Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.George Herbert Walker Bush became the thirty-eighth president of the United States of America following the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon.

During the 1968 campaign, Bush had been one of several possible running mates considered by Nixon, another being Maryland's Gov. Spiro Agnew. Nixon had liked Agnew for the latter's willingness to employ fiery, if sometimes mangled, rhetoric against the domestic political left. However, shortly before the Republican convention, word had come to Nixon of a possible corruption scandal involving kickbacks from state contractors. Fearing the Democrats would use it against the Republican ticket in what seemed certain to be a close contest in the fall, Nixon had turned away from Agnew.

Bush, by contrast, had no known scandals in his past. There were, to be sure, rumors of his having been involved with the Central Intelligence Agency in the past and even of having had some murky connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, but rumors were all there were; on the plus side, he was connected both to the GOP's old-line Eastern establishment and to powerful figures in the Texas oil industry who could potentially be tapped for contributions and other aid. Therefore, at the Republican National Convention in August, Nixon had announced his choice of Bush for vice president.

As vice-president, Bush had been kept largely in the background, being sent out occasionally to vent the administration's anger at the student left then demonstrating against the ongoing Vietnam War, against Democrats in Congress and against the media. However, Nixon's decision to shut his VP out of any important role in policymaking ironically worked in the latter's favor after Nixon's reelection in 1972, as the events collectively known as "Watergate" mushroomed into a full-blown political crisis. As a result, the sidelined Bush found himself in place to take the presidency itself when Nixon, facing the imminent prospect of an impeachment, surrendered the office. His inauguration, conducted as his predecessor departed by helicopter bound for the San Clemente, California retreat nicknamed the "Western White House" while he was in power, brought to power a president largely unknown to the American people, who within a month would nominate an equally obscure figure, Rep. Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, as his own vice-president.