Former president George H. W. Bush was presented with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Tuesday in his Kennebunkport, Maine home by president Kennedy's grandson Jack Schlossberg, according to the
John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
"The award was given in recognition of the political courage Bush demonstrated when he agreed to a 1990 budget compromise that reversed his 1988 campaign pledge not to raise taxes and put his re-election prospects at risk," the library announcement said.
Bush had famously asserted: "Read my lips, no new taxes."
Later informed by the Congressional Budget Office that the $200 billion federal deficit could double, Bush agreed to a budget deal that combined spending cuts with a tax increase, the library statement said.
The award— a sterling-silver lantern symbolizing a beacon of hope— memorializes Kennedy's 1957 book, Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize. It told the stories of eight U.S. senators who took principled though unpopular positions putting their careers on the line.
Schlossberg, 21, is one of 15 members of the Profile in Courage Award committee which is chaired by Bloomberg journalist Albert Hunt and includes Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.
Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, is a senior at Yale University.
Bush, who is known to be an aficionado of unusual socks, also received a pair of grey socks adorned with an image of president Kennedy from Schlossberg , the
Daily News reported.
Besides the former president, a
2014 Profile in Courage Award also went to Paul Bridges, 61, the former Republican mayor of Uvalda, Georgia who opposed an immigration law that would have penalized anyone who "harbors or transports" an illegal alien even if that person was a family member.
The formal ceremony, which the 90-year-old Bush was unable to attend, takes place each year in May around the time of the slain president's May 29th birthday.
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