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Brzezinski explains that his responsibility is national security, that it is up to him to perceive the threats and probes to the U.S. and figure out how to react, repel or rebuff. Vance's job, says Brzezinski, is to resolve contentious issues through negotiation. Vance sees his role as somewhat broader than that of negotiator, however. Some of his associates believe he feels a professional kinship with the modest but highly effective and creative George C. Marshall, Harry Truman's postwar Secretary. Unlike Brzezinski, Vance is both so self-effacing and self-confident that he does not resent or fear bureaucratic competition.
"He's an old Government pro," says Vice President Walter Mondale. "I don't know of any member of the Cabinet who tries harder to avoid poisonous disputes over minor matters. He doesn't indulge in backbiting, and he won't tolerate adults with graduate degrees behaving like children fighting over a toy." Yet there is steel in Vance's chronically ailing back. (A ruptured disc has bothered him ever since 1966, forcing an operation in 1967 and requiring him to wear a body cast for a time. His back has grown less troublesome, although he eases it at times by relaxing in a rocking chair in his office.) Adds Mondale: "He'll fight on principle. But he doesn't run up the flag five times a day to show who's boss." A Vance aide concurs, declaring, "He fights like a son of a bitch. But when the decision is made, he'll say, 'The battle is over,' then go out and support it."
A skilled manager willing to delegate tasks, Vance demands that ideas and policy options bubble up from middle levels of the State Department bureaucracy. He adds ideas of his own, hones the arguments and choices from the perspective of his experience in Lyndon Johnson's Pentagon (in which he served as Deputy Secretary of Defense), always emphasizing practicality and erring, if at all, on the side of caution. Says Columbia History Professor Henry Graff: "Vance is a practitioner of turtle diplomacy." Graff defines this as the art of gradual but persistent pushing toward long-term goals. He adds: "Carter could learn a lot from him—and he has."
Vance forcefully advocates his department's well-researched positions at the forums in which policy is decided. He does not hesitate to press his views on Carter in their daily telephone calls and frequent meetings when both are in Washington. He is especially vocal at the weekly Friday-morning foreign policy breakfasts attended by the President, Mondale, Brzezinski and Presidential Assistant Hamilton Jordan. It may be that Vance, who is renowned in Government for "leaving no footprints," relishes the fact that no one takes notes at the breakfasts. "It's the only federal forum I've known to be leakless," reports Mondale wryly.
The early Carter impulsiveness ran counter to advice Vance had laid down in the pre-election period. He had warned against moving too quickly on too many issues.