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Though among the lesser-known members of Nixon's Cabinet, George Shultz, 48, is highly regarded by labor, management and academe as an arbitrator, administrator and scholar. When the quiet, pipe-smoking father of five was made dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business in 1962, a colleague commented that it was "the first time the faculty ever unanimously agreed on anything."
Shultz was graduated cum laude in 1942 from Princeton, where he was a scrappy halfback on the Tiger football team. After wartime Marine Corps service, he earned his Ph.D. from M.I.T., and from 1955 to 1962 was an adviser to two Administrations on fiscal and labor matters.
In presenting his Labor Secretary last week, Nixon described him as "a man who may be able to mediate some of these devastating labor-management crises before they come to the strikes that paralyze our economy." For his part, the greying, soft-spoken professor dislikes Government interference even in major disputes, but "deplores" the trend toward strikes by public employees. A moderate Republican with a catholic concern for social problems, Shultz has long urged business and labor to assume more responsible personnel practices. At Chicago, he pioneered a successful "Careers for Blacks in Management" program, which each year offers eleven scholarships to Negroes, providing tutoring when necessary.
Treasury
When cocktails are passed, David Matthew Kennedy, 63, always orders gin and tonic. Then, with a sly wink, the teetotaling banker instructs the waiter to "skip the gin." A strict Mormon, like his old friend George Romney, Kennedy is also an internationally known fiscal expert as well as one of the nation's most astute and aggressive bankers.
Kennedy had originally decided to make the law his profession and got his degree at night school, but the Depression persuaded him that finance was likely to be a more compelling occupation. He learned the business at the Federal Reserve Board, took a graduate degree at Rutgers, then joined Chicago's Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Co. Rising to president, then chairman, Kennedy peeled the starch off the old institution, returned it to its former first position among Chicago's banks and eighth place nationwide.
Kennedy bristles when he is described as a fiscal conservative. He was at least conservative enough in 1965, though, to turn down Lyndon Johnson when the President offered Kennedy the top Treasury job. His reasons can be found in a message to the bank's stockholders last January: "We are discovering—I hope—that we cannot simultaneously fight a major war, provide economic and military assistance to many other countries and still expect to expand our activities at home." Kennedy has long been a leading critic of unwieldy budget deficits and the unfavorable U.S. balance of payments.
Health, Education and Welfare