Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr.

Arthur Vandenberg Jr.
White House Appointments Secretary
On leave
In office
January 20, 1953 – April 14, 1953*
PresidentDwight Eisenhower
Preceded byMatthew J. Connelly
Succeeded byTom Stephens
Personal details
Born
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg Jr.

(1907-06-30)June 30, 1907
Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
DiedJanuary 18, 1968(1968-01-18) (aged 60)
Miami, Florida, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
RelativesArthur Vandenberg (father)
EducationDartmouth College (BA)
*Vandenberg was on leave for the full duration of his term, and Stephens served as acting appointments secretary.

Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg Jr. (June 30, 1907 – January 18, 1968) was a Republican government official from Michigan. He worked for many years on the staff of his father, Arthur H. Vandenberg (1884–1951), who served in the U.S. Senate from 1928 to 1951. He was briefly announced as White House Appointments Secretary by then President-elect Eisenhower in November 1952 but announced he would be on "sick leave" on January 13, 1953, just before the start of the Eisenhower administration before completely resigning in April 1953. He also worked as a consultant and academic and edited his father's papers for publication.

The reason for his 1953 resignation, originally blamed on health problems, was later revealed to be his inability to pass a security test because of his homosexuality.[1] In October 1964, following the arrest of President Lyndon Johnson's longtime aide Walter Jenkins on a "morals charge", columnist Drew Pearson published the circumstances of Vandenberg's 1953 resignation, and President Johnson himself repeated them publicly later that same month.[2]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference gadsden was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Clendinen, Dudley (November 27, 2011), "J. Edgar Hoover, 'Sex Deviates' and My Godfather", The New York Times, retrieved November 28, 2011