An Unfortunate Choice

President-elect Carter's choice of Cyrus Vance as Secretary of State is disappointing for a number of reasons. As a Defense Department official during the Johnson administration, Vance participated in high-level policy-making in the period when the United States was maximizing its involvement in Vietnam. Vance did not protest the war, he did not resign his post, and indeed by representing the U.S. at the Paris peace talks, he served as an active instrument of the Johnson war policy. These factors alone should disqualify him from holding the highest foreign policy office in the nation.

It seems unreasonable that Carter could not find a Secretary of State untainted by past involvement with Vietnam. And it also seems that Carter, who was elected in a sense as an "outsider"--one not part of the American governmental establishment--would have done well to reach beyond traditional foreign policy circles for so significant an appointment. The national press greeted Vance's selection with raves, demonstrating a disturbing reluctance to consider the implications of bringing one who participated in the making of immoral and disastrous Vietnam policy back into the center of power.

There is, however, still some reason for optimism. Vance will be a softspoken Secretary of State--not a brash individualist in the style of Kissinger--and thus it appears that Carter intends to be his own man in foreign policy. Carter's campaign positions on Chile, on Southern Africa and on an open foreign policy, along with Vance's stated intention to work closely with Congress, may mean that the course of American foreign policy will take a progressive turn, the unfortunate symbolic significance of the Vance appointment notwithstanding.