The pragmatic diplomat who engineered the Cold War's final transition
In his November 29, 1989 Malta briefing memo, Baker wrote that Bush should project a "new pace and purpose" while leading as much as Gorbachev.
James Baker was a lawyer and Republican political operator who became central to American conservative politics through his long alliance with George H. W. Bush. After serving as treasury secretary on currency and international finance, he became secretary of state and helped manage the diplomacy of the Cold War's final years, German reunification, and the Gulf crisis. He did not treat Gorbachev's reforms as a matter of faith, weighing them against American interests and allied stability, yet he persuaded Bush to reach toward perestroika and translated that choice into the agenda and working arrangements of the 1989 Malta summit. His cautious realism slowed the inertia of confrontation while turning rapid change into negotiations that Washington could help manage.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1930Born in Houston, Texas
- 1952–1954Graduated from Princeton and served as a Marine officer
- 1957–1980Practiced corporate law in Houston
- 1981–1985White House chief of staff under President Reagan
- 1985–1988U.S. secretary of the treasury; advanced the Plaza Accord and Baker Plan
- 1989–1992U.S. secretary of state; managed the Malta summit and late-Cold War diplomacy
- 1992–1993Returned as White House chief of staff in the Bush administration
- 2010년대–Advised on public policy and international affairs
Related historical events
Private sector and elder-statesman troubleshooting (1993–2006)
After Bush's defeat in the 1992 election, Baker closed out twelve years of government service. He returned to the law firm Baker Botts as a senior partner while also joining private companies, including the Carlyle Group and Enron. Within a month of leaving the White House he became an Enron consultant, and in early 1993 he joined Carlyle. Criticism followed that he was converting his government service during the Gulf War into business opportunity: a 1993 Seymour Hersh report questioned the interests involved in Kuwaiti reconstruction work, and in 2004 his role in Carlyle's pursuit of Kuwaiti investment was noted alongside his post as a presidential envoy for Iraqi debt relief. Baker countered that he never directly solicited money from investors and only gave speeches about his government experience.
He did not, however, stay out of public affairs. In March 1997 he became the UN secretary-general's personal envoy for Western Sahara, mediating between the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front, and he resigned in June 2004, frustrated at the failure to reach a complete settlement. The so-called Baker II plan he left behind was accepted by Polisario as a basis for negotiations and unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, but Morocco rejected it.
In the 2000 Florida recount dispute he led George W. Bush's legal team. He treated the dispute as a zero-sum political fight, clashing with Al Gore's Warren Christopher, who sought terms for a bilateral investigation. That Bush's campaign had earlier wanted to avoid old hands such as Baker, only to call on him in the recount, is part of the same trajectory. In 2006 he co-chaired the congressionally formed Iraq Study Group, which issued recommendations on the course of the Iraq War.