George P. Shultz, who as secretary of State in the 1980s shaped U.S. foreign policy in the closing phase of the Cold War when a dangerous nuclear-armed stalemate gave way to peaceful — if not quite cordial — relations between the superpowers, died Saturday. He was 100.
Shultz’s tenure as President Reagan’s chief diplomat, from 1982 to 1989, came after he served in three Cabinet-level posts in the Nixon administration: Treasury secretary, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Labor secretary.
Shultz died at his home on the Stanford University campus, Jeff Marschner, director of media relations at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said Sunday.
Shultz spent his later years in the Bay Area as a Republican Party elder statesman, teaching economics at Stanford. He was one of the nation’s most prominent advocates of reducing the risks of nuclear war.
Shultz was also outspoken on climate change. In a break with the Trump administration, he joined another former secretary of State, James A. Baker III, in calling for a carbon tax on oil, natural gas and coal to discourage the burning of fossil fuels.
An economic advisor to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shultz was one of the many Republican establishment figures who resisted Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency.
In keeping with the diplomatic demeanor of a former secretary of State, he avoided direct criticism of Trump, but a burst of candor a few months before the 2016 election made his opinion clear: “God help us,” he told reporters.
Shultz prided himself on his integrity, emerging unscathed when the Watergate scandal consumed Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. As Treasury secretary, Shultz rejected a White House request to audit the tax returns of Nixon enemies, leading the president to ask his counsel John Dean, “What does that candy ass think I sent him over there for?”
Shultz had little stomach for the self-promotion that made some other secretaries of State more famous. His achievements in foreign policy, especially with the Soviet Union and U.S. allies in Europe, were little recognized during his tenure.
When Shultz replaced Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. in 1982, Washington’s relations with Moscow were as frosty as they had been in a generation. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s signature “détente” policy was dead, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and former President Carter’s vehement response: economic sanctions and a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
The relationship, strained by Reagan’s staunch anti-communism, deteriorated further when Soviet-dominated Poland imposed martial law to crush a popular uprising. Washington’s ties with its traditional European allies were also hurt when the sanctions interfered with plans for a Soviet pipeline to supply natural gas to Western Europe.
When Reagan and Shultz left office in January 1989, relations with Moscow were warmer, and the friction with Western Europe was all but forgotten.
The ascent of Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the top post in Moscow in 1985 played a key role in the change. But Reagan, encouraged by Shultz, cleared the way for Gorbachev’s conciliatory policy by toning down the anti-communist rhetoric and resuming arms control talks.
The high point came in 1987 when Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty banning all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe, the first time in the long superpower rivalry that an entire class of weapons was prohibited.
It was not until George H.W. Bush succeeded Reagan in the White House, and Baker replaced Shultz at the State Department, that the Soviet Union finally collapsed, ending the last vestiges of the Cold War in a victory for the West. But the die was cast during Shultz’s tenure at the State Department.
Shultz’s approach to the Soviet Union…
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