I knew
George Shultz intimately during the Nixon years. Shultz was Secretary of
the Treasury under Richard Nixon first and then he was Secretary of State
under Ronald Reagan. Way back when, he was a Professor at the University
of Chicago and he specialized in labor economics. If memory serves me correctly
he was an Assistant Secretary of Labor at one time, also. In short he had
Potomac fever of the worst kind!
As I have said in my brief comments about Chuck Colson, Shultz objected violently to my being the "Principal Economic Spokesman" for Richard Nixon in the 1972 Presidential campaign and did his best to stop it. He (and Herbert Stein) failed because Chuck Colson disliked Shultz and besides, Richard Nixon wanted me.
I did not know anybody in Washington D.C. who was more political, mean spirited, dour and vicious than George Shultz. He knew and pulled every political trick in the books. It was not beneath him to circumvent the President's wishes if those wishes did not suit him for personal reasons. He cared only about himself and his interests came first and foremost above and beyond everybody else. His only interests were his own interests!
I had so many bad experiences with George Shultz I don't even know where to begin! My all-time favorite, however, has to do with an incident during the 1972 Presidential campaign. President Nixon told George Shultz and myself that he wanted us both to appear at an affair in Florida on his behalf and Air force 1 would transport us to the meeting. George Shultz was in Washington, DC, of course and I was in New York. In order for me to meet with Shultz I would have to take the shuttle to Washington DC and then go to the Air Force base for Air Force 1. In other words I needed advance notice of when we would leave!
On the day before we were supposed to appear on the President's behalf at 08:00 the next day in Florida I was notified by the office of George Shultz that the trip had been canceled 8 (yes eight) times and put back on! I received a phone call at my house in New York at midnight saying that Air Force 1 was leaving in 1/2 hour and could I be there to go to Florida with Shultz!
In other words he pulled every trick in the books so as to achieve what he wanted. He totally and completely ignored the wishes of the President and made sure that he and I would not and did not appear together. I wonder to this day what lies he told President Nixon about why I did not go with him?
There was no limits to his game playing for his own benefit. I had written a most serious and private report for President Reagan in mid-1982 regarding the way we could bring about an internal revolution in the Soviet Union (about which few, if any, know the real details) and the techniques to cause them to destroy themselves. Nobody but nobody got a copy of that report except the President and we made sure that the one copy went right into the hands of the President. About 4 months after the President got my report I got a letter from George Shultz asking for a copy of the report which I sent him. I got a response from Shultz and the response made it appear that I had sent him a copy of the report voluntarily and that he had not asked for the report!
I met him by accident as he was walking out of the airport here in Nantucket, MA and called out "George Shultz!" at which he stopped (the people with him kept on walking and did not stop), turned around, walked a few feet, shook my hand and never said one word except "Pierre Rinfret, my God!". He did not chat, did not say anything. I ruined his visit here, I am sure and delighted to have done so.
He is pompous, self-righteous, arrogant and a political hack who got far by standing for nothing but able to play the political game to a farethewell! He is one of the major reasons I never wanted a cabinet position with the Nixon group, meeting them would have made me sick to my stomach constantly and I would not have been able to hold down any food, ever!
Now you have a vague idea of what politicians are really like. They are human horrors!
These are the backgrounds of
prominent people I have known. The backgrounds may be incomplete or they
may be wrong. I am working from memory and the backgrounds I give you are
from my personal (not book) knowledge. This is their backgrounds as I knew
them. I have not checked out the details and the backgrounds are incomplete
but they do jell with my knowledge of them and my experiences with them.
