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But if his record makes Vance a shadowy target for critics, his image is clearly etched for his professional associates in Foggy Bottom. He is their hero. He has given veteran State Department officials a revitalized feeling of usefulness, and they like his systematic, orderly approach to decisions. Says Matthew Nimetz, the Department counselor and a former law partner of Vance's: "He is the most efficient user of time I've ever known." Observes Hamilton Jordan: "He runs the State Department as well as it can be run."*
Vance's trademark tool for efficiency is his check lists, usually scrawled on yellow legal paper. He confronts almost every meeting with a list of key questions, topics, problems, all in tight logical sequence. Andy Young recalls occasions when Vance has reached him at a party. "I'll pick up the phone and Cy will say, 'Andy, just a couple of points.' And, man, there they'll come—tick, tick, tick; one, two, three." Aides tell of meetings that Vance holds with CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who has a similar habit. "The two of them will checklist you into stupefaction," says one observer.
The orderly approach to his job begins for Vance shortly after 5 on weekday mornings, when he awakens in his family's rented two-story brick colonial home in Northwest Washington. He does exercises to strengthen his back, which once afflicted him so sorely that his wife Grace had to tie his shoes. An unimposing black Ford reaches the house in time to get him to his office on the State Department's seventh-floor "mahogany row" at 6 on some mornings, 7 at the latest. By the time Vance arrives, two of his special assistants have already spent an hour poring over diplomatic cables, newspaper clippings and study papers for the day's meetings. Vance reads their selection in half an hour.
Then the pace quickens. A CIA agent gives Vance a briefing at 7:30. At 7:40, he calls in Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher, Under Secretary for Political Affairs David Newsom, Director of Policy Planning Anthony Lake, and Secretariat Director Peter Tarnoff for a ten-minute meeting to pinpoint the day's problems.
By 9 a.m. the housekeeping chores are over and the round of more substantive meetings begins. One day last week the first visitor was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia John West. Then Vance discussed arms-limitation issues with SALT Negotiator Paul Warnke; Leslie Gelb, director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs; Legal Adviser Herb Hansell, and Nimetz. Next in order came Dutch Foreign Minister Christoph van der Klaauw, CBS Correspondent Richard Hottelet, and a White House meeting on SALT between the President and Brzezinski. A 5 p.m. trip to Andrews Air Force Base to meet Rumanian President Nicolae Ceauşescu concluded a typical business day. He manages to get home most evenings by 8.
After that kind of grind, Vance tries evade the diplomatic cocktail circuit. He and Grace—she too is an intensely private person—turn down numerous invitations, preferring to spend their evenings at home. They may go to a movie together, but rarely watch television unless a news event demands attention.