[ad_1]
WASHINGTON: George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s genius Secretary of State who identified a diplomatic opening that helped end the Cold War but contributed to a new kind of conflict by advocating pre-emptive strikes, has died. He was 100 years old.
Shultz, an economics professor who viewed himself more as a data-driven expert than an ideologue, had the rare distinction of occupying four different cabinet positions, including secretary of the Treasury, when Richard Nixon dismantled the monetary system. of Bretton Woods after World War II.
“One of the greatest legislators of all time, having served three American presidents, George P. Shultz died on February 6 at the age of 100,” the think tank Hoover Institution said in a statement on its website. .
Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Shultz as a “legend” and a “visionary.”
“It helped achieve the greatest geopolitical feat of the time – a peaceful end to the Cold War,” Blinken said in a statement.
In the Reagan White House, known for its infighting, Shultz was one of the less controversial figures, cultivating cordial ties with Congress and the press and, more importantly, the solid backing of the president himself, who kept Shultz in. as its top diplomat for six years. Years and a half.
In early 1983, half a year into his tenure, Shultz returned from China to snowy Washington and was invited by Nancy Reagan to a casual dinner at the White House, where he was intrigued to hear the famous anti-communist president sound anxious. to meet the Soviets.
“I had never had a prolonged session with an important leader of a communist country, and could feel that he would enjoy that opportunity,” Shultz wrote in his memoir, “Upheaval and Triumph.”
Days later, Shultz drove the Soviet ambassador to the White House in an unmarked car for a secret meeting with Reagan, who lobbied for Moscow to allow the emigration of Pentecostal Christians who had sought refuge in the US embassy.
The Soviets followed him in silence. Reagan’s unlikely role as negotiator with the superpower he called an “evil empire” had begun.
HOPES RISE WITH GORBACHEV
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev rose to the helm of the Communist Party and Shultz, joining then-Vice President George HW Bush, flew to Moscow and met him at the funeral of his predecessor, Konstantin Chernenko.
Shultz immediately spotted opportunities with Gorbachev.
“Gorbachev is totally different from any Soviet leader I have ever met,” Shultz told reporters.
A former Marine who fought the Japanese in World War II recalled the trust he built with the Soviets as Secretary of the Treasury when he offered a heartfelt salute at a memorial to those killed in the war.
Shultz’s rapprochement with Gorbachev met with deep skepticism from Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and CIA chief Bill Casey, but Reagan rejected them.
In 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Soviet Union soon began to disintegrate after Gorbachev initiated liberal reforms and increased dissent.
Shultz later downplayed Gorbachev’s role, pointing to underlying weaknesses in the Soviet system and attributing the American leader’s huge push to defense spending.
He also praised European allies, especially West Germany, who defied public protests against NATO missile deployments in the 1980s.
“The Soviets had to see that and realize that we were strong and our diplomacy was built on force,” Shultz said in a 2015 appearance at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he spent his post-government career.
CRIME OF TERRORISM
Shultz became secretary of state weeks after Israel invaded Lebanon, a nation that would become the center of an issue that would define his mandate: terrorism.
In 1983, a suicide bomber suspected of being a Shiite Muslim militant blew up the headquarters of the US Marines serving as peacekeepers in Lebanon, killing 241, with a second attack on French forces, killing 59.
With kidnappings and bombings on the rise around the world, Shultz promised in a 1984 speech at a New York synagogue that the United States would go “beyond passive defense to consider means of active prevention, anticipation and retaliation.”
“We cannot afford to become the Hamlet of nations, worrying endlessly about whether and how to respond,” said Shultz, who recommended the American attacks on Libya in 1986 after an American soldier was killed in an attack on a Berlin nightclub.
The Shultz doctrine was cited two decades later, when the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq, wrongly claiming it was seeking weapons of mass destruction.
Shultz openly supported the invasion, which along with the ensuing wars would claim hundreds of thousands of lives.
Shultz, who declared Iraq to be a “rogue state”, said that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was crucial “for the integrity of the international system and for the effort to effectively confront terrorism.”
While she was secretary of state, Shultz’s policies in the Middle East were more moderate. He repeatedly clashed with his ally Israel, especially over Lebanon, and opened contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
BREAKING THE ORTHODOXY
Shultz had served Nixon as a labor secretary and also headed his Office of Management and Budget, a cabinet-level position.
In an essay for his 100th birthday in 2020, he lamented Donald Trump’s style and said that the United States, like the people, could only succeed if others trust him.
“Simply put,” Shultz said, “trust is the currency of the kingdom.”
