George Shultz
George Pratt Shultz (/ʃʊlts/ SHUULTS; December 13, 1920 – February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held four different Cabinet-level posts, the other being Elliot Richardson.[1] Shultz played a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration, and conservative foreign policy thought thereafter.
George Shultz
Richard Nixon
Bob Mayo (Bureau of the Budget)
Richard Nixon
February 6, 2021 (aged 100)
Stanford, California, U.S.
Dawes Cemetery, Cummington, Massachusetts, U.S.
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Helena O'Brien(m. 1946; died 1995)
5
1942–1945
- World War II
Born in New York City, he graduated from Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. After the war, Shultz earned a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957, taking a leave of absence in 1955 to take a position on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers. After serving as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he accepted President Richard Nixon's appointment as United States Secretary of Labor. In that position, he imposed the Philadelphia Plan on construction contractors who refused to accept black members, marking the first use of racial quotas by the federal government. In 1970, he became the first director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he served in that position until his appointment as United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1972. In that role, Shultz supported the Nixon shock, which sought to revive the ailing economy in part by abolishing the gold standard, and presided over the end of the Bretton Woods system.
Shultz left the Nixon administration in 1974 to become an executive at Bechtel. After becoming president and director of that company, he accepted President Ronald Reagan's offer to serve as United States Secretary of State. He held that office from 1982 to 1989. Shultz pushed for Reagan to establish relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to a thaw between the United States and the Soviet Union. He opposed the U.S. aid to Contras trying to overthrow the Sandinistas by using funds from an illegal sale of weapons to Iran. This aid led to the Iran–Contra affair.
Shultz retired from public office in 1989 but remained active in business and politics. He had already been an executive of the Bechtel Group, an engineering and services company, from 1974 to 1982. Shultz served as an informal adviser to George W. Bush and helped formulate the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. He served on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Economic Recovery Council, and on the boards of Bechtel and the Charles Schwab Corporation.
Beginning in 2013, Shultz advocated for a revenue-neutral carbon tax as the most economically sound means of mitigating anthropogenic climate change.[2][3][4][5][6] He was a member of the Hoover Institution, the Institute for International Economics, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and other groups. He was also a prominent and hands-on board member of Theranos, which defrauded more than $700 million from its investors before it collapsed.[7] His grandson Tyler Shultz worked at the company before becoming a whistleblower about the fraudulent technology.[8][9]
Early life and career[edit]
Shultz was born December 13, 1920, in New York City, the only child of Margaret Lennox (née Pratt) and Birl Earl Shultz. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey.[10] His great-grandfather was an immigrant from Germany who arrived in the United States in the middle of the 19th century. Contrary to common assumption, Shultz was not a member of the Pratt family associated with John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust.[11]
After attending the local public school, he transferred to the Englewood School for Boys (now Dwight-Englewood School), through his second year of high school.[12] In 1938, Shultz graduated from the private preparatory boarding high school Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. He earned a bachelor's degree, cum laude, at Princeton University, New Jersey, in economics with a minor in public and international affairs. His senior thesis, "The Agricultural Program of the Tennessee Valley Authority", examined the Tennessee Valley Authority's effect on local agriculture, for which he conducted on-site research.[13] He graduated with honors in 1942.[10][11]
From 1942 to 1945, Shultz was on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. He was attached to the U.S. Army 81st Infantry Division during the Battle of Angaur (Battle of Peleliu).[14]
In 1949, Shultz earned a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[15] From 1948 to 1957, he taught in the MIT Department of Economics and the MIT Sloan School of Management, with a leave of absence in 1955 to serve on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers as a Senior Staff Economist. In 1957, Shultz left MIT and joined the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business as a professor of industrial relations, and he served as the Graduate School of Business Dean from 1962 to 1968.[16] During his time in Chicago, he was influenced by Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and George Stigler, who reinforced Shultz's view of the importance of a free-market economy.[17] He left the University of Chicago to serve under President Richard Nixon in 1969.[18]
Business executive[edit]
In 1974, he left government service to become executive vice president of Bechtel Group, a large engineering and services company. He was later its president and a director.[26]
Under Shultz's leadership, Bechtel received contracts for many large construction projects, including from Saudi Arabia. In the year before he left Bechtel, the company reported a 50% increase in revenue.[27]
Family[edit]
While on a rest and recreation break in Hawaii from serving in the Marines in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater during World War II, Shultz met military nurse lieutenant Helena Maria O'Brien (1915–1995). They married on February 16, 1946, and had five children: Margaret Ann Tilsworth, Kathleen Pratt Shultz Jorgensen, Peter Milton Shultz, Barbara Lennox Shultz White, and Alexander George Shultz.[10][78] O'Brien died of pancreatic cancer in 1995.[79]
In 1997, Shultz married Charlotte Mailliard Swig, a prominent San Francisco philanthropist and socialite.[80] They remained married until his death. Shultz was a member of an Episcopal church.[81]
Death[edit]
Shultz died at age 100 at his home in Stanford, California, on February 6, 2021.[82][83][84] He was buried next to his first wife at Dawes Cemetery in Cummington, Massachusetts.[85]
President Joe Biden reacted to Shultz's death by saying, "He was a gentleman of honor and ideas, dedicated to public service and respectful debate, even into his 100th year on Earth. That's why multiple presidents, of both political parties, sought his counsel. I regret that, as president, I will not be able to benefit from his wisdom, as have so many of my predecessors."[86]