President Bush Slated as Commencement Speaker

President Bush Slated as Commencement Speaker

RICE NEWS
September 30, 1999

President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose vantage points have stretched from the cockpit of a World War II fighter plane to the Oval Office during the Gulf War and the implosion of communism, will deliver his views on world affairs during Rice University’s Commencement ceremonies May 13, 2000.

It will mark the second time in three years Bush has attended commencement festivities on the Main Street campus. He and former first lady Barbara Bush were on hand in 1998 to witness the graduation of grandson George P. Bush, son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“It will be a great privilege for our year 2000 graduates and their families to hear the 41st president of the United States,” said Rice President Malcolm Gillis. “George Herbert Walker Bush has had a truly luminous career in the military, in business, politics, intelligence and diplomacy. In addition to being a Rice grandparent, he was an associate of Lovett College.We are pleased that he will once again grace our campus with his presence.”

Bush continues the lineage of recent distinguished Commencement Day speakers at Rice, which include former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, current Republican Party presidential candidate and former head of the American Red Cross Elizabeth Dole, current Democratic Party presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and former President Jimmy Carter.

After serving as a Navy fighter pilot in World War II and graduating from Yale University in 1948, Bush moved to Texas to work in the oil business. He became president of Zapata Offshore Co., which developed new oil-drilling equipment.

His career in Republican politics began in Houston during the early 1960s where he served as the chairman of the Harris County Republican Party before being elected in 1966 as the first GOP member to represent Houston in Congress. Bush left Congress to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1970-71) and then was appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee by President Nixon.

President Ford assigned Bush to the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing in 1975. Shortly after taking that post he was called back to Washington, D.C., to rebuild the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a time when it was buffeted by accusations of assassination plots and abuses of power. He was applauded for his yearlong effort to restore morale within the agency and refurbish its image.

In 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate and the GOP captured the White House in the fall elections.

After eight years as vice president, Bush campaigned to succeed Reagan, winning the Republican nomination and defeating Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in the 1988 general election.