Please note this is a hybrid event - you have the option to attend in person or virtually. Registrations are required for all attendees. For in-person attendees, the event will run from 12 - 2 pm and will include lunch. The live stream will begin around 1:10 pm (virtual attendees will be sent a link for the event via email).
Join DACOR for a discussion of the definitive biography of George P. Shultz, US Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State with author Philip Taubman.
Without George Shultz, Ronald Reagan could not have achieved the most important foreign policy accomplishment of his presidency: the unwinding of the Cold War. Shultz’s gift for forging relationships and his passion for finding practical solutions to complex challenges allowed him to alter the arc of history during the Reagan administration, often in the face of withering resistance. His prescient warnings in recent years about climate change, technological advances and Russian expansionism set him apart from an increasingly illiberal Republican Party. With the help of exclusive access to Shultz’s papers — including a secret diary maintained by one of his executive assistants while Shultz was secretary of state — longtime New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman chronicles Shultz’s life and provides an insider account of his struggle to gain command of American foreign policy.
In The Nation’s Service shows the shaping of Shultz’s life and career through the full sweep of the 20th century. After serving in World War II, studying at Princeton and MIT, teaching at MIT and the University of Chicago and working as a dean at the University of Chicago, Shultz entered public service as secretary of labor for President Richard Nixon. He crafted the groundbreaking plan that helped integrate the building trades and led an effort to desegregate Southern urban schools systems. He then served as the first director of the Office of Management and Budget, and then as Secretary of the Treasury, where he designed a new system of international exchange rates no longer anchored to the value of the dollar or the price of America’s gold reserves. Although he resisted Nixon’s primary request to use the IRS to investigate his enemies, Shultz did succumb to the demand that the IRS pursue Lawrence O’Brien (a top Democratic Party leader), a case fully explored for the first time in this book. Shultz’s willingness to defer to people in positions of power and his exaggerated sense of loyalty would haunt him at times throughout his career.
Reagan brought Shultz into his Cabinet in 1982. He came to town with a vision of easing cold war tensions, but immediately ran into opposition from anti-Soviet ideologues in Reagan’s inner circle, and the neglect of an inattentive president. For several years, Shultz was outmaneuvered by rivals and bewildered by the disarray in the Reagan national security team. But with determination, multiple resignation threats, a critical assist from Nancy Reagan, and an abiding faith that trust could overcome these barriers, he slowly forged a remarkable partnership with President Reagan.
Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His biography of George Shultz, In The Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz, was published in 2023 by Stanford University Press. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. At the Times, Taubman served as a Washington correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, deputy editorial page editor, Washington bureau chief and associate editor. He is currently working on a book about Robert McNamara.
Before joining the New York Times, he worked as a correspondent for Time magazine and was sports editor of Esquire. He was a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, 1978-1982, and served as secretary of the Stanford Board, 2011-2018. He is author of The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (Harper Collins, 2012) and Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (Simon & Schuster, 2003). Taubman was a history major at Stanford, Class of 1970, and served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily in 1969.
Location
Setting: Hybrid DACOR Bacon House OR Online 1801 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 UNITED STATES
