George Shultz Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
On a hot summer night in August, leaders from Silicon Valley met in Menlo Park to commemorate the lifetime achievements of former Secretary of State George Shultz. The gathering was hosted by the conservative organization Lead21, a group dedicated to providing a forum for business and community leaders to engage with politics and public policy.
Lead21 is a relatively young organization that was founded in 2001 which aims to fill the gap between collegiate Republican groups and Republican groups that cater to older people. Many members are in their 20s and 30s.
There are a range of political views within Lead21, from dyed-in-the-wool Republicans to Republican-leaning independents and libertarians. Being Republican is not a requirement for membership in the organization.
As a political, academic, and business leader, George Shultz epitomizes the goals of Lead21. Under President Richard Nixon, Shultz served as Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1970 to 1972, and Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974. Shultz is currently a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution and an emeritus professor of international economics at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He was formerly a professor at the University of Chicago from 1957 to 1968. In the business community, Shultz is a member of the board of directors of Bechtel Group, Fremont Group, Gilead Sciences, and Charles Schwab & Co. He received the country’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, in 1989.
Annual Event Chair and Board Member Jefferson Lilly presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Secretary of State of California Bruce McPherson presented him with an honorary Proclamation from the State of California and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Before he received his awards, Secretary Shultz was invited to speak to the audience of several hundred people. He was introduced by Peter Thiel, President of the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management, co-founder of PayPal, and co-founder of The Stanford Review in 1987.
Secretary Shultz spoke on the theme of leadership. While he admitted having observed many great leaders during his lifetime, he singled out former President Ronald Reagan as exemplifying the leadership qualities Shultz found most important.
“I think the really great leaders have a capability to think for themselves; they listen; they take in information; and they stick by their conclusion whether keeping with conventional wisdom or not,” observed Secretary Shultz.
Shultz is perhaps most famously known for serving under Ronald Reagan as Secretary of State between 1982 and 1989. He called attention to the recently published book Reagan: A Life in Letters edited by Kiron Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson as an excellent source of insight into Reagan’s thinking. “How come he was so steadfast?” queried Shultz. “He understood why he thought what he thought.”
As an example of Reagan’s steadfastness in spite of conventional wisdom, Shultz referred to Reagan’s Westminster speech of 1982. In this speech Reagan spoke on the values of freedom and predicted that communism would end up on the ash-heap of history. “He was tut tutted much like the current President Bush is.”
“[Reagan] took the road less traveled and turned out to be right.”
In 1980 Freedom House listed the number of free countries at 38 and the number of partly free countries at 17. By 1990 the number of free countries had risen to 56 and the number of partly free countries had risen to 28. Shultz used this statistic to argue that it’s not impossible for countries to change and for freedom to prevail.
If countries can change to embrace freedom, then the Bay Area can also change to embrace Republicanism. Striking a cord with the audience Shultz confessed, “It’s pretty tough here in the Bay Area.” To much applause, he expressed optimism that “in the end people will start coming our way; you’ll see.”
Shultz continued his remarks discussing several major issues facing the United States. He declared, “We all know that the worst thing that can happen is nuclear war.” Shultz recalled Reagan’s efforts to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons. He recalled the Gorbachev-Reagan Reykjavik talks of 1986 in which Reagan held fast in his demands to retain the Strategic Defense Initiative while pushing for large cuts in nuclear weapons.
One result was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by Gorbachev and Reagan in 1987, which eliminated intermediate and short-range missiles in both the United States and the Soviet Union. Shultz intoned, “Don’t we all wish he had been able to go further.”
Another threat facing the United States was brought to light again in the wake of hurricane Katrina—the importance of oil and gas supplies. Shultz wondered, “How many times do we have to be hit on the head with a 2”x4” to realize that we are vulnerable?”
Shultz maintains that there are compelling environmental, economic, and national security reasons for developing alternative forms of energy to oil and gas. “We need to make ourselves less dependent on Middle East oil,” Shultz stressed. He called upon the members of Lead21 to take the lead in the twenty-first century in developing the technology to address this issue.
Shultz concluded his address by reading the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, which he referenced numerous times throughout the evening. The poem concludes, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.”
