In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz 1st Edition

The book is beautifully done, with lots of great pictures, especially the one of George Shultz as a football player. Tall and rugged looking. Wow, he had quite a life, not only as a Princeton football player, Marine, economics professor at MIT and Chicago, but on the Council of Economic Advisors under Eisenhower, Secretary of Labor and Treasury under Nixon, and Secretary of State under Reagan, plus the first director of the Office of Management and Budget, running the business school at Chicago and executive at Bechtel Corp. Whew!I was especially interested in his life at the University of Chicago with Milton Friedman and George Stigler -- I would have liked more on that in the book. It seemed that the author, a New York Times reporter, was more interested in foreign policy.Oddly enough, the author leaves out one of George Shultz's famous stories, the time in September 1971 when he and Milton Friedman spent a couple of hours in the Oval Office with President Nixon talking about wage-price controls. George Shultz was director of the Office of Management and Budget, the wage-price control board. Friedman writes about it in "Two Lucky People," p. 387:"In September 1971, after Nixon had imposed wage and price controls, George Shultz and I discussed a range of issues with him. As I was getting ready to leave, Nixon said something about wage and price controls being a monstrosity that they would get rid of as soon as they could, and then went on to say, "Don't blame George [then serving as administrator of price and wage controls] for this monstrosity." As I remember it, I replied something like, "I don't blame George. I blame you, Mr. President."That's Milton, always frank and honest.Here at Chapman U. we have a bronze bust of George Shultz along with Milton Friedman and a few other greats. It was a gift of Ginny and Peter Ueberroth, the former baseball commissioner (dedicated in 2010). I'll bet we are probably the only college campus to have a bust of George Shultz. I like the quote, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and a willingness to act in his defense."I met George once or twice out at the Mont Pelerin Society meetings several years ago. I know he was known best for his work in foreign policy, but I remember him as an economist at U of Chicago.I did notice that he and his wife did something that is seldom done any more in college life -- he invited students on the dean's list to his home at the end of each quarter for some home-cooking by his wife O'Bie.I did like how George Shultz stood up to the White House's demand that the IRS audit Nixon's enemies list. Good for him!

The sort of biography of George Shultz one would expect from a retired New York Times reporter who was stationed during his decades-long newspaper career both in Moscow and Washington, D.C.Philip Taubman's book is largely focused on what he was most interested in; that is, the political behind-the-scenes scabbles within the Reagan Administration over foreign policy, mainly as it was directed toward the USSR. And, as with many foreign policy reporters at national papers, he heavily favors the career professionals at the State Department over other competing actors on the foreign policy stage, such as Defense, CIA, and the White House's own national security operation. He definitely is ill-disposed toward hard line Cold War conservatives ranging from Jeane Kilpatrick to Richard Perle to Casper Weinberger.Little analysis (or ink) is spent on George Shultz's actual policy work at Labor, OMB, or Treasury.Sometimes reading this book I thought I was just reading the New York Times, with news articles and opinion pieces from that publication written in the 1980s repeatedly quoted. Other chapters seemed sourced from just one source; for example, chapter twelve citing Raymond Seitz's journal almost exclusively.To me, this author shoehorned a mostly favorable account of George Shultz's life into an insider's account of the Reagan/Gorbachev relationship (one carefully nurtured by Secretary Shultz) that led to the end of the Cold War.

The author had access to Shultz’ personal records and goes into details not available to anyone else. Two complaints. I wish the author had described Shultz’ background as a PhD in economics. What is a labor economist anyway and how did Shultz’ background as a labor economist prepare him for his career in pubic service.Second, the author relies almost only on the New York Times and Washington Post to establish the context in which Shultz was acting. Understandably the former NYT reporter cites the Times on every third page; however, as a historical tool it would have been good to broaden his reference to other sources.