Category:United States Secretaries of State

This category is not for articles on characters who were Secretaries of State of the United States, but to group the OTL and Alternate Timeline Secretaries of State categories for supercategorization purposes. Articles on characters who held the office of Secretary of State should still be put into one or both of those categories, not this one.

The Secretary of State, appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President's chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President's foreign policies through the State Department and the Foreign Service of the United States.

In addition, the Secretary of State retains domestic responsibilities that Congress entrusted to the State Department in 1789. These include the custody of the Great Seal of the United States, the preparation of certain presidential proclamations, the publication of treaties and international acts as well as the official record of the foreign relations of the United States, and the custody of certain original treaties and international agreements. The Secretary also serves as the channel of communication between the Federal Government and the States on the extradition of fugitives to or from foreign countries.

The Secretary is the highest-ranking member of the President's Cabinet. He or she is fourth in the line of presidential succession.