close window 
Former Secretary of State George Shultz said the United States must strengthen its diplomatic corps to match the strength of its military.
The military seems to have the capacity to develop new things, but diplomacy is nowhere near our military capacity, he said. You wouldn’t run a business like this. Shultz, who was dean of Chicago GSB from 1962 to 1969, was the inaugural Distinguished Speaker on Sunday, Nov. 7, at the Hyde Park Center.
Backing President Bush’s efforts in the war on terrorism, Shultz said the diplomatic corps numbers had dropped during President Clinton’s term and needed to be reinvigoratedpreferably with experienced Foreign Service officers or even those outside the diplomatic corps who are known for their influence with world leaders. He reiterated the point in a roundtable discussion with faculty and alumni afterward. We should be expanding our presence. We're contracting it, he said.
Nobel laureate Gary Becker, University Professor of Economics and of Sociology, asked Shultz what other security measures the U.S. can take given the growing black market for materials used to create nuclear weapons. The ease of creating nuclear bombs will be improved. Pre-emption has to be part of it, but what else can we do to get that risk down? Becker said.
Shultz said, I once said we should have some smart CIA people with an open checkbook in their back pocket, and they should find out about any market they can.
In addition to international security, Shultz said he also was concerned about the needs of the country’s aging population. When it comes to Social Security and the third-party payer system of health care, he said, We need to start looking with a different attitude. It’s not a budget problem, it’s a programmatic problem, he told an audience of more than 300 faculty, alumni, and friends of the GSB. We're drifting along. We're not looking at the opportunity costs of doing something different.