Cyrus Roberts Vance, the New York corporate lawyer designated by President-elect Jimmy Carter to be the forthcoming Secretary of State will not be the front line negotiator in the Arab-Israeli conflict or other international situations in the style of Henry A. Kissinger.
“When necessary,” Vance has emphasized, he will be a “personal negotiator” but his method When he takes charge at the State Department after inauguration day on Jan. 20 will be to “delegate” negotiations to “competent negotiators” before “I get involved.”
Responding to questions last Friday at the news conference in Plains, Georgia, at which Carter announced his designation Vance said he saw “some encouraging signs at this point” in the statements emanating from the Middle East.
He said that he would give attention to them “at a very early point,” but he asked to “beg off” from making substantive comment at this time about that question “about the substance” of whether the Palestine Liberation Organization should participate in a Geneva conference. It would be “inappropriate” for him to do so, Vance said, before he meets with Kissinger. He also stressed in responding to a question that the “underlying principle” of his foreign policy “must be deep concern for human rights.”
Following upon Vance’s responses. Carter noted that “most parties” in the Middle East have expressed themselves “privately and publicly” and in the “next several months” it would be appropriate for Vance to spend a great deal of time with Kissinger to “get advice and counsel” from him and others” about the Mideast situation.
Carter said he has talked with Kissinger about “unpublished aspects” of the Mideast and that he would call on Kissinger for his “assessment” of unofficial or private talks but that he has no plans for that now.
A COMPETENT ADMINISTRATOR
Vance is generally described here as a competent administrator with a thorough understanding of the workings of the U.S. foreign affairs establishment from his service as counsel for the Senate Armed Services and Space and Aeronautical Committees in the late years of the Eisenhower Administration, as Secretary of the Army and Undersecretary of Defense for President Johnson and as a special envoy in the Cyprus, Korean and Vietnam situations after that.
While his association with problems of the Arab-Israeli conflict is limited, and those interviewed about him confessed they had little knowledge of that aspect of his thinking, Vance has had contact with the situation. He was Undersecretary of Defense at the time of the Six-Day War and he has met with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin.
Late last May, during the Presidential primary campaign, he said on WNBC-TV that the U.S. should go to war if that were necessary to preserve the State of Israel. Previously, he joined with many others in sponsoring a statement by the United Nations Association that the U.S. should not deliver Pershing missiles to Israel: should seek agreement with the Soviet Union not to send arms to the Middle East; and that the U.S. should unilaterally enter a moratorium on shipments should the U.S. fall to get that agreement.
Vance, who is 59 years old is a prominent Episcopalian and a product of Kent School and Yale. He holds five honorary doctorates of law, including one conferred upon him by Brandeis University in 1971. Politically he is described as a New York conservative Democrat. not a southern conservative Democrat.
“He will not be Mr. Foreign Policy” and “not a super Secretary of State,” observers said. “Any change in policy will take time.” a State Department specialist said. “In his thoughtful. nondramatic way, he will appear colorless.” because “he is the very opposite of Kissinger in style although their foreign policy ideas may be similar.” A veteran Congressional source said that Vance’s methods, indicate that the Congress will have as stronger role than in the past in the formulation of foreign policy.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
