Warren Christopher, Lawyer, Negotiator and Adviser to Presidents, Dies at 85
Warren M. Christopher, the courtly and reserved secretary of state in President Bill Clinton’s first term and the chief negotiator for the 1981 release of American hostages in Iran, died on Friday night in Los Angeles. He was 85 and lived in Los Angeles.
O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, announced his death, saying he had been ill with kidney and bladder cancer.
Methodical and self-effacing, Mr. Christopher alternated for nearly five decades between top echelons of both the federal government and legal and political life in California. He served as the Carter administration’s point man with Congress in winning ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, presided over the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and conducted repeated negotiations involving the Middle East and the Balkans.
At home, Mr. Christopher investigated racial unrest in Detroit and in the Watts district of Los Angeles and later headed a 1991 commission that proposed major reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department after riots prompted by the beating of a black driver, Rodney King.
As a political operative, he headed Mr. Clinton’s 1992 search committee for a vice-presidential running mate, settling on Al Gore, and subsequently directed the transition team of the president-elect, acting as an establishment counterweight on a team dominated by Arkansans new to the national scene. Eight years later, when Mr. Gore was running for president, he directed the search resulting in the selection of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman for the second spot on the Democratic ticket....
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O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, announced his death, saying he had been ill with kidney and bladder cancer.
Methodical and self-effacing, Mr. Christopher alternated for nearly five decades between top echelons of both the federal government and legal and political life in California. He served as the Carter administration’s point man with Congress in winning ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, presided over the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and conducted repeated negotiations involving the Middle East and the Balkans.
At home, Mr. Christopher investigated racial unrest in Detroit and in the Watts district of Los Angeles and later headed a 1991 commission that proposed major reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department after riots prompted by the beating of a black driver, Rodney King.
As a political operative, he headed Mr. Clinton’s 1992 search committee for a vice-presidential running mate, settling on Al Gore, and subsequently directed the transition team of the president-elect, acting as an establishment counterweight on a team dominated by Arkansans new to the national scene. Eight years later, when Mr. Gore was running for president, he directed the search resulting in the selection of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman for the second spot on the Democratic ticket....