Biography:
On December 25, 1906, Clifford was born in Fort Scott Kansas where his quiet and calm father, Frank Andrew Clifford, worked as an auditor with the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and his beautiful and theatrical mother, Georgia McAdams, served as the President of the National Story Teller’s League. Along with his older sister, Clifford and his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, a city where he had planned to live the entirety of his life. With his mom as his teacher, Clifford remarkably finished high school at the age of 15 and by 1923, entered Washington University in his hometown of St. Louis. In 1925, Clifford transferred into Washington University’s law school where a month after graduating in 1928, passed the Bar Exam. Accepting an internship at a local firm, Clifford handled many cases and learned the ways of the court room, gaining priceless experience and training that would later prepare him for his service at the White House. [1]
Foreshadowing his fortuitous admission into the White House, Clifford’s love story with his wife was truly kismet. In 1929, on a trip to Europe with a friend and colleague from the law firm, Clifford met a beautiful girl named Margery, who happened to also be an American visiting abroad. With both Clifford and Margery already arranged to be married once they returned home to the states, the two nobly abided farewell, denying their instant connection and writing off their time together as a fond memory. As a matter of chance, Clifford ran into one of his friends on the street a year later, “where, he said, he had met a friend of [his] named Margery Kimball,” who as luck would have it had broken off her engagement. Clifford ran to his office, got her phone number, arranged a meeting, and the two “immediately picked up the wonderful relationship of the previous summer.” [2] Clifford and Margery were married in 1931 and raised their three daughters together in his hometown of St. Louis.
Hoping to help the warfront after Pearl Harbor, Clifford joined the Missouri State Guard; by 1943, Clifford switched to the United States Naval Reserve, wanting to make a greater impact while staying close to home. In fact, it was while conducting a survey of Navy logistical activities on the west coast that Clifford visited Washington D.C. for the first time, the place where he would soon move to and remain until his death in 1998. [3]
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In July 1945, Clifford entered Washington thanks to his friend and client, James K. Vardaman, a Naval Reserve Officer who was recently promoted to Truman’s Naval Aide. Truman, “more than a little uncomfortable among Roosevelt’s closest advisers” from the northeast, “felt most comfortable among fellow Missourians and one of the minor personnel changes he made was the position of Naval Aide to the president. His choice was Jake Vardaman.” [4] As Vardaman’s assistant and his stand-in when he was away, Clifford maintained a largely ceremonial role, merely guarding the Map Room and serving largely as a “potted palm,” standing quietly in the back of ceremonial and social occasions. Filling the void left by the hasty departure of Vardaman and former Judge Roseman, an all-purpose adviser, in the summer of 1946, Clifford was appointed the new Naval Aide. [5]
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After only two months in his new position, Truman wanted to officially recognize and promote Clifford to Special Counsel, who had already been performing its duties though not by name. To avoid any criticism, Truman first advised Clifford to leave his military career behind since most of the assignments he worked on had no relation to his position as Naval Aide; “getting him out of uniform and into a suit was one way to avoid that.”[6] Although the title of Special Counsel was grand, Clifford tried to downplay his newly role in the White House, claiming that “the job had no power or authority other than that conferred by the President.” As Special Counsel, Clifford described his “personal philosophy of governance” as a combination of the values he formed from his youth; his liberalism from his uncle and “the basic principles of character and compassion that my parents tried to instill in me were the bedrock of my principles.”[7]
Throughout his political career, not only was he adored by the press for his Kennedy-like good looks, but “as a result of his carefully cultivated reputation, Clifford was sought out by Democratic presidents for the next twenty years.”[8] Beginning with his position as Special Counsel under Truman, Clifford quickly became one of the president’s principal and most trusted advisers; so much so that Clifford became the primary liaison to the president, Truman instructing his officials to send their memorandums and policy recommendations first to Clifford who would then check the information and send it to him. However, arguably Clifford’s greatest advantage was his insider access to both domestic and foreign policy, “involved in almost every issue in the administration that was politically sensitive or dangerous.” [9]
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Clifford’s first foreign policy assignment was in 1946, with George Elsey, a fellow Special Counsel aid, reporting the Soviet Union’s violations of existing agreements and treaties. Magnifying a rather simple task, the two advisers instead produced an extensive assessment of “Soviet intentions and capabilities phrased in the most ominous tones along with a clarion call for U.S. rearmament and the containment of Soviet expansionist.” [10] Borrowing a majority of the analysis from George Kennan’s telegram, the report, later known as the Clifford-Elsey report, warned the president of the Soviet Union’s growing expansion of communism and intentions for global domination. In fact, many historians argue that the two advisers, to amplify tensions and strengthen their policy suggestions to contain communism, Clifford and Elsey ignored circumstances where the Soviets behaved and kept their agreements as well as situations where the U.S. may have been the instigator to Soviet action. [11]
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Within the Truman administration, Clifford was also a prominent figure and architect in the historic achievements of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, and the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the Central Intelligence Agency. As the republican president Eisenhower entered office, Clifford returned to law; becoming a senior partner of his law firm, Clifford & Miller. However, staying close to Washington, Clifford “remained active in Democratic politics, most notably as a personal attorney for Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy,” who as president would name Clifford to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1961. During the Johnson Administration, Clifford served as both a senior adviser and Secretary of State, his main focus on the controversial Vietnam War. Shifting away for the first time from his stance on containment, Clifford leaned toward the dovish option, advising Johnson to withdrawal from the unwinnable war. As expected, Clifford returned to the scene as the next democratic president, President Carter, came to office. Serving in his fourth and final administration, Clifford was appointed special envoy to the eastern Mediterranean in 1977 and in 1980, Carter’s personal emissary to the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. [12]
Sources:
[1] Bruce Janoff, "Clifford, Clark (1906-1998), Washington, D.C., lawyer and presidential
adviser," American National Biography. Apr. 2008, https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0700801.
[2] Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 75-77.
[3] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 76.
[4] John Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2009), 11.
[5] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 12.
[6] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 16.
[7] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 75.
[8] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 77.
[9] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 25.
[10] George Herring, From Colony to Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 610.
[11] Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 610.
[12] Abbe A. Debolt and James S. Baugess, Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture [2 Volumes]: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture (ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2011), 137-138.
[1] Bruce Janoff, "Clifford, Clark (1906-1998), Washington, D.C., lawyer and presidential
adviser," American National Biography. Apr. 2008, https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0700801.
[2] Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 75-77.
[3] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 76.
[4] John Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2009), 11.
[5] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 12.
[6] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 16.
[7] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 75.
[8] Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir, 77.
[9] Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, 25.
[10] George Herring, From Colony to Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 610.
[11] Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 610.
[12] Abbe A. Debolt and James S. Baugess, Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture [2 Volumes]: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture (ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2011), 137-138.