George Wildman Ball

George Wildman Ball 1909-94, American lawyer and diplomat, b. Des Moines, Iowa. Admitted to the bar in 1934, he served (1942-44) as counsel in the Lend Lease Administration and the Foreign Economic Administration. An expert on economic foreign policy, Ball became (1961) Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs and then served (1961-66) as Undersecretary of State. During that period he played a major role in formulating U.S. foreign aid and foreign trade policy and was the chief architect of the Trade Agreements Act of 1962. A persistent critic of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Ball left the State Department to become (1966-68) chairman of Lehman Brothers, a major investment banking firm. After briefly serving (1968) as U.S. representative to the United Nations, he returned to Lehman Brothers as a senior partner. Ball is the author of The Discipline of Power (1968).

Ball, George Wildman (1909–94) lawyer, diplomat, and undersecretary of state, born in Des Moines, Iowa. As President John F. Kennedy's undersecretary of state, Ball promoted the European Economic Community and did not have the confidence Robert S. McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and Dean Rusk had in the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He issued dire and accurate predictions but failed to dissuade President Lyndon B. Johnson from escalating U.S. involvement.

Ball, George (1909–1994), undersecretary of state.As undersecretary of state (1961–66) under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, George W. Ball achieved his greatest prominence as the highest‐ranking U.S. official to oppose, consistently but unsuccessfully, the decisions to increase the American military role during the Vietnam War.

President Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of state for economic affairs in 1961. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Ball was promoted to undersecretary of state. He took issue with the Taylor‐Rostow mission in 1961, which advocated the introduction of U.S. combat troops into Vietnam. Ball saw the United States becoming involved in a revolutionary war with little hope of eventual success; he argued that U.S. military resources were better deployed in Europe.

Ball's opposition to American involvement in the war continued throughout the Johnson administration, but this opposition proved futile, and he left the administration in 1966 to return to his law practice. He remained personally and publicly loyal to the president, and his determined opposition to American involvement in the war became widely known only after the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He later served as U.S. delegate to the United Nations and as an adviser on Iran to President Jimmy Carter.

Bibliography

Lyndon B. Johnson , The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969, 1971.
George W. Ball , The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs, 1982.

Herbert Y. Schandler