58 Facts About James Baker

James Baker served until May 1976, ran Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, and unsuccessfully sought election as the Attorney General of Texas.

James Baker ran Bush's unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but made a favorable impression on the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan.

James Baker resigned as Treasury Secretary 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 Baker serves on the World Justice Project and the Climate Leadership Council.

James Baker's father was a partner of Houston law firm Baker Botts.

James Baker's grandfather was attorney and banker Captain James A Baker, and his great-grandfather was jurist and politician Judge James A Baker.

James Baker attended the Kinkaid School in Houston, before graduating from the Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

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

James Baker earned a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Texas School of Law and began to practice law in Texas.

Originally, James Baker had been a Democrat but too busy trying to succeed in a competitive law firm to worry about politics, and considered himself apolitical.

Bush and James Baker were regular tennis partners at the Houston Country Club in the late 1950s, and when Bush decided to vacate his congressional seat and run for the US Senate in 1970, he supported James Baker's decision to run in his place.

However, James Baker changed his mind about running for Congress when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in February 1970.

Bush then encouraged James Baker to become active in politics to help deal with the grief of his wife's death, something that Bush himself had done when his daughter, Pauline Robinson Bush, died of leukemia.

James Baker became chairman of Bush's Senate campaign in Harris County, Texas.

James Baker served until May 1976, and was succeeded by Edward O Vetter.

James Baker resigned to serve as campaign manager of Ford's unsuccessful 1976 election campaign.

Bush as his campaign manager, James Baker ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General of Texas, losing to future Texas governor Mark White.

In 1981, James Baker was named White House Chief of Staff by President Ronald Reagan, in spite of the fact that James Baker managed the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford in 1976 and of George Bush in 1980 opposing Reagan.

James Baker is considered to have had a high degree of influence over the first Reagan administration, particularly in domestic policy.

Around 1983 James Baker became heavily dispirited and tired due to the weight of his job; he attempted to become National Security Advisor, a change to which Reagan initially agreed, but some of Reagan's other advisers dissuaded him from naming James Baker to the position.

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 officer who became chief of staff.

In 1985, James Baker received the US Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

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.

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 Palestine, 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 Palestine.

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 said prior to the 2020 election that he would do so again.

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 serves as an honorary director on the board of directors at the Atlantic Council.

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 in February 1970.

James Baker and Baker welcomed their daughter Mary Bonner Baker, born in 1977.

On June 15,2002, Virginia Graeme Baker, the seven-year-old granddaughter of Baker, daughter of Nancy and James Baker IV, was the victim of lethal suction entrapment in an in-ground spa.