Cyrus Vance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cyrus Vance Cyrus Vance Signature.svg

Cyrus Roberts Vance (born March 27, 1917 in Clarksburg , West Virginia , †  January 12, 2002 in New York City ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) and from January 1977 to April 1980 Secretary of State of the United States under President Jimmy Carter . He advocated negotiations with the Soviet Union and disarmament measures . In April 1980, Vance resigned after Operation Eagle Claw to free the US hostages held in Iran failed.

Life

Vance was a nephew of John W. Davis , who ran for the Democrats in the 1924 presidential election. He studied at Yale , where he was a member of the secret society Scroll and Key . After graduating from law school in 1942, he served in the U.S. Navy through 1946 . He then worked in a law firm in New York before joining the US government and initially serving as Secretary of State from 1962 to 1964 . As Deputy Secretary of Defense (1964-1967) under President Lyndon B. Johnson , he initially advocated the Vietnam War , but changed his mind in the late 1960s and advised the President to withdraw the troops from Vietnam. In 1968 he was a delegate at peace talks in Paris.

Cyrus Vance and Jimmy Carter on March 7, 1977

As Foreign Secretary in the Carter administration , Vance reached negotiations and economic deals with the Soviet Union. He often came into conflict with Zbigniew Brzeziński , the national security advisor, who emphasized the ideological contrast between the systems and considered the chance of destabilization of the Eastern Bloc due to ideological weaknesses in the Soviet system and nationalist tendencies in the Soviet republics to be necessary. Vance tried to initiate disarmament measures through the SALT II agreement with the USSR. He also played a key role in President Carter's decision to return the Canal Zone to Panama and the Camp David Agreement between Israel and Egypt to be concluded.

After the deal, Vance's influence declined, while that of Brzeziński increased, who contributed to the breakup of the Eastern bloc with his strategy of promoting dissidents and the Polish trade union movement . In the course of talks with the People's Republic of China , Vance was marginalized and his advice on responding to the loss of power by the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ignored. When 52 American diplomats were held hostage in Iran after the Islamic Revolution , he vehemently advocated negotiations but was unsuccessful. Carter ordered a secret military rescue attempt ( Operation Eagle Claw ); this failed on April 24, 1980. Four days later, Vance resigned.

Vance returned to his legal office but was called back to the civil service several times during the 1980s and 1990s to serve on diplomatic missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina , Croatia and South Africa .

Vance served on the board of directors and trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1971 to 1976 . He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission . In 1973 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1993 of the American Philosophical Society .

He developed Alzheimer's disease and died at the age of 84. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

His son Cyrus Roberts Vance Jr. (* 1954) is the District Attorney of Manhattan and in this capacity was a. a. Chief Prosecutor in the suspended proceedings for sexual harassment against Dominique Strauss-Kahn and in the proceedings against Harvey Weinstein .

The investigations against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. hired Vance Jr. a.

Writings literature

  • Cyrus Vance: Hard choices: Critical years in America's foreign policy . Simon and Schuster, New York 1983, ISBN 0-671-44339-9 (autobiography).

literature

  • John Norton: Cyrus Vance. In: Edward S. Mihalkanin (Ed.): American Statesmen: Secretaries of State from John Jay to Colin Powell . Greenwood Publishing 2004, ISBN 978-0-313-30828-4 , pp. 512-520.
  • Cyrus R. Vance , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 15/2002 from April 1, 2002, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Commons : Cyrus Vance  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b https://history.state.gov
  2. ↑ Member History: Cyrus R. Vance. American Philosophical Society, accessed February 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ https://therealdeal.com/2017/10/04/manhattan-da-dropped-criminal-case-against-trump-children-then-he-got-a-big-check/
personal data
SURNAME Vance, Cyrus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vance, Cyrus Roberts (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Democratic Party Politician and Secretary of State (1977–1980)
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Clarksburg , West Virginia
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 2002
Place of death New York City