On pages 411-412 of Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician,
Roger Morris talks about the role of William Rogers in the Alger Hiss
case. This particular William Rogers is not the comic from the 1930's,
but someone else. This William Rogers was in the navy with Richard
Nixon, but they were only passing acquaintances there. Rogers served
under District Attorney Thomas Dewey in New York City, the same Tom
Dewey who would be the Republican candidate for President in 1944 and
1948. In 1947, due to Dewey's influence, Rogers served as counsel for
Senator Homer Ferguson's sub-committee, which dealt with war
profiteering and Communist espionage. Morris says that Rogers in that
capacity "gave the Dewey campaign ready access to the subcommittee's
political tinder." Rogers would later be President Dwight Eisenhower's
Attorney General, and President Richard Nixon's Secretary of State.
Morris
states regarding Rogers: "From behind the smile and reassuring good
looks emerged no conviction or intelligence unsettling to superiors."
According to Morris, Rogers provided encouragement to Nixon when Nixon
had doubts about whether or not Whittaker Chambers, the ex-Communist who
was accusing Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy, was telling the
truth. Morris goes on to say: "It was the start of a long,
significant, sometimes simple, sometimes tortuous relationship between
the two men, the brooding and uncertain Nixon ever more dependent on his
attractive, easygoing friend, turning to him at moments of crisis and
needed companionship, and in the end inflicting a strange but historic
punishment." This "strange and historic punishment" was probably
President Richard Nixon's concealment of his rapprochement with China
from Secretary of State Rogers.
What I get out of Morris is that
either Rogers was not particularly bright, or Rogers did not come across
to his superiors as bright enough to be threatening to them. In
reading what Morris says about Rogers, however, I have a hard time
believing that Rogers was a dunce. Rogers, after all, graduated fifth
in his class (out of a class of ninety) at Cornell Law School, and he
was able to charm his way into jobs and influence, which I think takes
intelligence (perhaps because it's difficult for me). Rogers said to
Thomas Dewey: "I'll never have to prove I'm able or honest, because
people know you only hire able and honest people." Smooth!
But
what I get is that some may have thought that Rogers had lots of charm
but little substance. And, while that could endear Rogers to many
people, it could also turn people against him. Henry Kissinger, for
example, could not stand Rogers (from what I have read about Kissinger),
for he didn't think that Rogers was particularly intelligent. Part of
Kissinger's animus may have been due to his own desire to influence the
Nixon Administration's foreign policy: Kissinger wanted the power and
did not want to share it with Rogers. But Kissinger also thought that
Rogers was shallow.
In reading about Rogers, I'd say he was pretty
intelligent. I have read every now and then about advice that he gave
to Nixon, and it sounded pretty reasonable to me. But I often wonder
how intelligence is defined these days. When I was in elementary,
junior high, and high school, one was considered smart if one made good
grades. In the world of adulthood, however, people are judged more
harshly----according to how quick they are in thinking, the quality of
their insights, their ability to articulate, common sense, how much they
know, and the list goes on. Intelligence is valued in the world, and
yet it can also be threatening. But Rogers was able to give the
impression to his superiors that he was not threatening.