Cyrus Vance | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Vance in 1977 | |
| 57th United States Secretary of State | |
| In office January 20, 1977 – April 28, 1980 | |
| President | Jimmy Carter |
| Deputy | Warren Christopher |
| Preceded by | Henry Kissinger |
| Succeeded by | Edmund Muskie |
| 11thUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense | |
| In office January 28, 1964 – June 30, 1967 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Roswell Gilpatric |
| Succeeded by | Paul Nitze |
| 7thUnited States Secretary of the Army | |
| In office July 5, 1962 – January 21, 1964 | |
| President | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Stephen Ailes |
| General Counsel of the Department of Defense | |
| In office January 29, 1961 – June 30, 1962 | |
| President | John F. Kennedy |
| Preceded by | Vincent Burke |
| Succeeded by | John McNaughton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Cyrus Roberts Vance (1917-03-27)March 27, 1917 |
| Died | January 12, 2002(2002-01-12) (aged 84) New York City, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5, includingCyrus Jr. |
| Relatives | John W. Davis (adoptive father) |
| Education | Yale University (BA,LLB) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1942–1946 |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Unit | USSHale (DD-642) |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Cyrus Roberts Vance (March 27, 1917 – January 12, 2002) was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the 57thUnited States Secretary of State under PresidentJimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980.[1] Prior to serving in that position, he was theUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense in theJohnson administration. During theKennedy administration he wasSecretary of the Army andGeneral Counsel of the Department of Defense.[2]
As Secretary of State, Vance approached foreign policy with an emphasis on negotiation over conflict and a special interest inarms reduction. In April 1980, he resigned in protest ofOperation Eagle Claw, the secret mission to rescueAmerican hostages in Iran. He was succeeded byEdmund Muskie.
Vance was the cousin (and adoptive son) of1924 Democratic presidential nominee and lawyerJohn W. Davis. He was the father ofManhattan District AttorneyCyrus Vance Jr.
Cyrus Vance was born on March 27, 1917, inClarksburg, West Virginia.[3] He was the son of John Carl Vance II and his wife, Amy (Roberts) Vance, and had an elder brother, John Carl Vance III.[3][4] Following Vance's birth, his family relocated toBronxville, New York, so that his father could commute toNew York City, where he was an insurance broker.[5] Vance's father was also a landowner and worked for a government agency duringWorld War I. He died unexpectedly ofpneumonia in 1922.[6]
Vance's mother was Amy Roberts Vance, who had a prominent family history inPhiladelphia and was active in civic affairs.[6] Following her husband's death, she moved her family to Switzerland for a year, where Vance and his brother learned French at L'Institut Sillig inVevey.[5] Vance's much older cousin (referred to as an "uncle" within the family)John W. Davis, anAmbassador to the United Kingdom and1924 United States presidential candidate, became his mentor and adopted him.[7]
Vance graduated fromKent School in 1935 and earned abachelor's degree in 1939 fromYale College, where he was a member of the secretScroll and Key society and earned threevarsity letters inice hockey. He graduated fromYale Law School in 1942.[6] While there, his classmates includedSargent Shriver,William Scranton,Stanley Rogers Resor, andWilliam Bundy, with all of whom he would later work.[1]
DuringWorld War II, Vance served in theUnited States Navy as a gunnery officer on thedestroyerUSSHale (DD-642) until 1946. He saw sea action in theBattle of Tarawa, theBattle of Saipan, theBattle of Guam (1944), theBougainville Campaign, and thePhilippines Campaign (1944–1945). After the war, he worked for theMead Corporation for a year before joining the law firmSimpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City.[1]
At the age of 29, Vance married Grace Elsie "Gay" Sloane on February 15, 1947. She was aBryn Mawr College graduate and was the daughter of the board chairman of theW. & J. Sloane furniture company inNew York City. They had five children:
In 1957, SenatorLyndon B. Johnson asked Vance to leave Wall Street to work for theUnited States Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he helped draft theNational Aeronautics and Space Act, leading to thecreation of NASA.[1]
In 1961, Defense SecretaryRobert McNamara recruited Vance to becomeGeneral Counsel of the Department of Defense.[1] He was then made theSecretary of the Army by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy. He was Secretary when Army units were sent to northernMississippi in 1962 toprotect James Meredith and ensure that thecourt-orderedintegration of theUniversity of Mississippi took place.[6]
In 1964, Vance became theUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense and now-President Johnson sent him to thePanama Canal Zone afterstudent riots. After the1967 Detroit riot, Johnson sent him to Michigan. Vance next attempted to delay theCyprus dispute as the President's personal envoy, brokering the Greek-Turkish agreement of Dec. 1, 1967.[8] In 1968, Johnson sent him toSouth Korea to deal with theUSS Pueblo hostage situation.[1]
Vance firstsupported the Vietnam War but by the late 1960s changed his views and resigned from office, advising the president to withdraw US troops fromSouth Vietnam. Vance served as a deputy toW. Averell Harriman during theParis Peace Accords, which were a failure due to the duplicity of the South Vietnamese. Vance called the failed peace talks "one of the great tragedies in history".[1] He received thePresidential Medal of Freedom in January 1969.[6]
In May 1970, Vance was appointed to serve as a commissioner in a landmark panel known as theKnapp Commission, which was formed and assigned by New York City MayorJohn V. Lindsay to investigate systemic corruption in theNew York Police Department. The Knapp Commission held televised hearings into police corruption and issued a final report of its findings in 1972. The work of the Knapp Commission led to the prosecution of police officers on charges of corruption and culminated in significant, if short-lived, reforms and oversight of the police department, including the appointment of a temporary special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute corruption committed by NYPD officers, district attorneys, and judges.
From 1974 to 1976, Vance served as president of theNew York City Bar Association.[9] Vance returned to his law practice atSimpson Thacher & Bartlett in 1980, but was repeatedly called back to public service throughout the 1980s and 1990s, participating in diplomatic missions toBosnia,Croatia, andSouth Africa. Vance helped negotiate the dispute over theNagorno-Karabakh region.[1]
PresidentJimmy Carter initially wanted to nominateGeorge Ball to becomeSecretary of State, but, fearing Ball was too liberal to be confirmed, nominated Vance instead.[10] Vance played an integral role as the administration negotiated thePanama Canal Treaties, along with peace talks inRhodesia,Namibia andSouth Africa. He worked closely with Israeli MinistersMoshe Dayan andEzer Weizman to secure theCamp David Accords in 1978. Vance insisted that the President makePaul Warnke Director of theArms Control and Disarmament Agency, over strong opposition by SenatorHenry M. Jackson.[1]
Vance also pushed for détente with the Soviet Union, and clashed frequently with the more hawkishNational Security AdvisorZbigniew Brzezinski. Vance tried to advance arms limitations by working on theSALT II agreement with the Soviet Union, which he saw as the central diplomatic issue of the time, but Brzezinski lobbied for a tougher more assertive policy vis-a-vis the Soviets. He argued for strong condemnation of Soviet activity in Africa and in the Third World and successfully lobbied for normalized relations with thePeople's Republic of China in 1978.
As Brzezinski took control of the negotiations, Vance was marginalized and his influence began to wane. When revolution erupted in Iran in late 1978, the two were divided on how to support the United States' ally theShah of Iran. Vance argued in favor of reforms while Brzezinski urged him to crack down – the 'iron fist' approach. Unable to receive a direct course of action from Carter, the mixed messages that the Shah received from Vance and Brzezinski contributed to his confusion and indecision as he fled Iran in January 1979 and hisregime collapsed.
Vance negotiated theSALT II agreement directly with Soviet AmbassadorAnatoly Dobrynin, bypassing American AmbassadorMalcolm Toon, who then criticized the agreement.[11] In June 1979, President Carter and Soviet General SecretaryLeonid Brezhnev signed the treaty in Vienna'sHofburg Imperial Palace, in front of the international press, but the Senate ultimately did not ratify it. After theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, Vance's opposition to what he had called "visceral anti-Sovietism" led to a rapid reduction of his stature.[10]
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Vance's attempt to surreptitiously negotiate a solution to theIran hostage crisis with AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini through thePalestine Liberation Organization failed badly. Believing that diplomatic initiatives could see the hostages safely returned home, Vance initially fought off attempts by Brzezinski to pursue a military solution. Vance, struggling withgout, went to Florida on April 10, 1980, for a long weekend. On April 11, theNational Security Council held a newly scheduled meeting and authorizedOperation Eagle Claw, a military expedition into Tehran to rescue the hostages. Deputy SecretaryWarren Christopher, who attended the meeting in Vance's place, did not inform him.[10] Furious, on April 21, Vance handed in his resignation,[12] calling Brzezinski "evil".[10][13] The only secretaries of State who had previously resigned in protest wereLewis Cass, who resigned in the buildup to the Civil War, andWilliam Jennings Bryan, who resigned in the buildup to World War I.
President Carter aborted the operation after only five of the eight helicopters he had sent into theDasht-e Kavir desert arrived in operational condition. As U.S. forces prepared to depart from the staging area, a helicopter collided with a transport plane, causing a fire that killed eight servicemen.[10] Vance's resignation was confirmed several days later, and he was replaced by SenatorEdmund Muskie. A second rescue mission was planned but never carried out, and the diplomatic efforts to negotiate the release of the hostages were handed over to Deputy Secretary Christopher. The hostages were released during thefirst inauguration of Ronald Reagan, after 444 days in captivity.[1][14]
In 1991, he was namedSpecial Envoy of theSecretary-General of the United Nations for Croatia and proposed theVance plan for solution ofconflict in Croatia. Authorities ofCroatia andSerbia agreed to Vance's plan, but the leaders ofSAO Krajina rejected it, even though it offered Serbs quite a large degree of autonomy by the rest of the world's standards, as it did not include full independence for Krajina. He continued his work as member ofZagreb 4 group. The plan they drafted, namedZ-4, was effectively superseded when Croatian forces retook the Krajina region (Operation Storm) in 1995.
In January 1993, as theUnited Nations Special Envoy to Bosnia, Vance and LordDavid Owen, theEU representative, began negotiating apeace plan for the ending theWar in Bosnia. The plan was rejected, and Vance announced his resignation as Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General. He was replaced by Norwegian Foreign MinisterThorvald Stoltenberg.
In 1997, he was made the original honorary chair of theAmerican Iranian Council.[15]
Vance was a member of both theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and theAmerican Philosophical Society.[16][17]
In 1993, Vance was awarded theUnited States Military Academy'sSylvanus Thayer Award.
In 1995 he again acted asSpecial Envoy of theSecretary-General of the United Nations and signed theinterim accord as witness in the negotiations between theRepublic of Macedonia andGreece. Vance was a member of theTrilateral Commission.[1]
Vance also served on theboard of directors ofIBM,Pan American World Airways,Manufacturers Hanover Trust,U.S. Steel, andThe New York Times, as a trustee of theYale Corporation, as chairman of the board of theRockefeller Foundation, and vice chairman of theCouncil on Foreign Relations.[1]
Vance suffered for several years fromAlzheimer's disease,[18] and died atMount Sinai Hospital inNew York City, on January 12, 2002, aged 84, ofpneumonia and other complications. His funeral was held at theChurch of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan.[1] His remains are interred at theArlington National Cemetery inArlington County, Virginia. His wife Grace died in New York City on March 22, 2008, at the age of 89.[19]
He received thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.
In 1980, Vance received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually byJefferson Awards.[20]
He received theFreedom Medal in 1993.
The house of Vance's mother, which was known as theStealey-Goff-Vance House, was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1979.[21] It is home to the Harrison County Historical Society.[22]
In 1999, Vance was presented the Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy Award by theAmerican Foreign Service Association.
In the 2012 movieArgo, he was portrayed by actorBob Gunton.
Media related toCyrus Vance at Wikimedia Commons
| Legal offices | ||
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| Preceded by | General Counsel of the Department of Defense January 29, 1961 – June 30, 1962 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Secretary of the Army Served under:John F. Kennedy,Lyndon B. Johnson July 1962 – January 1964 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Deputy Secretary of Defense 1964–1967 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | U.S. Secretary of State Served under:Jimmy Carter 1977–1980 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation 1975 — 1977 | Succeeded by |
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