Vance, Cyrus

Vance, Cyrus (Roberts)

(born March 27, 1917, Clarksburg, W.Va., U.S.—died Jan. 12, 2002, New York, N.Y.) U.S. public official. After receiving his law degree from Yale University in 1942, he enlisted in the navy and served until 1946, when he joined a law firm in New York City. He was appointed general counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense in 1960. In 1962 he became secretary of the army, and in 1963 Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson named him deputy secretary of defense. Initially a vigorous supporter of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, his viewed changed after his resignation in 1967, and by 1968 he was urging Johnson to stop the bombing of North Vietnam. In that year he was sent to Paris with W. Averell Harriman to negotiate peace with the North Vietnamese. As secretary of state (1977–80) under Pres. Jimmy Carter, he worked to obtain the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) arms-control treaty and was instrumental in the Camp David accords. He resigned in 1980 in protest of Carter's plan to send a secret military mission to rescue American hostages held in Tehran, Iran (see Iran hostage crisis).

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Vance, Cyrus (Roberts) (1917–  ) lawyer, cabinet member; born in Clarksburg, W.Va. A corporate and government lawyer in New York (1947–61), he became secretary of the army (1961–64). As deputy defense secretary (1964–68), he went on peace missions to Panama, Santa Domingo, and Cyprus. President Carter's secretary of state (1977–80), he could not resolve the Iranian hostage crisis and resigned when Carter undertook a helicopter rescue mission against his advice. In 1992 he led a mission to negotiate peace in Yugoslavia.