HALF a dozen times in the past four years, President Johnson has called upon Cyrus Roberts Vance to exercise his unique talent for peacemaking in crisis. When the Dominican Republic exploded in 1965, Vance supervised the U.S. military effort to prevent a Communist takeover. He directed the force of federal troops that restored quiet to Detroit after last summer's riots, and last month advised the capital's Mayor Walter Washington in the violence following Martin Luther King's assassination. In November, Vance negotiated a peaceful settlement of the Cyprus crisis; in February he soothed irate South Koreans who wished to retaliate when a North Korean commando squad attempted to assassinate President Chung Hee Park just two days before the seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo.
Vance, 51, is an unflappable, meticulous negotiator who quickly grasps facts and nuances. "He is not the you-and-I-will-get-to-be-great-friends type," one diplomat observed during the Cyprus confrontation. "He appreciates frankness and despises arrogance, and he has never said one word throughout this affair that he would take back."
Born in Clarksburg, W. Va., Vance attended Connecticut's Kent School, then studied economics at Yale, where his tall, lanky frame suggested his nickname: Spider. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1942, he joined the Navy, served on destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II. In 1947 he joined a Manhattan law firm.
Vance first caught Lyndon Johnson's eye when he came to Washington in 1957 as special counsel to the Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee, then chaired by
L.B.J. He has been a close friend and counselor of Johnson's ever since. After John Kennedy's election, Vance moved to the Pentagon as general counsel to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, became Secretary of the Army a year later. In that post, and afterward as Deputy Defense Secretary, he worked as McNamara's partner in revitalizing the Army and instituting other reforms.
As number two at the Pentagon, Vance became thoroughly familiar with Viet Nam's political and military problems—knowledge that will serve him well in the negotiations. With his passion for precision and clarity, he is a superb administrator as well as a brilliant legal mind with a virtually encyclopedic memory. Vance characteristically dresses in dark suits, white button-down shirts and bold-striped ties. In 1947, he married Grace Elsie Sloane, daughter of John Sloane, former board chairman of Manhattan's W & J Sloane, the nation's oldest home-furnishing house. The Vances have five children.
McNamara, before leaving the Cabinet, recommended Vance as his successor, and the President probably agreed with the choice. But last summer Vance was forced to abandon his twelve-hour work days at the Pentagon because of an irksome back ailment. He returned to law practice in Manhattan, although repeated summonses to Washington for troubleshooting missions scarcely left him time for his legal career. The grueling Paris negotiations will tax Vance's health even more severely than his previous assignments. Despite the orthopedic brace he wears, his back is often so painful that he cannot bend to tie his shoelaces.