WASHINGTON: George Shultz, Ronald Reagan's genial secretary of state who identified a diplomatic opening that helped end the Cold War but contributed to a new brand of conflict by advocating preemptive strikes, has died. He was 100.

An economics professor who saw himself more as a data-driven expert than an ideologue, Shultz had the rare distinction of serving in four different cabinet positions -- including Treasury secretary as Richard Nixon dismantled the post-World War II Bretton Woods monetary system.