SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 157--INTRODUCTION OF A JOINT RESOLUTION ESTABLSHING A COMMISSION ON ORGANIZATIONAL REFORMS

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• Publication Date: October 7, 1969
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October 7, 1969 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD- SENATE
terest that might arise if the same physician received the support of numerous medical
were to treat both a potential donor and a groups, including the American Medical As-
potential recipient of a transplantable or- sociation, the American Heart Association,
gan ? On the other hand, they recognized the the National Kidney Foundation, the Eye
importance of maintaining adequate chan- Banks Association of America, the National
nels of communication between physicians Pituitary Agency, the Committee on Tissue
caring for the donor and those administering Transplantation of the National Research
to the recipient. Consequently, the Act pro- Council,14 the Fifth Bethesda Conference
vides that "the time of death shall be deter- sponsored by the American College of Car-
mined by a physician who attends the donor diology,15 the Public Affairs Committee of
at his death, or, if none, the physician who the Federation of American Societies for Ex-
certifies the death. This physician shall not perimental Biology and others 1? In the light
participate in the procedures for removing or . of such broad-based legal and medical en-
''transplanting a part" (Section 7[b] ). dorsement, and in the absence of any sizable
UNRESOLVED MOSLEMS' ' opposition, prospects for widespread enact-
As the above analysie demonstrates, the ment of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act
are excellent.
Uniform Anatomical Gift Act represents a CURRENT MEDICAL AND RELATED IMPEDIMENTS
sensitive and successful solution to many of TO WIDESPREAD TRANSPLANTATION
the existing legal restrictions related to the
donation and procurement of human organs Legal reform in this area must be carried
and tissue for medical research and therapy. out with an awareness of developments in
At the same time, it respects other relevant medicine and related fields that determine
and important interests in a dead body, such the availability of vital organs for all who
as the wishes of the next of kin for funeral could possibly benefit from them. A central
services and the need of society to deter- issue in much of the discussion has been the
mine the cause of death under certain cir- question of when death occurs. There is a
cumstances. The Commissioners wisely chose clear need to revise criteria for a definition
not to legislate certain additional questions of death in the light of the widespread
that are more properly within the province availability of methods . to support cardiac
of medicine, ethics and other disciplines or and respiratory function artificially.
better dealt with by the individual' states. Criteria based on neurologic findings
-Included here are the criteria for selection measured clinically and by the electroen-
of donors and recipients, the determination cephalogram have been proposed by several
of time of death, the need for quality con- groups. An ad hoc committee of the Harvard
trol in tissue banking and state transpor- Medical School to examine the definition of
tation requirements that may unnecessarily brain death has recently issued a definition
inhibit the transfer of a body across state of irreversible coma. The following criteria
-lines.' ' were proposed as defining a permanently
The proper role of the medical examiner or non-functioning brain: unreceptivity and
coroner has raised considerable controversy unresponsiveness to externally applied
and deserves special mention. Although the stimuli and inner need; no spontaneous
medical examiner could be an ideal person to muscular movement or spontaneous breath-
authorize the procurement of organs or tissue Ing; no reflexes; flat electroencephalogram
from victims ofatal accidents or other cases (all repeated at least 24 hours later with no
over ,which he has jurisdiction, his authority change).'! The presence of hypothermia or
under most statutes is limited to performing central-nervous-system depressants invali-
an autopsy, and this does not include the dates these criteria.
donation of" org~ans and tissue for transplan- Acceptance of declaration of death based
'tation or medical research.10 Consequently, on such neurologic criteria will improve the
such a donation made by a medical examiner ability of physicians to maintain whole-
without consent from the next of kin might organ perfusion after death. As was stated
be successfully challenged. Although Vir- at the Fifth Bethesda Conference of the
ginia u has recently joined California" and American College of Cardiology, such a
Hawaii 18 in extending medical-examiner au- declaration "recognizes that a person can,
thority in the transplant setting, strong crit- by a physician with sound medical judgment
.cisms have been expressed in Virginia, and and with moral and ethical justification, be
it is far from clear that the climate for this declared dead while the parenchymatous eel-
extension is favorable elsewhere. As a gift lular functions of many organs continue and
statute, the Commissioners properly limited while the heart may maintain a pulsatile
the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act to the vol- flow." 12
untary donation of tissue .2 The medical-ex- In addition, improved whole-organ pre-
aminer question calls for separate study. The servation will enable many organs that are
Act specifies that its provisions are subject now lost through rapid degeneration to be
to the autopsy laws of each state. Thus, it used for transplantation. Adequate tissue
respects existing medical-examiner powers matching and donor and recipient selection
.and duties and recognizes the need for tissue are also important determinants to success-
for examination in certain specified circum- ful transplantation. Proper matching re-
stances (Section 7[d]). quires a large regional or even nationwide
In 1968 donation statutes based on the pool of recipients 18 The question of the
second tentative draft of the Act were logistics needed to effectuate such a national
-passed in Kansas, Maryland, Louisiana and `program are formidable. Furthermore, the
California. It is virtually unprecedented for problems of providing enough trained trans-
9 state to enact a uniform 'act before it is plant terms and facilities and of meeting the
finally approved by the National Conference 'cost of this very expensive mode of therapy
of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. prevents the widespread use of this thera-
In addition, the following states have already peutic method. Even a plethora of cadaver
passed new donation legislation based on kidneys and hearts will not solve these
the Act this year: Arkansas, North Carolina, many difficult problems.
Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho and North Da- Increased governmental financial support
kota. This response demonstrates the great for all aspects of transplantation will come
deed for and acceptability of this reform only after successful competition with other
legislation. important public needs. Decisions regarding
At a meeting of members of the medical overall priorities for public funds inevitably
and scientific community held on Septem- become involved in the political process and
;ler 30, 1968, sponsored by the National Re- therefore are very responsive to public at-
;earch Council, there, was enthusiastic sup- titudes. Public attiirudes regarding donation
p.1rt for the Act by the representatives of of organs for transplantation are favorable.
5ha 35 states who attended. The Act has also A Gallup poll taken on January 17, 1968,
5- ++++,~ ~, ~N tDp,t seven persons in every 10, or a
F~atnotesat enc~ of arttcte: r , .`' e(i;$d(1'A'mericans, indicate they
would be willing to have their heart or other
vital organs donated to medical science after
death 18 This poll did not, however, seek the
public opinion about bearing the extraor-
dinarily large costs from the public treasury.
The above discussion demonstrates the
many obstacles to the widespread application
of organ transplantation. Any proposal for
responsible legal reform in this area must
take cognizance of these problems.
AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL-TO ELIMINATE
CONSENT
An alternative approach to streamlining
consent procedures has been proposed by
Dukeminier and Sanders, 20 who suggest that
the principles of consent and voluntary dona-
tion should be discarded in favor of allowing
tissue removed by a physician without his
having to give notice to anyone. They propose
that a surgeon should be allowed to remove
cadaver organs "routinely . unless there
were some objection entered before removal.
The burden of action would be on the person
who did not want the organs removed to
enter his objection."20 Under this system, the
donor could object during life to the taking
of his organs after death. The next of kin
could also object to the use of a deceased's
organs before removal, provided that the de-
ceased did not specifically authorize donation.
The question, as they see it, is where the
burden of action should rest: with the sur-
geon to obtain consent, or with the next of
kin to object. They believe that only by shift-
ing the burden to the next of kin will an
adequate quantity of organs be obtained.
This argument is dubious for several
reasons. The first is that, in the system pro-
posed, the burden actually remains with the
responsible surgeon to assure himself that
no objection has been raised either by the
deceased himself before death or by the next
of kin after death. To absolve himself of
.this burden adequately would require an
inquiry tantamount to obtaining consent it-
self.
Moreover, it is certain that there are some
people who would object to tissue use on
religious grounds (as recognized by Duke-
minier and Sanders)-`0 or because of other
beliefs. Such people, if not immediately avail-
able at the time of death of a relative, might
object strongly and vigorously after the fact.
They could forcefully argue that, because
they did not know of the demise of their
next of kin, they could not exercise their au-
thority to enter an objection to tissue re-
moval. Any system based on this premise
would need to include a method of registering
objection in a manner to make this informa-
tion readily available to the interested sur-
geon. Otherwise, grave constitutional ques-
tions, such as the abridgement of religious
freedom or the denial of due process, could
invalidate the system. Yet the authors de-
scribe no such mechanism for recording. To
create a registry of objections that would be
comprehensive enough to cover all situations
would be considerably more cumbersome
than the simplified consent procedures spec-
ified in the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.
Dukeminier and Sanders 20 assert that the
"bereaved survivors usually do not want to
know what has happened to the body of t"ie
deceased in the hospital" and to ask a rela-
tive of someone who is about to die "for the
kidneys may seem a ghoulish request." We
submit that current medical practice
strongly shows that this kind of request is
usually not offensive when properly pre-
sented and the need sensitivity raised. Many
people regard such a donation as an oppor-
tunity to look beyond their loss and to help
someone who may be near death:' To obtain
permission for the removal of an organ is
hardly "ghoulish"-it shows respect for the
wishes and rights of others involved. Not to
be told of such a removal or to be informed
only after the fact would be "ghoulish" in-
deed.
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S,11922, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
As further, support for their argument of
telling nothing to the next of kin, they cite
an exgjnple of a detailed description of au-
-being ,n the usual practice in obtaining per-
..
missio for, autopSy.20 These authors confuse
the obtaining of adequate "informed con-
sent" for such procedures with a detailed
technical explanation_of..them. One asks for
an autopsy but does n9t describe the fine
points of the procedure In intimate detail.
Similarly, one asks for permission to remove
an organ for transplantation without enum-
erating every nuance of surgical technic.
Properly informed consent is admittedly
difficult to define, but a discussion of it must
be based on currently accepted medical prac-
tice.
. Their only refgrence to the Uniform Ana-
tomical Gift Act occurs in connection with
the concept of a wallet-sized donation card,
which they dismiss with the question: "Yet
Is not there something macabre about a so-
ciety where people walk around with little
cards saying they have donated their organs
on death to so-and-so?" ,,It is Impossible to
revonoiie such an assertion with current
--city. As stated earlier, it has been esti-
mated that seven out of 10 (or approximately
80,000,000) Americans would be willing to
donate all or parts of their bodies for medi-
cal purposes. With attitudes of the public so
clearly favorable, to donation, it is difficult
to justify taking the. decision-making au-
thority away from them.
In a subsequent letter to this Journal,
Dukeminier and Sanders 21 equate long wait-
ing lists for kidney transplants with defects
In statutory law. As discussed above, there
are many factors that determine the avail-
ability of kidneys or other vital organs for
transplantation for all who could possibly
benefit from them. To reason that because
there are many who need a kidney trans-
plant indicates that it is necessary to elimi-
nate the principles of consent and voluntary
donation, demonstrates a lack of apprecia-
tion for these other determinants.
They also suggest in the same letter that
"experience with other donation statutes in-
dicates that the prior-consent approach will
not produce the number of organs needed
for transplantation." 21 But experience with
previous donation legislation has little to tell
us about the potential success of the Uni-
form Act. Current legislation is admittedly
Inadequate and addresses itself to only a
portion of the questions handled by the Act.
The streamlined consent procedures designed
for the next of kin, coupled with modern
criteria for determining the moment of
death, provide a framework for expeditious
donation that did not exist before.
In contrast to the above proposal, the Unf-
f?rm Anatomical Gift Act represents a bal-
anced approach that recognizes the many
and conflicting Interests and concerns rele-
vant to the transplant setting. The needs of
medical science are not relegated to second
place, Instead, responsible legal measures
have been taken to encourage the successful
progress of transplantation and thereby to
save human life. Future advances in medical
science will raise many issues to be consid-
ered by other disciplines. The challenge for
the law will be, as it has been here, to re-
spond in a manner that will permit legiti-
mate accomplishments without compromis-
ing the sensitivities and rights of other
affected parties.
FOOTNOTES
Sadler, A. M., Jr., Sadler, B. L., and Sta-
son, E. B. Uniform, Anatomical Gift Act:
model for reform. J.A.M.A, 206:2501-2506,
1968.
a Sadler, A. M., Jr., and Sadler, B. L. Trans-
plantation and law: need for organized sen-
;, sitivity. Georgetown Law J. 57:5-54, 1968.
a Stevenson, R. E., et al. Medical aspects of
tissue transplantation. In Report to the
Commnitee on Tissue Transplantation of the
National Academy of Sciences-National Re-
search Council from the Ad Hoe Commit-
tee on Medical-Legal Problems. Pp. 1-43,
1968. P. 3.
4 Stason, E. B. Role of law in medical prog-
ress. Law & Contemp. Prob. 32:563-596, 1967.
? Stickel, D. L. Ethical and moral aspects
of transplantation. Monogr. in Surg. Sc,
3:267-301,1966.
OMass. Gen. Laws. Ch. 113 ? 7 (Supp.
1967).
7Zukoski, C. F. Personal communication.
"Tenn, Code Ann. ? ? 32-601 (Supp. 1967).
"Stickel, D. L. Organ transplantation in
medical and legal perspectives. Law & Con-
temp. Prob. 32:597-619, 1967.
10 Stevenson et a,1.' Pp. 4-5.
"Va. Code Ann. ?? 19.1-46.1 (Add. Sapp.
1968).
22 Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann, ? 7133
(West 1955).
1" No. 188, ? 2, 1967 Hawaii Sess. Laws 183,
amending Hawaii Rev. Laws ? 260-14 (1955).
11 Stevenson et alb P. 19.
15 Moore, F. D., et al. Cardiac and other or-
gan transplantation in setting of'transplant
science as national effort. Am. J. CardioZ.
22:896-912, 1968. (Also, J.A.M.A. 206:2489-
2600,1968).
1" Curran, W. J. Law-Medicine notes: Uni-
form Anatomical Gift Act. New Eng. J. Med.
280:36, 1969.
17Definition of irreversible coma: report
of Ad Hoc Committee of Harvard Medical
School to Examine Definition of Brain Death.
J.A.M.A,205:337-340,1968.
1" Terasaki, P. I., Mickey, M. R., Singal,
D. R. Mittal, K. M., and Patel, R, Serotyping
for homotransplantation-XX. Selection of
recipients for cadaver donor transplants.
New Eng. J. Med, 279:1101-1103,1968.
17 New York Times, December 4, 1967. ? A,
p, 1.
20 Dukeminier, J., Jr., and Sanders, D. Or-
gan transplantation: proposal for routine
salvaging of cadaver organs. New Eng. J. Med.
279:413-419,1968.
21Idem. Salvage of cadaver organs. New
Eng. J. Med. 279:1117, 1968.
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 157-
INTRODUCTION OF A JOINT RES-
OLUTION ESTABLISHING A COM-
MISSION ON ORGANIZATIONAL
REFORMS
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, on
May 22, 1968, I made a statement on the
floor of the Senate in which I said that
I believed that the time had come for a
thorough, realistic, and objective exam-
ination of the operation, in the United
States and abroad, of the Foreign Serv-
ice, the Department of State, the Agency
for International Development and the
U.S. Information Agency. I suggested
that such an examination should be con-
ducted by a blue ribbon Presidential
Commission composed of people who
have had broad, relevant experience and
whose only interest would be in seeing
that the United States has the best pos-
sible organization to conduct its foreign
relations. I introduced a joint resolution,
subsequently entitled Senate Joint Reso-
lution 173, which provided for the estab-
lishment of such a commission to be
composed of 12 members-two from the
Senate, two from the House of Repre-
sentatives, and eight to be appointed by
the President. I said at the time that
I did not intend to press the resolution
to a vote because I did not believe that
the appointement of such a commission
should be one of the last acts of an out-
going administration. I added,that I be-.
commission should, however, be one
the first acts of a new administration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent that the full text of the statement
I made on May 22, 1968, be printed in
the RECORD at the conclusion of my re-
marks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. FULBRIGHT. I would like to note
that since making that statement a year
and a half ago, I have noticed a number
of articles in the press and in journals
which lead me to believe that there may,
in fact, be even greater need for the kind
of study I proposed. Writing in the
Nation on February 3 of this year, Smith
Simpson, author of "Anatomy of the
State Department," wrote:
I have known the State Department and
its Foreign Service for some forty years and
never have I seen them in such a shambles.
Mr. Smith went on to observe:
A part of the crisis which the diplomatic
agency presents to Mr. Nixon arises from its
astonishing failure to redefine diplomacy It-
self in up-to-date terms, so that it might
have a clear idea of the kind of people It
should be recruiting, the kinds of education
and training it should be providing its offi-
cers, the criteria it should be following for
assignments and promotions, the blend of
policy, diplomacy and management it should
be developing--all to effect a widespread im-
provement in our international perform-
ance ...
In such an "anti-organization" depart-
ment, morale is deplorable. In forty years of
observation, I have never known State De-
partment morale to be good, but it is now
the worst that I have ever seen it ...
Morale affects performance; so also do at-
titudes. They subtly penetrate and influence
every view, every decision, every approach to
a decision. They are the unspoken premises
which cause men to assume they know
things they do not know, understand situa-
tions they do not understand, are "manag-
ing crises" when they are only tinkering
with them, disposing of problems when they
are only postponing them to reappear in
more aggravated form... .
An extraordinary cynicism pervades the
diplomatic establishment. Even its liberals
found themselves welcoming the outcome of
the Presidential election. "Nothing could
possibly be worse," they said; "a change-
any change-just might bring relief." They
did not remember that this same hope was
engendered in 1932, 1952 and 1960, and gave
way to souring frustration. It is not merely
change that is needed-it is reform: orga-
nizational reform, procedural reform, atti-
tudinal reform, educational and training re-
form, conceptual reform. That is what con-
fronts Mr. Nixon as he prepares for his
seventh crisis. `' .
In the spring 1969 issue of the Vir-
ginia Quarterly Review, Charles Maech-
ling, in an article entitled "Our Foreign
Affairs Establishment: The Need for Re-
form," said:
The foreign affairs establishment cannot
be streamlined or invigorated by half-meas-
ures confined to the State Department. In-
dividual changes in the Department's or-
ganization, personnel system, training pro-
grams, and programming methods are going
to yield only minimal and probably undis-
cernible results in terms of improved policy
performance unless the Department's role is
re-examined within the context of the whole
S4 ign jig rs # fir d especially the. xn19-
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Octo-ber 4 1969 Cd t st& AL RECORD- SENATE
sions of Bother aaencles-Defense, CIA, USA,
AID, and easury.
'WTI "Young Turks" in the Foreign
wias een seeking to achieve re-
orm from within the State Department.
trated in these efforts-which does not
surprise me for, as t said a year and a
half ago
l; a :i . Ah`nced that those in the execu-
t .F@ , arch departments and agencies con-
C1'edf~i1?er the top non-career level in
these departments and agencies or the ad-
ministrative special'ists withvested interests
in the results to whom sueh'a task ends up
being delegated-cannot alone institute the
needed reforms,
I said then, and I still believe, that a
view from, the outside is also needed-11
a "broad and objective view, unencum-
bered by political considerations or by
the obligations that executive branch of-
ficers have toward the., Interests of the
particular department or agency in
which they serve.
to this connection, T 'noticed an arti-
cle, on the front page of the New York
Times on August 28, which reported that
the "Young Turks" were "showing some
impatience with the Nixon administra-
tion's pace on reforming the service."
The article then went on to report, ac-
cording to sources in the Foreign Service,
that many junior and middle grade were
dissatis ed with their lack of responsi-
bility, with promotion policies and with
the assignments which they received, and
that there had been a large and increas-
ing number of resignations from the For-
eign Service.
I ask unanimous coxlsexxt.that the full
text of the above article from the New
York ,Tunes, the texts of the articles by
Mr. Simpson and Mr. Maechling from
which I have quoted, and the text of
an article by William A. Bell which ap-
~peared in the Washington Monthly in
July, entitled "The Cost of Cowardice
Silence in The Foreign Service," also be
printed in the RECORD at the conclusion
of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered,
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Not only do out-
side observers and critics argue that
there is acute, need for organizational
reform. Many in the Foreign Service
share this view. I was, struck by sev-
eral remarks made by Idar Rimestad,
Deputy Under Secretary of State for
Administration since February 1967, at
an appearance before the Committee
on Foreign Relations earlier this ses-
sion, The occasion for the hearing was
the President's nomination of Mr.
Rimestad to an ambassadorial position.
But in the course of the hearing, while
discussing Mr. Rimestad's previous serv-
ice , in the State Department's top ad-
ministre,tiye position, I asked him about
the rec0nimendations by the "Young
Turks" in the Foreign Service. In re-
sponse, among other things, he told the
committee that under 20 percent of the
personnel in our large Embassies are
from the State Department and pointed
to one case in which that figure was
8 percent. The others are from other
Government agencies. Mr. Rimestad
went on to note that as the size of for-
.eign missions are reduced, the State De-
partment's role is further diminished
and that over the years the State De-
partment has "lost a great deal of mo-
mentum in the foreign affairs area." He
concluded:
Something is in order, whether it is-as
you suggested-a Plowden report ... to take
a look at our foreign establishment to see
where this direction should come from.
The point made by Mr. Rimestad pro-
vides another, and I believe most im-
portant, argument in favor of an exam-
ination of the kind I have proposed.
Thus, for the reasons set forth in my
statement of May 22, 1968, and in my
statement today, I hereby introduce a
joint resolution, identical to Senate Joint
Resolution 173, 99th Congress, second
session, which would establish a Commis-
sion on Organizational Reforms in the
Department of State, the Agency for In-
ternational Development, and the United
States Information Agency. I intend to
urge the Committee on Foreign Relations
to adopt this resolution, and I ask unan-
imous consent that the text of the joint
resolution be printed in the RECORD at
this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint
resolution will be received and appro-
priately referred; and, without oI jec-
tion, the text of the joint resolution
will be printed in the RECORD.
The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 157),
to establish a Commission on Organiza-
tional Reforms in the Department of
State, the Agency for International De-
velopment, and the U.S. Information
Agency, introduced by Mr. FULBRIGHT,
-was received, read twice by its title, re-
ferred to the Committee on Foreign Re-
lations, and ordered to be printed in the
RECORD, as follows:
S.J. RES. 157
Whereas there IS an obvious need to insure.
that the United` States conducts all aspects
of its foreign relations in the most effective
possible manner; and
Whereas toward this end, it is appropriate
.to provide for an independent study of the
present operation and organization of the
Department of State, including the Foreign
Service, the Agency for Internationale De-
velopment, and the United States Informa-
tion Agency with a view to determining and
proposing needed institutional reforms:
Therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Rep-
resegtatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled, That there is hereby
created a commission 'to be known as the
Commission on Organizational Reforms in
the Department of State, the Agency for In-
ternational Development, and the United
States Information Agency (hereinafter re-
ferred to as the "Commission"). It shall be
the duty of the Commission to make a com-
prehensive study in the United States and
abroad and to report to the President and to
the Congress on needed organizational re-
forms in the Department of State, including
the Foreign Service, the Agency for Interna-
tional Development, and the United States
Information Agency, with a view to deter-
mining the most efficient-and effective means
for the administration and operation of the
United States programs and activities in the
field of foreign relations.
SEC. 2. The Commission shall corfsist of
twelve members, as follows:
S11993
(1) Pcvo members of the Commission, to
be appointed by the President of the Senate,
Who shall be Members of the Senate, of
whom at least one shall be a member of the
Committee on Foreign Relations.
(2) Two members of the Commission, to be
appointed by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, who shall be Members of the
House of Representatives, of whom at least
one shall be a member of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs.
(3) Eight members of the Commission,
to be appointed by the President, who shall
not be individuals presently serving in any
capacity in any branch of the Federal Gov-
ernment other than in an advisory capa-
city.
SEC. 3. The President shall also appoint
the Chairman of the commission from
among the members he appoints to the
Commission. The Commission shall elect
a Vice Chairman from among its members.
SEC. 4. No member of the Commission shall
receive compensation for his service on the
Commission, but each shall be reimbursed
for his travel, subsisten' e, and other neces-
sary expenses incurred in carrying out his
duties as a member of the Commission.
SEC. 5. (a) The Commission shall have
power to appoint and fix the compensation
of such personnel as it deems advisable, in
accordance with the provisions of title 5,
United States Code, governing appointments
in the competitive service, and chapter 51
and subchapter III of chapter 53 of such
title relating to classification and General
Schedule pay rates.
(b) The Commission may procure tem-
porary and intermittent services to the same
extent as is authorized for the departments
by section 3109 of title 5, United States
Code, but at rates not to exceed $100 a day
for individuals.
SEC. 61 (a) The Commission shall conduct
its study in the United States, and abroad
and shall report to the President and to the
Congress not later than eighteen months
after its appointment upon the results of
its study, together with such recommenda-
tions as iL may deem advisable.
(b) Upon the submission of its report
under subsection (a) of this section, the
Commission shall cease to exist.
SEC. 7. The Commission is authorized to
secure directly from any executive depart-
ment, bureau, agency, board, commission,
office, independent establishment, or instru-
mentality information, suggestions, esti-
mates, and statistics for the purpose of this
Commission, office, establishment, or instru-
mentality and shall furnish such informa-
tion, suggestions, estimates and statistics
directly to the Commission, upon request
made by the Chairman or Vice Chairman.
Sic. 8. There is authorized to be appro-
priated not to exceed $500,000 to carry out
this joint resolution.
Exnisrr 1
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 173-INTRODUCTION
OF JOINT RESOLUTION RELATING TO CON-
DUCTING FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE 1970's
Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President-
"Foreign policy will be dynamic or inert,
steadfast or aimless, in proportion to the
character and unity of those, who serve it."
So began the report of the Secretary of
'State's Public Committee on Personnel pub-
lished in June 1954. The report, entitled
"Toward a Stronggr Foreign Service" 1 but
known popularly as the Wriston report, after
the name of the chairman of the committee,
continued by saying several paragraphs
later:
"The internal morale of a Government in-
stitution and public confidence in that in-
stitution are inseparable parts of an organic
process. The one replenishes or depletes the
other."
F9(ltxit5uat~. gj a;tide,
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S 11994
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE October, j,969
How is the internal more and unity of
those who serve our foreign policy today-
14 years after the Wriston report, 22 years
after the Foreign Service Act of 1946, which
revised and modernized the Foreign Service,
and 44 years after the Rogers Act of 1924,
which first established a permanent career
Foreign Service? Is the Foreign Service vigor-
ous, inventive, and unified, willing and able
to produce a dynamic and steadfast foreign
policy? Do the men and women in the De-
partment of State meet the formula of Lord
Strang, former Permanent Under Secretary
of State in the British Foreign Office, for
Foreign Office effectiveness which is to be
"on their toes and happy to be on their
toes"?' And what of those in the other Gov-
ernment agencies who also serve our foreign
policy?
From everything I have heard and read
and seen, I have regretfully concluded that
the internal morale in the Foreign Service
and the Department of State, as well as in
the Agency for International Development
and in the U.S. Information Agency, is poor.
As the Wriston report has pointed out, it
follows that there is, or will soon be, less
public confidence in these institutions. For
a country as rich in human resources as the
United States, facing the enormous problems
in the field of foreign relations that this
country faces, I suggest that this is not only.
an undesirable but an intolerable state of
affairs.
On what do I base my contention that
morale is low and that the effectiveness. of
the institutions involved is therefore im-
paired? Proof is readily available not only
in what the members of the institutions
themselves say privately but also in what
they say publicly. For example, the February
issue of the Foreign Service Journal con-
tained an article entitled "Is the Foreign
Service Losing -Its Best Young Officers?"
Summarizing the results of a survey of re-
cently resigned junior officers, the article
observed that the typical resignee:
leaves the service primarily because
he feel that his work has not been suffi-
ciently challenging and he has seen little to
reassure him regarding his future prospects
he feels that his present job provides
him with greater challenge than he would
have had had he remained in the Foreign
Service."
A tabulation in the article, showing the
reasons these officers left the Foreign Service,
indicates that the principal factors were dis-
satisfaction with the personnel system, a
lack of anticipated challenge, dim prospects
for responsibility and general frustration
with the bureaucracy. The least important
reasons, mentioned in only a few cases and
never as a primary reason, were low pay,
dissatisfaction with sppervisors and a slow
rate of promotion.
Undoubtedly this is the sort of feeling that
led a Foreign Service association "spokes-
man" to tell a New York Times reporter
last September that the election of a write-in
ticket to control of the association "reflected
a general mood of grievance and concern, a
sense of frustration and malaise about the
state of morale at the State Department and
among career officers at the Agency for
International Development and the U.S. In-
formation Agency." s Even Under Secretary
of State Katzenbach, whose interest in the
problems of the Foreign Service has been
commendable and whose influence has been
salutary, has referred, In a public speech,
to some of the concern and frustration In
the Foreign Service, the kind of acknowl-
edgment of personnel problems that rarely
comes from the higher reaches of any Gov-
ernment department. In addressing the For-
eign Service Day Conference at the Depart-
ment of State on November 2, 1967, Mr.
Katzenbach said that able younger men in
the Foreign Service "complain that their
talents are underutilized," and the Under
Secretary went on to admit that, while such
complaints might be exaggerated "the un-
derutilization of a talented body of men is
paradoxical, harmful,-and even tragic."
One of the most distinguished alumni of
the Foreign Service, when asked recently
on a national television program whether
he would advise a young man to go into the
Foreign Service today, replied:
If he was ambitious, if he wanted to get
ahead and if it was going to cause him pain
if anyone got promoted ahead of him, I
would tell him not to go Into It. If he wants
to live abroad, keep his eyes open and
broaden his horizons intellectually then I
would any go right ahead.
That distinguished alumnus was Am-
bassador George F. Kennan who was saying,4
it seemed to me, that a young man might
serve his own limited short-range interests
in the Foreign Service but that his prospects
for making a useful contribution, as the
institution is now organized, were dim.
Ambassador Kennan is not alone in his
views. In a recent letter to the editor of
the Foreign Service Journal, another dis-
tinguished Foreign Service alumnus, Am-
bassador Charles W. Yost, wrote that his
own experience with many promising young
officers who had either resigned or "dis-
piritedly accommodated themselves" con-
firmed that these young officers in the For-
eign Service often felt that they faced a lack
of challenge and an unsatisfactory person-
nel system.' Ambassador Yost added that
there was no reason why a personnel system
"should be, or should seem, bureaucratic,
unresponsive, and and unimaginative." Am-
bassador Yost concluded his letter by saying:
"It would be a very great tragedy if the
Foreign Service, just when the country needs
it most and when it offers in fact the most
brilliant opportunities, should be eroded at
the base through failure to take advantage
of the zeal, ambition _ and expectations of
Its best qualified and best trained young
officers."
I am reasonably confident that these com-
ments could be made just as aptly for young
officers in the Agency for International De-
velopment and the U.S. Information Agency.
Bureaucracies have a tendency to grow, as
we all know. In fact, a recent program in
the Foreign Service to reduce the size of
embassies that had grown unreasonably large
was nicknamed "Operation Topsy," a name
that strikes me as whimsically accurate.
Someone brought to my attention a recent
article in the London Daily Telegraph maga-
zine by the renowned C. Northcote Parkinson
pointing out that in the period from 1914 to
1967, while the total number of vessels in
commission in the British navy fell from 542
to 114, and the number of officers and men
in the Royal Navy from 125,000 to 84,000, the
number of Admiralty officials and clerical
staff rose from 4,366 to 33,574.6 And while
Britain's colonies almost disappeared -be-
tween 1935 and 1954, in that period the
Colonial Office grew from 372 to 1,661 em-
ployees.
I suspect, again on the basis of what I have
heard from those in the Department of State
as well as what I have read, that administra-
tive proliferation has also reached a rather
acute stage in our foreign affairs agencies
and that too many people are kept busy read-
ing unnecessary reports written by too many
other people who have nothing else to do. If
this were not so, the recent decision to reduce
the size of all embassies overseas in order to
reduce our balance-of-payments deficits
would not have been made. Surely, we could
not afford to cut any essential activities
abroad any more than we could not afford
not to cut unessential activities.
In "Farewell to Foggy Bottom," Ambas-
sador Ellis Briggs wrote in 1964:
"Foreign Affairs would prosper if the 1960's
could become known as the decade in which
the American Foreign Service was not re-
organized." '7
Ambassador Briggs has had his wish in
some ways and has not had it in others
because the Foreign Service has been re-
organized-not on a grand scale but piece-
meal-with the results that those observers
and participants I have quoted have de-
scribed. And these piecemeal reorganizations
have also taken place in the Agency for Inter-
national Development and in the U.S. In-
formation Agency. But the 1960's are almost
over. The question now is what should the
Foreign Service, and the other foreign.affairs
agencies, be like in the 1970's?
I believe that the time has come for a
thorough, realistic, and objective examina-
tion of the operation in the United States
and abroad of the Foreign Service, the De-
partment of State, the Agency for Interna-
tional Development and the U.S. Informa-
tion Agency-the principal agencies which
conduct this Nation's foreign relations at
home and abroad. In October 1966 I wrote
the President and suggested the appointment
of a blue-ribbon Presidential Commission to
perform this function and to suggest reforms
that should be made, a commission to be
composed of people who have had broad,
relevant experience and whose only interest
would be in seeing that the United States
has the best possible organization to conduct
its foreign relations. The executive
branch, while not denying my assertions
that fundamental and far-reaching changes
were needed in the Department of State and
other agencies with important responsibilities
in the field of foreign affairs, indicated a be-
lief that the needed reforms could be in-
stituted more effectively without outside as-
sistance by the top noncareer level of the De-
partment of State. Two years have now passed
and, despite the best efforts of the top non-
career level of the State Department, I do not
think that the situation has Improved.
It has been argued that such commissions
as the one I proposed have been appointed
several times in the past and that there is
thus no need to repeat the experience. I would
disagree. The Hoover Commission examined
the entire organization of the Government,
including the Department of State, but this
examination was conducted over 20 years ago
and is now out of date. The so-called Wriston
Committee, chaired by President Wriston of
Brown University, was appointed by the Sec-
retary of State in 1954. Its deliberations took
only 2 months, and its members did not in-
spect operations in the field. It issued a rela-
tively brief report whose principal recommen-
dation was to consolidate the Department of
State and Foreign Service personnel sys-
tems-a consolidation which has been gradu-
ally unraveling ever since.
The most recent attempt in this field was
by a Committee on Foreign Affairs Person-
nel established late in 1961 under the aus-
pices of the Carnegie Endowment for In-
ternational Peace and headed by former Sec-
retary of State Christian Herter. Its delibera-
tion appeared to be thorough. It devoted a
year to its task, its members visited 32 posts
abroad, and it took formal evidence from 18
witnesses. It issued a report with 43 recom-
mendations.-Many of the Herter Committee's recom-
mendations were, however, so general that
they were almost truisms. For example; one
recommendation was that the Department's
leadership capabilities should be strength-
ened, which is certainly a more desirable
goal than weakened leadership. Another was
that the State Department, USIA, and AID
should "tap more systematically the most
promising sources of highly qualified candi-
dates," which, again, is certainly preferable
to the unsystematic recruitment of less well
qualified candidates. Other recommendations
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 of the Herter Oommitee were ignored. The
committee's * second recommendation, for
example- was that a position of executive
Under Secretary of State be established. Still
other recommendations were contradicted
stflisequently by Departmental decisions-
'the fate, for example, of the committee's
recommendation 27 that "selection out for
time in class should be eliminated"-or have
had to be abandoned fib-cause the Congress,
for one reason or ahd'ther; has not been will-
ing to pass 'fhe necessary legislation.
The t7ie,51 States is, of course, not alone
i 4 the problem of how best to orga-
zlfg conduct of foreign relations. Six
yeaf She British Government decided
to conduct a thorough review of the purpose,
structure, and operation of Its foreign affairs
establishment.
t'am Impressed by the British Govern-
ment's aproach in this case. The Prime Min-
ister appointed a distinguished "Committee
on Representational Services Overseas" head-
ed by Lord Plowden. S should emphasize that
the comnlitte was appointed by the Prime
Minister, not by the Secretary of State, as
was the Wriston Committee, or under the
auspices of a private foundation, as was the
Herter Committees The members of the com-
mittee included taco 'members of the House
of Commons, one Labor Party member and
one Conservative, in contrast to the Wriston
Committee and the, Herter Committee,
neither of which included members of the
Congress. The PIowden Committee spent a
year and a half in its task, visited 42 posts
abroad, took formal evidence from 75 wit-
nesses and issued a 116-page 'report with 52
recommendations .o
How has the Plowden Committee report
of 1964 fared compared to the Herter Com-
mittee of 1962? According to John E. Harr,
a Department of State official who, inci-
dentally, had served on the staff of the
Herter Committee, while there has been
"very slow progress" in implementing the
Herter report, the Plowden report was "im-
plemented almost in its entirety, and needed
action was taken swiftly and decisively." 10
Mr. Harr termed the report an "overall suc-
cess" and said that, in the opinion of those
in the Foreign Office whom he had inter-
viewed, the amalgamation of the Foreign
Service, Commonwealth Relations Service
and Trade Commission Service into one dip-
lomatic service, as recommended in the
Plowden report, "has indeed given British
overseas representation a much needed shot
in the a . " He concluded that the British
appear to be "moving ahead very progres-
sively" with their Diplomatic Service's ad-
ministrative problems,
I have felt for several years that while
the 'British do not have the answer to every
problem, they may well have the answer to
the one I am discussing today. I am con-
vinced that the executive branch depart-
ments and agencies concerned-either the
top noncareer level of these departments
and agencies or the administrative special-
ists with vested interests in the results to
whom such a task ends up being delegated-
cannot alone institute the needed reforms.
A view from the outside is also needed-a
broad and objective view, unencumbered by
political considerations or by the obliga-
tions that executive branch officers have
toward the interests of the particular depart-
ment or agency in which they serve.
The United States has many distinguished
citizens who have served in high positions
in the Government, here and abroad, and
in the private sector as well. We should put
the best available minds among them to
work on this problem. To suggest just one
example of, such a man, I would point to
the distinguished career of Douglas Dillon
who has served in both Republican and
Democratic administrations, in the State
Department and in an embassy abroad, in
the Treasury Department and in the private
sector as well. There are many other men,
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ctaher-77 1969 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -SENATE
whose experience, while perhaps not as
broad, would enable them to bring knowl-
edge and perspective to the work of such a
commission which could draw its staff not
only from various Government departments
and agencies but from foundations and uni-
versities, and also from corporations, banks
and management consulting firms with large
foreign operations of their own.
I am therefore submitting today a joint
congressional resolution providing for the
establishment of such commission to be
composed of 12 members-two from the Sen-
ate, two from the House of Representatives
and eight to be appointed by the President.
The joint resolution stipulates that the
members appointed by the President should
not, at the time of their appointment, be
serving in any governmental position other
than in an advisory capacity.
I do not intend to press this joint resolu-
tion to a vote at this time because I do not
believe that the appointment of such a
commission should be one of the last acts
of a retiring administration. But I do believe
that the appointment of such a commission
should be one of the first acts of a new ad-
ministration. I am introducing the joint
resolution today so that the candidates for
the office of the Presidency, and Members
of the House and the Senate, will have time
to think about it. I will introduce the joint
resolution again at the beginning of the next
Congress and I will then do my utmost to
achieve its adoption.
FOOTNOTES
1 "Toward a; Stronger Foreign Service," De-
partment of State Publication 5458, released
June, 1954.
ry Lord Strang, The Diplomatic Career (Lon-
don, Andre Deutsch, 1962).
N "Diplomats' Group Elects Activists," New
York Times, September 29, 1967.
& On "Meet the Press," November 5, 1967.
5 Foreign Service Journal, April, 1968.
8 "Is the Civil Service Swallowing Britain?",
The Daily Telegraph Magazine; December 8,
1967.
7 Ellis Briggs, Farewell to Foggy Bottom,
(New York: David McKay Company, Inc.,
1964).
8 "Personnel for the New Diplomacy," Re-
port of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Personnel, Carnegie Endowment for Inter-
national Peace, December, 1962.
c "Report of the Committee on Representa-
tional Services Over-Seas Appointed- by the
Prime Minister Under the Chairma$ship of
Lord Plowden 1962-63," published by Her
Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1964.
10 "Some Observations on H. M. Diplomatic
Service," John E. Harr, Foreign Service Jour-
nal, August, 1967.
[From the New York Times, Aug. 27, 1969]
EXHIBIT 2
GROUP IN FOREIGN SERVICE SEEKS To BARGAIN
ON PERSONNEL AFFAIRS
(By Richard Halloran)
WASHINGTON, August 27.-A group of
"Young Turk" Foreign Service officers, show-
ing some impatience with the Nixon Ad-
ministration's,pace on reforming the service,
are planning to ask the State Department to
recognize their professional association as
the exclusive agent with which the depart-
ment would bargain on a wide range of per-
sonnel matters.
Sources close to the group said they wanted
the department to recognize the Foreign
Service Association, a nonofficial organiza-
tion, as the sole bargaining agent and to sign
a contract giving the association this
authority.
Although an Executive order permits Gov-
renment employees to form such bargaining
units, one source called the proposal "revo-
lutionary" for the usually circumspect For-
eign Service.
Leaders of the sou are scheduled to meet
wit~i the &Z 'Secretary of State, Elliot L.
S 11995
Richardson, tomorrow to discuss the union
proposal and other dissatisfactions among
Foreign Service officers. Mr. Richardson is
responsible for the administration of the
Foreign Service.
The delegation will be led by Lannon
Walker, chairman of the Foreign Service
Association. Mr. Walker declined to reveal
details of the planned meeting and would
say only that "we want to see where we
stand" with the department's senior officers.
Other sources close to the group, however,
indicated that they felt the Nixon Adminis-
tration "has been around a while now and
it's time to see some action." One source said
that the impetus for reform must come from
the Foreign Service itself, that "It's time we
took a good hard look at ourselves."
Various task forces, the sources said, have
been working on position papers to use as
talking points with the top management.
Some of the Foreign Service officers said
they believed that Mr. Richardson also
thinks the time has come for action.
A member of the Under Secretary's staff
said that Mr. Richardson feels reform of the
Foreign Service to be among his major re-
sponsibilities but that each recommendation
should be considered on its merits. The
source said that Mr. Richardson had met
with the association leaders several times
since he took office and thought it important
to keep the lines of communication with
them open.
The dissensions within the Foreign Serv-
ice began long before the Nixon Adminis-
tration took office. The sources said that
many junior and middle-range officers were
dissatisfied with their lack of responsibility,
with promotion policies and with the assign-
ments they receive.
These sources pointed to the large and in-
creasing numbers of resignations from the
Foreign Service. During the fiscal year that
ended on June 30, about 270 officers resigned
while only about 60 new appointments were
made. The number of Foreign Service officers
has dropped from 3,489 to 3,273, as of July 1.
Some sources expressed the fear that the
service would gradually drop to about 2,500
officers. They said the Nixon Administration
must make up its mind whether it wants to
have a career, professional service or "see
the whale thing go down the drain."
The sources were almost unanimous in
saying that they were encouraged during the
early days of the new Administration by the
attitude and by the intial steps taken to re-
form the Foreign Service.
But they indicated that dissatisfaction
had returned recently due to the 10 per cent
cutbacks ordered in personnel both in Wash-
ington and overseas.
The sources said that many professionals
were encouraged when Mr. Richardson issued
a memorandum, on May 2 committing the
Administration to "a thorough re-examina-
tion of the foreign affairs establishment
with a view to a more effective use of the
unique human forces found there."
Some, however, charged that the new Ad-
ministration had instituted criteria for pro-
motion that were unacceptable. One such is
the stipulation that no specialist could be
promoted beyond, FSO-3, an upper middle
grade, unless he had exceptional ability.
The sources complained that the defini-
tion of specialist was not made clear and
that, moreover, many people in the increas-
ingly complicated profession of diplomacy
are required to become specialists in a coun-
try, an area of a particular field such as
economics.
[From the Nation, Feb. 3, 1969 ]
NIKON'S SEVENTH CRISIS: DIPLOMATS IN
DISARRAY
(By Smith Simpson)
NOTE.-Mr. Simpson, a retired Foreign
Service officer with twenty years' -experience
in and around the diplomatic Establishment,
is the author of ; Anatomy of the State De-
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S 11996 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE October 7, _J4 96 ..
partment (Houghton Mifflin). He is also edi-
tor of the recent issue, "Resource and Needs
of American Diplomacy," of The Annals,
American Academy of Political and Social
Science.)
It seems that President Nixon did not relish
as Secretary of State a man of great experi-
ence and skill in foreign affairs, one familiar
with the State Department, the federal for-
eign aff airs community, our foreign policies
and the navigational skills which keep those
policies afloat. There are such men in his
party, some of them part of the Atlantic
seaboard reservoir so often tapped for for-
eign affairs and defense appointments. But,
for the first time in years, a President-elect
shied away from the Eastern establishment.
The indications are that Mr. Nixon did not
even seek the advice of the Lovetts, McCloys,
Dillons, et al.
Plainly, also, he had no inclination to re-
sort to older precedent and appoint one of
those who had challenged him for his party's
nomination. "Forward together" is for na-
tional consumption, not for party politics, at
least as far as foreign affairs are concerned.
Instead of pursuing precedent, Mr. Nixon did
something quite novel-novel, anyway, since
1925, when Calvin Coolidge appointed Frank
Billings, Kellogg as head of the diplomatic
bureaucracy. This suggests that the slogan
in foreign affairs is to be "Keep Cool with
Nixon."
But another possible meaning to the ap-
pointment of William P. Rogers seems to
have escaped the commentators. It is well
known that Mr. Nixon has turned to this
skillful lawyer during three of the six major
crises which he says have beset his political
career. By calling upon Rogers now for this
particular position, does Mr. Nixon suggest
that the diplomatic establishment has.begun
to loom in his mind as a seventh crisis?
Well it might. I have known the State De-
partment and its Foreign Service for some
forty years and never have I seen them in
such a shambles. Policy planning in the
State Department is still of a scatter-shot
variety and diplomatic planning is nonex-
istent. There is no overall management, and
therefore operations are not tied together,
gaps are not filled, lapses are not anticipated,
improvements are not systematically pressed.
Even promotions, which should be one of the
simpler operations, at least from the numeri-
cal standpoint, have been chaotic and with-
out reference to need. Education and training
are scandalously neglected, procedures fritter
away experience, officers are frustrated rather
than developed by conditions of service. Re-
sponsibilities, especially in the lower ranks,
are vague and unchallenging. There is-, In a
word, no systematic control; only endless
improvisation in administration, endless bat-
tling with momentary need, endless reaction
to events-as In our diplomacy itself-rather
than good, tight, dynamic leadership.
I hate to mention Vietnam in-this connec-
tion, for it would seem to have been threshed
down to the last grain, but several basic
elements which it shares with everything
else the Department does are being over-
looked. One is the failure to bring to bear
upon the Vietnamese experience the proc-
esses of research, analysis and planning. No
systematic analysis of this involvement has
been made by the State Department or any
contractee of the Department. Hence, the
Department has been, and still is, unable to
deal profoundly with the problem of inter-
vention, isolating the issues it presents or
generalizing from the breakthroughs of
technique and the constructive results which
here and there ingenious diplomatic, mili-
tary and aid officers have achieved. Further,
there has been no attempt to systematize
the errors of this venture for the instruction
of future policy steerers and diplomatic
pilots. From this failure, we risk not only
losing in our negotiations the few precious
accomplishments of Intervention but of re-
peating our mistakes in the future. That
future, as Thailand and Laos are trying to
whisper in our ear, may come sooner than we
think. If there is one way to insure a contin-
uation of blunders in Southeast Asia, with
their corroding effects on America's world
position, this is it.
The Pueblo affair is another example of the
State Department's chronic inability to sub-
ject its diplomacy to any kind of rigorous
analysis. No methodical attention has ever
been given to this type of spy operation,
great though its impact is upon our diplo-
macy. This neglect led to the U-2 imbroglio
in 1960; it will lead to others. The disjointed
diplomatic agency has simply not prepared
Itself to cope with military and intelligence
operations which affect the nation's general
international efforts. Of course, diplomats
would first have to be educated and trained
in this area, and one of the more obscure
but melancholy aspects of the U-2, Bay of
Pigs and Pueblo affairs is that our diplomatic
officers are not adequately prepared to run
any phase of a modern diplomatic operation.
A part of the crisis which the diplomatic
agency presents to Mr. Nixon arises from its
astonishing failure to redefine diplomacy
itself in up-to-date terms, so that it might
have a clear idea of the kind of people it
should be recruiting, the kinds of education
and training it should be providing its offi-
cers, the criteria it should be following for
assignments and promotions, the blend of
policy, diplomacy and management it should
be developing-all to effect a widespread
improvement in our international perform-
ance.
Good management would encourage a
contagion of know-how from the better-run
to the sloppy offices, thus stimulating and
bolstering the Department in areas where it
is weakest. But lack of management isolates
office from office, bureau from bureau. There
is no means, for example, whereby the con-
cepts and techniques of analysis and man-
agement employed by Covey T. Oliver to
improve performance in Latin American re-
lations can be transmitted to other areas.
Nor is there any assurance that the gains
in that bureau will be passed on to and
developed by the Assistant Secretary who
replaces Mr. Oliver.
In such an "anti-organization" depart-
ment, morale is deplorable. In forty years of
observation, I have never known State De-
partment morale to be good, but it is now the
worse that I have ever seen it.
Morale affects performance; so also do at-
titudes. They subtly penetrate and influence
every view, every decision, every approach to
a decision. They are the unspoken premises
which cause men to assume they know things
they do not know, understand situations they
do not understand, are "managing crises"
when they are only tinkering with them, dis-
posing of problems when they are only post-
poning them to reappear in more aggravated
form. They give rise, or are themselves gen-
erated by, cliches and myths. If Mr. Nixon
wants to avoid his seventh crisis he had bet-
ter put someone in a managerial position in
State who knows what the prevailing atti-
tudes are, their sources and their cures,
Otherwise, both he and his Secretary of state,
however shrewd and competent they may be
as politician and lawyer, will be stymied.
A Middle East crisis Is rising to one of its
periodic crests and Messrs. Nixon and Rogers
would do well to recall what lack of State
Department management did to President
Johnson and Dean Rusk on the last crest.
For four and a half months, as that 1966-67
storm quietly gathered, the position of As-
sistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs remained vacant. Career diplomat
Raymond Hare resigned in November, 1966,
and could not be induced to remain. He was
worn out; furthermore, he had given a year's
notice of his departure, But no replace-
ment had been prepared. The only one avail-
able when the time came, it was said, was
Lucius D. Battle, then serving as ambassador
in Cairo. But there was no seasoned successor
for Battle, and' one had therefore to be im-
provised. At the urging of Under Secretary
Katzenbach who, like Mr. Rogers, had served
as Attorney General and was not exactly so-
phisticated in the deployment of diplomatic
personnel, the Department appointed as am-
bassador Richard Nolte, an intelligent, aca-
demic type not likely to have much influence
on Nasser. Nolte's remark at the Cairo air-
port remains a classic. Asked by a journalist
what he thought of the Middle East crisis, he
replied: "What crisis?" He soon found out.
Congressional penny-pinching aggravates
the shortcomings of management and plan-
ning. Secretarial vacancies cannot be filled;
officers become increasing distracted by cler-
ical duties. Supplies are so parismoniously
inventoried that even telephone directories
must be scrounged. The library-unlike those
at the CIA and the Pentagon-is so under-
staffed that it cannot meet- requests for
service, cannot acquire needed materials,
cannot shelve promptly what it gets, cannot
bind what it shelves. This is a particularly
illuminating situation, for it not only ex-
emplifies the anti-intellectual attitude of the
administrators who parcel out the Depart-
ment's appropriated funds but shows also
how really false is a lot of the economizing.
Unbound periodicals stray; they must be re-
placed; and back copies cost more than the
original subscription numbers. Furthermore,
when funds at last become available for
binding, costs have increased. The State De-
partment is a perfect demonstration, top to
bottom, from people to paper clips, that
penny-pinching always results is waste.
An extraordinary cynicism pervades the
diplomatic establishment. Even its liberals
found themselves welcoming the outcome of
the Presidential election. "Nothing could
possibly be worse," they said; "a change-any
change-just might bring relief." They did
not remember that this same hope was en-
gendered in 1932, 1952 and 1960, and gave
way to souring frustration. It is not merely
change that is needed--it is reform; orga-
nizational reform, procedural reform, atti-
tudinal reform, educational and training re-
form, conceptual reform. That is what con-
fronts Mr. Nixon as he prepares for his
seventh crisis.
That being so, one of Nixon's most ex-
traordinary pre-inaugural decisions was his
choice of Secretary of State. William P. Rogers
is by all reports a good lawyer; he is a
former Attorney General of the United States,
a good negotiator in a domestic context, per-
haps a good one in an international legal
context, a staunch upholder of civil rights,
an upright citizen, a loyal friend and coun-
selor of the President, a cool man. These at-
tributes are splendid, but how completely
do they meet the varied diplomatic needs of
the President? How sufficient are they for a
successful Secretary of State?
Mr. Rogers is not totally without exposure
to foreign affairs. He served in 1967 as the
United States delegate on the UN's fourteen-
nation ad hoc Committee on South West
Africa. Seven years earlier he headed the
American delegation to the independence
ceremonies for Togo, and took the occasion to
visit the Mali Federation (then Mali, Guinea
and Senegal) and Nigeria. He met a number
of leaders in those countries (most of whom
have since been ousted or assassinated).
During the Hungarian revolution of Novem-
ber, 1956, he accompanied Mr, Nixon to
Austria to investigate the plight of refugees.
Another brief mission took him abroad in
1955 as chief American delegate to a UN
conference on prison conditions.
That's about it and it is not very much. No
continuous professional experience; not even
a sustained professional interest. No back-
ground whatever with respect to the State
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jetober 7,-09 . 69 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -SENATE S 11997
Department or the Foreign Service. No ex- have an edge over State. In the light of the agement of the diplomatic establishment; ears, I
f iar
ana
rem
this the
hasi
what
need e
epts but also
perience or known the oforeign m ansgin our foreign policies and d plomacy. not only uiwi hemanagement cgers
tng machinery in the government's There is little likelihood that a "massive, with foreign policy and diplomacy; and the
affairs.
This lack of central involvement or even long-range, innovative effort" will tip the need to delegate adequate managerial powers
interest in his new area of responsibility be- scales back to civilian initiative and control. to such men.
may must
Mr. Ri
lawye s and crates asiprograx of tmaag mentn(which
sets the more painfully evident when end be expectedRtoethinkdthat aschardson
cemes,
sets Mr. Rogers' training g alongside associates, prep- P
aration on of some of lrhas had ex- can diplomcy. have much to offer this were so, but iI the State Department now
The totally lacks an
ThSecretary of Agriculture C
tensive experience with agricultural matters, fear that lawyers are poor managers and agement), and they must become a team out. The Secretary of Labor has been a student of even slow to see the need for , theyffare igivenato coin view of Mr. Rogers' and his deputy's un-
labor problems for decoe, much involved ed agement. As a profession,
labor-management contentions, thought- the belief that all they need are the facts; by familiarity with the State Department, the
fully coping for years with the very chal- rigorous analysis, they can then deduce duce the he filling of this prescription is so difficult as to
lenges he will face in his Cabinet assignment. answers. Furthermore, since they are trained be unlikely. But there is a remote possibility
Both Clifford M. Hardin in Agriculture and to argue from briefs prepared by their staff, that it will be done. Several studies of the
George Shultz in Labor are seasoned experts Mr. Rogers and Mr. Richardson will no doubt State Department and Foreign Service of
believe that they can satisfactorily counsel recent date are available for the launching
in their fields. the President and Congress, as well as the of such a program. If the six are appointed
an public and officials of other governments, from the career diplomatic service well in
, Mr, In fact sit ion of Hardin ecreta to of State than better
for the Sxtef
does Mr. Rogers. His extensive nsive international from the "briefs" provided by a State De- advance of vacancies, sent off to a suitable
experience began in 1947 when he was sent partment staff. If so, they are naive, university to be trained in management con-
to Europe by Michigan State University to "Facts" are hard to come by in foreign cepts and techniques and to distill a program on is
xon and ers,
al of
appro
for
elusively
in n airs.
explore the broad question what a roles
man ertlof its presentation. cItl is and t if they vare dMessrs. iadeq atteman-
universities the Marshall and farm groups might play subtly permeated with the drafters' personal agerial powers, the job can be done. There is
furtherance Plan. Fourforeesidsident yea Trur,man in impressions, interpretations, hunches. A for- no other way to do it. If Mr. Nixon really
included of Point Four, President midable husk of subjectivity surrounds every sees the diplomatic establishment as threat-
ment in groups study "fact." The greatest bulk of our dossiers on ening him with his seventh crisis-and
intnt possibilities in South America. His
interest this area has continued, and has other peoples and their government leaders, whether he does or not, that, in my opinion,
l
leed td to his s appointment as s a a member of the their cultures and their needs, is comprised is the situation-he would do well to per-
Council on Higher Education of American of what we think we know, and that is pre- suade his Secretary of State to take this
Republics; which takes him to a different cisely what has bedeviled the government's course. It would be good politics-if Mr.
country of South America each year. In 1950' handling of Vietnam. The "information" Nixon gives any thought at all to 1972. And,
as dean of MSU's School of Agriculture, and calculations available in Washington of course, it would be a step toward insuring
Hardin helped found the University of the have been treated by the Secretary of State that there is still a nation to hold elections
Ryukyus on Okinawa, and that added the and other Presidential advisers as reliable in 19721.
Pacific area to his international involvement. "facts"-and we have strayed deeper and
Four years later, he became chancellor of deeper into a swamp of conjecture. Because [From the Virginia Quarterly Review,
the University of Nebraska and introduced of the man he has selected as Secretary of Spring 19691
State and the deputy Mr. Rogers has picked OUR F011LIGN AFFAIRS ESTAnI SIiMENT: THE
tithatonism a one-time bastion of Midwest Isola- for himself, this can happen to Mr. Nixon
tin American studies program in countless situations. NEED FOR REFORM
and a Far Eastern Institute; he also con'
tinued Nebraska's sponsorship of the new As for pragmatism, we have about come (By Charles Maechling, Jr.)
Ataturk University in Turkey which, among to the end of that road. Within limits, it is Before the Second World War it was
other things, has brought to Lincoln more a good approach, but relying on it almost customary to lay the blame for the more
than 200 Turkish professors for advanced exclusively, we have exhausted its possibili- flagrant mistakes of American foreign policy
study. He has also been involved in educa- ties, and our continuing faith in it is lead- on the President and the party in power.
tional development in sub-Sahara Africa. ing us into a performance of diminishing Until relatively recently, the major foreign
This depth of familiarity with the country's returns. Faced with the necessity to synthe- policy problems that confronted each Ad-
overseas objectives and commitments sug- size foreign and domestic resources and poli- ministration were few in number and gener-
gested to President Kennedy that Hardin cies, we are required to make a more funda- ally translatable into simply political issues.
be added to the Clay committee to study the mental assessment of foreign affairs than we As? late as the Roosevelt era it was almost
entire foreign aid program. Finally, Hardin have so far attempted. For this, some philos- unheard of for the press or Congress to
thinks in imaginative terms. One of his pet ophy is needed-something akin to the care- ascribe mistakes of policy or deficiencies in
interests is promoting "a massive, long-range ful, systematic, basic thinking that went program execution to advisers, department
innovative effort unprecedented in human into the Declaration of Independence and heads, or the machinery of government. In
history" to solve the world's food and popu- the Constitution. And it requires, as those the absence of some glaring and well-publi-
lation problem. statements of policy and principle did not, cized delinquency on the part of a subordi-
Compared with all this, Mr. Rogers and a consideration of world responsibilities. nate, the President or Secretary of State
the man he has picked as his deputy are Who is to lead in this "massive, long-range, carried the full burden of responsibility for
rank amateurs. Neither can innovate be- innovative" effort? the success or failure of their policies.
cause - they do not know where to start. Perhaps, someone may suggest, the num- With the rise of big government, and the
Neither can reform becaues they do not bar-three man in the Department, he be.. expansion of American involvement in world
know what is wrong. Neither can appreciate ing a career diplomat. But he also is a prag- affairs at every level and in every quarter of
the need for any "massive, long-range, in- matist. A smart operator, a man of keen in- the globe, these premises have undergone
novative effort" to bring our diplomatic es- sight into the reactions of foreigners, Alexis a subtle change. The President and the
tablishment up to date because they have Johnson has never acquired any reputation Secretary of State are now in some respects
yet to learn in what respects it is out of date, as a thinker, a planner or a manager. And as exculpated for policy mistakes and break-
As they gradually become enlightened, they he has shown throughout the Vietnam downs in program execution. The sudden
will tinker, as all unprepared innovators do. years-during much of which he served as a elevation in 1945 of an inexperienced Presi-
Moreover, they will by then have become over- political adviser to the Secretary-he is a dent to the political leadership of the West-
whelmed by current crises. follower, not an innovator. ern world, and the inability of even the mast
Melvin Laird was smarter than Mr. Rogers. If none of these three men has what it inveterate opponents of American wartime
Realizing that as Secretary of Defense he takes to reform the Department, the situa- policy to hold him responsible for the Cold
would be handicapped by his managerial in- tion is not yet entirely hopeless. Six other War and the postwar disappointments In
experience, he picked an expert manager for strategic positions remain to be filled:- Deputy Eastern Europe and the Far East, accentu-
the second spot at the Pentagon. Rogers Under Secretary for Administration, Deputy ated this trend. For a while, it became the
picked a man in his own image. Mr. Richard- Assistant Secretary for Organization and fashion to arraign policy advisers, cabinet
son is also a lawyer, also an Attorney Gen- Management, Deputy Assistant Secretary for officers, and even interpreters and part-time
eral, also inexperienced in management, also Personnel, Director General of the Foreign consultants, for policy failures or program
a novice in foreign affairs, in the State De- Service, Director of the Foreign Service In- breakdowns. More recently the tendency has
partment, in the Foreign Service in diplo- stitute and Deputy Assistant Secretary of been to avoid personalities and focus on the
macy. Operations. system.
This, together with the fact that Laird If Mr. Rogers can be as smart as Mr. Laird, Since the nineteen forties most of the
has been deeply involved in the problems he can still bail himself out of his limitations criticism has centered on the Department
and Issues of the Defense Department for and, by the men he selects for these posi- of State. This is the price of the Depart-
fifteen years, with a fairly clear idea of how tions, spare the President another major ment's pre-eminence and high visibility in
it operates-its weaknesses, its mistakes, its crisis. To do this he must clearly perceive the field of foreign -affairs, and of a oonse-
needs-means that Defense will continue to three things: the necessity for superior man- quent propensity on the part of the public
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S 11998 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD _ SENATE
and other branches of the government to
hold it responsible for unfavorable develop-
ments. Out of this chorus of annoyance and
recrimination, four specific complaints stand
out. It is alleged that too often the Depart-
ment has proved unable to provide clear-cut
definitions of the national interest in ad-
vance of specific crises situations. It has been
charged that the Department often seems
incapable of translating its generalized
statements of national goals into specific ac-
tion programs or into crisply phrased alter-
native courses from which decisions can be
made. It is said that the Department hedges
its political estimates to the point of incon-
clusiveness and obscurity. And, moving from
policy formulation to policy execution, it
has been alleged that the Department does
not exercise effective leadership over the
other departments and agencies of the for-
eign affairs establishment, with the result
that programs either fail. to reflect policy or
are so deficient In direction and co-ordina-
tion that they unwittingly frustrate and
vitiate it. Readers may remember the epithet,
"bowl of jelly," attributed to President Ken-
nedy by Arthur Schlesinger, as perhaps epit-
omizing these strictures.
The best evidence of the truth behind
these charges is the way Presidents have con-
sistently tinkered with the foreign affairs
establishment in an effort to cure or at least
mitigate some of its deficiencies. Depending
on the temperament and philosophy of the
incumbent, the problem has been viewed
either in terms of personalities or in terms of
organization. Broadly' speaking, these efforts
have fallen into four categories.
The first has been organizational change,
some of It real, much of it fictitious. New
jobs have been created and old ones abol-
ished; presidential functions have been
delegated and redelegated; the chain of
command has been realigned; people and
offices have been given new labels. Some
of the changes have been motivated by the
need to re-tailor functions to fit person-
alities; some of them to achieve bona fide
changes of responsibility; and, perhaps most
to satisfy demands for a new look. In re-
cent history, none has been fundamental
enough to alter the basic structure and op-
eration of the Department.
A second approach-really a variant of the
first-has been to stiffen State's backbone
by giving it more authority. This has usually
taken the form of re-emphasizing the De-
partment's "leadership" role within the Ex-
ecutive Branch. President Kennedy's letter
of May, 1961, placing all United States Gov-
ernment activities in a foreign country under
the supervision and control of the Am-
bassador, is perhaps the best known of these
efforts. However, its practical effects have
been minimal. The scope of the letter was
necessarily limited to activities under the
immediate control of the Ambassador and
could not alter the legal effect of agency re-
sponsibilities in the slightest. A later direc-
tive of President Johnson (NSAM 341 of
April, 1966), placing all overseas interde-
partmental programs and activities under
the supervision and control of the Secretary
of State, was an attempt to extend this
concept to Washinggon. As we shall see, it
suffered from similar legal disabilities.
State has also experimented with the in-
terdepartmental committee device to es-
tablish control over the overseas programs
of other agencies. These have usually been
set up under State chairmanship within the
framework of a State regional bureau. Some
recent examples are the Vietnam Task Force,
the former Cuban Co-ordinating Committee,
the now defunct Latin American and African
Policy Committees, and the new Interdepart-
mental Regional Groups (IRGs). The effec-
tiveness of these State-sponsored, interde-
partmental committees has tended to mirror
the willingness and capacity of the regional
Assistant Secretaries to make use of them.
A third approach has involved efforts to
make the Department, especially the Foreign
Service, more responsive to changing con-
ditions by Improving its personnel. These
have included broadening the selection base,
changing promotion criteria, and trying to
integrate civil service personnel from the
Department and other agencies into the
Foreign Service. Among the means employed
to achieve these ends have been financial
incentives for early retirement; proposed leg-
islation to integrate autonomous agencies
like AID and USIA Into the Department; and
opening-and later closing-the career ranks
to lateral entry from the outside. Whether
these reforms have actually improved our
diplomatic performance is a matter of end-
less, and inconclusive, debate.
Finally should be mentioned recent at-
tempts to introduce modern systems analy-
sis and data processing techniques into the
machinery. These have included personnel
planning, country programming systems, and
the so-called PPB method of relating ob-
jectives to costs and then projecting the
latter for a five-year period. Most of these
programs have been allowed to fall into
desuetude before there was time to permit
objective evaluation in terms of results.
Each of these approaches has been aimed
at enhancing State's "leadership" of the
foreign affairs establishment. Yet none seem
to have had any real effect on the quality
of American diplomacy. Persons brought in
as "new brooms" have exhausted themselves
in piecemeal attacks on the problem and
futile efforts to cut through bureaucratic
redtape. As soon as they depart, the jungle
takes over.
II
The foreign affairs establishment cannot
be streamlined or invigorated by half-
measures confined to the State Department.
Individual changes in the Department's or-
ganization, personnel system, training pro-
grams, and programming methods are going
to yield only minimal and probably undis-
cernible results in terms of improved policy
performance unless the Department's role is
re-examined within the context of the whole
foreign affairs field and especially the mis-
sions of other agencies-Defense, CIA; USIA,
AID, and Treasury. Moreover, the effective-
ness of the machinery must be measured in
terms of the realities of contemporary inter-
national life-not in terms of traditional
concepts of the diplomatic function dating
back to the days when statecraft chiefly In-
volved political relations between govern-
ments.
The task must begin with a realistic ap-
praisal of the real power of the Secretary of
State as compared with his mythical power.
Ostensibly, the Secretary is the President's
principal adviser on foreign affairs, and the
Department of State, with its 25,000 employ-
ees overseas and in Washington, is his an-
cillary and supporting arm. The Secretary
is also the prime executant of United States
foreign policy-but only in the sense that he
translates the President's policy decisions
into instructions for Ambassadors and other
United States representatives abroad, and
acts as a conduit of communication between
the United States and foreign governments.
In addition, the Department exercises a pol-
icy advisory function for the rest of the gov-
ernment by furnishing other agencies en-
gaged in overseas operations with what is
termed political guidance. The Secretary and
the Department do not, of course, make
policy; that is the President's function.
In these capacities, the State Depart-
ment's actual role has always been cloudy
and cannot really be understood except in
an historical context. The concept of a de-
partment of foreign affairs dates from an
era when the relations between sovereign in-
dependent states were confined to a narrow
range of political and economic matters, and
were the exclusive province of the_ monarch
or chief of state; the first foreign ministries
Octobgx- -969.
were small bureaus of specialized clerks at
tached to the royal household who later
expanded their functions to handle the rou-
tine concerns of foreign embassies and pro-
vide staff and clerical support for the King's
Ambassadors. The narrow view held. by many
Foreign Service officers that the Department's
functions should be confined to the conduct
of diplomatic relations between heads of
governments is therefore the bona fide legacy
of an earlier age. A more pernicious part of
the tradition is the conviction that all the
manifold relations between states-economic,
financial, strategic, technological, cultural-
are unimportant until elevated to the level
of political relations between governments.
This limited outlook is reinforced by the
values built into the Foreign Service promo-
tion system which put a premium on politi-
cal reporting and the handling of intergov-
ernmental communications. The Department
abounds with political generalists parading
a sham expertise in the specialities of other
agencies-poltico-military "experts" who
have never worn a uniform, technological
"experts" with no scientific background, and
economic negotiators who are neither ex-
bankers no ex-businessmen-whose careers
depend on the pre-eminence of the political
factor over other elements of the foreign
affairs equation. In background and experi-
ence most of them are bureaucrats rather
than diplomatists. They have lost the foreign
area familiarity, language fluency, and cos-
mopolitan outlook of the traditional diplo-
mat, without acquiring the assurance, versa-
tility, and professional skill that goes with
a sound professional or business background.
. More important is that in recent years
the Secretary of State's real authority has
suffered serious dilution. The expansion of
United States interests overseas, the pro-
liferation of relations with allies and ad-
versaries at every level, and the growth of
United States overseas programs in support
of these responsibilities and relationships
have multiplied the voices entitled to give
advice and orders on matters of foreign
policy. The Secretary is now only one of
several cabinet officers and agency heads
carrying heavy responsibilities in the field of
foreign affairs.
Thus, in the sphere of policy formulation,
the Director of Central Intelligence, the
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the
Treasury, and the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff each make a contribution on
specialized aspects of foreign policy that is
often more essential to the decision process
than the generalized political "Input" of the
Secretary of State. The effort of the Depart-
ment to label all important matters political,
on the ground that a synthesis of these dif-
ferent elements is required, or to reduce
them to a political formulation simply be-
cause governments are Involved, is a trans-
parent artifice to retain control. It is also
a dangerous one. No President can afford to
have his analyses of vital problems distorted
to gratify the jurisdictional vanity of one
department, or to have vital information
filtered through a sieve of inexpert general-
ists.
Even when a Secretary of State enjoys the
complete confidence of the President and
plays a.leading role in policy formulation,
his Department does not necessarily partake
of his influence within the Executive Branch.
Much depends on the person stature and
influence of the other members of the Cabi-
net. Not that the heads of other Depart-
ments and Presidential appointees are in-
herently rivals of the Secretary of State or
are out to undermine him. On the broad out-
lines of foreign policy, they usually take
great pains to defer to him. But in matters
of policy execution the Secretary's pre-emi-
nence as the President's principal adviser on
foreign affairs is very largely a fiction for the
very _good reason that policy execution is
action far more than words. The-verba-l noti-
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lctober 7, 1969 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
fication, however skillfully phrased, is only
the official message.
Even the State Department's authentic
diplomatic function of representing the
United States in negotiations and conferences
Is now often a formality. When the main
ingredients of an agenda are military, eco-
nomic, financial, technological, or legal, the
harassed generalists of the Department can
usually contribute so little in the way of
substance that they are hopelessly depend-
ent on the experts of other departments. If
they try to play a more active part, the con-
sequences are likely to be disastrous: a career
diplomat will frequently trade off important
technical advantages, whose significance es-
capes him, in favor of some ephemeral politi-
cal advantage. -
The most striking example of the Depart-
ment's limitations in policy execution, how-
ever, is its lack of control over the overseas
programs and activities that are now the real
instruments of policy execution.
Since the end of World War II, the deploy-
ment overseas of large United States land,
sea, and air forces has been both a major
instrument of policy implementation and a
source of involvement in foreign internal af-
fairs. Our military and economic assistance
programs-now chiefly centered in the less
developed countries-are also important arms
of policy and sources of overseas involvement.
Covert assistance programs and the use of
modern electronic and satellite technology
for intelligence collection have enmeshed the
United States in an ominous web of sub-
terranean relationships with foreign govern-
ment personalities and political factions.
Even the anodyne public information func-
tion of the United States Information Agency
has been broadened to Include a technical
assistance function aimed at helping shaky
governments to program political broadcasts
for strengthening their ties with disaffected
rural areas.
Few of these programs and activities are
under the operational control of the State
Department. All the important ones are the
statutory responsibility of other powerful
autonomous departments and agencies. Many
are the subject of special and sometimes com-
plex legislation. Appropriations for these pro-
grams and activities are often hedged about
with special requirements and restrictions,
some of them specifically designed to protect
them from outside interference or control.
President Johnson's directive of April, 1966,
already mentioned, ostensibly endowed the
Secretary of State with responsibility for the
overall direction, co-ordination, and super-
vision of interdepartmental programs and
activities overseas. In fact, the directive was
legally powerless to affect the program re-
sponsibilities of the departments and agen-
cies concerned, each of which is acutely con-
scious of its unique mission and prerogatives.
At least two other agencies-Defense and
CZA-are fully the equals of State in power
and influence, not only within the Executive
Branch but on Capitol Hill; while AID, USIA,
and the Disarmament Agency, although
nominally part of state, are in fact semi-
autonomous organizations, with separate
budgets, personnel hierarchies, and top-level
management by energetic, independently-
minded political appointees.
. In theory, the Department of State has the
authority and prestige to synchonize these
multifarious activities and programs and
make them conform to policy. Every over-
seas program of the other departments and
agencies is subject to the Department's po-
litical guidance. But this guidance (usually
furnished at "bureau level") is 'often general
to the point of abstraction. Its formulations
are difficult to apply to concrete program situ-
ations. Often the guidance is susceptible
to such a wide range of interpretations that
it justifies the most aberrant departures in
program execution.
All too often, the Department's solution to
this embarrassing anomaly is a -tacit ar-
rangement whereby acquiescence in the pro-
gram decisions of other agencies is traded
off for lip-service compliance with the De-
partment's political guidance. This usually
works until the moment when vital agency
interests are engaged or when there are real
differences of opinion on questions of policy
implementation, at which time the compact
tends to come apart. Since the Department
cannot afford to endanger the Secretary's
prestige by engaging his authority in every
wrangle, the result is usually a disguised sur-
render, in which the program at issue is either
redefined to bring it into conformity with
policy, however it may diverge from or even
vitiate that policy, or the policy is reformu-
lated to provide room for wider divergencies.
The truth is that the growing complexity of
the international environment renders not
only the State Department but every other
single agency of government incapable of
coping with the full range of international
problems. Today, these embrace every aspect
of national life. internal social and economic
considerations included. Consequently no
statement of foreign policy goals can hope
to make sense unless it takes into account two
factors normally excluded from policy de-
liberations within the Department-the na-
tional resources available to carry out a policy
and the domestic political climate. Yet up to
now, the Department's guidance to both the
White House and other departments has in-
varibly assumed unlimited national resources
and complete unanimity of public opinion, in
defiance of contemporary economic and polit-
ical reality. Such weighty factors as creeping
inflation, racial unrest, deteriorating pub-
lic services, an adverse balance of payments,
mounting demands from the cities for federal
dollars, and the obvious incapacity of the
country to finance both an ambitious domes-
tic program and a global security system are
deliberately excluded from Department posi-
tion papers. Nor are the master plans and
grand designs drawn up by the deskbound
Policy Planning Council ever tested against
the prevailing background of public and
congressional opinion.
The same narrow approach stultifies the
implementation of policy. To cite only one
example: The Communist and extreme left-
wing threat to vulnerable countries of the
underdeveloped world is not simply subver-
sion, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare. It also
involves the establishment of an under-
ground political network, a shadow govern-
ment, a clandestine system of taxation and
financial levies, a propaganda campaign
aimed at disaffected segments of the popula-
tion, a system of internal conscription, and
partial (but not necessarily total) disrup-
tion of certain (but not all) parts of the eco-
nomy. It can only be defeated, or at least
frustrated, by a carefully synchronized
counter-Insurgency program structured to fit
local conditions and embracing such varie-
gated elements as economic assistance, police
assistance,, military' assistance, public in-
formation guidance, and covert activities.
Since these elements necessarily depend on
the contributions of different departments
and agencies, there must be a single hand to
manipulate the threads or they will start to
operate at cross-purposes. Today, in Wash-
ington at least, this hand is absent.
uI
It is the incapacity of the foreign affairs
establishment, headed by State, to give active
direction, or at least co-ordination, to the
overseas programs of the rest of the govern-
ment that has periodically led the White
House to intervene in the policy implementa-
tion process, even at the cost of depriving the
President of his Olympian freedom from op-
erational detail.
Several approaches have been tried at one
time or another. The first has been the crea-
tion of a White House foreign affairs staff.
Dating back to Woodrow Wilson, and even
before, some Presidents have piaced heavy
S 11999
reliance on a personal foreign affairs adviser.
Colonel House is one example, Harry Hop-
kins, McGeorge Bundy, and now Henry Kis-
singer are three others. Bundy and his suc-
cessors have been provided with a staff, in-
formally organized along regional lines, which
has operated freely at every level of govern-
ment.
The main advantage of the private adviser
approach is the ability to obtain objective
advice from a trusted confidant, who is un-
impeded by departmental loyalties. The prin-
cipal defect is that the more active and
ambitious the adviser and his staff as a stim-
ulus and catalyst for the rest of the govern-
ment, the more they enfeeble institutional
authority and induce over-reliance on the
White House. Persons in government develop
such an acute sensitivity to political power
that proximity to the throne creates lines of
magnetic attraction that utterly disorient
normal centers of responsibility. This was the
main reason why President Johnson sharply
curtailed the power and latitude of the Na-
tional Security Council staff after McGeorge
Bundy's departure.
A second and less well known device for
injecting the White House into the foreign
policy decision process is the Presidentially-
sponsored interdepartmental committee,
usually established at Cabinet or sub-
Cabinet level to handle major questions of
national security policy. In theory the Na-
tional Security Council exists for this pur-
pose, but statutory membership requirements
make it a cumbersome instrument for any
purpose short of a major crisis. (It may be
remembered that the Cuban Missile Crisis of
1962 was handled by an ad hoc Executive
Committee of the National Security Council
to keep deliberations small and secure.)
There are four prominent examples of
White House-sponsored interdepartmental
committees in recent history.
The Planning Board and Operations Co-
ordinating Board were established by the
Eisenhower Administration for the express
purpose of co-ordinating policy with overseas
programs. Their interdepartmental organi-
zation borrowed heavily from the joint staff
committee structure developed in World War
II. However, the OCB soon mushroomed into
a multi-layered structure of committees,
subcommittees, and working groups in which
co-ordination became an end in itself and
the status report was raised to a fine art. One
of President Kennedy's first acts in office was
to abolish the OCB, on the grounds that the
organization had become a "paper mill." The
Planning Board was allowed to fall into
desuetude.
In its time the OCB did, however, succeed
in imposing some degree of co-ordination on
the foreign policy process, and its abolition
left departmental and agency programs dis-
jointed and without common purpose and
direction. President Kennedy was therefore
forced to resort to several ad hoc arrange-
ments to take up the slack, of which the
first was the Special Group. This was a sub-
Cabinet committee, chaired by the Presi-
dent's Special Assistant for National
Security, which was established after the
Bay of Pigs to keep the covert programs of
the CIA in line with foreign policy. No at-
tempt was made to place the Group under
the chairmanship of State, since it was
recognized that State was legally and morally
incapable of controlling the CIA.
The -second high-level interdepartmental
committee established by President Ken-
nedy was the Special Group (Counter-
insurgency). It was created in January, 1962,
to supervise policy and co-ordinate overseas
assistance programs aimed at countering
the Communist and extreme left-wing in-
surgency threat to the underdeveloped
world. Originally chaired by General Max-
v5?iif D. Taylor when he was President Ken-
nedy's Military Representative, the chair-
manship was later given to State. The Spe-
cial Group (Counter-Insurgency) had its
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S 12000 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE Octobrx.4, T 961
most successful period under the chairman-
ship of W. Averell Harriman, when he was
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
from 1962 to 1965. The Group's most vocal
and energetic member was Robert Kennedy,
who sat more as the President's brother than
in his capacity as Attorney General. It was so
effective, however, that Secretary Rusk re-
garded it as a competing center of power.
At his insistence, the President abolished it
after a pro forma review by an outside task
force, and its functions were transferred to
the newly created Senior Interdepartmental
Group (SIG).
The Senior Interdepartmental Group
(SIG) represented the final effort of the
Johnson administration to achieve coordina-
tion of overseas policies and programs under
the leadership of State. SIG's charter was
similar to that of the Special Group (Coun-
ter-Insurgency), but without being confined
to a particular kind of foreign policy prob-
lem. It was chaired by then Under Secretary
of State Katzenback and met in State rather
than in the White House-an important dis-
tinction-but its muscle sprang from its
Presidential sponsorship. Unfortunately,
SIG was an outstanding failure, owing to
excessive paperwork, feeble chairmanship,
and flabby staffwork-all the vices of the old
OCB. SIG was abolished by President Nixon
in February, 1969, and its functions were
taken over by a new interdepartmental com-
mittee of Under Secretaries chaired by Under
Secretary Richardson.
The virtue of the White House-sponsored
co-ordinating committee, when properly
managed, lies in its ability to refer trouble-
some interdepartmental differences to top-
level mediation before positions have hard-
ened to the point of becoming infected with
the malignant virus of agency prestige. The
committee technique can also produce
prompt action on disputes over program ex-
ecution that might otherwise remain bogged
down in a bureaucratic impasse. The mere
existence of such a high-level group is there-
fore a powerful stimulus to action, the alter-
native being exposure of low-level rigidity
and red-tape.
The defects of the White House-sponsored
committee are some derogation of depart-
mental responsibility and a tendency to lean
on the committee for decisions that should
have been made earlier by each department.
Moreover, all such committees, regardless of
their imposing charters and brass-encrusted
membership, suffer from intermittency. Sub-
Cabinet officers and heads of independent
agencies rarely have time to meet more than
once a week. Each meeting last for an hour
or two. Once a decision is made, responsibil-
ity for implementation and follow-up neces-
sarily devolves on the officials and institu-
tions whose inadequacies made the Group
necessary in the first place. And the war
council atmosphere tends to lull everyone
into the comfortable delusion that well-
staffed papers, decisively handled in Wash-
ington, are synonymous with effective solu-
tions in the field. The high-level interde-
partmental committee is therefore most ef-
fective when restricted to handling only im-
portant matters in which the issues are care-
fully defined in advance.
Iv
None of these devices, alone or in com-
bination, really gets to the heart of the mat-
ter. They grossly underrate the expanded
scope of foreign relations and the interrela-
tionship between domestic and foreign pol-
icy. They utterly neglect the peculiar struc-
ture of the Executive Branch, with its
system of essentially independent depart-
ments and agencies, each endowed with a
carefully defined mandate and set of statu-
tory responsibilities. Innovations of far
greater depth and ingenuity are necessary
to make the foreign affairs establishment
more responsive to Presidential needs.
There must first be complete acceptance of
the fact that foreign relations are now a
medley of social, economic, financial, stra-
tegic, ideological, and technological interre-
lationships in which the foreign and domes-
tic elements are inextricably mingled. Sec-
ond, all agencies of the Executive Branch,
and especially the State Department, must
recognize that the underlying forces in inter-
national relations take their shape, direc-
tion, and momentum from the evolution and
interplay of societies-not from the political
pronouncements of governments and foreign
ministries. The traditional emphasis on in-
tergovernmental relations must be discarded
and the political side of foreign affairs viewed
more as a reflection or manifestation of un-
derlying trends than as an autonomous fac-
tor in its own right. Third, it must be uni-
versally accepted that the field of foreign
relations transcends the jurisdictional- scope
of any single department or agency, and can
only be comprehended and dealt with on a
supra-agency level.
Ideally, the most satisfactory way of creat-
ing a unified entity capable of comprehend-
ing and dealing with the full range of con-
temporary foreign policy. problems would be
to terminate the separate agency responsi-
bilities in the foreign affairs field and com-
bine them under a single Department of For-
eign Affairs. But it would require half a gen-
eration to prepare the ground for legislation
of so sweeping a character. Hence, the only
practical course is to reorganize the foreign
affairs establishment within the framework
of existing law.
A first step to revitldze policy planning
by placing it under the control of the Presi-
dent's Special Assistants for National Se-
curity Affairs was taken by the Nixon ad-
ministration in February, 1969. The next
step should be to establish, by Executive
Order, a permanent interdepartmental For-
eign Affairs Council to make recommenda-
tions on key issues of foreign policy and the
national security, and to resolve major in-
terdepartmental problems concerning over-
seas programs and activities. The Council
would consist of the heads of the principal
departments and agencies of the foreign af-
fairs establishment--State, Defense, Treas-
ury, the Central Intelligence Agency, AID,
and USIA, with other agencies represented
ad hoc as necessary-and would be chaired
by the President's Special Assistant for Se-
curity Affairs, now elevated to the new Cabi-
net post of Secretary for National Security
Affairs. It would meet not more than twice
monthly and would depend on a small staff
and secretariat to keep its agenda important
and meaningful, and to arrange for the im-
plementation of its decisions.
The Staff and Secretariat of the Council
would be composed of a cadre of career mili-
tary and civilian officials drawn from every
agency of government, supplemented by a
diversified and rotating element of skilled
professionals from civilian life and the staffs
of Congress. The rotating element would be
deliberately appointed on a political basis,
(i.e., its adherence to the policies of the
administration in power) so as to provide an
organic link between the permanent bu-
reaucracy and the electorate.
The two principal functions of the Staff
would be national policy planning and the
co-ordination of overseas programs and ac-
tivities. In its planning role, the Staff would
be particularly charged with weighing all the
factors, foreign and domestic, that enter into
the sound formulation of policy and making
recommendations of both courses of action
and allocation of resources. When refined
and endorsed by the Council, these rec-
ommendations would be forwarded to the
President and become the basis for major
policy decisions and program actions. Under
this system, the President's responsibility
for actually making policy would remain un-
diminished. _
In mission and organization, the depart-
ments and agencies represented on the Coun,
cil would remain substantially the same as
before, but with a few important modifica-
tions. State would continue to be the sole
conduit for official communications with for-
eign governments. It would also continue to
handle all routine diplomatic and consular
business, and would dominate the formal
and ceremonial aspects of intergovernmental
relations, including representation on in-
ternational organizations at non-specialized
levels. The Secretary of State would not, how-
ever, be cast in the role of a policy advisor
and program co-ordinator in areas beyond
his competence.
As a corollary, the regular Foreign Service
would revert to being an authentic diplomatic
corps, much smaller in size and more selec-
tively chosen. On the other hand, the For-
eign Service Reserve would be expanded and
diversified by offering open lateral entry at
every level to well-qualified economic, finan-
cial, scientific, and legal specialists. Whether
or not AID and USIA should be merged into
State could be decided later, but all three
agencies would gradually reduce their in-
flated corpus of foreign affairs generalists
and replace them with specialists. Adminis-
trators would be confined to administration,
in the sense of housekeeping and technical
management. However, an orderly but flexible
promotion system would be devised for each
track of category, offering parallel routes to
the top, and in special cases allowing trans-
fer from one track to another. Ambassadors
and Ministers would be drawn from every
personnel track, from other agencies, from
the Council's staff, and from private life.
Corresponding organizational changes would
be made in Defense, Treasury, CIA, and other
agencies concerned with foreign affairs.
The effect of this reorganization would be
to raise policy planning, assignment of re-
source priorities, and program co-ordination-
to a supra-agency level, and these would be
the main responsibilities of the new Secre-
tary for National Security Affairs and For-
eign Affairs Council. Responsibility for pro-
gram execution would, however, stay decen-
tralized in the existing departments and
agencies, as required by law. Skillfully man-
aged, the Council and Staff would close the
present gap between policy formation and
program execution. If successful, the new
system would provide the Presidents of the
nineteen seventies with a foreign policy ma-
chinery capable of integrating all the diverse
elements of statecraft into a coherent, unified
whole and responding with delicacy and
vigor to the exigencies of the times.
[From the Washington Monthly, July 19691
THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: THE COST OF
COWARDICE-SILENCE IN THE FOREIGN SERVICE
(By William A. Bell, former Foreign
Service officer)
In 1966, when the commitment of Ameri-
can ground forces in Vietnam took its great-
est leap forward, criticism of U.S. policy
became widespread among Foreign Service
Officers, or at least among those stationed
in Washington. A number of young officers,
some of whom had been expressing their mis-
givings in private conversation, were called
together at the Department for a briefing
before setting out on campus recruiting trips.
One of them asked the recruitment director
what they should say to students who were
interested in the Foreign Service but had
qualms about the American role in Vietnam.
The answer-in no uncertain terms-was
that there is no place in the Foreign Serv-
ice for persons who do not support this war.
No one spoke.
At the beginning of the Dominican rebel-
lion in 1965, U.S. Ambassador W. Tapley
Bennett declined a request to moderate the
rapidly growing dispute at a time when
moderate leftists were still in control of the
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"constitutionalist" forces. Bennett's prede-
cessor, John Bartlow Martin, states in his
book Overtaken by Events that Bennett, hav-
ing missed this chance at conciliation, prob-
.ably had little choice but to bring in the
Marines.
The book fails to relate, however, a scene
in which Bennett summoned a large portion
of his staff and told them that he was plan-
ning to call for help. After briefly describing
the situation as he saw it, Bennett made it
clear that U.S. military forces, if summoned,
would be ordered to thwart the attempted
revolution, not just "protect U.S. lives and
property." He then asked his staff ,if there
were any alternate views or proposals. No one
spoke.
When John Bowling, a stimulating lecturer
at State's Foreign Service Institute, suggested
that flag desecrators were philosophically
identical to the bomb-throwing anarchists
of previous decades, and that draft resisters
were unmanly and cowardly, not one of the
Foreign Service Officers in his audience chal-
lenged the statement, despite Bowling's in-
vitation to do so. After several moments of
silence, Bowling himself finally felt con-
strained to express the other side of both
positions.
If such examples lead to doubt as to
whether Foreign Service Officers are cap-
able of speaking out in a group situation,
even when there is a clear invitation to do
so, one can easily imagine the prevailing
timidity in one-to-one conversations where
there is a disparity in rank or bureaucratic
authority. FSO's may proudly relate the
vehemence with which they have rebuffed
officers or other agencies-notably USIA and
AID-but direct argument with one's su-
periors in State is not a generally accepted
mode' of conduct. Former Under Secretary
of State George Ball enjoyed a reputation as
a courageous devil's advocate on the subject
of Vietnam, but anyone who opposed Ball's
hard line vis-a-vis General de Gaulle had
to be wary of the consequences. At least one
senior officer with the temerity to play
devil's advocate on this issue received word
that the Under Secretary no longer desired
to share the same room with him during
policy discussions.
The State Department country director in
Washington is the official perhaps most likely
to take advantage of his colleagues' reluc-
tance to force an issue. He tends to believe
that his job-and his chances for career ad-
vancement-lies in maintaining a cordial
daily relationship between the United States
and Country X. He tends to turn aside any
potential disturbance in this relationship,
including those changes which could be in
the long-run national interest. Unless he is
an exceptional man, he is fearful that any
such disturbance will adversely effect his re-
putation and career. Worse, he is probably
right.
A desk-officer prerogative particularly
prone to abuse is the power to cut off the
flow of outgoing reports prepared by State's
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which
is supposed to render judgments independent
of existing policy considerations. This right
of suppression exists for the alleged purpose
of correcting "factual inaccuracies." But in-
telligence reports are often timed for release
at an optimum moment. When desk officers
withhold clearances of such reports tempo-
rarily, it reduces the unfavorable impact of
views contrary to official policy.
The intelligence section of the State De-
partment has few operational responsibili-
ties; hence it is viewed by many FSO's as a
kind of purgatory. For example, David Nes,
who had the ill grace to tell the press and
the Congress that he had warned the Depart-
ment of the imminence of the 1966 Arab-
Israeli war while serving as charge d'affaires
in Cairo, was summarily assigned to the in-
telligence section until he chose to resign.
A number of Foreign Service Officers in in-
telligence are thus more interested in re-
turning to "policy-making" than in arguing
a fresh point of view before those with whom
they _may soon again be working.
THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM
The occupational diseases of desk and in-
telligence officers are, of course, only sympto-
matic of the personality characteristics im-
peding the State Department. Back in 1963,
Dean Rusk told a Senate Government Opera-
tions Subcommittee that "the heart of the
bureaucratic problem is the inclination to
avoid responsibility . . . organization seldom
gets in the way of a good man . . . if a man
demonstrates that he is willing to make
judgments and live with the results." Gov-
ernor Averell Harriman has stated repeatedly
that "good organizational machinery can
never substitute for good people"-a disturb-
ing thought when juxtaposed with his asser-
tion that "regardless of the talent brought
in on top, the backbone of the State Depart-
ment is the Foreign Service."
Professor Chris Argyris, Chairman of Yale's
Deparment of Administrative Sciences and
a respected authority on organizational be-
havior, was unkind enough to write a report
on "Some Causes of Organizational Ineffec-
tiveness Within the Department of State."
After attending three long sessions with
senior officers, Argyris judged the norms of
personal interaction among most FSO's to
be characterized by "withdrawal from inter-
personal difficulties and conflict; minimum
interpersonal openness; mistrust of others'
aggressiveness; and withdrawal from aggres-
siveness and fighting." In calling for a further
study of the causes for such norms, Argyris
suggested the distinct possibility that "the
problem is primarily one of individuals who
fear taking initiative, and not the system
suppressing their initiative."
HIGH-RrsK OUTHOUSE
A study like the one Argyris suggested
might well begin with the Foreign Service
basic training course for young men enter-
ing our diplomatice corps. In 1963, it was
conducted by a senior officer whose constant
(and sincerely expressed) maxim was: "x'ind
out who Big Brother is-and knuckle under."
The usual defensive explanation for MiI-
quetoastian behavior on the part of indi-
vidual Foreign Service Officers is the pro-
motion system. FSO's are fond of describing
it as a high-rise outhouse, constructed so
that each person-except for those at the
very bottom-is subject to deposits from
those above but can deposit in kind upon
those below. Although this is hyperbole, this
general view of the system is widely shared
within the Department. Whether it is accu-
rate or not, belief in its validity creates a
formidable operating reality; it hardly en-
courages dissent with one's "superior."
A classic example occurred in Rome in the
late 1950's, when an astute political officer
boldly tried to convince the Embassy that
the U.S. government should support the
"opening to the left" in Italian politics and
quietly bestow a blessing upon the proposed
creation of a left-of-center government in
place of the traditional conservatives. This
officer pressed his views on the Ambassador
and on influential U.S. officials back In Wash-
ington-at which point outhouse residents
at the intermediate levels let fly with re-
ports of "insubordination." The offender was
on the brink of removal from the Foreign
Service when the incoming Kennedy Admin-
istration decided to support the "opening to
the left." Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., saved the
State Department from losing that officer,
who is now highly regarded.
Despite the outhouse symbol, there has
been encouraging evidence that the personnel
system is a paper tiger, that it will reward
the dissenting activist rather than punish
him. One of the new criteria for promotion
of junior men is the officer's ability to sug-
gest or embark upon untested courses of ac-
S 12001
tion. Close attention is now given to screen-
ing out biased personnel reports, and efforts
are being made to see that the most demand-
ing assignments are given to the self-starters.
In order to shore up this system, the per-
sonnel officer jobs in Washington are now
being manned by individuals with deserved
reputations for tough-mindedness. There are
numerous examples of initiative being re-
warded by promotion to the higher ranks,
perhaps the most notable being the rapid rise
of William H. Sullivan, who recently com-
pleted a long and distinguished tour as Am-
bassador to Laos and is now Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asia and the
Pacific.
NO EXIT
If retribution at the hands of the per-
sonnel system is something of a bogeyman,
are there other reasons why Foreign Service
Officers so regularly prefer discretion to valor?
One might begin with a look at the personal
circumstances of the older officers. They
joined the Foreign Service when the bulk of
new officers came from gentlemanly schools
and "nice" families. Later, they saw John
Foster Dulles sacrifice some of their col-
leagues to Senator Joseph McCarthy. Many
of these men now have children of college
age; they are unlikely to take risks which
they (rightly or wrongly) believe could
jeopardize their jobs. And they are aware of
a harsh fact about the Foreign Service: It
trains in skills not readily transferable to
other forms of employment.
Whimsical critics of the Foreign Service
have suggested that only individuals with
professional degrees or independent incomes
be accepted into the ranks, on the theory
that such persons are less likely to worry
about the risks associated with outspoken-
ness. It has also pointed out numerous times
that the toughest fighter of all-"the old
crocodile," Averell Harriman-never had to
lose any sleep over where his next paycheck
might be coming from.
Other factors that dull the cutting edge
of senior officers include the personnel rating
report and the transient nature of Foreign
Service assignments. The rating report, which
is no longer withheld from the officer being
rated, requires detailed comment on the of-
ficer's abilities and characteristics, as well as
the degree to which his family is, or is not,
an asset. One officer, now retired, recalls his
first post abroad well. One day he puffed up
three flights of the Consulate steps to tell a
superior about an incident which had just
occurred in the city. He was somewhat out of
breath when he told his tale. The subsequent
rating report said that the officer "does quite
well, in spite of a slight speech defect." Al-
though this is an extreme and ludicrous
example, it does have its point: only the most
thickskinned officers can accept a lifetime of
these reports, however ridiculous, without
tending towards self-consciousness.
Smith Simpson's Anatomy of the State De-
partment ascribes Foreign Service faintheart-
edness to the constant cycle of assignment
and re-assignment, which encourages offi-
cers to think more about their future possi-
bilities than about their present challenges.
Regulations requiring automatic dismissal of
those Foreign Service Officers repeatedly
passed over for promotion, wise as those rules
may be in some ways, create an extra measure
of pressure toward conformity.
While the timorous nature of those officers
who survive to seniority is perhaps under-
standable, younger officers often display the
same attributes, and perhaps, to an even
greater degree. Fax from brimming with ideas,
most young officers are concerned almost ex-
clusively with career advancement into areas
of substantial responsibility. Given the na-
ture of most jobs at the bottom of the ladder,
this may not be surprising.
DISTILLED WATER
One of the most promising efforts at reno-
vating the State Department has been the
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE Octobe e?2',,969
Open Forum Panel, originally created as an which they can rent out at a profit and live Dissenting opinions should be encouraged
avenue for out-of-channel policy ideas that in themselves during assignments back as a matter of official policy. Officers who have
could be passed on to the Secretary. Rusk home. In the past written such opinions from
gave this Panel his firm endorsement and . r ? ? ?
sent an open letter to all posts abroad (including a report which pre-
submission urging the The third type of tenant into the Foreign dieted North Korea's Invasion of South Ko-
deafension of Ideas. The silence was Service is the one with a consuming interest tea) have found, upon arrival back in Wash-
Of the 100 or so ideas received, in foreign affairs. George Kennan is possibly ington, that their reports were suppressed
, almost all the most outstanding example of such a per. or disparaged. Such forms of information
came from the three Department bureaus son, although there are other such dedicated management should perhaps be made a pun-
whose directors had asked their subordinates and brilliant Soviet specialists, plus numer- ishable offense.
to "let 1,000 flowers bloom" by noon on Fri-
day. The remaining handful came from five ous experts in various geographic areas and in the long run, however, the Depart-
or six individuals who had received no such functional fields. If the Foreign Service brings ment of State will be a creative institution
"request" from above. The most imaginative forth 10 such men a year, the shortcomings only if it directs its recruitment efforts to-
imaginative a of the remaining officers can perhaps be ward men with proven leadership qualities.
suggestions were submitted by senior to-
Secretary Rusk met twice with y Panofficers, el and disregarded. It will not be enough just to attract such
approved several of the policy suggestions. TIRED NEW BLOOD officers; they must be given substantive jobs,
The New York Times and The Washington But the clammy atmosphere of the Foreign not consular work, if they are e to to be be retained.
Post wrote articles praising the creation of Service, combined with the highly responsible Intellectual courage is hardly the sole
the Panel, and CBS sent Dan Rather to do positions available outside (some in foreign criterion in seeking a Foreign Service pre-
a TV news cut on the subject. But the ef- affairs), acts to skim off many, if not most, pared to promote our national interest. But
ferv once of long-frustrated ideas within of the most promising younger officers. The given the various influences pervading for-
the Department remained roughly equiva- February, 1968, issue of the Foreign Service eign policy, such courage may be a pnerequi-
lent to that in a bottle of distilled water. It Journal contained an article entitled, "Is the Site. During the McCarthy era, one Foreign
-was curiously unrefreshing. Foreign Service Losing Its Best Young Off[- Service Officer, in charge of a small Consulate,
The Junior Foreign Service Officers Club is cers?" The conclusion.to be drawn from it is: received firm orders from Washington to re-
another hotbed of intellectual dissent. There "Probably so." move certain works of literature from the
is a fair amount of militancy in this The three authors of this article (one of shelves of the post library. Although out-
group, but the demands are exclusively in whom has since resigned himself) reviewed raged, the FSO weighed his personal inter.
the personnel field. The club never discusses 57 questionnaires filled out by men who had et against the national interest. He de-
the policy issues which younger officers entered the Foreign Service between 1960 tided to comply with the order-against the
might handle if given the and 1965 and had subsequently resigned. The of of none other than an Air Force
positions to which
they aspire. In pressing for higher entrance authors found that the resignee differs in officer, his military aide. While super-
salaries for junior officers, however, JFSOC two ways from his colleagues still in the flelally surprising, the implications are
ominous,
did wan
Service: "He is more likel
le on
i
t
h
g
y
e
o
ave a grade
mportant statistic outf
o- administrative files: the average raw score ate degree, and ... he is also more likely to
achieved by Foreign Service applicants on be regarded as an above average officer by
the standard entrance exam has been drop- his superiors." There is, in the authors' view,
ping notably since 1963. This trend is par- "very strong evidence that the resignees do
ticularly disturbing because It has occurred indeed represent the high-performance
at a time when the raw test scores of appli- young men which the Service strives to at-
cants for just about every other program In tract and retain." 'The attrition rate for
this, nation are going up rapidly. FSO's during their first five years of service
In considering the disappointing caliber of has lately been about 20 per cent and is now
younger officers, it is necessary to visualize rumored to be rising markedly.
what the State Department looks like to to- Even more distressing, perhaps, are the
day's applicant. The pay is adequate, but it reasons given for resigning. Low pay and dis-
is significantly below that available in most satisfaction with supervisors were listed as of
other jobs, including the Civil Service. The only marginal importance. Over half the re-
for however, gave as their primary
first several years of employment will prob- reason spondents,
ably entail mostly consuler work, which can lack leaving either lack of challenge,
be (and in many instances is) handled by significant of long-range prospects for jobs them
intelligent highschool graduates. The State listed ed "dissatisfaction responsibility. Most oe thn
Department expects its employees to work s with the personnel
closely with military officials and employees one, In system"
their an decision element, although not a mwjoo
ge those who
of the CIA, with whatever hang-up that may did did mention personnel, n e resign.
entail for many college students. But more fora per cent) ) checked the largest to con-
important
important for recruiting, of course, few col- form" a cen "pressure to con-
students are at ease with the Depart- This as a specific complaint.
ment's rationale for fighting a cruel war in This information inevitably bt those raises some
Southeast Asia. In addition, the style of the questions and doubts a e m who re-
re-
present Administration is notably less excit- toted? main in thh Less employable emp loy.loyabll Are they more More
ing than that of its predecessors; the most tolerant of mediocrity? e Or elsewhere? Mm-
important foreign policy responsibilities mediocre them-
selves?
seem to h
ave moved tothe White Hous f
-eor good; and domestic problems are rising to
the top of the nation's priority list anyway.
Thus, it seems likely that the State De-
partment has already screened itself out of
consideration by many, if not most, of to-
day's brightest college graduates.
The second category consists of bene-
ficiaries of the State Department.
Of those entering the Foreign Service, most
fall into one of three categories. The first-
and probably the largest-category is that of
patriotic expatriates. Many former Peace
Corps volunteers see the Foreign Service as
a way of continuing to lead interesting lives
abroad. Many Americans with foreign wives
find the Foreign Service a means of avoid-
ing the cultural and marital strains of forc-
ing total 'Americanization" upon their wives
and families. There is also a large number of
Foreign Service personnel who get great satis-
faction out of eating at foreign restaurants,
shopping at foreign stores, employing inex-
pensive household servants, drinking tax-
free liquor, and patronizing the natives of
..,, their post of assignment-all while paying
or ,,% mortgage on a house in Washington,
PRESCRIPTIONS
Unfortunately, cures for the Department of
State have traditionally proved more de-
bilitating than the original illness. However,
this time around Secretary of State William
P. Rogers has taken an important and con-
structive first steptoward reform by calling
for a Department open to innovation and
debate, And Under Secretary Elliot L. Rich-
ardson has expressed uncommon interest in
adjusting the machinery. These words must
be followed up by specific measures.
The previously-mentioned Open Forum
Panel has now shifted its attention to con-
tacts outside the State Department, hav-
ing found so little food for thought within.
The Secretary should support the Panel in
this role, if for no other reason than to dis-
play to the public and to prospective For-
eign Service applicants a number of bright
and aggressive young officers who believe
that the Department can be a Better Place.
The Panel should also continue to promote
discussion groups and projects among the
various Departmental bureaus. These ses-
sions may not change policies overnight, but
they are already breaking down inhibitions,
CORRECTION OF COSPONSOR OF
BILL
S. 11
Mr. BYRD of West Virginia. Mr.
President, the name of the senior Sena-
tor from North Carolina (Mr: ERVIN) is
indicated erroneously as a cosponsor of
S. it, to reinforce the federal system by
strengthening the personnel resources of
State and local governments, to improve
intergovernmental cooperation in the ad-
ministration of grant-in-aid programs,
to provide grants for improvement of
State and local personnel administra-
tion, to authorize Federal assistance in
training State and local employees, to
provide grants to State and local govern-
ments for training of their employees,
to authorize interstate compacts for
personnel and training activities, to fa-
cilitate the temporary assignment of
personnel between the Federal Govern-
ment, and State and local governments,
and for other purposes.
On his behalf, I ask unanimous con-
sent that, at its next printing, his name
be removed from the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without
objection, it is so ordered,
INCOME TAX LAW REFORM-
AMENDMENT
AMENDMENT NO. 222
Mr. MILLER, Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent to have printed in
the RECORD the text of the amendment I
intend to propose to H.R. 13270, an act to
reform the income tax laws, The RECORD
shows that I submitted this amendment
on October 3, 1969.
There being no objection, the text of
the amendment was ordered to be
printed in the RECORD, as follows:
H.R. 13270
On page 27, strike out line 21 and all that
follows through line 8 on page 28 and sub-
stitute in lieu thereof the f flowing:
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1 r' r
918t CONGRESS RES.
1ST SESSION So I
157
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
OCTOBER 7, 1969
Mr. I uiBrIoiIT introduced the following joint resolution; which was read twice
and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
10k IV
U it
JOINT L
To establish a Commission on Organizational Reforms in the
Department of State, the Agency for International Develop-
ment, and the United States Information Agency.
Whereas there is an obvious need to insure that the United States
conducts all aspects of its foreign relations in. the most effec"
tive possible manner; and
Whereas toward this end, it is appropriate to, provide for an
independent study of the present operation and organizatio ,
of the Department of State, including the Foreign Service,
the Agency for International Development, and the United
States Information Agency with a view to determining and
proposing needed institutional reforms : Therefore be it
1 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
2 of the United States of America in Congress assembled,.
3 That there is hereby created a commission to be known as
II
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2
14
1 the Commission on Organizational Reforms in the Depart
2 ment of State, the Agency for International Development,
3 and the United States Information Agency (hereinafter re-
4 (erred to as the "Commission") . It shall be the duty of the
5 Commission to make it eonlprehensivestudy in the United
6 States and abroad and to report to the President and to the
7 Congress on needed organizational reforms in the Department
8 of State, including the Foreign Service, the Agency for Inter-
national Development, and the United. States Information
Agency, with a view to determining the most efficient and
effective means for the administration and operation of the
United States programs and activities in the field of foreign
relations.
SEC. 2. The Commission shall consist of twelve mem-
bers, as follows :
(1)
Two members of the Commission, to be ap-
pointed by the President of the Senate, who shall be
Members of the Senate, of whom at least one shall be
a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
(2) Two members of the Commission, to be ap-
pointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives,
who shall be Members of the House of Representatives,
of whom at least one shall be a member of the Commit-
tee on Foreign Affairs.
(3) Eight members of the Commission, to be ap-
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1 pointed by the President, who shall not be individuals
2 presently serving in any capacity in any branch of the
3 Federal Government other than in an advisory capacity.
4 SEC. 3. The President shall also appoint the Chairman
5 of the Commission from among the members he appoints to
6 the Commission. The Commission shall elect Vice Chair-
man from among its members.
SEC. 4. No member of the Commission shall receive
9 compensation for his service on the Commission, but each
10 shall be reimbursed for his travel, subsistence, and other
11 necessary expenses incurred in carrying out his duties as a
12 member of the Commission.
13 SEC. 5. (a) The Commission shall have power to ap-
14 point and fix the compensation of such personnel as it deems
15 advisable, in accordance with the provisions of title 5, United
16 States Code, governing appointments in the competitive
17 service, and chapter 51 and subchapter III of chapter 53 of
18 such title relating to classification and General Schedule
19 pay rates.
20 (b) The Commission may procure temporary and inter-
21 mittent services to the same extent as is authorized for the
22 departments by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code,
23 but at rates not to exceed $100 a day for individuals.
24 SEC. 6. (a) The Commission shall conduct its study in
25 the United States and abroad and shall report to the Presi-
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1 dent and to the Congress not later than eighteen months after
2 its appointment upon the results of its study, together with
3 such recommendations as it may deem advisable.
4 (b) Upon the submission of its report under subsection
5 (a) of this section, the Commission shall cease to exist.
6 SEC. 7. The Commission is authorized to secure directly
7 from any executive department, bureau, agency, board, com.-
8 mission, office, independent establishment, or instrumentality
9 information, suggestions, estimates, and statistics for the
10 purpose of this Commission, office, establishment, or instru-
11 mentality and shall furnish such information, suggestions, esti-
12 mates and statistics directly to the Commission, upon request
13 made by the Chairman or Vice Chairman.
14 SEC. 8. There is authorized to be appropriated not to
15 exceed $500,000 to carry out this joint resolution.
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91ST CONGRESS (~
1ST SESSION J
. J. RE S. 157
JOINT RESOLUTION
To establish a Commission on Organizational
Reforms in the Department of State, the
Agency for International Development, and
the United States Information Agency.
By Mr. FULBRIGHT
OCTOBER 7, 1969
Read twice and referred to the Committee on
Foreign Relations
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