Former Secretary of State George Shultz dies

George P. Shultz, a prominent economist who played a pivotal role in ending the Cold War, died Saturday. He was 100. Shultz served as a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor emeritus at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business at the time of his death.

What was his political legacy? Shultz worked as treasury secretary, labor secretary, and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Richard Nixon. He later served more than six years as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state. During that time, Shultz negotiated the first treaty to downsize the Soviet Union’s ground-based nuclear weapons. Although he failed to end the Middle East conflict, he successfully brokered an agreement between Israel and Lebanon during Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s and convinced Israel to withdraw its forces. He later served as an informal adviser to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000.

Shultz received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1989. He is survived by his second wife, Helena O’Brien; five children; 11 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Dig deeper: Read Mindy Belz’s report in Globe Trot on Schultz’s essay as he turned 100 in December.