Service Under President Carter
After ascending to the presidency in 1977, President Carter named Strauss as U.S. Trade Representative. The position enjoyed cabinet level status, while allowing Strauss to apply his considerable negotiating skills to America's troubled relations with its trading partners. As Trade Representative, Strauss successfully completed the Tokyo Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, and secured the agreement's ratification by the United States Congress in the Trade Act of 1979. From this success, President Carter asked Strauss to undertake an even more challenging task, as his Personal Representative to the Middle East. Carter's previous efforts had already resulted in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and the President hoped Strauss would be able to build on this success. The handshake of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat on the White House lawn was a high point of the Carter presidency, but dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. Revolution in Iran led to the seizure of American diplomats as hostages, a crisis that dominated the last year of Carter's term.
In 1980, Strauss's old friend John Connally finally made a run for the presidency. He entered the Republican primaries as a hard-core conservative, but found himself running at the back of the pack while Ronald Reagan emerged as the front-runner. Robert Strauss chaired President Carter's campaign committee once again in 1980, but President Carter did not win re-election. Before leaving office, President Carter awarded Robert Strauss the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.
Strauss returned to his law firm's thriving Washington office. His experience as Trade Representative made him a sought after expert on international trade matters.
Read more about this topic: Robert Schwarz Strauss
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