have a sense of strategy, pace, and timing. As the incumbent in three cabinet posts in the Nixon administration, I had been exposed to the special ways of Washington and to the role of Congress and the press. I had good experiences with able and supportive career public servants. As secretary of the treasury, I developed important friendships with people in many parts of the world and, in my work with them, got a feel for the world economy. As a leader in a large international business, I expanded my sense of variations and similarities in countries and people throughout the world. In short, I brought with me a diverse knowledge of my own country and how it works, as well as how it works with others, frommy experiences as a university man, a cabinet official, and a business and financial man. I also had been a resident at times on both coasts and in the Midwest, an arbitrator and mediator in labor disputes, and a worker on the problems of civil rights. My early life, too, was important.

My Early Life

My parents loved me, and I knew it. They made me a part of their life, so I was surrounded by whatever the conversation was when we were all at home. I was born in New York City in midtown Manhattan. When I was two or three years old, we moved across the Hudson River to Englewood, New Jersey, to a house where we lived until I went to college.

I have vivid memories of my