Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr discussed his father, an adviser under President Jimmy Carter, Tuesday in a speech to New York Law School’s graduating class.
Vance imparted a lesson to the new lawyers about the importance of being loyal to yourself.
“I don’t often invoke in public the memory of my father,” he said of Cyrus Vance Sr who served as Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter during the Iran-hostage crisis in 1980.
Vance Sr pressed the President to seek a diplomatic solution but Carter opted for a military one to rescue the American hostages held in Tehran. “That rescue operation failed,” Vance jr. said in his speech at Carnegie Hall.
“Now in advance of that, my father told the President, that respectfully, whether charged with failure or success, he would resign from office the next day,’” he said.
“My father was true to his word. My father would be remembered for many accomplishments but not one of them is more important than his devotion to core values and principals.”
Vance Sr passed away in 2002.