Paul Nitze | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 12thUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense | |
| In office July 1, 1967 – January 20, 1969 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Cyrus Vance |
| Succeeded by | David Packard |
| 58thUnited States Secretary of the Navy | |
| In office November 29, 1963 – June 30, 1967 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Fred Korth |
| Succeeded by | Paul Ignatius |
| Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs | |
| In office January 29, 1961 – November 29, 1963 | |
| President | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | John N. Irwin II |
| Succeeded by | William Bundy |
| 2ndDirector of Policy Planning | |
| In office January 1, 1950[1] – May 28, 1953 | |
| President | Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | George F. Kennan |
| Succeeded by | Robert R. Bowie |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Paul Henry Nitze (1907-01-16)January 16, 1907 Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | October 19, 2004(2004-10-19) (aged 97) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 4 |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) |
Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was an American businessman and government official who served asUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense,U.S. Secretary of the Navy, andDirector of Policy Planning for theU.S. State Department. He is best known for being the principal author ofNSC 68 and the co-founder ofTeam B. He helped shape U.S.Cold War defense policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations.[2]
Nitze was born inAmherst, Massachusetts, the son of Anina Sophia (Hilken), a homemaker, and William Albert Nitze, a professor ofRomance linguistics who concluded his career at theUniversity of Chicago.[3][4] His parents were both ofGerman descent. Hisancestors came from the region ofMagdeburg in thestate ofSaxony-Anhalt,Germany. In his memoir,From Hiroshima to Glasnost, Paul Nitze describes how as a young boy he witnessed the outbreak ofWorld War I while he was traveling in Germany with his father, mother, and sister, arriving inMunich just in time to be struck by the city crowds' patriotic enthusiasm for the imminent conflict.
Nitze attendedThe Hotchkiss School, where he was a member of the class of 1924 and theUniversity of Chicago Laboratory Schools. He graduated fromHarvard University in 1928 and entered the field ofinvestment banking.
In 1928 and 1929, theChicagobrokerage firm of Bacon, Whipple and Company sent Nitze to Europe. Upon his return, he heardClarence Dillon predict theGreat Depression and the decline of the importance of finance. Having attained financial independence through the sale toRevlon of his interest in a French laboratory producing pharmaceutical products in the United States, Nitze took an intellectual sabbatical that included a year of graduate study at Harvard insociology,philosophy, andconstitutional andinternational law. In 1929 he joined investment bankDillon, Read & Co. where he remained until founding his own firm, P. H. Nitze & Co, in 1938. He returned to Dillon, Read as Vice-President from 1939 through to 1941.[5]
In 1932, he married Phyllis Pratt, daughter ofJohn Teele Pratt, aStandard Oil financier, and ofRuth Baker Pratt, Republican Congresswoman for New York. She died in 1987. They had four children: Heidi, Peter, William, and Phyllis Anina (Nina). The journalistNicholas Thompson, who wrote a biography of Nitze andGeorge F. Kennan, is his grandson.[6] He was married to Elisabeth Scott Porter from 1993 until his death in 2004.
Nitze's brother-in-law,Walter Paepcke, founded theAspen Institute andAspen Skiing Company. Nitze continued to ski in Aspen until well into his 80s.
Nitze entered government service duringWorld War II after having been hired by his Wall Street colleagueJames Forrestal when Forrestal became an administrative assistant to PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. In 1942, he became finance director of theOffice of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs,[7] working forNelson Rockefeller. In 1943 he became chief of the Metals and Minerals Branch of theBoard of Economic Warfare, until he was named director, Foreign Procurement and Development Branch of theForeign Economic Administration later that year. From 1944 to 1946, Nitze served as director and then as Vice Chairman of theStrategic Bombing Survey for which PresidentHarry S. Truman awarded him theLegion of Merit. One of his early government assignments was to visitAllied-occupied Japan in the immediate aftermath of theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and assess the damage. This experience framed many of his later feelings about the power ofnuclear weapons and the necessity ofarms control.
In the earlypostwar era and Cold War, he served in the Truman Administration asDirector of Policy Planning for the State Department (1950–1953). He was also the principal author in 1950 of the highly influential but secretNational Security Councilpolicy paper,NSC 68, which provided the strategic outline for increased US expenditures to counter the perceived threat ofSoviet armament. During theKorean War, he advised theTruman administration against blaming the Soviet Union for the conflict too directly in order to avoid risking an escalation toWorld War III.[8]
From 1953 to 1961, Nitze served as president of theForeign Service Educational Foundation while concurrently serving as associate of theWashington Center of Foreign Policy Research and theSchool of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of theJohns Hopkins University. In 1956 he attended theProject Nobskaanti-submarine warfare conference, where discussion ranged fromoceanography to nuclear weapons.[9]
Nitze co-founded theSchool of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) withChristian Herter in 1943 and the world-renowned graduate school, based inWashington, D.C., is named in his honor. His publications during this period includeU.S. Foreign Policy: 1945–1955. In 1961, PresidentKennedy appointed Nitze Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. In 1963, Nitze became theSecretary of the Navy, serving until 1967. According to the US Navy[10] "as the Navy secretary, he raised the level of attention given to quality of Service issues. His many achievements included establishing the first Personnel Policy Board and retention task force (the Alford Board), and obtaining targeted personnel bonuses. He lengthened commanding officer tours and raised command responsibility pay."
Following his term as Secretary of the Navy, he served as Deputy Secretary of Defense (1967–1969), as a member of the US delegation to theStrategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) (1969–1973). Later, fearing Soviet rearmament, he opposed the ratification ofSALT II (1979).
Paul Nitze was a cofounder ofTeam B, a 1970s intelligencethink tank that challenged theNational Intelligence Estimates provided by theCIA. The Team B reports became the intellectual foundation for the idea of "thewindow of vulnerability" and of the massive arms buildup that began toward the end of theCarter administration and accelerated under PresidentRonald Reagan. Team B came to the conclusion that the Soviets had developed newweapons of mass destruction and had aggressive strategies with regard to a potentialnuclear war. Team B's analysis of Soviet weapon systems was later believed to be largely exaggerated.
According toAnne Cahn of theArms Control and Disarmament Agency (1977–1980), "if you go through most of Team B's specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong." Nonetheless, some still claim that its conclusions about Soviet strategical aims were largely proven to be true, but this hardly squares with the elevation ofGorbachev in 1985.[11]Nitze was PresidentRonald Reagan's chief negotiator of theIntermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1981–1984). In 1984, Nitze was named Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control.
For more than forty years, Nitze was one of the chief architects ofUS policy toward the Soviet Union.
In 1985 President Reagan awarded Nitze thePresidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the freedom and security of the United States.[12]
In 1986, he received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[13][14]
In 1989, Nitze received the US SenatorJohn Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually byJefferson Awards.[15]
In 1991, he was awarded the prestigiousUnited States Military Academy'sSylvanus Thayer Award for his commitment to the Academy's ideals of "Duty, Honor, Country".[16][6]
In 1997, Nitze was awarded the Naval Heritage Award by the US Navy Memorial Foundation for his support of the US Navy while he was Secretary of the Navy.[citation needed]
Nitze died inWashington, D.C., at age 97 in October 2004.[17]
Awards Council member and statesman Paul H. Nitze presents the Golden Plate Award to Ben Bradlee during the 1988 Achievement Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.
This article incorporatespublic domain text from theUnited States Navy.
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Paul B. Fay (acting) | Secretary of the Navy November 29, 1963 – June 30, 1967 | Succeeded by Charles F. Baird (acting) |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | United States Deputy Secretary of Defense 1967–1969 | Succeeded by |
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