After graduating he joined the U.S. Army, serving in World War II from 1942 to 1946 during which he rose to the rank of Major and received a Bronze Star Medal.

Rogers worked as a lawyer in private practice and was a member of the board of directors for Merck & Co. and Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York.

He was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

[8] Rogers was a resident of West Palm Beach, Florida, and a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Hogan & Hartson.

[9] After suffering from lung cancer and undergoing an operation, Rogers died of the disease in Washington, D.C., on October 13, 2008, at a rehabilitation hospital.