A Composite of Experience

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Down in the pit of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearing room, Photographer Roddey Mims hunched over and squinted through his Nikon view finder at George Shultz, Secretary of State-designate. As Mims cranked off frames of the imperturbable Shultz through two days of testimony, the cameraman concluded that he had not seen such an open and luminescent pate since the days of Dean Rusk or such a noble double chin since Henry Kissinger used to come around to explain the world.

What Mims saw and recorded in his way was what all 17 committee Senators who probed and then unanimously recommended Shultz had sensed. Namely, that he was a very different man from his predecessor, Alexander Haig, and that he would bring a new texture to the conduct of American foreign policy.

At this point no one can be sure whether the Shultz era will enhance this nation's ability to influence world events, but hope in that committee room was rampant. Chairman Charles Percy of Illinois leaned over the huge horseshoe desk when Shultz had gone and the committee room was clearing and said there had been nothing quite like Shultz in the past 20 years. The thing that most impressed Percy was "his marvelous background in economics." Shultz, a Ph.D. economist, is the first of that breed to preside over America's diplomacy. Economics, Percy believes, lies at the heart of modern statecraft. "And Shultz is not a turf fighter," concluded Percy, referring to Haig's terminal impulse to battle over every perk.

From afar, the good wishes and high hopes were just as fervent. Kissinger, who watched the confirmation sessions on television, said, "We may have struck gold this time." Kissinger believes that this is a season for a Secretary of State to "ask the right questions instead of always having the 'right' answers." Shultz's strategic silences were as encouraging as his words.

Indeed, Shultz represents something quite new in a modern Secretary of State. He is a composite of experience instead of the product of a single discipline. He is a Princeton football player who studied economics at M.I.T., immigrated to the prairie intellectual commune at the University of Chicago, went in and out of Government, academe and politics, and finally contended in the international corporate arena. Kissinger was a pure academic. The blue blood of the Council on Foreign Relations coursed through Lawyer Cy Vance. Ed Muskie of Maine was the pol in striped pants. And Haig was the general on parade.

Lloyd Cutler, who served Jimmy Carter as counsel and advised Shultz during the hearings, sees his new client as a latter-day exemplar of an old American staple, the true citizen-statesman. "Political candidacy is about the only thing that George has missed in his experience," says Cutler. "The revolving-door dimension he brings is something good. By being in Government, his role in private life was enhanced. By being in the private sector, his role in Government is enhanced."

While the Senators who quizzed Shultz seemed worried about his eight-year tenure with Bechtel, the giant international construction firm, the weight of his testimony suggested that his experience there would be extremely valuable. One of the strongest points about Shultz was that he was coming in from the real marketplace where his job depended on organizing nations, peoples and materials into projects that actually work. His success rested on competence, good will and persuasion, not threats or drama. Said Kissinger: "George learned from Bechtel the interdependence of the world and how to get along in it." The Bechtel connection added to a man of Shultz's character may mean a unique dividend for the nation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.