William P. Rogers

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.[6]

As deputy attorney general, Rogers was involved in the Little Rock Integration Crisis in the fall of 1957 of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In that capacity, he worked with Osro Cobb, the 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.'"[7]

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 Supreme Court."[8]

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.[9]

After the Eisenhower the 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.[10][11]

William P. Rogers (right, in background) with staff members as President Richard Nixon speaks to French President Charles de Gaulle in March 1969.

The official portrait of Secretary of State Rogers, 1970.

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.[12] 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.[13]

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.[13] 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.[13] On Nixon's Inauguration Day, 20 January 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?"[14] 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.[13]

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."[15]

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 an bombing offensive might damage the peace talks in Paris.[16] On 16 March 1969, Rogers attended a meeting at the White House where Nixon discussed Operation Menu, the plans to bomb Cambodia in secret.[17] 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.[17] At the 16 March meeting, Rogers offered the most tepid opposition to the plan to bomb Cambodia, which began the next day.[17]

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 3 December 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 adviser Henry Kissinger.

On the night of 21 February 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.[18] Kissinger only first informed Rogers of the secret talks in Paris parallel to the official talks in February 1971, a year later.[19] On 23 March 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.[20] 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.[21] Unknown to him, Nixon and Kissinger were already discussing plans to invade Cambodia.[22] On 30 April 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.