Out of the Shadow: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War. By Christopher Maynard. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. xvi, 176 pp. $34.95, ISBN 978-1-60344-039-4.)

Abstract

An unintentional consequence of the recent conclusion of the second Bush administration is that it elevated estimations of the achievements of the first Bush presidency. Despite the father-son bond between numbers forty-one and forty-three, their differences, especially in foreign affairs, offer a stark and instructive contrast. George H. W. Bush and his tightly knit foreign policy team approached foreign policy as realists. As the Tiananmen Square massacre unfolded before the eyes of the world in 1989, for example, Bush issued a stern public statement deeply deploring “the decision to use force,” calling for sanctions against China for its brutal violence against protesting students (p. 35). Yet he secretly contacted Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to reassure him that he would not allow this incident to disrupt Sino-American relations. A year later, in the face of heavy criticism, Bush renewed China's most favored nation trading status. One could scarcely imagine George W. Bush functioning similarly, for his was an administration propelled by ideology and the foreign policy leaders within his administration were set against each other. It is beyond imagining during the administration of the elder Bush, as happened in the younger Bush's years, that the secretary of state and national security adviser would learn of a major administration foreign policy decision from a cnn news report.