Spokeswoman Sonja Steptoe from the O’Melveny & Myers law firm, where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, told the AP that he died at his home. Reuters news agency quoted a family statement saying Mr. Christopher “passed away peacefully, surrounded by family.”
When in 1993 Mr. Christopher became the 63rd U.S. secretary of state, he was already known to the public as an effective, if circumspect, negotiator who played a crucial role in brokering the release of the U.S. hostages in Tehran on the day Jimmy Carter yielded the presidency to Ronald Reagan.
Earlier he had been the Carter administration's point man in persuading the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties, which eventually ceded U.S. control of the canal to Panama. He gained the support of crucial senators as the architect of a “reservation” giving the United States the right to protect the canal and then managed to persuade the Panamanians to accept the provision.
When he was named Clinton's secretary of state, Mr. Christopher was considered the veteran hand who would complement the former Arkansas governor’s limited foreign policy experience.
Mr. Christopher's primary responsibility was to ensure that crises in foreign policy did not undermine or interfere with the president's domestic agenda. This was the first time in more than a half century, Clinton would later say, that the United States was “without a single, overriding threat to our security,” and it left the new secretary without an obvious blueprint for his new job.
As a diplomat, Mr. Christopher projected an image of discretion and unflappability. His attire was elegant. People magazine included him in a feature on the best-dressed men in America. Dressing well, he said, “is a mark of the respect you have for others.” His language was reasoned but often noncommittal. His stock answer to questions about his personal success was “I've been very lucky.”
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