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George Shultz, secretary of State who shaped foreign policy in the Cold War, dies at 100

• Yahoo

George P. Shultz, who as secretary of State in the 1980s shaped U.S. foreign policy in the closing phase of the Cold War when a dangerous nuclear-armed stalemate gave way to peaceful — if not quite cordial — relations between the superpowers, died Saturday. He was 100.

Shultz's tenure as President Reagan's chief diplomat, from 1982 to 1989, came after he served in three Cabinet-level posts in the Nixon administration: Treasury secretary, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Labor secretary.

Shultz died at his home on the Stanford University campus, Jeff Marschner, director of media relations at Stanford's Hoover Institution, said Sunday.

Shultz spent his later years in the Bay Area as a Republican Party elder statesman, teaching economics at Stanford. He was one of the nation's most prominent advocates of reducing the risks of nuclear war.

Shultz was also outspoken on climate change. In a break with the Trump administration, he joined another former secretary of State, James A. Baker III, in calling for a carbon tax on oil, natural gas and coal to discourage the burning of fossil fuels.

An economic advisor to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shultz was one of the many Republican establishment figures who resisted Donald Trump's rise to the presidency.

In keeping with the diplomatic demeanor of a former secretary of State, he avoided direct criticism of Trump, but a burst of candor a few months before the 2016 election made his opinion clear: "God help us," he told reporters.


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