United States Secretary of State

The United States Secretary of State is a senior official of the U.S. federal government, and as head of the U.S. Department of State, is principally concerned with foreign policy and is considered to be the U.S. government's equivalent of a Minister for Foreign Affairs found in the governments of other states.

Quotes

 * What are the Qualifications of a Secretary of State? He ought to be a Man of universal Reading in Laws, Governments, History. Our whole terrestrial Universe ought to be summarily comprehended in his Mind.
 * John Adams, as quoted in Statesman and Friend: Correspondence of John Adams with Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784–1822 (1927), edited by Worthington C. Ford, Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 57