It’s hard to believe now, but in 1988 George H.W. Bush was dismissed as a “wimp.” He was then in his eighth year as Vice President; had been CIA director, ambassador to the United Nations and a Congressman; had been shot down in the Pacific as a Navy pilot in World War II; and had left clubby Connecticut after the war to be an oil man in Texas. But Bush was running to succeed Ronald Reagan, and the media were intent on diminishing him.

Bush responded by defeating a strong GOP primary field and then exposing Michael Dukakis’s liberalism to win a rare third consecutive presidential term for the same party. He died Friday at age 94, having been a consequential one-term President who set an example with his integrity and sense of patriotic duty.

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Bush took office at a propitious moment when the results of Ronald Reagan’s two terms were playing out to America’s benefit around the world. The U.S. economy had increased its GDP by the size of Germany in the 1980s, and America had revived its confidence and military strength. Soviet leaders had concluded they could no longer win the Cold War and Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform.

Bush’s historic contribution was to use personal diplomacy to navigate the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the reunification of Germany, and the breakup of the Soviet Union. He won the trust of Mr. Gorbachev, in part by refusing to boast about America’s victory. Reagan’s boldness and ideological conviction won the long twilight struggle, but Bush’s cautious temperament and long experience helped to negotiate a transition without firing a shot. Few empires in history have fallen in such peaceful fashion.

Keep reading this editorial from The Wall Street Journal.