Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (1917-2002)

By Richard H. Curtiss

Cyrus Vance exemplified all that was good of the Eastern establishment. His father was a West Virginia landowner who worked for a time with the U.S. government in World War I. His mother was from a Philadelphia Mainline family.

Vance was a graduate of Kent School, one of the nation’s most exclusive private schools. He graduated with a law degree from Yale, and received a commission in the U.S. Navy at the beginning of World War II. He saw action on destroyers at Bougainville, Tarawa, the Philippines, Saipan and Guam.

Upon returning to civilian life, the young attorney showed that he had an interest in and penchant for service to the government. Thus he began many years of moving in and out of increasingly high-ranking government positions.

Cyrus Vance became a master political operative. Moving steadily upward, he made himself indispensable in the labyrinthine politics of the Pentagon, having already made his mark as an effective political operator with President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Perhaps it was his good fortune that, as the dark shadow of the Vietnam war grew larger, Vance suffered a long period of crippling bad health from an accident at Yale while captaining the university hockey team. Recuperating from his debilitating back injury, he was sidelined as the Vietnam War went from bad to worse, first under Johnson and later under President Richard M. Nixon.

Increasingly on behalf of Democratic administrations Vance took on thankless but vitally important missions to prevent major international storms. He used his negotiating skills in Cyprus in 1967, where he was generally credited for having averted a threatened Turkish invasion, although Turkey did eventually invade in 1974. As he shuttled to and from the Cyprus dispute, Vance was literally in agony as his back flared up throughout the key moments in that 1967 crisis.

When Jimmy Carter was sworn into office in 1977, Vance was Carter’s first appointment as secretary of state. Carter knew what he wanted to do but didn’t know how to keep the diverse members of Congress in line. Vance knew who to turn to for political support from both Democratic and Republican members.

In a way the transition to Vance from the flamboyant, manipulative and sometimes deceitful Henry Kissinger came as a welcome relief to people on both sides of the partisan aisle. Where Kissinger made the press corps do things Kissinger’s way or go into limbo, Vance seemed not to be playing favorites so obviously.

The new atmosphere in Washington came as a relief both to Congress and journalists. For example, throughout the nearly two terms of the Nixon administration, Kissinger, as national security adviser, had steadily undercut Secretary of State William Rogers, finally leaving Rogers with only the Arab-Israeli dispute to manage. When Kissinger then tried to take over that as well, Rogers quit in despair. Retaining his position as national security adviser, Kissinger then added the position of secretary of state to his portfolio. Eventually it became clear that Henry Kissinger had no intention of solving the Mideast conflict except on Israel’s terms.

The atmospherics changed on Carter’s watch. There were fewer outbursts of temperament and unpredictability. Initially Vance almost overplayed the role. He insisted on flying in commercial aircraft. He hated the perks and favoritism that had gone with the job under both Johnson and Nixon. Eventually, as Vance’s responsibilities multiplied, they became too difficult to handle without government transportation. Still, he did his best to move about with a small entourage and did the hard work of making sure that arrangements were sound and the results were good.

Perhaps the most important legacy of President Carter’s four-year term was his insistence on developing the concept of human rights. Those who supported this new concept, this writer included, considered it a brilliant achievement but worried that the Israel lobby would soon find Carter’s Achilles’ heel. Would the president make exceptions when it came to the Israel lobby? In fact, through the many years that followed, in general the concept remained unspoiled. In some cases the Israel lobby was able to blunt the human rights reports which evolved into an annual “report card.” There was some fudging, but those who followed the matter closely felt the administration did a surprisingly effective job.

Like all of his predecessors, Carter was aware that the Israel lobby was the “third rail” of American politics. Running afoul of the Israel lobby, which included members of both parties ever-mindful of Israel’s interests, was extremely dangerous to both Republicans and Democrats.

Because of Carter’s deep religiosity, he was prepared to undertake the Israel-Palestine problem. He also was aware of past false steps. This became one of the first disagreements between Cyrus Vance and Carter’s new national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski felt this was a major problem that had to be faced almost immediately. Vance wished to move into the conflict more gradually. He was deeply concerned that Brzezinski’s bolder approach was dangerous, but at the same time he knew that Jimmy Carter had great confidence in his national security adviser’s brilliant intellect. Vance knew Jimmy Carter wanted Brzezinski on his team, although Vance clearly saw the hazards of divided counsels.

What moved the problem from front to center was the action of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who took the bit in his teeth by asking to visit Israel. It was so unexpected that the Israeli government, despite deep misgivings, encouraged the visit. Many Israelis thought it was a trap to bring about the loss of hundreds of people with a surprise attack, and Israeli soldiers actually lined the runways as Sadat’s airplane landed.

In fact the visit went well, and thus began serious negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace. It looked as if Jimmy Carter had found a role that would eventuate into a second term. Among those working closely with what eventually became the Camp David marathon, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin did not actually speak to each other except at the very beginning and very end. When the protagonists came back down from the mountain to announce an agreement had been reached, the world was astounded.

There was one problem remaining, however. The initial agreement had been clear about what the Israelis would do, but the fine print was incomplete. When it became time to sign the preliminary agreement, Anwar Sadat said he would trust Carter to be sure that the details were filled in. The very next day after leaving Camp David, Menachem Begin made a speech to his American supporters in New York that seemed to contradict virtually everything that Begin had agreed to. It was the beginning of a long and acrimonious series of dialogues that did not bode well for peace. Unfortunately with his re-election campaign beginning, Carter decided to defer the problem until he safely entered a second term. But that was not to be.

Meanwhile, decisions in Iran made some 20 years earlier had postponed what might otherwise have been a more orderly political evolution. Things were now boiling over.

There are villains aplenty to be blamed. The shah of Iran had become increasingly megalomaniacal. Meanwhile, then-President Nixon decided to make the shah the major player in the Persian Gulf. It was basically a case of providing an open season to American arms manufacturers of all technical gadgetry as long as the United States made a huge amount of money. The result was the fall in January 1979 of the shah, who was replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Shortly after Jimmy Carter assumed office the Iranian revolution became a catastrophe not only for the United States, but for all Iranians. To this day Iranian-American relations have not been restored. But the immediate catastrophe was the hostage crisis. Student activists seized the American Embassy in Tehran and threatened to kill the embassy staff.

Even embassy staff members who happened to be outside the American Embassy at the time were restrained by the new Iranian government. They remained in the Iranian Foreign Ministry under slightly less hazardous circumstances.

This situation remained the major crisis of the Carter administration. The danger and humiliation of the hostages only increased as no one seemed able to deal with the unprecedented diplomatic deadlock. Vance slogged on. In his mind there was only one solution, and that was patient negotiations. He had no doubt that the hostages eventually would be saved but felt certain that rash action could create serious problems, both from the humanitarian and diplomatic points of view.

By that time the hostage crisis had become the overwhelming concern of the entire nation. Vance never lost faith that the problem would be solved, hopefully before the end of Carter’s first term. Others, however, were less sanguine, both on how and when the problem would be resolved.

The Mouse Will Play

Brzezinski’s chance came in early 1980 when Vance took a few days off. In his absence, Carter and Brzezinski decided to attempt a daring rescue to seize all of the hostages, even those still detained in the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Vance was horrified when he heard that Carter had decided to act. He rushed back to the State Department and begged Carter to reconsider. But for Carter the die was cast. And undoubtedly there were concerns that the Carter presidency was at stake.

Vance told Carter that he had no choice but to resign. He promised to hold his resignation, however, until the rescue effort was completed, regardless of how it turned out. Unfortunately, it turned into a fiasco. Seven service members died and the rescue had to be aborted. A few days later, Vance returned to private life.

Back in Washington, however, totally different plans were underway by Republican supporters of Ronald Reagan to make a better deal with Khomeini’s followers than anything Tehran could get from Carter. Jimmy Carter never realized that he had been double-crossed. He stayed up the entire night before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, hoping against hope that the hostages would be ransomed. Reagan, however, made it very clear that Carter was the loser and Ronald Reagan would be the winner in the attempt to change Iranian relations. Minutes after Carter left his successor’s inauguration it was announced that the hostages had been released.

In retrospect, Cyrus Vance did not seem to hold a grudge after those bitter events. Characteristically, his impeccable manners and natural courtesy made him very popular with the State Department and all others with whom he came in contact. He became a natural negotiator and emissary through all of his remaining working life. The special missions he undertook often turned potential disasters into triumphs. When that was not possible, at least they did no harm.

When he was not being asked to help as a troubleshooter, he continued his legal practice. He was widely in demand for corporate positions and always made conscientious suggestions.

Among many tributes, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described Vance as “the pride of a generation of Americans who valued public service as the highest goal.”

Mr. Vance never dwelled upon his own legacy. When he was asked how he hoped to be remembered he said: “I hope for being a reasonably decent, honest person who tried to do some things for the country that might have lasting effect and create a better life for a large number of people.”

Mr. Vance is survived by his wife, Grace Elsie Sloane, their five children and two grandchildren. Mr. Vance died of pneumonia but his son, Cyrus Vance, Jr., also said he suffered recently from Alzheimer’s Disease.

His son wrote, “I learned a lot from him as a father. I loved him dearly and I will miss him and I think that a lot of the lessons he taught me come from how he lived his life.”

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report.