Former US Secretary of State George Shultz, top American diplomat in the governments of two Republican presidents, has passed away, his family said on Sunday in a statement. He was 100 years old.
It was George Shultz who encouraged then-President Ronald Reagan to open a dialogue with the leaders of the Soviet Union, according to the Wall Street Journal. He served the Reagan Administration for six years as Secretary of State and remained active in the affairs of government even after officially leaving the halls of government, offering his views on national security, the economy and the environment.
In fact, Shultz held four different cabinet posts in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon; he was the first one ever to do so.
Born in New York, he began his professional life as a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he had earned a PhD in industrial economics after graduating from Princeton University. He then served as dean of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business and followed up as a fellow at Stanford University before moving to Washington to become the secretary of labor with President Nixon in 1969.
One of his most important achievements, and one of the most moving, however, was that of advocating in his talks with Eduard Shevardnadze for the freedom of Soviet refuseniks who had been denied permission to emigrate, Shultz told the Wall Street Journal.
Among those on his list was Ida Nudel, who in 1987 by chance attended the same Passover seder in Moscow where Shultz too, had made a point of attending, to underscore his support for the captive Soviet Jews.
That same year in October, Shultz received a call, he said; it was Nudel calling him during the Hebrew month of Tishrei – a month filled with rejoicing and awe and the spirit of renewal — to let him know that she was in Jerusalem and had indeed arrived “home.”
May his memory be for a blessing.