didn't work out. they did exhaustive treatments for her. i remember the doctors coming in. i remember the worst part was when they would stick this needle in to suck -- suck the marrow out of her bones and it hurt her a lot. and so i remember some of those very unpleasant things. then i remember some happy days when she would smile and be going what they call remission and be almost like her own self. i remember having her back in midland, somebody said to me, where is that little girls of yours that was so sick? i said she is playing out there in the yard.

so there were some ups and downs of it all, but we knew the track was down. barbara was magnificent through all of this. she would be at her bedside and holding robin's hand through these tests and going -- we would go together to take her to new york. i was making a living. i had to keep going. we didn't know how long this would take. and so barbara was the one that did so much for her with robin. and just to show her that we loved her. finally, it just was too much. they came it me and said we got one other operation we could do. it's a long shot. and i said, no, you've done enough. you've done such a wonderful job on this girl and you've given her everything, but there's no point making her suffer more. and so she went quietly to sleep.

i couldn't even talk about it for years. i still feel it. it's something i just feel it very strongly and after the boys, dorothy came, our daughter. that was as emotional as anything because we wanted a girl. we had a little girl and lost her to leukemia so this one came along and it was just heaven. i was weepin not so much barbara, but it was just hard to describe. this family emotion. ♪ tually use...

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with the original sugar-like taste you love and trust. splenda makes the moment yours. i ran against ralph yarba who we considered a flaming liberal, which he was. >> senator ralph yarba must be beaten in november and i want to

tell you why. he does not represent texans. he represents the new frontier and the labor bosses in detroit. he is for every sweeping high spending new frontier program. ♪ >> i probably didn't really think in my heart of hearts i was going to win, but, you know, i portrayed that i did and i guess i did. but it was an upside race. that was the year of goldwater and i got many more votes than barry goldwater did running against johnson here and most any republican had ever gotten running for the senate but i was defeated pretty soundly. after i lost t senate, then i ran for the 7th district of

congress, the house of representatives. i ran against a very popular district attorney named briscoe and we just -- we just outhustled him. and the district, this part of where i was elected, they never had a republican elected. had pretty good republican potential for national election particularly. and so anyway, i ran. went door-to-door and got people mobilized, local people, and it was -- it was -- it was big. it was good. and off i went to the u.s. congress. i was very fortunate that i was put on the ways and means committee. it was a wonderful thing. then your peers say, he's on the ways and means committee. i mean, it was a big deal in those days. and then i would work with a bunch of other congressmen,

trying to fight for an ethics bill when i was a freshman member of congress and we had a big number of people that were elected the year i was. so we had a big freshmen class. the leaders of the party, jerry ford and mel laird could not overlook the votes there and they were very pleasant to us, and so we just worked within the system. we weren't renegades. we weren't bomb throwers. but it was a good experience. i loved the house. the nixon white house wanted me to come in as a special counselor, but i didn't want to do that and i knew that he didn't -- nixon didn't like the guy that was there, his representative at the united nations, a guy named yost. a career guy, a very nice man, but part of what the deal in new york was to representing the

president's views and the new york establishment. and so i said to his staff, rather than that, i'd love to do this other. and he said, let's see about it. next thing i know, he said that's wt we will have you do and i went to the u.n. and i loved it up there. >> mr. president, our secretary of state and i have repeatedly sought to make clear the conviction of the united states that the general assembly should not expel the republican of china. and i did represent the administration, i think, in new york pretty well. and at the u.n. pretty well. ♪

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sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering so, i'm walking down the street, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering just you know walking, sfx: sounds of marching bandnd and crowd cheering and i found myself in the middle of this paradeeet, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering honoring america's troops. sfx: sounds of marching bandnd and crowd cheering which is actually in tquite fitting becauseadeeet, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering geico has been serving e military for over 75 years. aawh no, look, i know this is about the troops and not about me. right, but i don't look like that. who can i write a letter to about this? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. you want to make sure it goes up and stays up. [ chirp ] with android apps, you get better quality control. so our test flights are less stressful. i've got a lot of paperwork, and time is everything here. that's why i upgraded to the new sprint direct connect. [ chirp ] and the fastest push-ttalk nationwide. [ male announcer ] upgrade to the new "done." [ chirp ] with access to the fastest push to talk, three times the coverage, and android productivity apps. now when you buy one motorola admiral rugged smartphone, for ninety nine ninety nine, you'll get one free. visit a sprint store, or call eight five five, eight seven eight, four biz.

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in my years of public life, that i welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.

well, i'm not a crook. >> it was terrible. the worst time to be president and chairman of the republican national committee. you can imagine. bob strauss, who was then head of the democratic national committee. he called me up, he id, george -- he was a good guy. a friend. still is. still alive. he said your job reminds me of screwing a gorilla. i said you what do do you mean, bob? you can't stop until the gorilla wants to and that is exactly what it was like. i liked nixon and he had been very good to me. and i'm a loyal guy. i didn't want to see him thrown out of the of history. it was difficult because i didn't want to believe that when they said they weren't involved in this stuff, so i stayed with him as long as i could. i had two stacks of mail. why aren't you doing more to support the president?

and why are you doing so much to keep us close to that so and so? it got pretty rough. just one thing after another. another shoe dropped. i wanted to believe nixon as long as i possibly could and then they had the smoking gun tape that it became clear to everybody that the white house had lied and it was at that point that i wrote him a letter and said, you know, it's best that you resign. >> did you ever get a response from him? >> i don't think so. there was a big cabinet meeting just before he resigned. he kept talking in the meeting. i was at the table because i was chairman of the party and part of my deal there was to be like a member of the cabinet. and it was surreal meeting because nixon said now what are we going to do about this trade bill and on and on. everybody is looking at each other like this, what the hell are you talking about? i don't remember the details of

it but some interesting revelations from that meeting, cabinet meeting. >> i shall resign, the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. >> i think what he did in terms of this cover-up and this -- this sin, even the sin itself was not breaking into some democratic headquarters. i mean, that's not the end of the world. but it was bad. the main part was bad was the cover-up and the lie about it. >> in hindsight, what do you think of richard nixon? >> mixed emotions of being -- i can never get over the lie and in many areas, he was a good president. he was very good. his vision on foreign affairs was particularly good and so it was disillusioning and heartbreaking, in a sense. ♪ >> what did you see ahead for the republican party? >> well, a bleak future at that

moment. but that's why these things come and go and given me perspective over the years, i mean, when it seems gloomy and down, you downstairs back. >> and what consequences did watergate have for our country? >> not particularly profound when you look at it in terms of history. other countries have had big problems. ethical problems. but watergate itself, none. that i think of. and i think most -- you know, would agree assessment. >> my favorite place on the point. these are big macs and very hard to find. the people who made them stopped producing so some of these, that is phil mickelson. he signed them and sent them up

here. that's why these things come and signed them and set them up here. that's atlantic char caught in the northwest territories. that was caught by barbara in alabama. i like the bait-casting reals best of all. it's a good bait casting reel. it's a good one. >> you have been fishing all your? >> yeah. that was down in florida in the keys. fishing for bone fish. it's really hunting and fishing. you see the tails and you cast at them.

>> jerry ford asked me what i would like to do. i said i love foreign affairs through the un. paris is open. france is open. we can probably work that out. i said what i would like to do is go to china. he said how come? that's the future. where i see the future is. this is long before people recognized china as the power it is.

>> long trip, long journey away from anyone we had done. barbara was for it and it worked out great. >> what was lifelike in china? >> couldn't go into people's homes. that's closed in those days, but we could go around town, we used bicycles to get around the alleyways. it was wonderful.

it's just a whole new experience. i went over there thinking red china. domination of the communists of everything. family doesn't mean anything. then you go to a national day and go to a park and you see four generations of chinese. all they had was grandfather and grandson going along on a family day in the park that you are indoctrinate and out of touch and you listen to propaganda views of things and you get the reality. i saw the real china. i saw shortcomings and strengths. i'm better for that and i learned a lot about life. >> can you tell us about becoming director of the cia? >> yeah.

i remember riding my bicycle in china and the guy for the embassy communicator came up and said mr. ambassador, we have news for you. we went back not so far and there i got this message. the president wants you to come back and run the cia and i had no idea about that and didn't know thou operated. i have been a consumer in that job and in the un job and all of that. the president thinks you can do something, you ought to do it. they said don't do this. it's a dead end for any political ambitions you might have. i did it. probably the most fulfilling job i had. not surprising. i love defending the cia.

i love talking about the dedication of the people that work there. i love knowing what they do and how well they do it. i did meet with our agents and people that would be serving in moscow and they bring them into the office and i get to talk to them. he were heroic people and they were risking their lives and some of them got wrapped up and some of them got compromised. the whole thing was a great experience. it reinforced the importance of the service and having good foreign intelligence and having dedicated americans who are willing to serve without sitting at the head table and without getting their name in the paper. the agency got all of that for me. >> could you tell us more about what you did at the cia. >> no.

>> i had enough of a background and different things that i felt i could compete and ambition or determination or whatever you want to call it. why not me? i worked like hell and made progress. i didn't get elected. >> when you made a phone call and were asked to be the vice presidential running mate, did you have a sense that was coming? >> no. i thought i would be considered. then i had a deal where ford would run with reagan. for a while it looked like that was going to happen. in my view it would have been a disaster. you can't have two presidents which it would have been.

ronald reagan shot it down and i was somewhat surprised and shocked, you might say when he called me up in the hotel room and said i want you to be my running mate. he said i am going to the convention and announce it right now. >> and thank you for your whole hearted response to my recommendation in regarding to george bush as a candidate for vice president. go-gurt? yep...doh. [ boy ] slurpably fun and a good source of calcium. dads who get it, get go-gurt.

try capzasin-hp. it penetrates deep to block pain signals for hours of relief. capzasin-hp. take the pain out of arthritis. >> he was the great communicator and he was so much better than i trying to get the american people to do things.

>> as i did a lot of foreign travel for reagan, i met people. i was the to go to the funerals, you know. jim baker said you die, he will fly. i would go to all these funerals and see the different leaders. i made the first contact for the united states officially for reagan with gorbachev. i was over there when the russian premier died and i went and met gorbachev and get a feel for him and wrote the cable to

reagan saying we have a different man. a different breed of cat. someone you can deal with. that was an important moment for me. >> there a lot of things that individual times that i enjoy. i enjoyed going to germany and trying to get the germans to deploy the pershing missiles and it was an unpopular thing to do, but reagan wanted me to do this and i withstand over there and they did do it and it enhanced the peace, i think. the day reagan was shot i was here in ft. worth and secret service didn't know whether it was a conspiracy to kill off

leaders so they hustled me off in a limo. they got reports on how reagan was doing. i never felt i would make the decisions or call the shots and acting like a president. no point in that. >> i worked with a great about the and seen what crosses that big desk. i have seen the unexpected crisis that arrives in a cable in a young aide's hand and so i know what it call comes down to this election is the man at the desk and who should sit at that desk, my friends, i am that man.

>> thank you very much. i am proud to receive and i'm honored to accept your nomination for president of the united states. >> the night before the election and they said you have to stop and go by illinois and another place before you go back to texas. i said no, i'm not going to do that. if we don't have it made by now, we were not going to. i didn't do it. i say that because it shows people were not overly confident we were going to win and yet we won by what was consider a landslide.

>> i, george herbert walker bush do solemnly swear. >> i will faithfully execute the office of president of the united states. >> i will faithly execute the office of president of the united states. >> and will to the best of my ability. >> and will to the best of my ability. >> preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states. >> preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states. >> so help me god. >> sore help me god. >> congratulations, mr. president.

>> our first organized press conference or sooner. you are there. ♪ >> good morning, everybody. thank you all very much. let me say i know some of you have been up all night long. >> we wanted to wish you well and welcome you to the people's house. thank you all very, very much. . tap...

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>> the next morning my mother was there and we got a great picture and papers started piling up and the national security came in, the cia people came in and went to work. >> how does it feel to be in the oval office? >> they gradually said the responsibility is yours. i had been there and knew my way around the white house. it wasn't like out of a clear blue sky. yet so heavy and so important

and big. it settled on me that you are it. this is a big thing you embarked on. >> the most important thing that happened during your presidency was the end of the cold war. >> i remember the democrat leaders in the congress, mitchell and gephardt saying the president doesn't get it. he ought to be over there now dancing on the wall with the kids who are having families joined for the first time which would have been the stupidest thing i could have done. they said why don't you express the emotion the american people feel?

everybody has certain levels of respect and pride and for me to stick my finger in the eyes of gorbachev or the soviet military made no sense at all. i didn't do it and we got criticism for that and unemotional. i didn't care. i cared deeply, but subsequently if he had done it differently, his military would react. they say enough is enough. i will teach this new gorbachev and take over and have military confrontation. in east germany and forever. they had troops all through there. better to work with the diplomacy of it all, which we did and help it go smooth.

>> good luck to you. you want a candy bar? we will get you a candy bar. you sit right here. >> we have to have the official exchange. here we are. >> mr. president, i am supposed to be in school right now.

do you continuing would be possible for to you write me an absence? >> absolutely. >> when i was president, it was terrible. we kind of led the world in putting sanctions against china. i didn't want to break off all relations with china and there in, i had a different with a lot of editorialists and people in congress. this is too much. we are going to break relations with china. my view given where we are today would have been a stupid thing to do.

if i had known the chinese leaders, i might have felt differently about that. there was a place where the personal experience makes a difference. >> i believe the forces of democracy arso powerful when you see him as recently as this morning, the single student in front of a tank and then i might add, seeing the tank driver exercise restraint, i am convinced that the forces of democracy will overcome the unfortunate events.

>> let me quote the words of saddam hussein himself. >> pick it up or take it out of my pocket? >> if you take it out of your pocket, you have to have your coat open. >> no. i'm here today to explain to the people of iraq why the united states and the world community has responded the way it has to iraq's occupation to kuwait. let me quote the words of one arab leader. saddam hussein himself. an arab country does not have the right to occupy another arab country. >> sat sat's unprovoked invasion, his ruthless,

systematic rape of a peaceful neighbor violated everything the community of nations holds dear. the world has said this aggression would not stand and it will not stand. >> small country. everybody in the united nations have taken over by the fourth largest army in the world. >> at what moment did you know the country was going to war against iraq? >> in n my heart i knew it quickly after he went into kuwait. a few hours. i wasn't sure it was going to be a war, but i knew we would have to get him out and i remember when the presiding bishop of my church and he came to see me. he said mr. president, you must not use force. it will be immoral. i said i'm afraid we view this differently. i don't think it's immoral. here's what i think is immoral. i showed him this amnesty

international report on the brutality. it was this overt crystal clear wrong brutality. >> you can't delegate it and form a committee. should we do something or how we will handle it, the final analysis, that final decision is the president's. so you worry about it and you wrestle with it. you decide we will do this. you don't listen to the drums outside of the white house. it was the epitome of evil for me and the way he treated his own people. what he did his to his neighboring state and the member of the united nations.

i saw nothing redeem being him at all. the feeling was mutual incidentally. the congress was against it. they were divided and mainly on party lines. didn't want me to do it. as well as key units of the air force are arriving today to take up defensive positions in saudi arabia. saddam hussein never thought we were going to fight. i think he also believed that if we were going to fight, he would win. i am convinced to this day that saddam hussein would have marched down and taken over saudi arabia and all hell would have broken loose. the war was over 100 hours and nobody early on would have thought possible.

there is something known as a "just war." this was a just war. ironically after the way it worked out and the way our military conduct the itself with such efficiency and honor, some of the critics back then rescinded their criticism. if it hadn't worked out, i would have been at peace and thrown out of office. the toughest decision the president makes is when he has to send somebody else's son or daughter these days into combat or war. when i decided we would use force, it was a big decision. a major decision. to kim him out of kuwait. >> what are did you say to the families who lost loved ones. >> heartbroken. still feel. any time someone loses a loved one, the burden is on the

shoulder and the responsibility of the president. you can't help but feel that way. i wonder what would happen if this war would continue until you show up and put your sword on that surrender on that table in the desert. everyone then said he won't show up. i'm wondering if you would have and probably not, but i think that would have been been more satisfying to end the war. the way it worked out it affected me with the pride in the military. they took satisfaction for the critics being wrong. i have to admit to that. it's not a very nice thought there, but there is so much

criticism and so much wild ranting criticism about me. and they worked out with enormous importance and that's personally very satisfying.

>> we prefer calling it a revenue enhancement than a tax increase. no question it hurt. the democrats and many of the right wing republicans went after me with a vengeance. >> read my lips. no new taxes. >> if i haven't said read my lips, no more taxes, it may not have been a big deal. it was so clear and pronounced. so hammered home. the rhetoric if i use different rhetoric, i might have paid less of a price. >> do you regret that decision. >> no. it was right.

>> four more years! four more years! four more years! >> we are going to win this election. >> can you describe the year 1992 and what that year means to you? >> defeat to bill clinton. clinton did a great job of campaigning on that i didn't get it and i was out of touch and all of that. i know i sound like i'm bashing the press, but there was unanimity that i should lose and they were for him. that makes a huge difference. >> can you talk about ross perot? >> no. i think he cost me the election and don't like him. other than that i have nothing to say.

>> we respect the majesty of the democratic system and i told the governor of little rock and offered my congratulations. he did run a strong campaign. >> losing an election hurts. not for you personally, but you feel you let down a lot of people. it's a terrible hurt. i had some experience in that loss in a couple of senate races, but this was big. of course very hurtful. >> i would introduce my two brothers. >> nancy, come say hello to the new president. nancy. >> nice to see you.

hello. >> do you have photos in here? >> you can have the white house photos. >> what can we offer you? coffee or tea? >> i will have a cup of decaf or tea. i can't drink anything else. >> the whole agenda of unfinished business. domestic and foreign affairs and whatever. we had a lost things on the economy we were trying to do and like to have done more for real peace in the mideast. it would be a good to start. i think china was always important and we could have taken some leaps forward on that. some of that has been done by whoever came along after me. >> the presidency of the united

states which was the most important job in the world and the most overrepresented in what you can and can't do. it's wonderful. i don't know how it meant everything to me. it was the epitome of my life. not only thing in it. ♪

♪

>> you can describe this. . >> i think i'm going to spend morning and spring.

early summer. sit out there every morning. watch the waves and have a cup of coffee. every time we have meals we eat out here. today we will. now we have ji ji here. i can't tell you the joy when i see her in the morning running here. going-over the pool here. now in another week or two, there will be a lot of them here.

that inspires me and makes me feel young. look out this window in the sea does for me what it did when i was 15 years old. i love it and i feel reinvigorated. i can still drive my boat. a lot of things i love to do i can't do because i am getting older. it's different now. you are still on the team of life. you are still in the middle of this great family. that's what matters. >> what was it like to see your son elected president? >> very emotional for me and very proud father.

>> what was it like to see your son elected president? >> very emotional for me and very proud father. the first time it's happened in the history of our country except for the adamses it was mind-boggling and enormous. it's a source of great pride for the family and the father. and the mother. it was great. ♪

>> the white house guy at one point and head of the parachute association, they said they were having demonstrations and i like to see it. i said in fact i would like to make another joke. i want to do it right. i made mistakes and in my heart of hearts figured i would get it right. we went up to arizona a few hours. went up and made another parachute. a total of seven since then. now they are all tandem. the first two or three were solo jumps.

that's much more exciting. you have to make the decision. why do you do this stupid stuff? you still get a thrill from something. you look down and no visible means of support. the next thing you are floweding, hopefully. it sends a message around the world that i say around the world, but people do seem to see it. old guys can still do interesting and fun and exciting things. those are the two reasons and i will do one more on my 90th birthday. >> drivi around that limo. >> how was it? >> pretty good. everything was pretty good. >> we just visited berlin last weekend to reunite with my

colleagues. i can report a few things. first of all, the three of us are in fact 20 years older. talk about dancing on the wall, i'm luck to stand up near the damn thing. i've got a little park inson's in the lower legs. it doesn't hurt. it's a reminder that i'm getting older. i have a fear of falling. not in the last six months, but several times over the last year, but making a soft landing. when you walk along, you picture where you are and i'm looking for a good place to fall. now i doubt the secret service guys and my people around here all help me and lean on them. >> i'm honored to be here to help install this symbolic

anchor that will rest here for generations to come and as a reminder get the adoration for this place and the family and we love you. >> i'm not even dead yet. it's amazing. barbara and i would like to ask all of you to come to the gate and walk up and see this house from the other point of view. they are uprooted when i was the navy pilot and ceiling and visibility unlimited. that's the way my is here and barbara feels the same way about it.

>> don't be turned off with the scandal of the moment and the criticism of the politics and do your best and get in there and if you believe in something, work at it. it's worth it. it's worth doing it and serving something other than your own self. public service is a noble calling. >> presidents come and go, but george stays.

>> this is great reunion. >> the honorable george herbert walker bush.

>> isn't that something. how lucky we are. how beautiful this is. this is the anchor and this is where the kids come back. where the memories are. this is where i have been coming all my life and where i will remain until my last days.