105 Facts About James Baker

James Baker considered running for the US House of Representatives in Houston and did run a failed 1978 campaign for Texas Attorney General, but he otherwise remained in appointed positions for his career.

James Baker ran Bush's unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but after Bush joined the Republican ticket under Ronald Reagan, James Baker became an asset to the incoming president.

James Baker resigned as treasury secretary with some trepidation to manage Bush's successful 1988 campaign for president.

James Baker remained active in business and public affairs after Bush's defeat in the 1992 presidential election.

James Baker served as a United Nations envoy to Western Sahara and as a consultant to Enron.

James Baker served as the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, which Congress formed in 2006 to study Iraq and the ongoing Iraq War.

James Addison Baker III was born at 1216 Bissonnet Street in Houston.

James Baker's father, James A Baker Jr, was a partner of Houston law firm Baker Botts, which was founded by Baker's great-grandfather in 1871.

James Baker's father was a strict figure who used corporal punishment, becoming known as "The Warden" by James Baker and his friends.

James Baker was born eighteen months before his only sibling, his sister Bonner James Baker Moffitt.

James Baker attended the private preparatory academy the Kinkaid School in Houston, where his father was chairman of the board, until 1946.

In 1952, Baker completed his history degree with a 188-page senior thesis, titled "Two Sides of the Conflict: Bevin vs Bevan," under the supervision of Walter P Hall.

James Baker went on active duty with the Marines from his graduation in 1952 to 1954.

James Baker instead requested to be assigned as a naval gunfire spotter.

James Baker remained in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1958, rising to the rank of captain.

James Baker considered attending law school in the northeast, but chose the University of Texas due to his family connection and greater compatibility with a Texas-based law career.

In November 1953, while enlisted, James Baker married his first wife and sired his first child soon after.

Bill, James Baker received a monthly allowance from his father to help him support his wife and child while in school.

The firm had implemented a no-nepotism rule, which would have prevented James Baker from working there while his father still did.

James Baker's clients included Petro-Tex Chemical Corporation, Con Edison, and the oil-rich heirs of Shanghai Pierce.

When James Baker wanted to buy a parcel of poorly developed South Texas land in 1968, his father refused to put up his money, feeling that the property offered little value.

Since James Baker's father was, at that point, struggling with Parkinson's disease, his mother decided to grant James Baker the money over his father's objections.

James Baker named the land "Rockpile Ranch" in deference to his father's doubts.

James Baker was a registered Democrat in one-party Texas, but he wrote in the memoir that he consistently voted for the Republican presidential candidate.

James Baker supported Bush socially during his failed 1964 Senate campaign against Ralph Yarborough and in his successive successful House campaigns, but not actively.

Bush encouraged James Baker to run as his replacement in the House.

James Baker strongly considered the opportunity for some weeks, since he had grown bored with routine and would have an almost certain safe seat.

James Baker decided not to run to avoid campaigning as his wife's cancer grew worse.

James Baker died in February 1970, shortly after Baker decided not to run.

James Baker chaired Bush's operation in Harris County, fundraising and coordinating support.

James Baker received and rejected an offer to be the assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, due to the continuing Watergate Scandal.

James Baker continued to work at Andrews Kurth before he received an appointment as Under Secretary of Commerce under Rogers Morton.

James Baker was a key figure in pushing for protectionist policy toward Chinese textiles, over the objections of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

James Baker was an occasional resource for political judgment in the campaign, including in the lead-up to Ford's loss to Reagan in the Texas primary.

Shortly after the convention, James Baker replaced Morton as campaign chairman.

James Baker had declined to spend the surplus money for concerns about encroaching on post-Watergate propriety.

Bush recommended challenging Governor Dolph Briscoe, but James Baker decided to run for Attorney General, expecting to face Price Daniel Jr.

James Baker concluded that Daniel would be an easier candidate to defeat than Briscoe, as a pedigreed liberal in a state that was shifting toward conservative Republicans like Reagan.

James Baker did maintain the Republican orthodoxy on preventing taxpayer-funding of abortions, instituting harsher mandatory sentences for some criminals, and supporting the death penalty.

The Chronicle editorial page endorsed White over James Baker, leading James Baker to resent his hometown newspaper.

James Baker lost the Attorney General race to White with an 11-point deficit.

Bush, who was serving as chairman of the First International Bank following the end of the Ford presidency, requested James Baker's help in running for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980.

In that primary contest, Bush and James Baker engaged in a controversial debate performance hosted by the Nashua Telegraph that hurt his electoral prospects.

James Baker was offered, but rejected, the chance to run Bush's Vice Presidential campaign, feeling it was below him.

In 1983, James Baker faced controversy, known as "Debategate," upon the revelation that James Baker's debate team had received a binder with Carter's debate preparation and strategy.

On October 29,1980, the night after Reagan's successful performance in the debate, Reagan campaign consultant Stuart Spencer proposed to Reagan that James Baker should be his chief of staff, should he win.

Wright claimed that James Baker, a former Democrat and a Bush political intimate, was a "usurper" who undermined conservative initiatives in the administration.

Reagan wrote that he himself was in charge and that James Baker was following Reagan's own initiative.

Three years into the administration, James Baker became heavily dispirited and tired due to the weight of his job; according to his wife, James Baker was "so anxious to get out of [his job]" that he gave some consideration to the prospect of becoming Commissioner of Baseball.

In 1983, some Texas legislators attempted to draft James Baker to run for the Senate seat that would open following John Tower's retirement, but James Baker declined what he felt might be a demotion in power.

In October 1983, James Baker attempted to replace William Clark as National Security Advisor.

James Baker planned for Deaver to be his replacement as Chief of Staff.

James Baker informally chose Laxalt's deputy, campaign manager Ed Rollins, and the question of who Rollins reported to spurred some minor internecine conflicts.

Early in the campaign, Laxalt directly complained to Reagan that James Baker had assumed de facto control over the campaign.

Reagan confirmed Laxalt's authority, leading to James Baker accusing Rollins of "sandbagging" him in the campaign.

James Baker himself earned praise for minimizing campaign conflicts by directing conflicting aides toward Rollins, who would then adjudicate disputes before they boiled over.

Unlike in the 1976 and 1980 campaigns that James Baker was involved in, there were no major staffing changes throughout the Republican campaign.

In 1985, Reagan named James Baker as United States Secretary of the Treasury, in a job-swap with then-Secretary Donald Regan, a former Merrill Lynch executive who became Chief of Staff.

Regan suggested the change to James Baker, feeling that the White House position would grant him greater power.

James Baker brought his long-time aide Darman to the Treasury Department as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.

The immediate priority of the Treasury under James Baker was a plan to overhaul the tax code.

James Baker worked clandestinely on discussions between White House representatives and the offices of Senators Howard James Baker, Bob Dole, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.

The goal was to develop a compromise that avoided controversy, which James Baker consciously modeled off of the 1983 Social Security reforms.

When some House Republicans, including Cheney and Trent Lott tried to organized to reject the plan, James Baker successfully appealed to Reagan to stop the revolt.

Cheney credited James Baker for having Reagan give a patriotic speech to House members in the immediate wake of the Arrow Air Flight 1285R crash in Canada that had resulted in the death of more than 200 US Marines.

James Baker supported Packwood's change and worked to lobby Senators to the plan.

James Baker received credit for fostering the compromise that led to a major reform of the tax code.

Aides believed Danforth and James Baker vigorously denied the so-called "kiddie tax" due in part to their own extensive wealth.

James Baker weighed in to break an impasse in favor of oil-state Senators who wanted exemptions for the petrochemical industry.

James Baker's feeling, according to his biographers, was that the increased strength of the US dollar had hampered domestic industries and exacerbated American trade deficits.

James Baker played a role in the development of the American Silver Eagle and American Gold Eagle coins, which both were released in 1986.

James Baker later revealed that he had agreed to do so because James Baker promised that NATO troops would not be posted to eastern Germany and that the military alliance would not expand into Eastern Europe.

On February 9,1990, James Baker, as the US Secretary of State, assured Gorbachev: "If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east".

When Ukraine became independent, James Baker sought to ensure that Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons.

James Baker helped to construct the 34-nation alliance that fought alongside the United States in the Gulf War.

James Baker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.

James Baker's team included Dennis Ross and many others who were soon appointed to the new Bush administration.

James Baker blocked the recognition of Palestine by threatening to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations.

James Baker called for Israel to "lay aside once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel", cease the construction of Israeli settlements in West Bank and Gaza, forswear annexation of more territory, and to treat Palestinians "as neighbors who deserve political rights".

James Baker soon decided that Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer would be his principal aides in Middle Eastern policies.

James Baker was notable for making little and slow efforts towards improving the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

James Baker proved willing to confront Israeli officials on statements they made contrary to American interests.

Amidst the growing support of Saddam Hussein in Palestinian communities, due to his opposition toward Israel, and his invasion of Kuwait, and the beginning of the Gulf War, James Baker decided that he would make some moves towards developing communications between Israel and Palestinians.

James Baker became the first American statesman to negotiate directly and officially with Palestinians in the Madrid Conference of 1991, which was the first comprehensive peace conference that involved every party involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the conference was designed to address all outstanding issues.

However, James Baker has been criticized for spending much of his tenure in a state of inaction regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which arguably led to further infringements on Palestinian rights and the growing radicalism of Arabs and Israelis.

However, despite having run two winning campaigns for Ronald Reagan and one for Bush, James Baker was unsuccessful in the second campaign for Bush, who lost to Clinton by 370 electoral votes to 168.

Many of James Baker's concerns proved correct, and the project became a key factor in the company's downfall.

Also in 1993, James Baker joined James Baker Botts as a senior partner, as well as the Carlyle Group.

In March 1997, James Baker became the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara.

James Baker left behind the Baker II plan, accepted as a suitable basis of negotiations by the Polisario and unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, but rejected by Morocco.

In 2000, Baker served as chief legal adviser for George W Bush during the 2000 presidential election campaign and oversaw the Florida recount.

James Baker was interviewed during the making of the film, and British actor Tom Wilkinson portrayed him in it.

State of Denial, a book by investigative reporter Bob Woodward, says that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card urged President Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with James Baker following the 2004 presidential election.

James Baker was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.

On October 9,2006, the Washington Post quoted co-chairman James Baker as saying "our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of 'stay the course' and 'cut and run'".

James Baker voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election and did so again in the 2020 election.

James Baker later gave informal advice to Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and suggested the appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

James Baker denied his wavering, telling his biographers: "Don't say I will vote for Joe Biden," because he didn't want to abandon or hurt the Republican party.

James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project.

James Baker began service on the Rice University board of trustees in 1993.

James Baker met his first wife, the former Mary Stuart McHenry, of Dayton, Ohio, while on spring break in Bermuda with the Princeton University rugby team.

Mary Stuart James Baker died of breast cancer on February 18,1970.

James Baker's firstborn son retained the ordering as James A Baker IV.

In September of 1977, she and James Baker had a daughter, Mary Bonner James Baker.

On June 15,2002, Virginia Graeme Baker, the seven-year-old granddaughter of Baker, daughter of Nancy and James Baker IV, drowned due to suction entrapment in a spa.