Richard Gordon 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, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
and
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
.
Early life
Darman was born in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...
, 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 education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...
in 1964 and from the
Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration 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 (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House chief of staff and 67th United States secretary ...
, including as Assistant
Secretary of Commerce (1976–1977). After the defeat of
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...
, Darman became a member of the faculty of
Harvard Kennedy School
The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is the school of public policy of Harvard University, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard Kennedy School offers master's de ...
, to which he would return on two occasions between 1977 and 2002.
When Baker became
White House Chief of Staff
The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a position in the federal government of the United States.
The chief of staff is a Political appointments in the United States, politi ...
under
President Reagan, Darman returned to serve as
Assistant to the President of the United States and
White House Staff Secretary (1981–1985), before following Baker to the Treasury Department as
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
The deputy secretary of the treasury of the United States advises and assists the Secretary of the Treasury in the supervision and direction of the United States Department of the Treasury, Department of the Treasury and its activities, and succ ...
(1985–1987).
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). The office's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, while it also examines agency pro ...
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," 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 Inc. is an American multinational company with operations in private equity, alternative asset management and financial services. As of 2023, the company had $426 billion of assets under management.
Carlyle specializes in ...
. 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. He served as Chairman of the Board of the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History and, in May 2003, became Chairman of the Board of
AES Corporation, 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.
References
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Further reading
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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 leukemia 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