Roswell Gilpatric | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 10thUnited States Deputy Secretary of Defense | |
| In office January 24, 1961 – January 20, 1964 | |
| President | John F Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | James H. Douglas Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Cyrus Vance |
| United States Under Secretary of the Air Force | |
| In office October 19, 1951 – February 5, 1953 | |
| President | Harry S. Truman |
| Preceded by | John A. McCone |
| Succeeded by | James H. Douglas Jr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Roswell Leavitt Gilpatric (1906-11-04)November 4, 1906 |
| Died | March 15, 1996(1996-03-15) (aged 89) |
| Resting place | Mount Desert Island, Maine |
| Alma mater | Yale University (JD) |
Roswell Leavitt Gilpatric (November 4, 1906 – March 15, 1996) was aNew York City corporate attorney and government official who served asDeputy Secretary of Defense from 1961–64, when he played a pivotal role in the high-stake strategies of theCuban Missile Crisis, advising PresidentJohn F. Kennedy as well asRobert McNamara andMcGeorge Bundy on dealing with theSovietnuclear missile threat. Gilpatric later served as Chairman of the Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation in 1964.
Gilpatric was born in 1906 inBrooklyn, the son ofWall Street attorney Walter Hodges Gilpatric,[1] anAmherst College graduate born inWarren, Rhode Island,[2] and the former Charlotte Elizabeth Leavitt, a graduate ofMount Holyoke College, born to American missionary parents inOsaka,Japan.Charlotte Elizabeth Leavitt, Class of 1902, Mount Holyoke College, mtholyoke.edu Charlotte Leavitt[3] was a college classmate and lifelong friend ofFrances Perkins, the first woman appointed to a Presidential Cabinet.[4] On his mother's side Roswell Gilpatric was related toHarvard College astronomerHenrietta Swan Leavitt, whose father was theCongregational minister George Roswell Leavitt.[5][6]
Gilpatric attended Poly Preparatory Country Day School from 1917 to 1920, when the family moved toWhite Plains, where he attended high school for two years before transferring to theHotchkiss School, where he was a member of the remarkable class of 1924 that includedCharles W. Yost,Paul Nitze, and Chapman Rose. His duties as a scholarship boy, which included waiting on tables and cleaning rooms, kept down his participation in extracurricular activities at Hotchkiss, but he was a member of theCum Laude Society.
He graduated fromYale University in 1928,Phi Beta Kappa; and then fromYale Law School in 1931, where he was an editor of theYale Law Journal. Following his graduation, Gilpatric went to work for the New York City law firm ofCravath, Swaine & Moore, where he became a partner and where he practiced when not serving in government. Gilpatric owed much of his political cachet to his special relationship with the celebrated lawyer, diplomat and investment bankerRobert A. Lovett, to whom Gilpatric was a protégé.
Gilpatric served asUnder Secretary of the Air Force from 1951 to 1953. During 1956 and 1957, Gilpatric was a member of theRockefeller Brothers'Special Studies Project. Gilpatric was a childhood friend of GovernorNelson Rockefeller.[7]
Gilpatric joined the new Kennedy administration in 1961 as part of the wave of Kennedy appointments. His appointment was unusual: he was one of the few Pentagon leaders handpicked by the new president. Fearing that the newSecretary of Defense,Robert S. McNamara, was inexperienced in Washington's ways, Kennedy chose Gilpatric to add experience to his Defense team.[8] McNamara was known as a "whiz kid", a Midwestern industrial productionwunderkind. But Kennedy sensed that McNamara would need a strong lieutenant who was savvy in the ways of Washington.
Kennedy chose Gilpatric as the Pentagon's number two, passing overPaul Nitze, Gilpatric's old classmate fromHotchkiss, who had wanted the job.[9] It was a propitious appointment: within a few months, the dashing Eastern lawyer and his Midwestern boss were finishing each other's sentences. McNamara frequently started out with the expression: "Ros and I...."[citation needed]
As the Cuban crisis began to unfold, Gilpatric was appointed to theEXCOMM team, the top-level working group appointed by Kennedy to assess the Soviet missile threat in Cuba. At one point during the tense standoff of theCuban Missile Crisis,McGeorge Bundy was arguing for United States bombing of Cuba to eliminate the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack. McNamara countered, arguing that there should be no bombing because the Soviet Russian response was unpredictable.
It was at this critical moment that Gilpatric stepped in to settle the argument. "Essentially, Mr. President," Gilpatric was recorded telling Kennedy, "this is a choice between limited action and unlimited action, and most of us think it is better to start with limited action." It was Gilpatric's intervention that changed the direction of the discussion, according to Harvard professor and formerDepartment of Defense officialGraham T. Allison, who authored a book,Essence of Decision, about the crisis. Proposing the blockade was McNamara and Gilpatric's solution to providing President Kennedy with a strong response – but short of the airstrike that McGeorge Bundy and others were pushing. By crafting their solution, and with the normally reticent Gilpatric speaking up forcefully for it, the two managed to change the thrust of policy.[10] The President followed Gilpatric and McNamara's recommendation.
Gilpatric was not always so dovish. He often took a hard line against theCommunist threat, and was not above using force in other matters of international security. In the Eisenhower administration, Gilpatric headed a secret task force charged with "preventing Communist domination of Vietnam." Gilpatric argued forcefully for U.S. commitment to halt the Communist threat inSouth Vietnam.[11][12] In his position with the Kennedy administration, Gilpatric later signed off on the overthrow of theDiem government.[13] Gilpatric was also a member of a special task force which hatched"Operation Mongoose", a dirty tricks campaign aimed at destabilizing the government ofFidel Castro inCuba.
At the same time, Gilpatric showed that he could be intellectually flexible on occasion. When it came to the admission ofChina into theUnited Nations, for instance, Gilpatric argued forcefully in a letter toThe New York Times, written during his Eisenhower years, that the United States should stop trying to block the Communist country's admission into the international governing body. "By no longer trying to block Communist China's admission to the United Nations the United States might be able to bring about a reduction in tensions in southeast Asia that would lessen the chances of further Communist 'nibbling' or 'brush-fire' type of aggression."[14]
Gilpatric did not always face an easy task while acting as go-between for the Pentagon generals and the White House. For example, Kennedy developed such an intense dislike of GeneralCurtis Lemay[15] that every time his name came up, Kennedy went ballistic.
"I mean he just would be frantic at the end of a session with LeMay", Gilpatric recalled, "because, you know, LeMay couldn't listen or wouldn't take in, and he would make what Kennedy considered ... outrageous proposals that bore no relation to the state of affairs in the 1960s. And the President never saw him unless at some ceremonial affair, or where he felt he had to make a record of having listened to LeMay, as he did on the whole question of an air strike against Cuba. And he had to sit there. I saw the President right afterwards. He was just choleric."[16]
It was Gilpatric's calm demeanor and good judgment, wroteRobert F. Kennedy, that led his brother the President to rely on Gilpatric, especially in times of crisis. When McNamara met the Brooklyn-born lawyer at Kennedy's suggestion, according to historianArthur Schlesinger Jr., he found Gilpatric "easy, resourceful and intelligent, and the partnership was immediately sealed." Gilpatric made himself an "indispensable" figure in the Kennedy administration, wrote longtime JFK aideTed Sorensen.[10]
As an attorney, Gilpatric represented aviation inventor and high-tech pioneerSherman Fairchild, who left Gilpatric a bequest in his will. Gilpatric was awarded an honorary degree byBowdoin College inBrunswick, Maine, citing his years of government service, as well as his part-time residency in Maine.[17]
Gilpatric sometimes attracted the attention of the press in his personal life, and he was often linked romantically to former First LadyJackie Kennedy.[18] A fellow Wall Street attorney offered for sale in the 1970s a trove of personal letters between Gilpatric and the former First Lady. The correspondence spanned five years. The controversial airing of his private correspondence with the former First Lady so annoyed Gilpatric that he formally requested that four letters written to him by Jackie Kennedy be withdrawn for sale by the auction house as they had been stolen from his New York City law office at Cravath.
After her marriage toAristotle Onassis, Jackie Kennedy Onassis wrote to Gilpatric: "I hope you know all you were and are and will ever be to me. With my love, J." Gilpatric maintained that he and the former First Lady had been only friends, although he was her frequent escort and many press accounts suggested they had a romantic relationship. "In private," saidThe Independent in its obituary, "he was widely believed to have been the lover ofJacqueline Kennedy Onassis." Between marriages, Gilpatric had frequently accompanied the former First Lady toPalm Beach, Florida, where Gilpatric had a home.[19]
Another strange twist involved Gilpatric after his death, when a 2008 book by former acting director of theFBIL. Patrick Gray alleged that Gilpatric, back in private practice and withTime magazine as a client at the time of theWatergate break-in, learned from sources at the magazine that a senior official at the FBI was leaking to Sandy Smith, one of its reporters. Gray claimed that outraged by such behavior, Gilpatric tipped off Nixon administration officials to the identity of the official.[20]
In Gray's version of events, Gilpatric called his acquaintance formerAttorney GeneralJohn Mitchell and told Mitchell that the informer was FBI officialW. Mark Felt, the same official later identified by other sources to beDeep Throat. Mitchell in turn, Gray claimed, urged then-Attorney GeneralRichard G. Kleindienst to pressure Gray to fire Felt. In early 2008, Gilpatric's son John threw cold water on the claim. Roswell Gilpatric had never mentioned knowing John Mitchell, his son toldThe New York Times.[21]
But as recorded by the then-secret Nixon White House taping system, Nixon, Gray and chief domestic adviserJohn Ehrlichman appear to confirm Gray's version in a conversation recorded on February 16, 1973, as the three discussed the alleged press leaks by Mark Felt. During the discussion, Nixon suggested that they bring in Felt's accuser:
President: Well, why don't you get in the fellow that's made the charge, then.
Ehrlichman: Well, maybe that's (unintelligible)
President: Of course he's, of course he's, he's not a newsman, on the other hand.
Ehrlichman: No.
President: He's a lawyer...
Ehrlichman: That's right.
President: ...forTime.
Gray: I know who he is, Mr. President.[22]
Gilpatric served as chairman of theFederal Reserve Bank of New York, and was a longtime trustee of theNew York Public Library,New York University and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He also served as a vice chairman and trustee of theMetropolitan Museum of Art, and chaired theMetropolitan Museum of Art's 100th Anniversary Committee.[23] Gilpatric was also a longtime member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations.[24] He retired as partner withCravath, Swaine & Moore, where he served as presiding partner from 1966 to 1977.
Gilpatric had many clients; they included the Graham family ofThe Washington Post Company, on whose board of directors he sat.[25] Gilpatric was also a lecturer atYale Law School, and a member of Yale University Council from 1957 to 1962.[10]
For much of his life he lived onSutton Place inManhattan. An avid tennis player and sailor, Gilpatric had three children. He was married five times. At his death, he was married to Miriam Thorne Gilpatric, the widow of diplomat Landon Ketchum Thorne, Jr., father ofJulia Thorne, first wife ofUnited States SenatorJohn F. Kerry.[26]
Gilpatric died of prostate cancer on March 15, 1996, in New York City, and was buried in Somesville,Mount Desert Island,Maine, where he had a summer home. Gilpatric's papers during his government service are part of theJohn F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by | United States Under Secretary of the Air Force October 19, 1951 – February 5, 1953 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Deputy Secretary of Defense 1961–1964 | Succeeded by |
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