William P. Rogers

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1913 - 2001

American secretary of state, 1969 to 1973.

William Pierce Rogers was born in June 1913 in Norfolk, New York. He graduated from Colgate University in 1934 and received a law degree from Cornell University in 1937. He served three Republican presidents in a public career that lasted nearly fifty years: He was Dwight Eisenhower's attorney general (1957 - 1961) and Richard M. Nixon's secretary of state (1969 - 1973) and in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, he headed the investigation into the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

As secretary of state, Rogers promoted a cease-fire in the Middle East that lasted from 1970 until the 1973 war. His 1970 Rogers Peace Initiative was an effort to implement the 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, which put forth principles for peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis, including the principle of land for peace. Rogers's objective was "to encourage the parties to move to a just and lasting peace." The initiative was one of the key efforts that contributed to peace between Egypt and Israel in 1979.

Rogers was a 1973 recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and he received several honorary doctorates, including one his alma mater, Colgate. He died of congestive heart disease in January 2001.

Bibliography

Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

— ZACHARY KARABELL
UPDATED BY AHMED H. IBRAHIM

William Pierce Rogers served as U.S. attorney general from 1957 to 1961. Rogers, who would later serve as secretary of state in the Nixon administration, distinguished himself as attorney general by vigorously enforcing civil rights law and seeking ways of ending racially segregated public schools.

Rogers was born on June 23, 1913, in Norfolk, New York. He graduated from Colgate University in 1934 and received his law degree from Cornell Law School in 1937. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1937 and entered private practice. Rogers was assistant district attorney for New York County from 1938 until 1942, when he joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a lieutenant commander in World War II. In 1946, after the war, he returned to his district attorney position.

Rogers's career shifted from state to federal government in the late 1940s. In 1947 and 1948 he was chief counsel of the Senate War Investigating Committee, becoming chief counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1949.

In 1950 Rogers returned to private practice in New York. With the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Rogers was soon back in Washington, becoming deputy attorney general in 1953. He assisted Attorney General Herbert Brownell in the administration of the Justice Department and became a key figure in the emerging debate over civil rights. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954), which prohibited state-imposed racial segregation in public schools, many southern communities pledged to defy or evade the Supreme Court decision. Some school boards closed the schools and encouraged attendance at white-only private schools, while others refused to integrate. Rogers was an advocate for federal leadership to end segregation and promote integration. He played a major role in the writing and enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1975 et seq., the first federal civil rights legislation since the 1870s.

In November 1957 Rogers was appointed attorney general by President Eisenhower. He continued to enforce civil rights laws and promote a vision of an integrated society. During his tenure he also prosecuted several high-level Justice Department officials for corruption. Rogers remained attorney general until the end of the Eisenhower administration in January 1961.

During the 1960s Rogers resumed his law practice. In 1969 President Richard M. Nixon appointed Rogers secretary of state, a position he held for the president's entire first term. Rogers played a diminished role in foreign policy, however, because Nixon and National Security adviser Henry Kissinger assumed most of the responsibility for charting relations with other nations. Rogers's most notable accomplishment as secretary was negotiating a truce between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal in 1970. He loyally defended the administration's Vietnam War policies, but left all major policy decisions to Kissinger.

Rogers returned to private practice in 1973. In 1986 he was asked to head a presidential commission to investigate the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. The commission issued a report that was critical of the performance of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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(1913-06-23) Norfolk, New York
Died	January 2, 2001( 2001-01-02) (aged 87) Bethesda, Maryland
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Adele Rogers
Alma mater	Colgate University Cornell University Law School
Profession	Attorney
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 1 Early life and education 2 Early legal career and military service 3 U.S. Deputy Attorney General 4 U.S. Attorney General 5 Return to legal career 6 U.S. Secretary of State 7 Subsequent years 8 Sources 9 Notes 10 External links

Early life and education

Rogers was born June 23, 1913, in Norfolk, New York. After the death of his mother, the former Myra Beswick, he was reared during his teen years by his grandparents, in Canton, New York.

He attended Colgate University, where he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity. He then went to Cornell University Law School. He received his law degree and passed the New York Bar in 1937.

Early legal career and military service

After serving about a year as an attorney for a Wall Street law office, he became an assistant district attorney in 1938 and was appointed by then District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey to a sixty-man task force aimed at routing out New York City's organized crime.

He entered the United States 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.

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.

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 Congressman Richard M. Nixon, and advised Nixon that Hiss had lied and that the case against him should be pursued.

Rogers also advised Nixon in the slush fund scandal that led to Nixon's Checkers speech in 1952.

U.S. 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.^[1]

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. In his memoirs, Cobb recalls that Rogers called him to discuss the possibility of violence. Cobb writes, "Our conversation was somewhat guarded. I had never recommended the use of federal tgroops, 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.'"^[2]

U.S. 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, 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 that "It seems inconceivable that a state or community would rather close its public schools than comply with decisions of the Supreme Court.^[3]

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.^[4]

Return to legal career

Now renamed to Rogers & Wells, Rogers returned to his law practice, which made him very successful financially. He played an important role in the 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan Supreme Court case.

U.S. Secretary of State

Rogers served as United States Secretary of State in the Nixon administration 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.

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.

Subsequent years

Rogers led 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 worked at his law firm, now renamed Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells after a 1999 merger, in its Washington office until several months before his death.

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.^[5]

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

	Law portal
	New York portal

	United States Navy portal
	World War II portal

• The Presidency Project

Notes

1. ^ 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." 
2. ^ Osro Cobb, Osro Cobb of Arkansas: Memoirs of Historical Significance, Carol Griffee,ed. (Little Rock, Arkansas: Rose Publishing Company), 1989), p. 234
3. ^ Osro Cobb, pp. 267-2687
4. ^ Martin Luther King, Jr (November 19, 1959). "To William P. Rogers". Stanford University. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol5/19Nov1959_ToWilliamP.Rogers.pdf. 
5. ^ 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." 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William P. Rogers

External links

• Papers of William P. Rogers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Finding aid for the William P. Rogers Oral History, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

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

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v t e Cabinet of President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) Vice President Richard Nixon (1953–1961) Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953–1959) Christian A. Herter (1959–1961) Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson (1953–1957) Neil H. McElroy (1957–1959) Thomas S. Gates, Jr. (1959–1961) Secretary of the Treasury George M. Humphrey (1953–1957) Robert Bernard Anderson (1957–1961) Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. (1953–1957) William P. Rogers (1957–1961) Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield (1953–1961) Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay (1953–1956) Fred Andrew Seaton (1956–1961) Secretary of the Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson (1953–1961) Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks (1953–1958) Lewis Strauss (1958–1959) Frederick H. Mueller (1959–1961) Secretary of Labor Martin P. Durkin (1953) James P. Mitchell (1953–1961) Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Oveta Culp Hobby (1953–1955) Marion B. Folsom (1955–1958) Arthur S. Flemming (1958–1961)

v t e Cabinet of President Richard Nixon (1969–1974) Vice President Spiro Agnew (1969–1973) Gerald Ford (1973–1974) Secretary of State William P. Rogers (1969–1973) Henry Kissinger (1973–1977) Secretary of the Treasury David M. Kennedy (1969–1971) John Connally (1971–1972) George P. Shultz (1972–1974) William E. Simon (1974–1975) Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird (1969–1973) Elliot Richardson (1973–1974) James R. Schlesinger (1974–1975) Attorney General John N. Mitchell (1969–1972) Richard Kleindienst (1972–1973) Elliot Richardson (1973–1974) William B. Saxbe (1974–1975) Postmaster General Winton M. Blount (1969–1971) Secretary of the Interior Walter Joseph Hickel (1969–1971) Rogers Morton (1971–1975) Secretary of the Agriculture Clifford M. Hardin (1969–1971) Earl Butz (1971–1976) Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans (1969–1972) Peter Peterson (1972–1973) Frederick B. Dent (1973–1975) Secretary of Labor George P. Shultz (1969–1970) James Day Hodgson (1970–1973) Peter J. Brennan (1973–1975) Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Robert Finch (1969–1970) Elliot Richardson (1970–1973) Caspar Weinberger (1973–1975) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George W. Romney (1969–1973) James Thomas Lynn (1973–1975) Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe (1969–1973) Claude Brinegar (1973–1975)

Persondata
Name	Rogers, William P.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	June 23, 1913
Place of birth	Norfolk, New York
Date of death	January 2, 2001
Place of death	Bethesda, Maryland

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