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James BakerAmerican politician who served as chief of staff to President Reagan
Date of Birth: 28.04.1930
Country:  USA |
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Biography of James Baker
James Addison Baker III is an American politician who held various high-ranking positions in the United States government. He served as the Chief of Staff to President Reagan, the Secretary of the Treasury, and from 1986 to 1989, the Secretary of State.
Early Life and Education
James Baker was born in Houston to James Addison Baker Jr. and Ethel Bonner Minns. He attended the private Hill School in Pennsylvania and Princeton University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1952. After serving as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps for two years, he pursued a law degree at the University of Texas, where he joined the Phi Delta Kappa fraternity, and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1957.
Political Career
Initially a Democrat, Baker switched to the Republican Party and in 1970, led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to elect his old friend George Bush to the Senate. He served as the Deputy Secretary of Commerce in the Ford administration in 1975 and headed his re-election campaign, which also ended in failure, in 1976. In 1978, Baker attempted to become the Attorney General of Texas.
In 1981, he was appointed by Ronald Reagan as the Chief of Staff to the President. He held this position until 1985. In 1984, Baker successfully led Reagan's re-election campaign and was appointed as the Secretary of Commerce in January 1985. On September 22, 1985, he signed the Plaza Accord agreements between the United States, Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan, which involved the devaluation of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen and the West German mark.
Later Career and Personal Life
In an effort to address the issue of developing countries' external debt, Baker proposed the Baker Plan, which provided new loans from the World Bank to 15 middle-income countries (mainly in Latin America), contingent on the implementation of structural reforms by the debtor countries. The plan was accepted at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Seoul and was effective until 1988 when it was replaced by another plan.
In 1988, Baker led George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign and later served as the Secretary of State in the new administration. On June 1, 1990, he signed an agreement in Washington, D.C. with Eduard Shevardnadze, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, regarding the transfer of the Bering Sea's waters to the United States along the Shevardnadze-Baker line.
In recent years, James Baker has been involved in issues related to Iraq, particularly the issue of Iraqi debts. On September 25, 2007, along with several other former U.S. Secretaries of State, he signed a letter urging the U.S. Congress not to pass Resolution 106 on the Armenian Genocide.
From 1993 to 2005, he served as an advisor to the Carlyle Group. Baker is married to Susan Garrett and they have eight children.
