Former Secretary of State George Shultz dies at 100

George Shultz, who served as secretary of State in the Reagan administration and in a number of Cabinet-level posts under former President Nixon, died Saturday at the age of 100.

Shultz’s death was announced Sunday by the Hoover Institution, where he served as Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow.

Our dear colleague, George P. Shultz died Feb 6 at age 100. One of the most influential secretaries of state in our history, he knew the value of one’s word, that “trust was the coin of the realm,” and forever changed the course of human events. https://t.co/WJcjvY5MWi

— Hoover Institution (@HooverInst) February 7, 2021

Shultz served in the Nixon administration for nearly the entirety of Nixon’s presidency, from 1969 to 1974, first as secretary of Labor, then as director of the Office of Management and Budget and finally as secretary of the Treasury.

After returning to the private sector in 1974, Shultz was appointed secretary of State in 1982 and remained in the position for the remainder of former President Reagan’s presidency. He was key in implementing the late Cold War-era U.S. foreign policy that thawed relations with the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev.

In a statement, the Hoover Institution said Schultz “knew the value of one’s word, that ‘trust was the coin of the realm,’ and stuck unwaveringly to a set of principles. This, combined with a keen intelligence, enabled him to not only imagine things thought impossible but also to bring them to fruition and forever change the course of human events.”

Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice, herself a former secretary of State, said in a statement that Schultz “was a great American statesman and a true patriot in every sense of the word. He will be remembered in history as a man who made the world a better place.”