  
College Station (Texas), November 6, 1997: President Bush dedicated the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum situated in the heart of the university campus of A&M. This $83 millions - sheltering a library, a museum anb an administration school - contains all the documents concerning George Bush and his three decades as a state employee. About 40,000 people were present at the opening ceremony. Among the guests were Mr and Mrs Clinton, former presidents Carter and Ford, Nancy Reagan and Mrs Johnson. 
As far as the museum is concerned, it will help to retrace the life of the 41st President of the Unites States right from his birth at Milton, Massachusetts, his drafting into the Navy, his life as a pilot during the Second World War, his studies at Yale, his active life as an oil magnate and his thirty years in State service. Features such as a major piece of the Berlin wall, felt during the Bush presidency are exposed. You can also find the torpedo carrying aircraft Avenger; a replica of the one used by George Bush when he was shot down in the Pacific during the war. One wing of the museum is devoted to the life of Bush since he left the Oval office in 1993, exposing the parachute George Bush used in March 1997, at the age of 72, when he jumped from a plane over the desert of Arizona. Another section is consecrated to carity organisations which are being taken care of by Barbara Bush.
The complex which contains private appartments for Mr and Mrs Bush, a burial place... has been built thanks to $42 million of private funds. After its opening, it will be subsidized by the American National archives, which is a federal institution.This place will be maintened by its employees and also by 300 voluntary workers. The $42 million came mainly from charities given in thanks to the policy led by George Bush in his Gulf actions during the 1991 crisis. In that way, the bigger donators are the citizens of Kuwait, the State of Kuwait, the Saudi Arabia Sultan's family , the Kuwait research fundation, the Sultant of Oman and the Sheikh of the United-Emirates... The library halls are full of gifts made to George Bush during his presidency. Among others, we can find a human form target carrying the name of George Bush and marked by five bullet holes. This target had been found in the headquarters of Manuel Noriega by american soldiers during their successful intervention in Panama in 1990. |
The Bush library consists
of forty millions official documents, two millions
photographs and thousand hours of video movies, retracing
the Bush Presidency and Vice Presidency. The informations
are indexed by computers in order to make it easy for
university searchs... Most of the documents (except those
classified as "defense-secret") will be accessible to the
public on January 20, 1998.
