January 15, 2023

In The Nation’s Service: The Life And Times Of George P. Shultz - A Conversation With Condoleezza Rice And Philip Taubman | Hoover Institution

54 minutes

The Hoover Institution and The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) host In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz - A Conversation with Condoleezza Rice and Philip Taubman on Wednesday, January 11, 2023 from 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM PT.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The definitive biography of a distinguished public servant, who as US Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, was pivotal in steering the great powers toward the end of the Cold War.

Deftly solving critical but intractable national and global problems was the leitmotif of George Pratt Shultz's life. No one at the highest levels of the United States government did it better or with greater consequence in the last half of the 20th century, often against withering resistance. His quiet, effective leadership altered the arc of history. While political, social, and cultural dynamics have changed profoundly since Shultz served at the commanding heights of American power in the 1970s and 1980s, his legacy and the lessons of his career have even greater meaning now that the Shultz brand of conservatism has been almost erased in the modern Republican Party.

This book, from longtime New York Times Washington reporter Philip Taubman, restores the modest Shultz to his central place in American history. Taubman reveals Shultz's gift for forging relationships with people and then harnessing the rapport to address national and international challenges, under his motto "trust is the coin of the realm"—as well as his difficulty standing up for his principles, motivated by a powerful sense of loyalty that often trapped him in inaction. Based on exclusive access to Shultz's personal papers, housed in a sealed archive at the Hoover Institution, In the Nation's Service offers a remarkable insider account of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the statesman who played a pivotal role in unwinding the Cold War.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and its Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold this position.

Philip Taubman is a lecturer at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining CISAC, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues and serving as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief. He is the author of The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012) and Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003). He is a Stanford graduate.

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