Curt Smith wrote more speeches than anyone for President George H. W. Bush. (Photo courtesy of Curt Smith)
Former President George H.W. Bush died Friday at age 94. On Monday, his flag-draped coffin arrived in Washington, D.C., in advance of a funeral service planned for Wednesday at Washington National Cathedral.
As the nation paid tribute to the 41st president, Alex Zapesochny spoke with Curt Smith, Bush’s chief speechwriter and author of “George H.W. Bush: Character at the Core,” about the man he knew. Smith, now a senior lecturer at the University of Rochester, calls Bush a man of substance, not style. At his best, Smith says, Bush was “heroic, modest, patriotic, sentimental, emotional—exactly the kind of person you would want as president of the United States.”