Cyrus Vance

Cyrus Roberts Vance (1917 to 2002) was an American lawyer who served as general counsel of the Department of Defense, Secretary of the Army, and Deputy Secretary of Defense, and then as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. He resigned in April 1980 over the rescue attempt in Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. Between 1991 and 1999 he served as a United Nations envoy on the Yugoslav wars and on the dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.¹

Early Career and the Preparedness Subcommittee

Vance was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia on March 27, 1917. He attended the Kent School in Connecticut, graduated from Yale University in 1939 and received his law degree there in 1942.² He served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946, as an instructor in naval ordnance and then on destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific, and completed his service as a lieutenant.² He was assistant to the president of the Mead Corporation from 1946 to 1947, then joined the New York firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 1947 and became a partner in 1956.² From 1957 to 1960 he was special counsel to the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and in 1958 he was consulting counsel to the Special Committee on Space and Astronautics.² Senator John Sparkman stated in 1977 that Vance had worked in the late 1950s as a staff member of the Armed Services Committee and on the Space and Astronautics committee.³

Department of Defense and the Army, 1961 to 1967

Vance was general counsel of the Department of Defense from 1961 to 1962 and chairman of the Committee on Adjudication of Claims of the Administrative Conference of the United States in 1961 and 1962.⁴ On July 5, 1962 he became Secretary of the Army under John F. Kennedy, a post he held until January 21, 1964. Under his direction the major reorganization of 1962 was implemented, the Army went on alert during the Cuban crisis, the Reserve Components were realigned, and the Army provided troops "in support of civil authorities during the integration of universities in Mississippi and Alabama."²

From 1964 to 1967 he was Deputy Secretary of Defense under Robert S. McNamara. Lyndon B. Johnson had made him deputy secretary.¹ Vance was an early supporter of the Vietnam War. He later came to oppose it and urged Johnson to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam.¹ Sparkman described him in 1977 as having served as the President's special representative during crises in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Cyprus and South Korea.³

Detroit, 1967

At about 11:00 a.m. on Monday, July 24, 1967, Vance received a call at home from McNamara, who was at the White House with Johnson, asking whether he could go to Detroit during the 1967 Detroit riot. He reached the Cabinet Room at about 11:50 a.m. and read the telegram from Governor George Romney of Michigan requesting Federal troops and the President's reply, which stated that Vance was being sent as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense to confer with Romney and Mayor Cavanagh and to plan such support and assistance as might be necessary.⁵ He named Deputy Attorney General Warren Christopher, Assistant Attorney General John Doar and the Community Relations Service director Roger Wilkins among the party that flew to Selfridge Air Force Base, where he arrived at 3:10 p.m. and conferred with General Throckmorton, who had come from Fort Bragg to command the Army troops.⁵

At a meeting at Detroit Police Headquarters at about 4:25 p.m., Vance asked Romney whether he was stating that a condition of insurrection or domestic violence existed that state and local forces could not control; Romney replied that he was not prepared to so state. Vance and Throckmorton, with his staff, "concluded unanimously that there was an insufficient basis at that time to justify the deployment of Federal troops into the city."⁶ The report records a joint press conference at 8:15 p.m. at which Vance said he hoped the situation could be contained without Federal troops, and a private visit from Romney at about 8:30 p.m. in which the governor said he felt strongly that Federal troops should be deployed before nightfall.⁶ After 9:00 p.m. the incident rate rose; at 9:30 p.m. Vance and Throckmorton moved three battalions of paratroopers to the Fairgrounds, and at about 11:10 p.m. Vance recommended to the President, with the concurrence of all members of his team, that Federal troops be deployed. At 11:20 p.m. Johnson signed the proclamation and executive order authorizing the use of Federal troops and federalizing the Michigan Army and Air National Guard.⁷

Throckmorton took command of all forces. Regular Army units of Task Force 82 took over the part of the city east of Woodward Avenue, a relief completed at 4:10 a.m. on July 25, and the Michigan National Guard kept the west. The rules of engagement issued to troops under Federal control directed commanders to apply force in a stated order, beginning with unloaded rifles with bayonets fixed and sheathed.⁷ On Saturday, July 29, Vance returned to Washington to report to the President and to attend the first meeting of the President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and announced the Small Business Administration's declaration of Detroit as a disaster area, which authorized 3 percent, 30-year loans. A final press conference on August 2 announced that law and order had been restored and that responsibility would return to state authorities at noon; Vance left Detroit at 9:10 p.m. that day.⁸ Robert S. McNamara released the final report on September 12, 1967. Its cover gives Vance's title as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense.⁵

Cyprus, Korea and the Paris Talks

On November 22, 1967 Johnson asked the former under secretary of defense to serve as his envoy in the Cyprus crisis.⁹ Between November 23 and December 4 Vance shuttled among Ankara, Athens and Nicosia. A telegram from Nicosia dated December 3 describes a two-hour meeting with Archbishop Makarios and records that "Makarios was adamant, rejecting para 4 as revised during the night, and refusing any further efforts at compromise."¹⁰

In February 1968, during the crisis that followed the seizure of the USS Pueblo by North Korea, Vance was sent to South Korea. He served as the President's special representative to Korea in 1968.² In a memorandum to Johnson dated February 20, 1968 he stated that the objective of his mission was to persuade Park Chung-hee "that we intend to stand firmly with them in the current crisis," and wrote, "I believe that these objectives were essentially realized." The memorandum records that he arrived in Seoul on February 11 and found Park incensed over the North Korean raid of January 21 on the presidential mansion and the seizure of the Pueblo on January 23.¹¹

The Army's official biography calls Vance chief U.S. negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.² The delegation's telegrams, however, went out in joint names: a telegram from Paris of October 9, 1968 is headed "From Harriman and Vance," with W. Averell Harriman as the other name on it.¹² In December 1968 Walt Rostow attached to a report for Johnson a note that begins "Cy Vance reports from Paris by secure phone."¹³ Vance received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.²

Private Practice, Boards and the Trilateral Commission

After 1969 Vance returned to the practice of law in New York.¹ The biographical sketch printed in the Senate record from the International Who's Who of 1976 to 1977 lists him as a partner of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett from 1956 to 1961 and again from 1969, a director of Pan American World Airways from 1969, a member of the board of IBM, a director of The New York Times Company, chairman of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation, and president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1974.⁴ Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan told the Foreign Relations Committee in January 1977 that Vance had been president of the bar for the past two years.¹⁴ In October 1975 Vance headed a world affairs delegation that visited China; the Rockefeller Foundation's president later published a working paper, "China Diary," recounting the trip.¹⁵

In the early 1970s he became a member of the Trilateral Commission, a private organization founded in 1973 to create closer cooperation among Americans, Europeans and Asians.¹ In 1976 Carter, also a member, asked Vance to become Secretary of State.¹

Nomination Hearing, January 1977

The Senate table of Carter cabinet nominations records the announcement of Vance as nominee on December 3, 1976, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on January 11, 1977, and confirmation by voice vote on January 20, 1977.¹⁶ The committee chairman announced that the committee would hold Vance's financial statement in its confidential files.⁴ Senator Frank Church questioned him first.

Among the witnesses was Edward Korry, the former ambassador to Chile. Korry testified that he appealed to Vance on December 26, 1975, as one of seven Americans from whom he sought support, after the Senate select committee had issued reports on assassinations and on Chile that named him, and that Vance, then president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, never acknowledged the letter. He testified that at the Century Club in New York on Friday, February 13, 1976, Vance, "also a member of the Century and a director of the New York Times," approached his luncheon table and said, "The trouble with you, Ed, is that you do not know the difference between a political process and a legal process." Korry asked whether the author Ken Kesey had in mind "the system of old boy networks" of "a Mr. Geneen, Mr. McCone, Mr. Helms, the brothers Bundy, Mr. Rockefeller, and even a Mr. Vance," and added that he was "not accusing the nominee or Mr. Rockefeller or the Bundys of any prosecutable crime." Church told Korry that the charges were "completely baseless."¹⁷

Secretary of State, 1977 to 1980

The Office of the Historian records that Carter appointed Vance on January 21, 1977, that he entered the office on January 23, and that his appointment terminated on April 28, 1980.¹ He emphasized negotiation over military confrontation. Over the following two years Vance helped negotiate the Panama Canal Treaty, an Israel-Egypt peace treaty, the restoration of full diplomatic relations with China and a settlement in Zimbabwe.¹ His resignation letter lists, among the administration's achievements, the Panama Canal Treaty, the Camp David Accords, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, normalization with China, the SALT II negotiations and the Zimbabwe settlement.¹⁸

Camp David

At the Camp David summit in September 1978 the American delegation worked in two groups. The political group included Vance, Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jody Powell, Hamilton Jordan and, occasionally, Walter Mondale and Harold Brown. The team of experts "met under Vance's direction" and was composed of Harold H. Saunders, Alfred L. Atherton, Hermann F. Eilts, Samuel W. Lewis and William B. Quandt.¹⁹ Vance wrote in his memoir that "Not since Theodore Roosevelt mediated the treaty negotiated in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that ended the Russo-Japanese War had an American president even approached what Jimmy Carter was about to attempt," and that the two American groups "worked in the closest harmony."¹⁹

Vela, 1979

A VELA satellite recorded a double flash on September 22, 1979. A September 25, 1979 memorandum for the record by Richard M. Moose records that Vance would raise the matter at a scheduled dinner of the Quadripartite Group of the United States, United Kingdom, France and West Germany.²⁰ Ambassador Thomas Watson in Moscow sent a restricted "Nodis Cherokee" message on October 26, 1979, "meant for Secretary Vance and his close associates only," recommending discussions with the Soviet Union about the Vela incident.²⁰ A later Department reply, which Vance instructed, stated that Washington had delayed because the "initial information was highly inconclusive" and that U.S. "allies were concerned that precipitate action might complicate other important issues."²⁰ A November 19, 1979 briefing paper prepared for either Vance or President Carter summarized a New Zealand message expressing "considerable doubts" about the rainwater.²⁰

On January 9, 1980 Vance's special assistant told the staff of Gerard C. Smith that the secretary agreed the conclusions of the panel report on the event should be made public, and Vance supported "some kind of UN sanctions if there is no progress with South Africa on the nuclear issue." On January 12, 1980 Vance sent the embassy in South Africa the panel's conclusions together with instructions to resume nuclear talks, stating that "we have decided to make another attempt to reach a nuclear settlement with South Africa."²⁰

Iran and the Resignation

Iranian students and militants seized the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and took 52 Americans hostage. By spring 1980 the negotiations for their release had failed, and Carter decided on a rescue mission. Vance was the only adviser to Carter who opposed that rescue mission.²¹

The National Security Council was convened on Friday, April 11, 1980 while Vance was on vacation in Florida. Warren Christopher, the deputy secretary of state, attended and objected to the use of force, and the members decided to attempt the rescue.²¹²² Vance wrote in his memoir, "When I returned to Washington late Monday afternoon, Christopher informed me of the meeting. Stunned and angry that such a momentous decision had been made in my absence, I went to see the president very early the next morning and spelled out my strong objections to the rescue mission."²¹ According to his later recollection he objected to Carter again before the National Security Council met on April 15, and the President's Daily Diary records a meeting between the two men from 12:10 to 12:47 p.m. that day.²² Vance wrote that on Thursday, April 17 he told Carter he would have to resign if the mission went forward.²¹

Vance dated his resignation letter, handwritten, April 21, 1980, and wrote that he delivered it to the President in the map room of the White House that afternoon. It begins, "I have the greatest respect and admiration for you and it is with a heavy heart that I submit my resignation," and continues, "I wish I could support you in it. But for the reasons we have discussed I cannot."¹⁸²¹ Carter accepted the resignation on April 28, writing: "Because you could not support my decision regarding the rescue operation in Iran, you have made the correct decision to resign."²³ Carter wrote in his diary for April 27 that Harold Brown and Brzezinski "did not know about it ahead of time in any specific terms, although they both had suspected it was coming."²¹ The rescue mission was scheduled for April 24 and failed; the hostages were released on January 20, 1981 after 444 days in captivity.²¹ The Senate confirmed Edmund Muskie as his successor on May 7, 1980 by a vote of 94 to 2.¹⁶ The Office of the Historian states that Vance resigned because he believed a military operation would be in vain and would damage the negotiations for the hostages' release.¹

Return to Private Practice and Later Boards

Vance resumed the practice of law with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 1980.² He had been a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1970 until he became Secretary of State, and chairman of its board of trustees from 1975 to 1977. The board listing for December 31, 1976 shows him as chairman and a member of the Executive Committee, with John D. Rockefeller 3rd as honorary chairman and, among the trustees, W. Michael Blumenthal, Theodore Hesburgh, Vernon Jordan, Paul Volcker, Lane Kirkland and Bill Moyers. The president's report for 1976 states that Vance became the third trustee in the Foundation's history to be named Secretary of State, "the others being John Foster Dulles and Dean Rusk."¹⁵ He rejoined the board in 1980 and retired effective June 30, 1982, having also served on its Executive and Finance Committees.²⁴

Vance was a Class C director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from January 1989. A circular of December 28, 1989 states that the Board of Governors reappointed him effective January 1, 1990 and redesignated him chairman of the board and Federal Reserve agent for 1990, and describes him as presiding partner of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.²⁵ He served as chairman for 1989 through 1991, and the Board of Governors reappointed him a Class C director for the term beginning January 1, 1993.²⁶ In 1990 he was cochairman of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, a project of the State Department and the Agency for International Development.²

The Council on Foreign Relations annual report for July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985 lists Vance among the directors with a term expiring in 1987, on the Executive Committee chaired by David Rockefeller, on the Campaign Executive Committee, among the Vice Chairmen of the Board in the report's historical roll of officers, and among the individual donors of 10,000 dollars or more to the council's campaign. He chaired the advisory group of the council's European-American Project, presided over a September 13, 1984 conference held with the Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University and wrote the foreword to its transcript, and chaired a March 1985 conference on "Central America as a European-American Issue."²⁷

United Nations Envoy on Yugoslavia

On October 8, 1991 Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar appointed Vance as his Personal Envoy for Yugoslavia.²⁸ The Security Council's resolution 721 of November 27, 1991 refers to the Secretary-General's letter of November 24 on the mission of his Personal Envoy and to the agreement signed in Geneva on November 23, 1991.²⁹ Vance and Lord Owen served as co-chairmen of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia. In November 1992 they recommended a United Nations observer deployment in Macedonia.²⁸

Talks were held in Geneva from January 2 to 5, 1993. The texts of the Vance-Owen agreements on constitutional principles and on a cessation of hostilities, signed by Alija Izetbegović, Radovan Karadžić and Mate Boban and witnessed by Vance and Owen, bear the date Geneva, January 30, 1993; a further text on interim arrangements, witnessed by Vance and Owen, bears the date New York, March 25, 1993.³⁰ Successive Bosnian blueprints, including the Vance-Owen plan, were "repudiated by one side or the other."²⁸ In May 1993 Thorvald Stoltenberg replaced Vance as Personal Envoy.²⁸

Nagorno-Karabakh, 1992

On March 20, 1992 Vance spent about half a day in Stepanakert as an envoy of the UN Secretary-General, after stops in Baku and Yerevan on March 18 and 19. According to a 2017 account by Emil Sanamyan, a recording of the visit captures Vance saying, "It is time to try to find a way to peace," shortly before his delegation boarded the cars of Karabakh officials.³¹

Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

In July 1993 Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed Vance to carry out his good offices on the differences between the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece. Vance held numerous talks in that post until he resigned in December 1999, for personal reasons.³² The Secretary-General's appeal to the two governments to resume negotiations refers to "his Special Representative, Mr. Cyrus Vance."²⁸

Vance died in January 2002. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement on Sunday, published by the United Nations on January 14, 2002, saying that Vance "undertook many important missions for the United Nations, notably in the former Yugoslavia," and called him "a great servant of his country, of the United Nations and of humanity."³²