Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State

by George P. Shultz

George Shultz has written a personal account of his years (1982-89) as secretary of state under Pres. Ronald Reagan. Not since Dean Acheson or Henry Kissinger has a former secretary of state written so articulately about the forging of foreign policy for America. When he joined the Reagan cabinet, Lebanon was at war, the arms race was escalating, terrorism was at fever pitch. Yet his determination. his use of strength in tandem with diplomacy, led to initiatives in the Middle East, transformative strategies for peace with the Soviets & increased influence in Asia, Central & S. America. There are behind-the-scenes talks with the Palestinians & Israelis, critical meetings with the Soviets, & frank discussions with the Japanese & Chinese. There's also a close-up look at the power struggle of the State Department with the staffs of the Nat'l Security Council, the White House & CIA, climaxing in the Iran-Contra affair. The events of Iran-Contra set out here are astounding. It's the first assembling of the facts from Shultz's vantage point & will provoke a reassessment of the period. He paints vivid portraits of the major players during his term in office. On the world scene: Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Deng Xiaoping, Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein & Hosni Mubarak--& on the domestic scene: Cap Weinberger, Bill Casey, George Bush, Don Regan, Ed Meese & Jim Baker. The most stunning portrayal is of Ronald Reagan. His assessment of Reagan is as revealing as it's startling. Turmoil & Triumph documents it all so it reads like high drama & living history. No other book by a member of the Reagan administration has this depth of purpose, this scope, this degree of revelation or makes contributions of such significance.

Genres: History, Politics, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, American History, Leadership

1198 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

American economist, statesman, and businessman. He served in various positions under three different Republican presidents, including Secretary of State, Treasury and Labor, as well as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
He graduated from Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. After the war, Shultz earned a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957, taking a leave of absence to take a position on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers. After serving as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he accepted President Richard Nixon's appointment to the position of United States Secretary of Labor. In that position, he imposed the Philadelphia Plan on construction contractors that refused to accept black members, marking the first use of racial quotas by the federal government. In 1970, he became the first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he served in that position until his appointment as United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1972. Shultz supported the Nixon shock, which sought to revive the ailing economy in part by abolishing the gold standard. He also presided over the end of the Bretton Woods system.
Schultz left the Nixon administration in 1974 to become an executive with Bechtel. After becoming president and director of that company, he accepted President Ronald Reagan's offer to serve as the United States Secretary of State. He held that office from 1982 to 1989. Shultz pushed for Reagan to establish relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to a thaw between the United States and the Soviet Union. He opposed the U.S. aid to the Sandinistas which led to the Iran–Contra affair.
Shultz retired from public office in 1989 but remained active in the business and political world. He is a member of the Hoover Institution, the Institute for International Economics, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and other groups.

Reviews

[Frank Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shutlz is on the last great American leaders. He's dedicated himself to the United States, to educating the future leaders of our country and his brilliance is found in abundance here in the pages of his memoir (which I just got around to reading). An important read to helping to understand the the Reagan era and all that was achieved under his visionary presidency.

[Anne Cupero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written as you should expect (previous to this current administration) from a well-educated former Secretary of two Cabinet positions. I read it to learn though, and what I learned though is that the Iran-Contra hearings were no more than a blip in the radar of Reagan's administration. And that Reagan was fully in charge of his faculties at the end of his second term which I have heard differently from MANY other sources. I suppose I should have expected it to be biased, as any memoir can be. Maybe I expected too much, but the counts of all the missiles got tiring, and yes, the Russian meetings were amazing, but that was due more to Gorbachev than to Reagan.

[Ignas · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important read

[The_J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive in both scope and depth of a world explored and transformed under Reagan's rule. My first Memoir where history was MY History.

[Melaniearoberts78 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great insight into the Reagan years

[Andrew Burin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could very well be used as a textbook or supplementary text to anybody studying the Cold War, the Reagan Administration, or the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Shultz writes clearly, and well. The book is an engaging combination of solid historical background, firsthand accounts of what responding to various crises (Middle East to Central America to the Soviet Union to Iran-Contra) was like for Secretary Shultz, as well as some potentially interesting information on the astonishing amount of infighting, backstabbing, and internecine warfare that occurred from 1982-1988, mainly between the State Department, CIA, National Security Council, various military figures, and the Department of Defense.

Shultz paints himself as a principled man committed to honesty, integrity, and promoting the true policies of Ronald Reagan at any cost, and from the opinions of other foreign policy experts and statesmen, I take it that he truly was an exceptional Secretary of State. Some of the more fascinating chapters for me focused on initial interactions upon the arrival of Gorbachev as General Secretary of the USSR, tense hostage negotiations involving a TWA flight in Lebanon, and countless heated interactions with various emissaries from Israel, Russia and the whole gamut of states.

I was personally a little overwhelmed and even bored by the focus on interactions b/w the State Department, CIA, and NSC as they all fought for the attention of Ronald Reagan, but political junkies who love reading about the personalities of our former leaders might very well eat it up. Reagan is clearly not a flawless man or a perfect leader as is evident by the results of his domestic policy as well as his handling of certain situations as described by Shultz, but it is clear that any comparison to our current pres. (Trump) is doing a big favor to Donnie and a huge disservice to Ronald Reagan.