Bob Dole joined the thousands of people who have visited the U.S. Capitol since Monday to pay their respects to the late President George H.W. Bush.

Then-Sen. Dole and Bush were famously rivals in Republican politics for two decades. Bush replaced Dole as Republican National Committee chairman in the early 1970s and then beat him for the 1988 GOP presidential nomination. But on Tuesday, Dole appeared emotional as he gazed at the American-flag draped casket in the Capitol Rotunda.

Dole, 95, entered the rotunda sitting in a wheelchair and needed assistance standing up so he could salute Bush — a fellow World War II veteran.


When news of Bush’s death broke, the Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence, Kan., put up a special memorial display to honor the life and legacy of former the former president, according to local media.

Bush will lay in state at the rotunda until 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.

A funeral is planned at the National Cathedral in Washington later that morning, before Bush’s body is flown back to Texas for burial.