George Herbert Walker Bush

Accomplishments of President George Herbert Walker Bush:

  • Ambassador to the United Nations
  • Head of the Central Intelligence Agency
  • Signed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibiting discrimination based on disabilities
  • Signed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which compensated people who contracted cancer and other diseases as a result of exposure to atmospheric nuclear testing undertaken during the Cold War
  • Reauthorized the Clean Air Act, which requires cleaner burning fuels
  • Launched a full-scale air assault and ground invasion against Iraq as part of the Gulf War in retaliation for Iraq’s invasion of neighboring Kuwait
  • Invaded Panama in 1989 to oust leader and drug trafficker Manuel Noriega
  • Signed START I with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
  • Declared a US-Russian strategic partnership with the Soviet leader following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991
  • Spearheaded the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would later be signed by his left-handed successor Bill Clinton