FOREIGN RELATIONS: A Super Secretary to Shake Up State

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An elegant and essentially decent man, but a mediocre speaker with no background in foreign affairs, Rogers had a tendency to approach international problems from the viewpoint of a corporation lawyer. As he explained privately, "In handling an important lawsuit, you tell the other guy that you know you can't win all your points, nor can he, and it's best for all to reach a compromise." It was a decent, honest, somewhat guileless approach.

Unlike the amiable Rogers, Kissinger was no old friend of Nixon's. He had served as a foreign-affairs adviser to Nelson Rockefeller and, even worse, was a friend of the Kennedy establishment. But Nixon had read and liked Kissinger's books, and wisely recognized in Kissinger the sort of man he was looking for. The two still treat each other with a certain formality, a natural restraint; they are in no sense cronies. Occasionally there have been strains, and even reports that Kissinger might be on the way out. One such strain occurred late last year following the breakdown of the Paris peace talks, when Nixon waged his fierce Christmas bombing campaign on Hanoi. Kissinger loyally defended the President, but managed to give the impression that his heart was not in the bombing. Still, for all his pride, Kissinger remembers that Metternich was not the Emperor, nor Richelieu the King, and he finds a certain security in presenting himself simply as the agent of Nixon's foreign policy.

That slightly disingenuous discretion has suited Nixon admirably. Observers have described how the President, at National Security Council meetings, will say with a touch of pride, "Henry, will you present the options for us?" Then he settles back to listen while Kissinger becomes the professor once more.

The contest between Kissinger and Rogers had a predictably adverse effect on the State Department, an overly bureaucratized machine without any constituency among the general public, and thus without independent influence. The emergence of the "Kissinger shop," the predominance of Kissinger himself, the lack of administrative talents in Rogers—all these led to abysmally low morale and low effectiveness in the State Department. At first there were attempts to cover it up, but even that pretense gradually fell away, and by the time of Nixon's second Administration, none of it was left.

Yet Rogers' tenure had its important positive aspects. His Middle East initiative, at first received skeptically by his aides, did result in the still-lasting Suez cease-fire and at least some overtures by Egypt and Israel toward negotiations. Rogers also performed, with distinction, the task of representing the U.S. in negotiations abroad. He further bore the brunt of congressional committee hearings and congressional opposition on Viet Nam. Rogers, unfailingly courteous, remained loyal to his President and argued his case well. "He's a decent, fine man, a terribly underrated, misused man," Senator Mansfield once remarked.