UNITED STATES: George Shultz, former Secretary of State and best known as a ‘Titan of American academia, business, and diplomacy’ died on Saturday at his home. Shultz was a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford and a professor emeritus at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In a statement, the Hoover Institution of Stanford University announced his death on Sunday. The cause of his death still remains unknown. He was 100-years-old at the time of his death.
Shultz played a crucial role in securing peaceful relations globally for the US. Post the 1983 bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut, he worked relentlessly to end Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s. He further went on to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was unsuccessful in the ambition of bringing the parties to the negotiation table.
In the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, he made a historic attempt to reverse the nuclear arms race. Shultz was also an ardent arms control advocate in his later years.
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In 2016, Shultz along with former Secretary of State, Henry A. Kissinger made headlines by declining to endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump, he quoted “God help us” regarding the possibility of Trump in the White House. He was condemned for his stand against the mainstream Republican policy positions.
While talking about Shultz in his memoir, Kissinger said, “If I could choose one American to whom I would entrust the nation’s fate in a crisis, it would be George Shultz.”
In his lengthy career of public service, a lifelong Republican, Shultz held three major Cabinet positions in GOP administrations. He was the longest serving secretary of state since World War II and had been the oldest surviving former Cabinet member of any administration.
Shultz brought with him a ray of sunshine everywhere he walked, including academics, teaching, government service, and the corporate world, and was widely respected by his peers from both political parties.
