Background

Paul Nitze was born on the 16th of January, 1907 in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Anina Sophia (Hilken) and William Albert Nitze. During his childhood, there were summers in Europe, mainly in Germany, and the family was in the Tyrol in 1914 when World War I broke out. He spent much of his boyhood in Chicago.

Education

As a child, Paul Henry Nitze studied at The Hotchkiss School and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. In 1928, he graduated cum laude from Harvard University.

Career

Paul Nitze began his career on Wall Street. He joined the New York investment banking firm of Dillon, Read and Company in 1929 and rose to the vice presidency in 1939-41, he was also president of P. H. Nitze & Co., his own firm from 1938 to 1939.

In 1940, Paul moved to Washington D.C. Nitze's interests eventually turned to politics, and his initial work in the area concerned finance. He was Financial Director of the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in 1941 and 1942, followed by a year as chief of metals and minerals for the Board of Economic Welfare, where he was Director and became Vice-chair of the Strategic Bombing Survey following World War II from 1944 to 1946.

Nitze also became involved in international policy, and in 1943 cofounded the School of Advanced International Studies, later renamed the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies with the future secretary of state Christian Herter. The next year, he entered the U.S. State Department as Deputy Director of the Office of International Trade Policy. While in the State Department, Nitze was involved in the Marshall Plan, which was designed to help reconstruct Europe after the war.

From 1950 to 1953 Nitze was the director of policy planning, and in this capacity influenced the government's decision to build the first hydrogen bomb during the Korean conflict. Significantly, he was an author of the NSC-68, the document that laid down the official National Security Council policy of an arms buildup to deter the political ambitions of the Soviet Union. He later wrote about this important document in his 1994 book, NSC-68: Forging the Strategy of Containment. Temporarily leaving the government behind in 1953, he spent the remainder of the 1950s as president of the Foreign Service Education Foundation until 1961.

President John F. Kennedy brought Nitze back to Washington politics in 1961 as an assistant secretary for international security affairs. He continued to advise U.S. presidents during the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations, first as Secretary of the Navy from 1963 to 1967 and then as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1967 to 1969, and had a great impact on U.S. policy during the Vietnam War.

In 1969, as a representative of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), Nitze began to switch tactics, working toward agreements with the Soviet Union on limiting arms. He continued to work on these negotiations during the SALT II talks as well, but resigned from his post in 1974.

Nitze joined what was known as Team B, a group that criticized President Jimmy Carter's nuclear arms policies. Nitze was known for trying to exceed his authority, which he did most famously in 1982 when he tried to strike an arms deal with Soviet Ambassador Yuli Kvitsinsky without consulting the president. Both Washington and Moscow rejected the agreement.

From 1984 until 1989, Nitze took on the role of Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control during the Ronald Reagan years. As such, he was involved in Reagan's negotiations with the Soviet Union, including the meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, that focused on midrange nuclear weapons.

After retiring from government work in 1989, Nitze accepted a position as diplomat-in-residence at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, which is now associated with Johns Hopkins University.

Paul Henry Nitze authored several books, including "Political Aspects of a National Strategy" in 1960, "Paul H. Nitze on Foreign Policy" in 1989, and "Tension between Opposites: Reflection on the Practice and Theory of Politics" in 1993. In 1989 he also published his autobiography "From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision - A Memoir".

Achievements

• 

  Paul Nitze was one of the country’s leading thinkers who played a vital role in shaping U.S. nuclear-arms strategy during the Cold War era.
  
  Over the years, Nitze received such honors, as the Medal of Merit from President Harry Truman, the Knight Commander's Cross of Order of Merit, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Order of Merit, and the Gold Medal Award, the United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award, the Naval Heritage Award. His most recent honor came in 2004 when a U.S. Navy destroyer was named after him.
  
  In Paul Henry Nitze’s honor is named The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University and St. Mary's College of Maryland has an honors program.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Tension between Opposites: Reflection on the Practice and Theory of Politics

    (A fresh look at the art of politics concludes that theory...)

    1993
  • From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision - A Memoir

    (In the detailed and forthright manner for which he is fam...)

    1989
  • Securing The Seas: The Soviet Naval Challenge And Western Alliance Options 1979
  • Paul H. Nitze on the Future 1991
  • The Fateful Ends and Shades of SALT: Past...Present...and Yet to Come? 1979

Politics

Mr. Nitze always seemed too conservative for the liberal administrations and too liberal for the conservative ones. From the beginning of the nuclear age, whether in government or out, he urged successive American presidents to take measures against what he saw as the Soviet drive to overwhelm the United States through the force of arms.

Nitze was a senior State Department official in the Truman administration, an assistant defense secretary in the Kennedy administration, and a Navy secretary and later deputy defense secretary in the Johnson administration.

Views

Quotations: "One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve".

"We slow the progress of science today for all sorts of ethical reasons. Biomedicine could advance much faster if we abolished our rules on human experimentation in clinical trials, as Nazi researchers did".

"With respect to the situation in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, in both countries, the Soviet Union had been working hard to create an infrastructure of those who shared their point of view and were prepared to take over the countries".

"I have been around at a time when important things needed to be done".

"Soviets always use words which mean almost the reverse of what they mean to us. So peaceful co-existence does not in any way mean peaceful".

"The ultimate goal of the whole policy of peaceful co-existence was to make progress on the basic goal laid down by Lenin of a world largely composed of socialist, communist states, in which the Soviet Union would be the prime mover".

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated".

"The fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security. I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us. What, for example, would our targets be? It is impossible to conceive of a target that could be hit without large-scale destruction of many innocent people?".

Membership

Paul Nitze was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.

• Committee on the Present Danger , United States

  1978 - 1981

Personality

Paul Nitze was often characterized as a disciplined, diligent, and confident almost to the point of arrogance, hawkish and militaristic government bureaucrat. A man of intimidating intellect, Mr. Nitze could be warm and affectionate or cerebral and brittle. He was a formidable bureaucrat with a brilliant mind and a persuasive pen.

Physical Characteristics: Mr. Nitze was handsome with a full head of white hair and still athletic and trim in his later years, well-educated, intelligent and wealthy.

Interests

• Farming

Connections

Paul Henry Nitze was married twice. His first marriage was in 1932 with Phyllis Pratt but she died in 1987. They had four children together, Heidi, Peter, William, and Phyllis Anina (Nina). His second marriage was in 1993 with Elisabeth Scott Porter. They were together until his death in 2004.

Father:

William Albert Nitze

Mother:

Anina Sophia (Hilken) Nitze

late wife:

Phyllis Pratt

The daughter of John Teele Pratt, a Standard Oil financier, and of Ruth Baker Pratt, Republican Congresswoman for New York.

Wife:

Elisabeth Scott Porter

Daughter:

Heidi Nitze

Son:

Peter Nitze

Daughter:

Phyllis Anina (Nina) Nitze

Grandson:

Nicholas Thompson

Nicholas Thompson is a senior editor at The New Yorker and the author of "The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War". Nicholas Thompson is the editor-in-chief of WIRED, a position he has held since January 2017. He’s also a contributor to CBS News, a frequent public speaker–who gives talks and moderates events around the world–and an occasional musician with three albums of instrumental acoustic guitar music. He was previously the editor of newyorker.com, a co-founder of the multi-media publishing company the Atavist.