Paul Nitze

Paul Nitze
Paul Nitze as Secretary of the Navy
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
In office July 1, 1967 – January 20, 1969
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Cyrus Vance
Succeeded by	David Packard
United States Secretary of the Navy
In office November 29, 1963 – June 30, 1967
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Paul B. Fay (acting)
Succeeded by	Charles F. Baird (acting)
Personal details
Born	Paul Henry Nitze (1907-01-16)January 16, 1907 Amherst, Massachusetts
Died	October 19, 2004(2004-10-19) (aged 97) Washington, D.C.
Spouse(s)	Phyllis Pratt (1932–1987; her death) Elisabeth Scott Porter (1993–2004; his death)
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B.)
Occupation	government official, investment banker

Phyllis Pratt (1932–1987; her death)

Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was a high-ranking United States government official who helped shape Cold War defense policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations.

Nitze was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, the son of Anina Sophia (Hilken), a homemaker, and William Albert Nitze, a professor of Romance linguistics who concluded his career at the University of Chicago. His parents were both of German descent. His ancestors came from the region of Magdeburg. In his memoir, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, Paul Nitze describes how as a young boy he witnessed the outbreak of World War I while he was traveling in Germany with his father, mother, and sister, arriving in Munich just in time to be struck by the city crowds' patriotic enthusiasm for the imminent conflict.

Nitze attended The Hotchkiss School, where he was a member of the class of 1924 and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. He graduated from Harvard University in 1928 and entered the field of investment banking.

In 1928 and 1929, the Chicago brokerage firm of Bacon, Whipple and Company sent Nitze to Europe. Upon his return, he heard Clarence Dillon predict the Great Depression and the decline of the importance of finance. Having attained financial independence through the sale to Revlon of his interest in a French laboratory producing pharmaceutical products in the United States, Nitze took an intellectual sabbatical that included a year of graduate study at Harvard in sociology, philosophy, and constitutional and international law. In 1929 he joined investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. where he remained until founding his own firm, P. H. Nitze & Co, in 1938. He returned to Dillon, Read as Vice-President from 1939 through to 1941.