Portrait of U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes

James Francis Byrnes (May 2, 1879 - April 9, 1972) was a confidante of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and at one point was suggested as his running mate for Vice President.

He served in the House of Representatives from 1911 to 1931, and in the United States Senate from 1931 to 1941. Byrnes also served briefly as a Justice of the Supreme Court, a role which bored him at a time when the country was about to go to war. He only served in that position for a year and a half from 1941 to 1942.

Byrnes left the Supreme Court to head the New Deal's Economic Stablization Office upon the request of President Roosevelt. After Roosevelt's death, he was appointed as Secretary of State in 1945 by Harry Truman. In 1946, Byrnes was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year. After a falling out between Byrnes and President Truman, Byrnes left his post in 1947.

Opposed to desegregation (the issue had lost him his chance to run as Vice President), he became governor of South Carolina, serving from 1951 to 1955, and eventually switched allegiances to the Republican Party.

Today, a building housing international programs is named for Byrnes at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Edward Stettinius Jr. | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |United States Secretary of State
July 3, 1945 – January 21, 1947 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
George C. Marshall