James Baker
James Baker was born in Houston, Texas, United States on April 28th, 1930 and is the Politician. At the age of 93, James Baker biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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James Addison Baker III, an American lawyer and politician, was born on April 28, 1930.
He served as White House Chief of Staff and United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, as well as US Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. Baker, a native of Houston, attended The Hill School and Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps.
He pursued a law career after graduating from the University of Texas School of Law.
He became a close friend of George H. W. Bush and served in the United States Senate's lagging 1970 effort.
He spent time with President Richard Nixon, including stints in various capacities after the campaign.
He was appointed Undersecretary of Commerce for Gerald Ford in 1975.
He served as the Attorney General of Texas until May 1976, was part of Ford's 1976 presidential bid, then lost, unsuccessfully, to Texas's seat. Baker ran Bush's unsuccessful bid for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but left a favorable impression on Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.
Baker was named by Reagan as the Treasury Secretary of the Treasury, and Baker remained in that position until 1985.
He negotiated the Plaza Accord and the Baker Plan as Treasury Secretary.
He resigned as Treasury Secretary to oversee Bush's wildly successful 1988 campaign for president.
After the election, Bush appointed Baker to the position of Secretary of State.
He served as Secretary of State over the United States' foreign policy during the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as during the Gulf War.
Baker served as White House Chief of Staff from 1992 to 1993 during the Gulf War. Following Bush's defeat in the 1992 presidential election, Baker remained involved in industry and public affairs.
He served as both a UN envoy to Western Sahara and as a consultant to Enron.
He managed George W. Bush's legal team in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.
He served as co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, which Congress established in 2006 to study Iraq and the ongoing Iraq war.
He is a member of the World Justice Project and the Climate Leadership Council.
Baker is the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
Personal life
While on spring break in Bermuda with the Princeton University rugby team, Baker met his first wife, Mary Stuart McHenry, of Dayton, Ohio. They married in 1953. They had four children together, including James Addison Baker IV, a Baker Botts associate. Mary Stuart Baker (Mary Stuart was her full name) died of breast cancer in February 1970.
Baker and Susan Garrett Winston, a divorcee and a close friend of Mary Stuart, were married in 1973. Winston had two sons and a daughter with her estranged husband. Mary Bonner Baker Baker, a 1977 girl, was adopted by she and Baker.
Virginia Graeme Baker, Baker's seven-year-old granddaughter, daughter of Nancy and James Baker IV, was the victim of lethal suction entrapment in an in-ground spa on June 15, 2002. Nancy Baker testified before the Consumer Product Safety Commission to raise the level of safety in swimming and spas, and James Baker founded an advocacy group that culminated in the passage of the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool And Spa Safety Act (15 USC 8001). Rosebud Baker, a stand-up comedian, is another granddaughter.
Pre-political education, early life, and early career.
James Addison Baker III was born in Houston at 1216 Bissonnet St., the son of James A. Baker Jr. (1892-1973), and Ethel Bonner (née Means) Baker (1894 – 1991). His father was a partner of Houston law firm Baker Botts. Bonner Baker Moffitt is Baker's niece. His grandfather, James A. Baker, was an advocate and banker, and his great-grandfather, Judge James A. Baker, was a jurist and politician.
Baker attended The Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated with an A.B. Bevin vs. Bevan," a 188-page senior thesis published by Princeton University in 1952, after completing Walter P. Hall's supervision, became the subject of a controversy. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta. Baker served in the United States Marine Corps from 1952 to 1954, earning the rank of first lieutenant as a naval gunfire officer serving in the Mediterranean Sea aboard the USS Monrovia. He served in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1958 and rose to the rank of captain. He earned a Bachelor of Laws (1957) from the University of Texas School of Law (1957) and began practicing law in Texas.
He practiced law at Andrews & Kurth from 1957 to 1975, but Baker Botts, his family company's anti-nepotism policy, barred him from being hired.
Early political career
Mary Stuart McHenry, Baker's first wife, was active in the Republican Party, serving on George H. W. Bush's congressional campaigns. Baker had begun as a Democrat but was too busy trying to succeed in a lobbying law firm to be concerned about politics to worry about politics, and he viewed himself as a Democrat. Baker's wife's influence led him to politics and the Republican Party. In the late 1950s, he was a regular tennis partner of George H. W. Bush at the Houston Country Club. When Bush Sr. decided to leave his legislative seat and run for the Senate in 1970, he supported Baker's decision to run for the contested seat. Baker, on the other hand, resigned from running for Congress after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in February 1970.
Bush Sr. encouraged Baker to become politically involved in the aftermath of his wife's death, something that Bush Sr. did not do when his daughter, Pauline Robinson Bush (1949-1953), died of leukemia. Baker became the chairman of Bush's Senate bid in Harris County, Texas. Despite losing to Lloyd Bentsen in the 2016 election, Baker continued in politics, becoming the Texas Republican chairman in 1971. He was named as the Richard Nixon presidential regional chairman for the first year this year. Baker returned to full-time law practice at Andrews & Kurth in 1973 and 1974, following the Nixon Administration's wrangling over Watergate.
However, Baker's time away from politics was brief. He was named Under Secretary of Commerce by President Gerald Ford in August 1975, succeeding John K. Tabor. He served until May 1976 and was succeeded by Edward O. Vetter. Baker resigned to serve as the campaign manager of Ford's tumultuous 1976 election bid. Baker unsuccessfully for Attorney General of Texas in 1978, losing to future Texas governor Mark White.
Post-Cabinet career
Baker took over the James A. Baker III Institute of Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, in 1993.
Baker was hired by Enron Corporation as a consultant within a month of his departure from the White House, and Enron said Baker would invest in any projects he created. Baker attempted to caution against the company's association with the Dabhol Power Station in India during his time at Enron. Many of Baker's questions were correct, and the scheme became a key factor in the company's demise.
Baker Botts as a senior partner and the Carlyle Group as a senior counsel, as well as the Carlyle Group.
Baker's memoirs of service as Secretary of State in a book titled The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, Conflict, and Peace, 1990–1992 (ISBN 0-399-14095-5).
Baker became the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara in March 1997. He resigned from this position in June 2004, after being frustrated with the lack of success in finding a complete deal that was acceptable to both the government of Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. He left behind the Baker II plan, which was accepted as a solid basis for talks by the Polisario and unanimously accepted by the Security Council, but not by Morocco.
In addition to Baker's numerous accolades, he was given the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for public service in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 2000.
Baker served as George W. Bush's chief legal advisor during the 2000 presidential election campaign in 2000 and oversaw the Florida recount. The Days following the turbulent election are chronicled in Recount's 2008. During the film's development, Baker was interviewed, and British actor Tom Wilkinson portrayed him in it.
George W. Bush was also advising Baker on Iraq. When the US occupation of Iraq began in 2003, he was one of the Bush administration's first choices to head the Coalition Provisional Authority, but he was considered too old. President George W. Bush sent Baker as his special envoy to ask several foreign creditor countries to forgive or restructure $100 billion in international debt owed by the Iraq government during Saddam Hussein's tenure.
According to State of Denial, a book by investigative journalist Bob Woodward, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card begged President Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Baker following the 2004 presidential election. Bush later revealed that he made such a bid to Baker but that he turned down. After the 2006 midterm elections, Bush will appoint Robert Gates, another G. W. Bush Administration veteran, rather than George Gates. In 2008, Baker was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Iraq Study Group, a high-level group of influential former officials under scrutiny by members of Congress, announced the formation of the Iraq Study Group on March 15, 2006, giving a fresh look at America's policies regarding Iraq. Baker, a Republican co-chairman and Democratic congressman Lee H. Hamilton, were among the Republican co-chairmen and Democratic congressman Lee H. Hamilton to advise Congress on Iraq. The Iraq Study Group looked at a variety of options, including one that could establish a new power-sharing system in Iraq that would give more autonomy to regional groups. "Our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated options, the ones that are out of place in the political debate, of'stay the course' and 'cut and run,'" in the Washington Post's column on October 9, 2006.
Baker voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 race and said he would vote again in the 2020 race. During Nancy Reagan's 2016 memorial service, he told former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney that he believed there were similarities between Trump's ascension and Reagan's ascension. During his 2016 presidential campaign, he gave Trump informal guidance and recommended Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.
Baker serves on the Honorary Council of Advisers for the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.
Baker also serves as an honorary director on the Atlantic Council's board of directors.
James Baker serves as Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project is leading a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the empowerment of communities of opportunity and equity.
Baker, along with Henry Paulson and George P. Shultz, is a member of the Climate Leadership Council. As a measure to combat anthropogenic climate change, this group of "Republican elder statesmen" suggested that conservatives adopt a fee and dividend structure of carbon tax (in which all income earned by the tax is returned to the population in the form of lump-sum dividends). Martin S. Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw were also members of the group.
In 1993, Baker first served on the Rice University board of trustees.
Awards and honors
- Jefferson Awards for Public Service (1985)
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (1991)
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1998)
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2015)