George Shultz was named as Secretary of State by President Ronald Reagan on June 25, 1982. He assumed the office of Secretary on July 16, and he remained in that position until January 20, 1989. Under Shultz’s leadership, U.S. diplomacy helped to pave the way for the ending of the Cold War. Read more here.

See the AP’s obituary:Longtime Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz dies at 100. NYT : George P. Shultz, Top Cabinet Official Under Nixon and Reagan, Dies at 100.

Schultz once had an instruction to an ambassador about a foreign minister, “Keep him out of my thinning hair.”

Phyllis Oakley, Deputy Spokesperson at State Department 1986-89 said about Schultz, “When people talk about management of the Department, particularly in the recent awful years, they refer to Shultz as the last great manager.”

Henry Allen Holmes, Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs, 1985-89 said, “he cared about his people, not just those who worked directly for him, but he was one of the few Secretaries of State — in fact, probably, in my lifetime, the only Secretary of State that I can remember — who cared deeply about the institution, about the Foreign Service, about the Civil Service in the institution, about the Foreign Service Institute. I mean his sense of leadership of the institution was broad, very broad.”

Read more here from ADST.

Statement from Secretary Blinken:

George Shultz was a legend.

As Secretary of State, he helped achieve the greatest geopolitical feat of the age: a peaceful end to the Cold War. He negotiated landmark arms control agreements with the Soviet Union and, after leaving office, continued to fight for a world free of nuclear weapons. He also urged serious action on the climate crisis at a time when too few leaders took that position. He was a visionary.

An ardent champion of diplomacy, Secretary Shultz strengthened America’s relationships and advanced our interests with strategic brilliance and great patience. The men and women of the foreign and civil services were devoted to him because he uplifted their work and relied on their judgment. When it came time to name the campus of the Foreign Service Institute, where America’s foreign service officers are trained, they named it for him.

Every Secretary of State who came after George Shultz has studied him – his work, his judgment, his intellect. I know I have. Few people came to the role with as much experience as he. He had also served as Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he was a Marine in World War II. It’s as distinguished a record of public service as any in American history.

Perhaps most of all, George Shultz was a patriot. He took pains to remind his fellow diplomats that their first duty was always to the American people. Before he sent new U.S. ambassadors to their overseas posts, he would invite them to his office and direct them to a huge globe in the corner. “Point to your country,” he would say. The ambassador would spin the globe and point to the country where he or she was heading. Then the Secretary would gently place their finger on the United States. “That’s your country.” He never forgot it.

George Shultz was a towering figure in the history of the State Department. The work we do now is shaped by his legacy. Our thoughts today are with Secretary Shultz’s family and all those who loved him. He will be deeply missed.

We heard from an overseas reader about a cable ordering flags at half-staff for Representative Ronald Wright, but apparently not for  Secretary Schulz. So we asked the State Department about it as some overseas folks were looking for the half-staff order to mark the passing of the 60th Secretary of State.  After the briefest of honeymoon under new management, it looks like our emails are once more consigned into the black hole for emails; not  to be answered or acknowledged once again. So did we miss the order or there wasn’t one?

 

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