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C  o n gr e s s o n a e   s  a  c    S e r i c


Updated March  23, 2021


United Nations Issues: Cabinet Rank of the

U.S. Permanent Representative


The U.S. Permanent Representative is the chief
representative of the United States to the United Nations.
The President appoints the Permanent Representative with
the advice and consent of the Senate. Of the 31 individuals
who have served since 1946, about two-thirds have been
accorded Cabinet rank by Presidents. Some Members of
Congress have demonstrated an ongoing interest in the
Cabinet rank of the Permanent Representative in the context
of the Senate confirmation process and broader U.S. policy
toward the United Nations. On November 24, 2020,
President-elect Biden announced his intent to nominate
Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be Permanent Representative,
with Cabinet rank. Biden stated that he will accord Cabinet
status to Greenfield because I want to hear her voice on all
the major foreign policy discussions we have. Thomas-
Greenfield was confirmed by the Senate on February 23,
2021.
Role   of the  Permanent Representative
The position of Permanent Representative is authorized in
the U.N. Participation Act of 1945 (UNPA; 22 U.S.C.
§287(a)). As this law requires the President to appoint the
Representative at the rank of Ambassador, all such
appointments are subject to Senate advice and consent. The
UNPA   provides that the Representative shall represent the
United States in the U.N. Security Council and may also
serve ex officio as U.S. representative to any U.N. organ,
commission, or other body (with the exception of U.N.
specialized agencies, which have separate U.S.
ambassadors). The Permanent Representative shall also
perform other functions as directed by the President. As
head of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) in
New  York City, the Representative works with the
Secretary of State and relevant State Department bureaus
and offices, including the Bureau of International
Organization Affairs (IO), which is led by an assistant
secretary and charged with developing, coordinating, and
implementing U.S. multilateral policy.
The   President's Cabinet
The President's Cabinet is an institution based in custom,
rather than statute, and its beginnings date to the presidency
of George Washington. Some have traced its origins to
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which provides that
the President may require the Opinion, in writing, of the
principal Officer in each of the executive Departments.
This provision suggests that the framers intended that the
President would seek advice from department heads,
although it does not require that he or she do so by meeting
with them.
Successive Presidents have used the Cabinet for varied
purposes and to a greater or lesser extent-in some cases
very little. Some Presidents have used it as a deliberative or


decisionmaking body. Others appear to have used it chiefly
as a means of maintaining communication and the flow of
information among key Administration officials.
By tradition, permanent Cabinet membership comprises the
President, the heads of the executive departments and, in
more recent decades, the Vice President. Beginning with
Dwight D. Eisenhower, each President also has accorded
Cabinet rank to select senior executive branch leaders,
including the U.S. Permanent Representative. The positions
and individuals granted this distinction vary by presidency
and, sometimes, within a presidency. Some positions,
including the Administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, the United States Trade Representative,
the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and
the White House Chief of Staff, have all consistently been
accorded this status over the past three decades.
In general, providing an agency head with Cabinet rank can
be a way for a President to publicly convey his or her view
that the agency is one of the most important in the
executive branch. It also can potentially provide an official
with parity in communications with, and access to,
Secretaries and other Cabinet members.
Cabinet Status by Administration
President Eisenhower appears to have been the first
President to accord Cabinet rank to his Permanent
Representative, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., in 1953. It is
unclear whether Lodge's successor, James Wadsworth, held
the same status. Nearly all subsequent Permanent
Representatives appear to have been granted Cabinet rank
until the presidency of George H.W. Bush in 1989. In the
following years, Presidents Clinton and Obama provided
the position with Cabinet rank, while George W. Bush did
not. During the Trump Administration, Ambassador Nikki
Haley was accorded Cabinet rank, while Ambassador Kelly
Craft was not. Over the years, Presidents appear to have
usually communicated their intent to accord Cabinet rank to
the Permanent Representative through public remarks or
communications  with the Senate during the appointment
and nomination process. Table 1 identifies each Permanent
Representatives since 1946 and their Cabinet rank.
Overall, it appears that many Presidents who have granted
Cabinet status did so to prioritize sustained engagement and
coordination with the United Nations as an element of U.S.
foreign policy. Historians have also suggested that Cabinet
rank in some cases was meant to compensate for the fact
that the past status and achievements of appointees
otherwise exceeded the position (in particular, Henry Cabot
Lodge Jr. under President Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson
II under President Kennedy). In other instances, Cabinet
rank might have been negotiated as a condition of accepting


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