Content deleted Content added
unblank with a few details |
Reverted 1 edit by 174.30.21.6 (talk): MOS:INFOBOXFLAG |
||
| (386 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{Short description|American politician (1913–2001)}}
{{distinguish|William Peleg Rogers}}
{{redirect|Attorney General Rogers}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = William P. Rogers
| image = William P. Rogers, U.S. Secretary of State.jpg
| caption = Official portrait, 1969
| office = 55th [[United States Secretary of State]]
| president = [[Richard Nixon]]
| term_start = January 22, 1969
| term_end = September 3, 1973
| predecessor = [[Dean Rusk]]
| successor = [[Henry Kissinger]]
| office1 = 63rd [[United States Attorney General]]
| president1 = [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Dwight Eisenhower]]
| term_start1 = October 23, 1957
| term_end1 = January 20, 1961
| predecessor1 = [[Herbert Brownell Jr.|Herbert Brownell]]
| successor1 = [[Robert F. Kennedy]]
| office2 = 4th [[United States Deputy Attorney General]]
| president2 = [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Dwight Eisenhower]]
| term_start2 = January 20, 1953
| term_end2 = October 23, 1957
| predecessor2 = [[Ross L. Malone]]
| successor2 = [[Lawrence Walsh]]
| birth_name = William Pierce Rogers
| birth_date = {{birth date|1913|6|23}}
| birth_place = [[Norfolk, New York]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|2001|1|2|1913|6|23}}
| death_place = [[Bethesda, Maryland]], U.S.
| resting_place = [[Arlington National Cemetery]]
| party = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse = {{marriage|Adele Langston|1937}}
| children = 4
| education = [[Colgate University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br />[[Cornell University]] ([[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]])
| signature = William P. Rogers Signature.svg
| allegiance = United States
| serviceyears = 1942-1945
| branch = [[United States Navy]]
| rank = [[Lieutenant commander|Lieutenant Commander]]
| unit = [[USS Intrepid (CV-11)|USS ''Intrepid'']]
| battles = {{tree list}}
*[[World War II]]
**[[Battle of Okinawa]]
{{tree list/end}}
}}
'''William Pierce Rogers''' (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. A member of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]], Rogers served as [[United States Deputy Attorney General|Deputy Attorney General of the United States]] and then [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General of the United States]] in the [[Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower|administration]] of [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], and as the [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] in the [[Presidency of Richard Nixon|administration]] of [[Richard Nixon]].
Rogers was an ally of Nixon, but [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] [[Henry Kissinger]] overshadowed Rogers and eventually succeeded him as Secretary of State in September 1973.<ref name=obit/> At the time of his death in 2001, Rogers was the last surviving member of Eisenhower's cabinet.
==Early life and education==
Rogers was born June 23, 1913, in [[Norfolk, New York]].<ref name=obit/> After the death of his mother, the former Myra Beswick, he was raised during his teen years by his grandparents in the village of [[Canton (village), New York|Canton, New York]], where he graduated from high school in 1930. He attended [[Colgate University]], where he was initiated into the [[Sigma Chi]] fraternity. He then attended [[Cornell Law School]], where he was an editor of the ''[[Cornell Law Review|Cornell Law Quarterly]]''.<ref>{{cite news|first1=J.Y.|last1=Smith|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/01/04/lawyer-statesman-william-p-rogers-dies/be9a8dda-5455-4d35-ad90-ebdee837bfa2/|title=Lawyer-Statesman William P. Rogers Dies|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|publisher=[[Washington Post Company]]|___location=Washington DC|date=January 4, 2001|access-date=August 16, 2017}}</ref> He received his [[Bachelor of Laws|LL.B.]] in 1937, graduating fifth in his class of 47<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Frank H.T.|last1=Rhoades |title=Tributes to William and Adele Rogers |url=https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1505&context=cilj |journal=[[Cornell International Law Journal]] |publisher=[[Cornell Law School]] |___location=Ithaca, New York|volume=36|number=1|date=Spring 2003|access-date=February 10, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Registration |journal=[[Cornell Law Quarterly]] |publisher=[[Cornell University]]|___location=Ithaca, New York|date=Fall 1936 |volume=22 |issue=1 |page=84 }}</ref> as a member of the [[Order of the Coif]], passing the New York bar in the same year.<ref name=obit/>
==Career==
After having served about a year as an attorney for a [[Wall Street]] law firm, he became an assistant district attorney in 1938 and was appointed by [[District Attorney]] [[Thomas E. Dewey]] to a 60-man task force aimed at routing out New York City's [[organized crime]].{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
Rogers entered the [[United States Navy|Navy]] in 1942, serving on the {{USS|Intrepid|CV-11|6}}, including her action in the [[Battle of Okinawa]]. His final rank was lieutenant commander.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
After the war, Rogers joined the United States Congress as a [[Congressional staff|committee counsel]]. While serving on a [[United States Senate|Senate]] committee, Rogers examined documentation from the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]]'s investigation of [[Alger Hiss]] at the request of Representative [[Richard M. Nixon]]. He advised Nixon that Hiss had lied and that the case against him should be pursued.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
On August 17, 1948, Senator [[Homer S. Ferguson]], chairman of a Senate subcommittee on expenditures in the executive department, stated by speech and letter that the Office of the United States Attorney General had approved its espionage investigation that had started with [[Elizabeth Bentley]] on July 28. Ferguson denied that his subcommittee "has in any way interfered with any criminal prosecution." Ferguson's letter explained that counsel William P. Rogers had consulted with the Attorney General's assistants on June 9. He stated that Rogers had "advised them of our purpose and the procedure planned to be followed, the witnesses who were to be called and the questions they would be asked." That evening, Attorney General [[Tom C. Clark]] wrote a letter that contradicted Ferguson as to whether and when Ferguson's committee had "cleared" its public hearings with him.
Clark's letter stated it was "incorrect" that by June 9, 1948, Fergusons' subcommittee had told his office about its intention. Instead, the USAG had heard of the subcommittee's intentions as those public hearings started on July 28. Clark wrote, "It is difficult to say how much damage the efforts to arrive at a sound basis for prosecution in the espionage case has been done by the open hearings." The story broke in newspapers next day.<ref>
{{cite news
| title = Clark and Ferguson Differ on 'Clearance' for Public Spy Probe
| newspaper = Washington Evening Star
| page = A5
| date = August 8, 1948
}}</ref>
In 1950, Rogers became a partner in a [[New York City]] law firm, [[Dwight, Royall, Harris, Koegel & Caskey]]. He thereafter returned to the firm when he was not in government service.
Rogers advised Nixon in the [[slush fund]] scandal, which led to Nixon's [[Checkers speech]] in 1952.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
===1953–1957: Deputy Attorney General===
Rogers joined the Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower as Deputy Attorney General in 1953.
As Deputy Attorney General, Rogers had some role in or insight into the process that led to the execution of [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg]] for espionage.<ref>{{cite news |first= Sam|last= Roberts |title=Spies and Secrecy |url=http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/podcast-spies-and-secrecy/#more-3235|newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |___location=New York City|date=June 26, 2008 |access-date=June 27, 2008}}</ref>
As deputy attorney general, Rogers was involved in the [[Little Rock Integration Crisis]] in the fall of 1957 of [[Central High School (Little Rock, Arkansas)|Central High School]] in [[Little Rock, Arkansas]]. In that capacity, he worked with [[Osro Cobb]], the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas|United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas]], to implement federal orders and to maintain peace in the capital city. Cobb would recall in his memoirs that Rogers called him to discuss the possibility of violence: "Our conversation was somewhat guarded. I had never recommended the use of federal troops, and Rogers asked if I thought they were necessary. I told him I hoped not. Then to my surprise he stated, 'They are on their way already.'"<ref>{{cite book|first=Osro|last=Cobb|author-link=Osro Cobb|title=Osro Cobb of Arkansas: Memoirs of Historical Significance|editor-first=Carol|editor-last=Griffee|publisher=Rose Publishing Company|___location=[[Little Rock, Arkansas]]|date=1989|isbn=978-9993049630|page=234}}</ref>
===1957–1961: Attorney General===
Rogers served as Attorney General from 1957 to 1961. He remained a close advisor to Vice President Nixon throughout the Eisenhower administration, especially during Eisenhower's two medical crises. Rogers became attorney general upon the resignation of his superior, [[Herbert Brownell Jr.]], who had worked to implement the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. In 1958, Little Rock closed its public schools for a year to oppose further desegregation required by the U.S. government. At the time, Rogers said, "It seems inconceivable that a state or community would rather close its public schools than comply with decisions of the [[United States Supreme Court|Supreme Court]]."<ref>Cobb, pp. 267–268.</ref>
In 1959, [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] hailed Rogers for advocating the integration of an elementary school in Alabama that had excluded the children of black military personnel.<ref>{{cite web |first=Martin Luther Jr. |last=King |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr. |title=To William P. Rogers |date=November 19, 1959 |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |___location=Stanford, California|url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol5/19Nov1959_ToWilliamP.Rogers.pdf}}</ref>
===1961–1969: Hiatus===
After the Eisenhower administration, Rogers returned to his law practice, now renamed to [[Rogers & Wells]], where he worked until his early eighties. He played an important role in ''[[New York Times Co. v. Sullivan]]'' a 1964 case before the Supreme Court.
From 1962 to 1963, Rogers was head of the [[Federal City Council]], a group of business, civic, education, and other leaders for the economic development in Washington, DC.<ref>{{cite news|title=Federal City Council Elects William Rogers|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|publisher=[[Washington Post Company]]|___location=Washington DC|date=October 1, 1963|page=B1|postscript=none}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Federal City Council Elected|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|publisher=[[Washington Post Company]]|___location=Washington DC|date=September 30, 1970|page=D9}}</ref>
[[File:President Nixon and staff members with President Charles DeGaulle of France - NARA - 194610.jpg|thumb|left|250px|William P. Rogers (right, in background) with staff members as President Richard Nixon speaks to French President [[Charles de Gaulle]] in March 1969.]]
===1969–1973: Secretary of State===
[[File:WilliamPRogersSoS.jpg|thumb|The official portrait of Secretary of State Rogers, 1970.]]
[[File:Richard M. Nixon posing with his Cabinet - NARA - 194437.jpg|thumb|William Rogers in a group photo of Nixon's cabinet on June 16, 1972, immediately to Nixon's right (sixth from the left on the bottom row).]]
Rogers succeeded [[Dean Rusk]] as Secretary of State in the [[Nixon administration]] from January 22, 1969, to September 3, 1973. Nixon had long distrusted the State Department, whom he had accused under the Truman administration of being staffed with liberal diplomats who were insufficiently anti-communist and who were responsible for the "[[loss of China]]" in 1949.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=578 & 587}} Given his dislike of the State Department, Nixon when he came into office in 1969 wanted to conduct his foreign policy via the National Security Council in a bid to marginalize the State Department.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=587}}
Nixon had selected an ambitious political science professor from Harvard, Henry Kissinger, to be his national security adviser who soon emerged as his main adviser on foreign affairs.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=587}} Nixon selected Rogers to be the secretary of state because he knew nothing of foreign affairs and was unlikely to assert the interests of the State Department.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=587}} On Nixon's Inauguration Day, January 20, 1969, Rogers was handed a lengthy volume containing a summary of the world's major issues written by the State Department's leading experts in order to brief him for his new job, leading him to remark in surprise: "You don't expect me to read all this stuff, do you?"{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=587-588}} Rogers's ignorance of foreign policy issues and his unwillingness to assert the interests of his department duly led to the State Department pushed to the sidelines under his stewardship with the major decisions taken by Kissinger with no input or even the knowledge of Rogers.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=587}}
Kissinger later said of Rogers, "Few secretaries of state can have been selected because of their president's confidence in their ignorance of foreign policy."<ref>{{cite magazine|first = Carl | last = Brauer| url = https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/polibig/brauer.htm| title = Lost in Transition| magazine = [[The Atlantic]]| publisher=[[Emerson Collective]] | ___location = Washington DC| date = November 1988| access-date = March 14, 2018}}</ref>
In February 1969, Nixon began to discuss plans to bomb the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese bases just over the border in Cambodia, which Rogers felt was unwise, warning that such a bombing offensive might damage the peace talks in Paris.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=5591}} On March 16, 1969, Rogers attended a meeting at the White House where Nixon discussed [[Operation Menu]], the plans to bomb Cambodia in secret.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=591}} Though the State Department's experts stated that the main source of weapons for the Viet Cong was the Ho Chi Minh Trail coming down from North Vietnam via Laos, not Cambodia, Rogers had not read their assessments.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=591}} At the March 16 meeting, Rogers offered the most tepid opposition to the plan to bomb Cambodia, which began the next day.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=591}}
One of his notable aims was to initiate efforts at a lasting peace in the [[Arab–Israeli conflict]] by the so-called [[Rogers Plan]] on December 3, 1969. Throughout his tenure, however, his influence was curtailed by Nixon's determination to handle critical foreign policy strategy and execution directly from the White House through his [[National Security Advisor (United States)|national security adviser]] Henry Kissinger.
[[File:Vietnam peace agreement signing, 27580141, new.jpg|thumb|Rogers signing the [[Paris Peace Accords]].]]
On the night of February 21, 1970, Kissinger first met in secret with the North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho in a house in Paris suburb, opening a new set of talks that were independent of the official peace talks in Paris.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=623}} Kissinger only first informed Rogers of the secret talks in Paris parallel to the official talks in February 1971, a year later.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=624}} On March 23, 1970, Rogers told the press that the United States had the utmost respect for the "neutrality, sovereignty and independence" of Cambodia, stating categorically there no plans to invade Cambodia.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=605-606}} In the same press conference, Rogers stated: "We don't anticipate that any request will be made" for help from the new Lon Nol government.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=607}} Unknown to him, Nixon and Kissinger were already discussing plans to invade Cambodia.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=607-608}} On April 30, 1970, the United States invaded Cambodia.
On October 15, 1973, Rogers received the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] from Nixon. At the same ceremony, his wife, Adele Rogers, was presented with the [[Presidential Citizens Medal]].
==Later life==
[[Ronald Reagan]] asked Rogers to play the US president in IVY LEAGUE 82 (March 1982), a [[command post exercise]] of American nuclear forces under [[Single Integrated Operational Plan|SIOP]].<ref name="ebb575">{{Cite web |url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb575-Reagan-Nuclear-War-Briefing/ |title=National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 575: Reagan's Nuclear War Briefing Declassified |date=December 22, 2016 |editor-last=Burr |editor-first=William |publisher=The National Security Archive, George Washington University}}</ref>
Rogers led the investigation into the explosion of the space shuttle ''[[Space Shuttle Challenger|Challenger]]''. The [[Rogers Commission]] was the first investigation to criticize [[NASA]] management for its role in negligence of safety in the [[Space Shuttle]] program. Among the more famous members of Rogers's panel were astronauts [[Neil Armstrong]] and [[Sally Ride]], Air Force general [[Donald Kutyna]], and physicist [[Richard Feynman]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard P.|last=Feynman|author-link=Richard P. Feynman|title=[[What Do You Care What Other People Think?]]|editor-first=Ralph|editor-last=Leighton|editor-link=Ralph Leighton|publisher=[[W. W. Norton]]|___location=New York City|date=1988|isbn=0-393-02659-0 |page=124}}</ref>
Rogers worked at his law firm, now renamed [[Clifford Chance|Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells]] after a 1999 merger, in its Washington office until several months before his death.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}}
==Personal life==
Rogers married Adele Langston (August 15, 1911 – May 27, 2001), a fellow law student whom he had met at Cornell. They had four children, including [[Dale Rogers Marshall]].<ref name=obit/>
William P. Rogers died of [[Heart failure|congestive heart failure]], at the Suburban Hospital in [[Bethesda, Maryland]], on January 2, 2001, at the age of 87.<ref name=obit>{{cite news |first=David|last=Stout |title=William P. Rogers, Who Served as Nixon's Secretary of State, Is Dead at 87 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02E5D6113BF937A35752C0A9679C8B63|work=[[New York Times]] |date=January 4, 2001 |access-date=December 25, 2008}}</ref> Rogers was buried in [[Arlington National Cemetery]].
==Legacy==
In 2001, the Rogers family donated to Cornell Law Library materials to reflect the lives of William and Adele Rogers, mostly from 1969 to 1973.<ref>[https://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Rogers.cfm%20materials https://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Rogers.cfm materials]</ref>
==Publications==
'''Articles'''
* [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44234902 "U.S. Foreign Policy: A Discussion with Former Secretaries of State Dean Rusk, William P. Rogers, Cyrus R. Vance, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr."]. ''International Studies Notes'', Vol. 11, No. 1, ''Special Edition: The Secretaries of State'', Fall 1984. {{JSTOR|44234902}} (pp. 10–20)
*
https://www.nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=caf19470618-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN----------
==Sources==
{{Portal|Law|New York (state)}}
*[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4004 The Presidency Project]
*{{cite book |last=Karnow |first=Stanley |title=Vietnam: A History |___location=New York |publisher=Viking Books |date=1983}}
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
{{Commons category|William P. Rogers}}
==External links==
*[https://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/R.html Papers of William P. Rogers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library]
*[https://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Oral_Histories/Oral_Histories.html Finding aid for the William P. Rogers Oral History, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library]
*{{C-SPAN|70610}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-legal}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Ross Malone]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[United States Deputy Attorney General]]|years=1953–1957}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Lawrence Walsh]]}}
|-
{{s-bef|before=[[Herbert Brownell Jr.|Herbert Brownell]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[United States Attorney General]]|years=1957–1961}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Robert F. Kennedy|Robert Kennedy]]}}
|-
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Dean Rusk]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[United States Secretary of State]]|years=1969–1973}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Henry Kissinger]]}}
{{s-end}}
{{USAttGen}}
{{USSecState}}
{{Eisenhower cabinet}}
{{Nixon cabinet}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, William P.}}
[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:2001 deaths]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:American Presbyterians]]
[[Category:American prosecutors]]
[[Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery]]
[[Category:Colgate University alumni]]
[[Category:Cornell Law School alumni]]
[[Category:Eisenhower administration cabinet members]]
[[Category:Military personnel from New York (state)]]
[[Category:New York (state) Republicans]]
[[Category:Nixon administration cabinet members]]
[[Category:20th-century American politicians]]
[[Category:People from Canton, New York]]
[[Category:People from Norfolk, New York]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]]
[[Category:Attorneys general of the United States]]
[[Category:United States deputy attorneys general]]
[[Category:United States secretaries of state]]
[[Category:United States Navy officers]]
| |||