He was a pillar of quiet strength and integrity in the Nixon and Reagan administrations.
George P. Shultz, a widely respected statesman and economist through many productive years on the public stage, has died. He was 100.
“Shultz was a key player, alongside President Ronald Reagan, in changing the direction of history by using the tools of diplomacy to bring the Cold War to an end,” the Hoover Institution at Stanford University said in announcing his death on Saturday.
Shultz began his government service in the Eisenhower administration during the 1950s and would remain a public figure through the Obama presidency. He was, however, best known for his stints in the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon (as Labor secretary, director of Office of Management and Budget, Treasury secretary) and Ronald Reagan (secretary of State).
“George Shultz has helped to make the world a freer and more peaceful place,” Reagan said in January 1989.
Shultz was known as an able, steady and respectable conservative, a family man very rarely seen, as the expression goes, in the vicinity of a colorful anecdote. But, if, for instance, you read Reagan’s published diaries, there he is, page after page, meeting after meeting, consultation after consultation.
“Shultz had an analytical, managerial mind,” John Patrick Diggins wrote in “Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History.“ “As secretary of state, he most often chose the route of negotiation.”
Shultz took particular pride in the Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev nuclear disarmament breakthroughs that occurred while he was secretary of State. “He committed his entire presidency to it, and his achievements speak for themselves,” Shultz wrote of Reagan in a 2015 New York Times column. “Among the many measurements of his success, the number of nuclear weapons in existence today is about one-third the number at the time of the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland.”
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George P. Shultz, a widely respected statesman and economist through many productive years on the public stage, has died. He was 100.https://t.co/FMTSe1eKOo
— POLITICO (@politico) February 7, 2021
If you like the fact that the Cold War ended as early and quietly as it did, many thanks are due to the still-underestimated George Shultz.
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 7, 2021
I liked Shultz because he was well-read but not a peacock. I tracked well with him. He was the rare man of that background who could put his learning to use. His ambition was limited to policy, not politics. https://t.co/ZpP1w1Fdw2
— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) February 7, 2021
A true American hero, George Shultz, passed away today. He also was a generous @Stanford @HooverInst colleague, and a wise mentor to me personally for decades. In public service, academia, friendship & fun — still going strong at 100 — he was THE model of a life well lived.
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 7, 2021
George Shultz (1920-2021): pic.twitter.com/pXebJEYLqa
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 7, 2021
Mr. Schultz served in government back in the day when presidents had capable advisers who did their jobs. I was thinking what a difference between him and Pompeo. Trump appointed donors, cronies, fellow criminals and “yes men” to important positions and most of them were too dumb and corrupt to do their jobs well.
Rest in peace, Mr. Schultz and thank you for your service to this nation.
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