United States Secretary Of State
The Secretary of State is a senior official in the Federal Government of the United States of America heading the Department of State, principally concerned with foreign affairs and is considered to be the U.S. equivalent of a foreign minister.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is a member of the President's Cabinet, the National Security Council, and is the highest-ranking appointed executive branch official both in the presidential line of succession and the order of precedence.
The Secretary of State along with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General are generally regarded as the four most important cabinet members because of the importance of their respective departments. Secretary of State is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule and thus earns the salary prescribed for that level.
The current Secretary of State is Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 67th person to hold the office since its creation in 1789, and third woman to hold the post.
Read more about United States Secretary Of State: Duties and Responsibilities
Famous quotes containing the words secretary of state, united states, united, states, secretary and/or state:
“The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“In the United States adherence to the values of the masculine mystique makes intimate, self-revealing, deep friendships between men unusual.”
—Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, introduction (1991)
“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadership in industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)