George H.W. Bush — 41st President (1989–1993)

**George H.W. Bush** was the last president from the Greatest Generation — a Navy pilot shot down over the Pacific at 20, CIA Director, Ambassador to the UN, envoy to China, Vice President for eight years under Reagan, and then a single-term president who managed the end of the Cold War, German reunification, and the Gulf War with a diplomatic skill that historians increasingly recognize as extraordinary. He lost re-election because he raised taxes after promising not to — a decision that was economically necessary and politically fatal.