Richard Gordon "Dick" Darman (May 10, 1943January 25, 2008) was an American businessman and government official who served in senior positions during the presidencies of
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
.
Early life
Darman was born in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
, the son of Eleanor F. and Morton H. Darman. His father was a textile mill owner.
Darman graduated with honors from
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
in 1964 and from the
Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...
in 1967.
Career
Darman held several governmental positions under
James Baker
James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...
, including as Assistant
Secretary of Commerce (1976–77). After the defeat of
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
, Darman became a member of the faculty of Harvard Kennedy School, to which he would return on two occasions between 1977 and 2002.
When Baker became
White House Chief of Staff under
President Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
, Darman returned to serve as
Assistant to the President of the United States
The Executive Office of the President (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The EOP consists of several offices and agenci ...
and
White House Staff Secretary
The Staff Secretary ("Staff Sec") is a position in the White House Office responsible for managing paper flow to the President and circulating documents among senior staff for comment. It has been referred to as "the nerve center of the White H ...
(1981–85), before following Baker to the Treasury Department as
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
The United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, in the United States government, advises and assists the Secretary of the Treasury in the supervision and direction of the Department of the Treasury and its activities, and succeeds the Secret ...
(1985–87).
Darman served as Director of the
Office of Management and Budget
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
for the entire presidency of
the first President Bush. Darman was regarded as provocative and intelligent by Washington insiders but was criticized by some economists for being too focused on the budget deficit and was sometimes blamed for convincing Bush to renege on his promise of "
Read my lips: No new taxes
"Read my lips: no new taxes" is a phrase spoken by American presidential candidate George H. W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention as he accepted the nomination on August 18. Written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, the line was the mo ...
," which is widely believed to have contributed to Bush's defeat in the
election of 1992. Darman had previously tried to stop Bush from making the promise during the 1988 campaign.
From 1993 until his death in 2008, Darman was a partner and managing director of
The Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...
. During that period, Carlyle went from being a small firm with 26 employees to one of the world's largest and most successful private equity firms. Darman was a trustee of the
Loomis Sayles Funds, the IXIS Funds, and the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...
. He served as Chairman of the Board of the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...
and, in May 2003, became Chairman of the Board of
AES Corporation
The AES Corporation is an American utility and power generation company. It owns and operates power plants, which it uses to generate and sell electricity to end users and intermediaries like utilities and industrial facilities. AES is headquart ...
, an electric utility company.
Personal life
He married Kathleen Emmet on September 1, 1967; they had three sons, William T. E., Jonathan W. E. and C. T. Emmet Darman.
Darman died on January 25, 2008, at the age of 64, following a battle with
acute myelogenous leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with normal blood cell production. Symptoms may includ ...
.
References
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Further reading
*
External links
*http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deaths/5487176.html
*http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004147668_darmanobit27.html
*http://www.nndb.com/people/607/000056439/
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Darman, Richard G.
1943 births
2008 deaths
American chief executives
Assistants to the President of the United States
Businesspeople from Charlotte, North Carolina
The Carlyle Group people
Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C.
Deaths from acute myeloid leukemia
Directors of the Office of Management and Budget
George H. W. Bush administration cabinet members
Harvard Business School alumni
Harvard College alumni
Harvard Kennedy School faculty
Massachusetts Republicans
People from McLean, Virginia
United States Deputy Secretaries of the Treasury
Virginia Republicans
White House Staff Secretaries