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| President Bush staged administration's crowning
event at Rice |
| 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations held
its plenary sessions and ceremonial events on campus |
| The location for the annual Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations rotates among
the seven nations taking part. In July, 1990, it was the United States' turn,
and Houston was a favored location as the President's home town. It remained
for the Bush staff to secure a venue, within Houston, which would serve as a fittingly
aesthetic showplace for the conduct of the plenary meeting sessions and the official
ceremonies. Both President Bush and his Secretary of State, James A. Baker, had ties
to Rice: the President as a former adjunct professor of administration, and
Mr. Baker, as a grandson of James Addison Baker, one of the university's founders and
chairman of its Board of Trustees for the first fifty years of its existence. So the
choice of Rice was a natural, and the old Institute campus performed splendidly. |
| A book could be written (and has been) about the preparation and
carrying on of the event--the construction of conference tables, rearrangement of
plantings, construction of platforms, general sprucing up, etc., etc., that was necessary
to be carried out, as well as the actually unfolding of ceremonies and meetings. |
 President
Bush, and Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, Francois Mitterand of
France, Helmut Kohl of Germany, Brian Mulroney of Canada, Giulio Andreotti of
Italy, and Toshiki Kaifu of Japan, along with European Community President Jacques Delors,
presided over the conference. The delegations, most of whom had visions of Texas as
a treeless, arid, rural place with tumbleweeds rolling in the streets, marveled at the
bucolic, verdant beauty of the Rice campus. Security being as it was, the campus was
tightly sealed, and the world leaders, with their staff members and a few selected members
of the media, had the run of the campus like summer school attendees. |
| Since its founding in 1911, Rice has always comprised the premier educational
and cultural institution of Houston, now the nation's fourth-largest city. Its
sterling performance as host venue of the 1990 Economic Summit only served to cement that
position further, as well as show the world what a beautiful garden the Texas Gulf Coast
can turn out to be. |
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 President Bush delivers opening address amid ruffles and
flourishes in front of Lovett Hall |
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 Secretary of State Baker goes on CNN with Robert
Novak and Wolf Blitzer. (Yes, it was hot.) |
For an excellent report on the 1990 Economic Summit, see John
C. Boles, Rice University and the 1990 Summit of Industrialized Nations (Rice
University Press, 1991) , from which the above photos were taken. |
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