Under Secretaries of State
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Updates to the Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission database are currently suspended. For information about the Department’s current and recent leadership, we recommend visiting the Department of State homepage’s Biographies of Senior Officials and List of U.S. Ambassadors.
Notice posted on January 12, 2024.
Last
updated March 14, 2024.
Congress provided for the position of Under Secretary of State in a general government appropriations act adopted on Mar 1, 1919 (40 Stat. 1224). The Under Secretary subsumed the duties of the Department’s Counselor, who had served as the second ranking officer in the Department since 1913.
The Under Secretary functioned as the principal deputy and chief assistant to the Secretary of State, served as Acting Secretary of State in the Secretary’s absence, and provided guidance and direction to the activities of the Department. Prior to 1944, a number of offices in the Department reported directly to the Under Secretary. In Jul 1972, the position of Deputy Secretary superseded that of Under Secretary of State.
- Frank Lyon Polk (1919–1920)
- Norman Hezekiah Davis (1920–1921)
- Henry Prather Fletcher (1921–1922)
- William Phillips (1922–1924)
- Joseph Clark Grew (1924–1927)
- Robert Edwin Olds (1927–1928)
- Joshua Reuben Clark Jr. (1928–1929)
- Joseph Potter Cotton (1929–1931)
- William Richards Castle Jr. (1931–1933)
- William Phillips (1933–1936)
- Benjamin Sumner Welles (1937–1943)
- Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr. (1943–1944)
- Joseph Clark Grew (1944–1945)
- Dean Gooderham Acheson (1945–1947)
- Robert Abercrombie Lovett (1947–1949)
- James Edwin Webb (1949–1952)
- David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (1952–1953)
- Walter Bedell Smith (1953–1954)
- Herbert Clark Hoover Jr. (1954–1957)
- Christian Archibald Herter (1957–1959)
- Clarence Douglas Dillon (1959–1961)
- Chester Bliss Bowles (1961)
- George Wildman Ball (1961–1966)
- Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (1966–1969)
- Elliot Lee Richardson (1969–1970)
- John Nichol Irwin II (1970–1972)