Former Secretary of State Shultz, who along with President Ronald Reagan was the architect of the United States’s victory over communism in the Cold War, passed away over the weekend in his home in California. Schultz, who served as Labor and Treasury Secretary under President Richard Nixon, took over the State Department from Al Haig, after his infamous meltdown when President Reagan was shot. He brought a level of calm professionalism to the State Department, along with a steely-eyed determination to defeat the forces of tyranny during the Cold War.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Schultz as a “great American statesman” and a “true patriot.”

“He will be remembered in history as a man who made the world a better place,” she said in statement.

Shultz served his country honorably in combat during World War 2, as a member of the Greatest Generation. He attended Princeton University, and famously had the Princeton Tiger tattooed on his hindquarters. He rose to the top of 3 disparate field; Academia as a Professor at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, business as the CEO of construction giant Bechtel Corp., and in leading 3 federal departments as a Cabinet Secretary for Republican Presidents Nixon and Reagan.

Perhaps his finest hour came during the Iran Contra controversy, where he testified before Congress without notes and never hesitated in giving any of his responses. He took on the nakedly partisan efforts of the Democrats leading the hearing to hurt President Reagan and and easily demolished them.

Shultz served as Reagan’s Secretary of State for 6 years, the longest serving person in that position since World War 2. He is recognized as one of the best in history, dues to his efforts to win the Cold War and bring peace to the Middle East. He is ranked in the top 5 SoS’s of all time, along with Henry Stimson, Elihu Root, Cordell Hull, and Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger paid Shultz the ultimate compliment in his diary: “If I could choose one American to whom I would entrust the nation’s fate in a crisis, it would be George Shultz.”

George Shultz. Patriot. Princeton man. Veteran. Warrior for freedom. RIP.

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