Why George P. Shultz was the best recent secretary of state

Shultz, center, walking with President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush upon his arrival at the White House in Washington, after two days of arms talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva. — Filepic/AP

WHEN foreign policy scholars list the best secretaries of state of the last half-century, the usual choices are Henry A. Kissinger, the brilliant but amoral strategist who arranged Richard M. Nixon’s opening to China, and James A. Baker III, the deft tactician who helped George H.W. Bush complete the process of ending the Cold War.

But there’s another candidate – and, in my view, a stronger one – for the most consequential diplomat of modern times: George P. Shultz, who died Saturday at the age of 100.