A Good Straight Course

A Good Straight Course: Paul Schott Stevens ’70

The West Wing, NBC’s decorated political drama series, captured millions of eyeballs between 1999 and 2006 for its riveting portrayal of how the zero-sum game of White House politics often produces two things: winners and losers.

Paul Schott Stevens ’70 never appeared in a single episode of The West Wing.

That’s because for two years in the late 1980s – before he became one of the world’s leading figures in mutual funds and defined-contribution retirement plans – the nephew of Fr. Paul W. Schott, S.J. ’40, essentially lived inside the West Wing, logging 13-hour days under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as the youthful and first legal adviser of the National Security Council (NSC) and later as the council’s executive secretary under Colin Powell.

Paul Schott Stevens ’70, President Ronald Reagan, & Colin Powell

Schott with President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office

When Stevens, now 69, was brought into the NSC in January 1987 to offer legal expertise in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan presidency was trying to regain some of its lost political footing triggered by an arms deal with Iran in which some of the proceeds were used to fund the anti-Sandinista rebels fighting the socialist government in Nicaragua.

Working out of Henry Kissinger’s old West Wing office, Stevens was just 35 years old.

During his tenure with the NSC, Stevens also wrote the presidential briefing book for President Reagan and his administration in advance of three U.S.-Soviet summits that in November 1987 produced the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty requiring the U.S. and the Soviet Union to eliminate their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 310 to 3,400 miles.

“Frankly, the extraordinary thing about all that to me is that I went into these roles at the age of 35 – which was not really very long after graduating from Jesuit,” said Stevens, recently retired as chairman of the Investment Company Institute (ICC), a global association of regulated funds.

Not bad for a kid who grew up working summers at his fourthgeneration family’s Schott and Company Inc. meat-packing plant at Poydras Street and Claiborne Avenue near the Superdome and who credits Jesuit’s intellectually stimulating debate-team culture with fostering his love for reasoned thinking and sharpening his communications skills.

“I found the ability to do public speaking and articulate on your feet to be one of the great skills that Jesuit gave to me,” said Stevens, who was so adept at debating that he qualified for state and national competitions.

If the fear of public speaking is No. 1 or No. 1a on most people’s list of anxiety triggers (there is the fear of death, after all), Stevens said he learned early on from a variety of teachers how to make it look easy. “The big thing was conquering your anxiety,” Stevens said. “And to do that, just as with any sort of competitive activity, you’ve got to practice and prepare. It’s that constant honing of skills and preparation for the event. You begin to learn how to project a presence before people. A lot of those skills translate right into what I did at the end of my career as CEO of a global organization. Another quality is not taking yourself too seriously and accepting both success gracefully and defeat gracefully.”

The debate team competitions each year revolved around a set topic, which allowed students to bone up on all sides of an argument. That was important because during the competition, debaters would be asked to argue one side of a proposal and then, in another round, to take the other side.

Schott with his debate teammates Robert Stamm ’73, Lawrence Hoskins ’73, and Bryce Leblanc ’73 review last-minute preparations.

When Stevens was at Jesuit in the late 1960’s, some of the contentious topics were foreign aid and compulsory national military service. With the war in Vietnam raging, the debates surrounding the draft had real-world importance.

“You had to participate in both sides of the argument,” Stevens recalled. “You had to prepare a plan or proposal you wanted to advance, but you also had to be ready to rebut someone else’s plan.”

His debate-team partner, with whom Stevens remains in regular contact, was Tom Bourgeois ’70, who went on to become an executive with CBS in Los Angeles.

“The truth is those friends you make at Jesuit last your whole lifetime,” Stevens said.

Schott's Jesuit senior portrait

At the national debate competitions, debaters would be tested on their ability to craft a 15-minute extemporaneous talk with just 30 minutes of preparation – all without notes.

That refined ability is evident simply by searching YouTube for video clips of Stevens addressing the National Press Club on various matters through the years. In 2009, coming out of the 2008 financial crisis, Stevens talked for 45 minutes about reforms to the 401-K and mutual fund system barely using any notes.

“I’ve addressed crowds of a thousand people in person,” Stevens said. “I remember one interview I had with Lloyd Blankfein, who was then the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, the big Wall Street firm, that was broadcast nationwide by two different networks.”

Schott with his uncle Fr. Paul Schott

Schott with his wife Joyce

As someone who has witnessed the vitriol of the current political situation in America, Stevens probably wishes every elected official could take a high school debate class and know the difference between a valid argument and an ad hominem attack.

“That’s absolutely right,” Stevens said. “There has been a loss of civility in our public life, and it’s something we need to recapture in our political leadership and among the extreme elements of the two great political parties. It’s in very short supply.”

Stevens grew up in Harahan and attended St. Rita Elementary School. He has five siblings. When Stevens was six, his father, Miles Gordon Stevens, Jr., died of a heart attack, which left his mother, Rosemary Schott Stevens (the sister of Fr. Schott), to rear their six children.

“My father’s death was a combination of wartime service and some congenital kidney ailments that took a big toll on his heart,” Stevens said. “My mom raised all of us and did a marvelous job. The Sisters of St. Joseph taught us.

“Not to be maudlin about it, but I learned the reality of death at the age of six. I remember my father’s two heart attacks, including the fatal one, and the grief and anguish and the big place it left in our family home, but I have to brag about my mom. She did an extraordinary job. All six kids have been married and are still married to their original spouses. All of us have at least three children, and all of us have at least one graduate degree. All of us are still practicing the faith we were raised in, and all of us are still talking to one another, which might be the most incredible thing!”

Stevens remembers commuting by bus from Harahan to Jesuit.

“I would take the Kenner Express to Carrollton and Claiborne and then take the Tulane Avenue bus and get out and walk the last three or four blocks,” he said.

Among his favorite teachers at Jesuit were his English literature teacher, Fr. Hervé Racivitch, S.J. (“he inspired in me a lifelong love of literature”); Fr. Patrick Koch, S.J. (“a truly extraordinary teacher”); and Fr. Joseph Reising, S.J., ’58.

“These are Jesuits who have gone on to their reward, and they were great influences on me,” Stevens said.

The other major influence, for obvious family reasons, was his uncle, Fr. Paul Schott, for whom Stevens is named.

“I’ve always used Paul Schott Stevens—the full name—as kind of a tribute to him,” Stevens said. “We were very close. I debated at a tournament at Jesuit High School in Dallas, a tournament Fr. Schott’s Texas school hosted for two or three years. I traveled there with my mother and my grandparents for his final vows. I visited him very often in New Orleans or Manresa or wherever his assignment took him and tried to be as faithful a visitor to Grand Coteau (where Fr. Schott died in 2020) as I could be.”

Fr. Schott’s closeness to the Stevens family and his widowed sister Rosemary was such that Paul once remarked to him as a teenager, “Uncle Paul, having you as our uncle is like having a family chaplain.”

“What do you mean ‘like’?” Fr. Schott replied, laughing.

“He and my mother had a very, very strong, loving relationship, and I think my mother, as a widow, really valued the spiritual support and brotherly comfort that he provided,” Stevens said. “He was always a presence in our family.”

For that reason, Stevens and many of his family members have established two scholarship funds— one honoring Fr. Schott and the other Fr. Schott’s father, Bernard Ignatius Schott, who was president of the Schott meat-packing company.

“Bernard Ignatius was a Holy Cross grad, but he sent all six of his boys to Jesuit,” Stevens joked. “They all did very well there and went on to very good careers. But, I tell you, when the Jesuit-Holy Cross game came around, he wasn’t rooting for Jesuit! He was rooting for Holy Cross. He was a great man and an inspiring figure to me.”

One of Jesuit’s greatest strengths, Stevens said, is its ability to use alumni support to keep tuition as affordable as possible. Among the 22 Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Jesuit has one of the lowest tuition rates and takes concrete steps to make sure any qualified applicant can attend classes at Carrollton & Banks.

“That means the great quality of education there is more readily available to kids from not-so-well-off families,” Stevens said. “And if you think about the quality of education for the price, the bargain is just unbelievable.”

When he was at the White House, Stevens rubbed shoulders with some of the keenest intellects around. He fondly remembers both President Reagan and Powell for their leadership abilities that included remaining committed to their core values while also embracing arguments from others.

His favorite Reagan story is a classic. While preparing the presidential briefing book for the final Soviet missile summit in Moscow in 1987, Stevens was hard at work in the West Wing when Powell, with Reagan at his side, walked near the door to his office, located adjacent to the White House “Situation Room.”

Peter Finney, Jr. ’74 (left) & Paul Schott Stevens ’70 (right) pose for the 1970’s Student Council yearbook photo.

“Mr. President, Paul is finishing up your briefing book,” Powell told Reagan. “He tells me he’ll get it to me tonight. I’ll have a look, and we’ll get it to you tomorrow.”

Reagan was “unfailingly polite” and thanked Stevens for his labors. A short while later, Reagan reappeared at Stevens’ office.

“He came up this little flight of stairs – and in a stage whisper and with a twinkle in his eye – he said, ‘Paul, keep the briefing book short, would you?’”

That encounter told Stevens everything about Reagan: A president is drowned in paperwork, but he knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish at the summit.

“While the briefing book was a useful thing, it was not the key to what he wanted to try to achieve,” Stevens said.

Stevens also has deep personal regard for Powell, who promoted Stevens to chief of staff of the National Security Council in 1987. Powell died in October 2021 at the age of 84.

In Powell’s 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, the former general heaped high praise on Stevens for setting the right balance at the NSC.

Powell wrote: “In the military, we are constantly judging human material, placing and replacing personnel. By now, I had developed Powell’s Rules for Picking People. What I looked for was intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. I also valued loyalty, integrity, a high energy level, a certain passion, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done.”

“I regard it as the greatest compliment ever paid to me,” Stevens said.

Stevens wonders what might have been had Powell ever decided to run for president.

“I corresponded with him about that, and I actually urged him to do it,” Stevens said. “I think his public explanations are probably exactly right. He didn't see himself in that role, and he didn't have a burning passion to assume elected office. I think a lot of people, myself included, sort of ask themselves, ‘Well, what if?’ Because I don't think our politics has taken a great turn, particularly recently. Many of us wonder, ‘Where are the great men and women that we need to be running our country?’”

Now retired, Stevens and his wife Joyce, married for 42 years, live in Alexandria, Virginia, and have four adult sons and one grandchild. Stevens served on the Finance Council of the Diocese of Arlington for 11 years and recently accepted a role as a board member of Catholic Charities in the Arlington Diocese. He also is a trustee of Catholic Distance University, which provides Catholic catechetical courses online to a global audience. Last year, he was added to Jesuit High School’s National Advisory Board.

“One of my real ambitions has been to read sacred Scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament, in their entirety,” Stevens said. “There’s a lot of other reading projects, too. I'm sure there are Shakespeare plays I've not read and I've not gotten through with the whole Divine Comedy and lots of other things, including novels and the like that I hope to be able to do.”

What did Jesuit mean to him?

“In a word – everything,” Stevens said. “I was there at a turbulent time in the school's history – Vietnam, the late 1960’s. It was a turbulent time for our country. But the intellectual treasure house that Jesuit introduced me to, the opportunities that it provided for me to learn and to grow, the great men whose example it put before me, and especially the Jesuits with their unbelievable learning and personal sanctity, it was like pushing a boat off the shore. Jesuit, in many ways, was the foundation of all of that. My road was all before me in those days at Jesuit. It set me on a good straight course.”

PETER FINNEY, JR. ’74 Clarion Herald Executive Editor

Finney is a graduate of the Jesuit High School Class of 1974. He serves as executive editor and general manager of the Clarion Herald, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, since 1993.