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Former Secretary of State George Shultz, an influential foreign policy figure under President Ronald Reagan’s administration, died Saturday, Reagan’s birthday, at the age of 100 at his Stanford home , California, the Hoover Institution announced on Sunday.
Shultz, a distinguished member of the Hoover Institution, held three prominent positions in Republican administrations during his long career in public service. Before spending more than six years as Secretary of State for Reagan, he served as Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Richard Nixon. His administrative background also included a stint as a senior economist with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers.
As the country’s chief diplomat in the 1980s, Shultz charted a course for peace in the Middle East and attempted to strengthen Cold War relations with the Soviet Union.
On this July 13, 1982, a file photo, Secretary of State designate George Shultz, right, speaks with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before the start of the afternoon panel session on Capitol Hill in Washington. From the left. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del .; Senator Charles Percy, R-Ill., Chairman of the panel and Senator Edward Zorinsky, D-Neb.
(AP Photo / Ira Schwarz, file)
Shultz negotiated the very first treaty to reduce the size of the Soviet Union’s land-based nuclear arsenals. The 1987 accord was a historic attempt to begin to reverse the nuclear arms race.
In 1989, Shultz received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
He had been the oldest surviving Cabinet member of any administration.
The veteran was born December 13, 1920 in New York City and raised in New Jersey. He studied economics and public and international affairs at Princeton University and graduated in 1942.
He then joined the Marine Corps and reached the rank of captain as an artillery officer during World War II.
In 1949 he obtained a doctorate. in Economics at MIT. He taught at MIT and the University of Chicago, where he was dean of the business school.
Shultz was most recently Professor Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He was married to Helena “Obie” O’Brien, an army nurse he met during World War II, and they had five children together. Two years after his death, in 1997, he married Charlotte Maillard, chief of protocol in San Francisco.
Shultz is survived by Maillard, his five children, 11 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
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A cause of death was not provided by Hoover Institution.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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