- (1968 - 1970) Named by Governor Connally to the Texas seat on the Democratic National Committee.
- (1936 - 1939) Worked in the successful campaign of Travis B. Dean for the State Legislature and was rewarded with a patronage job as a committee clerk in the legislature.
- (1937) Worked as a volunteer in Lyndon B. Johnson's first congressional campaign for Texas' 10th congressional district, while also a member of the Texas Cowboys, an honorary service organization at the University of Texas, where he was an undergraduate student.
- (c.1940) Ran the campaign for friend John Connally, a future governor of Texas, in his quest for University of Texas student body president.
- (1941 - 1945) Upon his 1941 graduation from the University of Texas School of Law, he was recruited by the FBI to be an agent. "It was a way of not getting drafted," he told The New Yorker in 1979.
- (1962) He became a political power broker when he guided his friend John Connally's campaign for Governor of Texas.
- (1963) After Governor Connally was inaugurated in January 1963, he named Strauss to the Texas State Banking Board.
- (1970 - 1972) Elected treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. While treasurer, he cut the Democratic National Committee's $9 million debt by two-thirds.
- (1972) Served as chairman of the National Committee to Re-elect a Democratic Congress.
- (1972 - 1977) He was elected Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in December 1972 after the defeat of George McGovern.
- (March 29, 1977 - August 17, 1979) Special Trade Representative with the rank of Ambassador in the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
- (August 2, 1991 - December 26, 1991) US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, appointed by President George Bush.
- (December 26, 1991 - November 19, 1992) US Ambassador to Russia.
- (1968) Managed Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey's presidential campaign in Texas. Famously, he persuaded Governor Connally and his arch rival, liberal Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, to temporarily ignore their feud, joining forces to help Humphrey. This enabled Vice President Humphrey to win Texas by one percentage point, although he narrowly lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon.
- (1945 - 2014) With his friend Richard Gump he formed the Gump & Strauss (later Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld) law firm in Dallas, specializing in energy law. (They opened a Washington office in 1971. "Washington looked like a sitting duck," he told The Washington Post Magazine in 1982.)
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