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Cyrus Roberts Vance Sr. (March 27, 1917 – January 12, 2002) was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration. During the Kennedy administration he was Secretary of the Army and General Counsel of the Department of Defense.As Secretary of State, Vance approached foreign policy with an emphasis on negotiation over conflict and a special interest in arms reduction. In April 1980, he resigned in protest of Operation Eagle Claw, the secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. He was succeeded by Edmund Muskie. Vance was the cousin (and adoptive son) of 1924 Democratic presidential nominee and lawyer John W. Davis. He was the father of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. Early life and family Cyrus Vance was born on March 27, 1917, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. He was the son of John Carl Vance II and his wife Amy Roberts Vance, and had an elder brother, John Carl Vance III. Following Vance's birth, his family relocated to Bronxville, New York, so that his father could commute to New York City, where he was an insurance broker. Vance's father was also a landowner and worked for a government agency during World War I. He died unexpectedly of pneumonia in 1922.Vance's mother was Amy Roberts Vance, who had a prominent family history in Philadelphia and was active in civic affairs. Following her husband's death, she moved her family to Switzerland for a year, where Vance and his brother learned French at L'Institut Sillig in Vevey. Vance's much older cousin (referred to as an "uncle" within the family) John W. Davis, an Ambassador to the United Kingdom and 1924 United States presidential candidate, became his mentor and adopted him.Vance graduated from Kent School in 1935 and earned a bachelor's degree in 1939 from Yale College, where he was a member of the secret Scroll and Key society and earned three varsity letters in ice hockey. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1942. While there, his classmates included Sargent Shriver, William Scranton, Stanley Rogers Resor, and William Bundy, with all of whom he would later work.During World War II, Vance served in the United States Navy as a gunnery officer on the destroyer USS Hale (DD-642) until 1946. He saw sea action in the Battle of Tarawa, the Battle of Saipan, the Battle of Guam (1944), the Bougainville Campaign, and the Philippines Campaign (1944–1945). After the war, he worked for the Mead Corporation for a year before joining the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City.At the age of 29, Vance married Grace Elsie "Gay" Sloane on February 15, 1947. She was a Bryn Mawr College graduate and was the daughter of the board chairman of the W. & J. Sloane furniture company in New York City. They had five children: Elsie Nicoll Vance Amy Sloane Vance Grace Roberts Vance Camilla Vance Holmes Cyrus R. Vance Jr.Political career In 1957, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson asked Vance to leave Wall Street to work for the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he helped draft the National Aeronautics and Space Act, leading to the creation of NASA.In 1961, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara recruited Vance to become General Counsel of the Department of Defense. He was then made the Secretary of the Army by President John F. Kennedy. He was Secretary when Army units were sent to northern Mississippi in 1962 to protect James Meredith and ensure that the court-ordered integration of the University of Mississippi took place.In 1964, Vance became the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense and now-President Johnson sent him to the Panama Canal Zone after student riots. After the 1967 Detroit riot, Johnson sent him to Michigan. Vance next attempted to delay the Cyprus dispute. In 1968, Johnson sent him to South Korea to deal with the USS Pueblo hostage situation.Vance first supported the Vietnam War but by the late 1960s changed his views and resigned from office, advising the president to withdraw US troops from South Vietnam. Vance served as a deputy to W. Averell Harriman during the Paris Peace Accords, which were a failure due to the duplicity of the South Vietnamese. Vance called the failed peace talks "one of the great tragedies in history". He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 1969.In May 1970, Vance was appointed to serve as a commissioner in a landmark panel known as the Knapp Commission, which was formed and assigned by New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate systemic corruption in the New York Police Department. The Knapp Commission held televised hearings into police corruption and issued a final report of its findings in 1972. The work of the Knapp Commission led to the prosecution of police officers on charges of corruption and culminated in significant, if short-lived, reforms and oversight of the police department, including the appointment of a temporary special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute corruption committed by NYPD officers, district attorneys, and judges. From 1974 to 1976, Vance served as president of the New York City Bar Association. Vance returned to his law practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 1980, but was repeatedly called back to public service throughout the 1980s and 1990s, participating in diplomatic missions to Bosnia, Croatia, and South Africa. Vance helped negotiate the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Secretary of State President Jimmy Carter initially wanted to nominate George Ball to become Secretary of State, but, fearing Ball was too liberal to be confirmed, nominated Vance instead. Vance played an integral role as the administration negotiated the Panama Canal Treaties, along with peace talks in Rhodesia, Namibia and South Africa. He worked closely with Israeli Ministers Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman to secure the Camp David Accords in 1978. Vance insisted that the President make Paul Warnke Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, over strong opposition by Senator Henry M. Jackson.Vance also pushed for détente with the Soviet Union, and clashed frequently with the more hawkish National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vance tried to advance arms limitations by working on the SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union, which he saw as the central diplomatic issue of the time, but Brzezinski lobbied for a tougher more assertive policy vis-a-vis the Soviets. He argued for strong condemnation of Soviet activity in Africa and in the Third World as well as successfully lobbying for normalized relations with the People's Republic of China in 1978. As Brzezinski took control of the negotiations, Vance was marginalized and his influence began to wane. When revolution erupted in Iran in late 1978, the two were divided on how to support the United States' ally the Shah of Iran. Vance argued in favor of reforms while.... Discover the Vance Bell popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Vance Bell books.

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  • Vance v. Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co. synopsis, comments

    Vance v. Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co.

    Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals

    In this appeal, Marvin Jerome Horsley and Earl Howard McDonald challenge their convictions for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1982), o...