Robert S. Strauss

As national Democratic Party chairman he prevailed in the mid-Seventies upon U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan to be a character witness for John Connally, who was accused of bribery in a trial involving the milk industry and his previous tenure as Treasury Secretary under Richard Nixon. The Strauss-Jordan meetings were re-imagined by Kristie Thatcher (as Kristine Thatcher) in her play about Jordan, "Voice of Good Hope," directed by the author at the BoarsHead Theater in Lansing, Michigan. It ran March 16-April 8, 2007, with Patricia Idlette as Jordan and Gary Houston as Strauss.

His wife of 65 years, the former Helen Jacobs, died in 2006. Robert Strauss was survived by two sons, Robert Strauss and Richard Strauss; one daughter, Susan Strauss Breen; his brother, Theodore Strauss, seven grandchildren, and an unknown number of great grandchildren.

In 1990, over Thanksgiving dinner at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan, New York City, he negotiated the final details of Matsushita's takeover of MCA/Universal for $6.6 billion. He set his fee at $8 million, split between both parties equally, because he had represented both sides. When asked about the negotiations by a reporter from the Washington Post, he explained, as usual, he had not counted hours on a time sheet to arrive at his fee. "I don't do windows," he said.

He was the last US Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union), and the first US Ambassador to Russia, the largest country of the former Soviet Union. President Bush told him that he specifically chose him to be Ambassador because Strauss had publicly announced that he had voted against Bush in the 1988 election, and intended to vote against him in 1992 too. Bush felt that it was important to show the leadership and people of the Soviet Union that there was such a thing as the "loyal opposition" when the Soviet Union was transitioning from a one party oligarchy to a multiparty democracy.

His sister-in-law, Annette Strauss (she married his brother Theodore Strauss), was the elected mayor of Dallas, Texas for one term from 1987 to 1991.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest decoration of the United States, by President Jimmy Carter in January 1981, just before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

While he was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, one of his small decisions ended up being of major importance, when he named Jimmy Carter, then in his last year as Governor of Georgia, to be chair of the Democratic Congressional 1974 campaign effort. Mr. Carter traveled the nation in that effort, and used that job to lay the groundwork for his successful 1976 presidential campaign.

Robert S. Strauss was born on October 19, 1918 in Lockhart, Texas, USA as Robert Schwarz Strauss. He was married to Helen Jacobs and Helen Jacobs Strauss.

His father, Charles H. Strauss, was a German immigrant to the United States in 1915, with a dream to become a concert pianist. That never came to be, but he did have a job as a traveling piano salesman. It was on one of those sales trips that he met Edith Schwarz. They married, remaining in Texas, where Robert Schwarz Strauss was born in Lockhart, Texas in 1918. When Strauss was one year old, his parents moved the family, first to Hamlin, Texas, and then in nearby Stamford, Texas, where they established and ran a general store.