Taking Responsibility, the Answers So Far:

Last Friday, I blogged the following:

Taking responsibility:People have recently suggested that various officials (the Secretary of Defense, the head of the CIA, and others) should resign as a sign that they take responsibility for their policy errors, or for their failure to properly monitor their misbehaving underlings. I think that in general there’s a good deal to be said for such acceptance of responsibility, though of course much will depend on the particular circumstances of each case.

But I’m wondering: How often has this sort of behavior happened in the recent past? Since, say, 1960, which Cabinet-level officials (or the Director of Central Intelligence, who’s pretty high up there) resigned because (1) they admit that they have failed in some task, or (2) their subordinates (direct or indirect) have failed and the officials want to take responsibility for the subordinates’ failure (and perhaps their own failure to monitor the subordinates)? I’m excluding (A) firings of such officials, and (B) resignations prompted by personal scandal, unpopular comments, or general unpopularity. I’m looking for resignations of the “My policies have proven to be wrong, and I’m resigning to take responsibility for them” variety.

Naturally, even if such resignations have been scarce in the past, it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t happen now — but their presence or absence may indicate whether the problem is unusual shamelessness on the part of these particular officials, or a broadly shared (even if harmful) aspect of our political culture. Also, if there are such prominent past cases, perhaps they can be used as examples that we should prod officials to emulate.

I then asked for examples.

So far, the answer seems to be that such “I take responsibility for my errors, or the errors that happened on my watch, and therefore step down” resignations are very rare in modern American political life. They are apparently more common in other countries, such as the U.K., Canada, and Japan — but not in the U.S.

Some people suggested Cyrus Vance, but his resignation was basically a resignation in protest against the Carter Administration’s decision to try a military rescue of hostages — he was protesting the Administration’s error, not confessing his own. Others suggested LBJ’s decision not to stand for reelection, but as I understand this was basically prompted by the perception that he might be denied the nomination or at least have a bruising battle, perhaps coupled with a sense of weariness exacerbated by the insurgency in his own party. Unless I’m mistaken, it wasn’t caused primarily by a judgment that he was wrong and a desire to publicly take responsibility for his errors.

Some suggested Les Aspin, who resigned as Secretary of Defense under Clinton after the Mogadishu fiasco. As best I can tell from press accounts, though, Aspin’s resignation also wasn’t primarily a confession of error. Here’s what the New York Times, Dec. 16, 1993, had to say about it:

Defense Secretary Les Aspin resigned today. He had concluded that President Clinton had lost confidence in his leadership, senior Administration officials and associates of Mr. Aspin said. . . .

With a clash over the Pentagon budget looming and senior military officers reportedly unhappy about his stewardship, Mr. Aspin felt he had no choice but to quit, a close aide said. . . .

But the Clinton Administration took pains tonight to portray the departure as Mr. Aspin’s own decision. The Defense Secretary made the announcement in a joint appearance with the President in the dignified setting of the Oval Office. . . .

“It’s time for me to take a break and to undertake a new kind of work,” said Mr. Aspin . . . .

[S]enior Administration officials . . . . said that for several weeks Mr. Clinton had steadily lost confidence in the leadership skills of his Defense Secretary because of the way he handled the major issues of his short tenure and his often confusing presentations on television and on Capitol Hill.

Senior Administration officials said that Mr. Clinton had decided to shake up his national security team and that Mr. Aspin became the odd man out both because of his public stumbles and because he lacked the close personal ties to Mr. Clinton that Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the President’s national security adviser, Anthony Lake, both enjoy. . . .

The only such post-1960 U.S. “I take responsibility” resignations that I’ve heard about are:

1. Secretary of the Navy Lawrence Garrett III under the elder George Bush apparently resigned to take responsibility for the Tailhook incident. According to the New York Times, June 27, 1992,

   Mr. Garrett, the Navy’s senior official since 1989, submitted his resignation in a letter to President Bush, claiming “full responsibility” for the Navy’s handling of the incident.

   In a message sent to Navy and Marine Corps personnel worldwide late this afternoon, Mr. Garrett said, “The tradition of our Navy mandates that senior officials bear the ultimate responsibility for their command.”

   Mr. Garrett added, “I accepted full responsibility for the handling of the Tailhook incident and the leadership failure which allowed such misconduct to occur.” . . .

   There was some speculation “that Mr. Garrett was forced to resign by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Mr. Bush’s orders”; but at least there’s some reason to think that Garrett resigned to take responsibility.

2. Allen Dulles’s resignation as Director of the CIA was, some say, triggered by his desire to accept responsibility for the Bay of Pigs failure. I haven’t found anything that clearly confirms or denies this, though, and some sources suggest that he was forced to resign, rather than resigning voluntarily. If you have pointers to authoritative sources one way or the other, please pass them along.

So my tentative sense is: There is virtually no modern U.S. tradition of high government officials voluntarily resigning to accept responsibility for their errors or the errors of their subordinates. Perhaps there should be, and perhaps (for instance) Donald Rumsfeld should resign on these grounds. But that would be a departure from recent American political norms, not an implementation of those norms.