After President George H. W. Bush dispatched Operation Desert Shield forces to the Persian Gulf in response to Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait and its threat to invade Saudi Arabia, Bob Hope, at age eighty-seven, entertained troops in Saudi Arabia at Christmas. “Bob was a unifier,” Bush remembered. “He got along with everybody. I think of him as a national treasure.” Following Bush’s launch of air strikes, Hope telephoned the president in support, prompting this reply. “George and Barbara Bush were like family,” Bob Hope once wrote. “I knew his father, Prescott, and played golf with him. During his eight years as Reagan’s vice president, I became very close to George and I played a lot of golf with him, too.” During that period, Bush sent a note of thanks following a visit by the Hopes.