The death of Secretary of State George Shultz, coming at a moment when America seeks wise leadership, reminds us of what an impact a major cabinet member can have. And also of an encounter we had with him in Detroit, where, having returned from Vietnam, we started with the Wall Street Journal and, eventually, witnessed Shultz’s capacity to puncture pomposity with his Semper Fi spirit.

Shultz was then, as best we recall, President Nixon’s treasury secretary. He was in town on such business and called a press conference at the federal building, which was across the street from the Journal’s news bureau. So we tucked a notebook in our pocket and went over at the appointed hour. There were an astonishing number of reporters present.

Nixon was by then in the heavy seas of Watergate, and various members of his administration were starting to decamp. At some point, a television reporter, with a camera crew, stands up and says to Shultz. “Mr. Secretary, a lot of people are starting to quit the administration; are you yourself going to leave, sir?” Something like that. To which Shultz replied: “Well, I am a Marine, and a Marine sticks to his post.”

The scrum of reporters was digesting this when the television guy, who had sat down, maneuvered himself back up into an upright position and said, “Well, sir. I’m a Marine, too, and when I was in the Marines, we were told, ‘A thinking Marine is a dead Marine.’” The reporters swiveled back in Shultz’s direction, where, without missing a beat, Shultz says: “I see why you survived.”

We’ve always loved that glimpse of the rapier wit that could be wielded by the normally lugubrious ex-professor turned labor secretary, budget director, treasury secretary and — later under President Reagan — Secretary of State. We never got to know him well, but we sat in on one or two of his sessions with editors, including one in which he complained about leaks. We came to have enormous regard for him.

Reagan had tapped Shultz as Secretary of State after General Al Haig, albeit a great backer of Israel, had foundered in the assignment. We ourselves had worried about Shultz at State, because Bechtel, the construction combine where he’d become president, was a big contractor in the Middle East. We feared he might take a dim view of Israel. At one point, he tried some shuttle diplomacy only to be outmaneuvered by Syria.

In the end, Shultz became greatly admired in the pro-Israel camp for his fairness and intelligence. He was with Reagan at the summit meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland, where the American president called the bluff by the Soviet party boss, Mikhail Gorbachev, who’d demanded that we abandon the Star Wars initiative. When Reagan refused, the left warned we were on the road to war. In fact, Reagan had just won the Cold War.

Shultz, it is clear, was enormously well grounded. He was said to make a point of inviting new ambassadors about to depart for their assignments into his vast office, walk them over to the globe, and spin it. As it spun he would invite them to point, as it slowed down, to their country. So the young ambassador would shortly point to wherever he or she was headed — Japan, say, or Uruguay or some other exotic spot.

“No,” Shultz would say. “That’s not your country.” Then he would spin the globe again and as it slowed he would suddenly stop it by pointing at America. “That’s your country,” he’d say. “And I don’t want you to forget it.” An excellent version of the story is told in Shultz’s obituary in Foreign Policy magazine, which cited accounts by several colleagues. We were glad to hear it, but not surprised — another reminder that there are no former Marines.

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Image: Secretary of State Shultz with President Reagan in December 1986 outside the Oval Office. White House Photographic Collection via Wikipedia.