William P. Rogers
William P. Rogers
| William P. Rogers | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 55th United States Secretary of State | |
| In office January 22, 1969 – September 3, 1973 |
|
| President | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Dean Rusk |
| Succeeded by | Henry Kissinger |
| 63rd United States Attorney General | |
| In office October 23, 1957 – January 20, 1961 |
|
| President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Herbert Brownell, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Robert F. Kennedy |
| 2nd United States Deputy Attorney General | |
| In office 1953 – 1957 |
|
| President | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | A. Devitt Vanech |
| Succeeded by | Lawrence Edward Walsh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 23, 1913 Norfolk, New York |
| Died | January 2, 2001 (aged 87) Bethesda, Maryland |
| Alma mater | Colgate University Cornell University Law School |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Rank | Lieutenant Commander |
| Unit | USS Intrepid |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
William Pierce Rogers (June 23, 1913 – January 2, 2001) was an American politician, who served as a Cabinet officer in the administrations of two U.S. Presidents in the third quarter of the 20th century.
Contents |
Early Life
Rogers was born June 23, 1913, in Norfolk, New York. He was raised, from early in his teens, following the death of his mother, Myra (Beswick) Rogers, by his grandparents, in Canton, New York.
Education
Following education at Colgate University and Cornell University Law School, he passed the bar in 1937. As an undergrad, he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity. Under Thomas E. Dewey he worked from 1938 to 1942 in the prosecution of organized crime in New York City.
Military Service
He entered the US Navy in 1942, serving on the USS Intrepid, including her action in the Battle of Okinawa. His final rank in the Navy was lieutenant commander.
Career
Law Practice
William P. Rogers received his law degree and passed the New York Bar in 1937. After serving about a year as an attorney for a Wall Street law office, he became an assistant district attorney and was appointed by Thomas E. Dewey to a sixty-man task force aimed at routing out New York's organized crime. In 1950, Rogers became a partner in a New York City law firm, Dwight, Royall, Harris, Koegel & Caskey. Thereafter, he returned to this firm when he was not in government service. The firm was later renamed Rogers & Wells, and subsequently Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells. He worked in the firm's Washington, D.C. office until several months before his death.
Official of the U.S. Government
While serving as a Committee Counsel to a US Senate committee, he examined the documentation from the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of Alger Hiss at the request of then-Congressman Richard M. Nixon, and advised Nixon that Hiss had lied and that the case against him should be pursued.
Rogers joined the Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower as Deputy Attorney General in 1953, and then served as Attorney General from 1957 to 1961. He remained a close advisor to then-Vice-President Nixon, throughout the Eisenhower administration, especially in the slush fund scandal that led to Nixon's Checkers speech, and during Eisenhower's two medical crises.
In 1959, Dr. King praised him for advocating the integration of an Alabama elementary school that excluded the children of black military personnel.
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.
He also served as Secretary of State in the Nixon Cabinet, from January 22, 1969 through September 3, 1973, when he among other things initiated efforts at a lasting peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict through the so-called Rogers Plan. However, his influence was drastically circumscribed throughout his tenure by Nixon's determination to handle critical foreign policy strategy and execution directly from the White House through his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. According to the New York Times, in a conversation with his secretary, Rose Mary Woods, Nixon "offered sharp skepticism" about Rogers' views "about the future of black Africans":
“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York City,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on." “My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”
On October 15, 1973, Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Richard Nixon. At the same ceremony, his wife Adele Rogers was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Rogers is also notable for leading the investigation into the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. This panel, called the Rogers Commission, was the first to criticize NASA management for its role in negligence of safety in the Space Shuttle program. Among the more famous members of Rogers' panel were astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, Air Force general Donald Kutyna, and physicist Richard Feynman.
Rogers died of congestive heart failure on January 2, 2001, at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the Eisenhower Administration.
Archive
In 2001, the Rogers family generously donated to Cornell Law Library materials that reflect the lives of William and Adele Rogers, the majority of items from the years 1969-1973.
Sources
Notes
- ^ Martin Luther King, Jr (November 19, 1959). "To William P. Rogers". Stanford University. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol5/19Nov1959_ToWilliamP.Rogers.pdf.
- ^ Roberts, Sam (June 26, 2008). "Spies and Secrecy". New York Times. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/podcast-spies-and-secrecy/#more-3235. Retrieved 2008-06-27. "Shortly before he died, I interviewed William Rogers. He was the deputy attorney general when the Rosenbergs were executed. I guess, I said to him, the government got what it wanted: the Rosenbergs were indicted, convicted and executed. No, he replied, the goal wasn’t to kill the couple. The strategy was to leverage the death sentence imposed on Ethel to wring a full confession from Julius — in hopes that Ethel’s motherly instincts would trump unconditional loyalty to a noble but discredited cause."
- ^ Nagourney, Adam (2010-12-10) In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks, New York Times
- ^ Stout, David (January 4, 2001). "William P. Rogers, Who Served as Nixon's Secretary of State, Is Dead at 87". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02E5D6113BF937A35752C0A9679C8B63. Retrieved 2008-12-25. "William P. Rogers, a suave and well-connected Republican lawyer who was secretary of state under President Richard M. Nixon and attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, died on Tuesday in Bethesda, Md. He was 87. Mr. Rogers lived in Bethesda and worked in the Washington office of the law firm of Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells, where he was senior partner, until becoming ill several months ago. He suffered from congestive heart failure, his family said."
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by A. Devitt Vanech |
United States Deputy Attorney General Served under: Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953–1957 |
Succeeded by Lawrence E. Walsh |
| Preceded by Herbert Brownell, Jr. |
United States Attorney General Served under: Dwight D. Eisenhower 1957–1961 |
Succeeded by Robert F. Kennedy |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Dean Rusk |
United States Secretary of State Served under: Richard Nixon 1969–1973 |
Succeeded by Henry Kissinger |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
