PROBLEMS OF ALLIANCE OPERATIONS AND THE CRISIS IN NATO

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP75-00149R000400170028-3
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
4
Document Creation Date: 
November 11, 2016
Document Release Date: 
January 29, 1999
Sequence Number: 
28
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
June 30, 1965
Content Type: 
OPEN
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP75-00149R000400170028-3.pdf759.58 KB
Body: 
- 14854 4- ? FOIAb3 Sanitized-App leplgdfltitsFONdas itt?MAIR13187514011 49 RO 0 040 0 fraa 21323 1965 1 ? ? PROBLEMS OF ALLIANCE OPERA- , ' TIONS AND THE CRISIS IN NATO ? Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, in its -' study of the conduct of national security policy. the Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations this week received from Prof. Richard E. Neustadt perceptive testimony on the : problems of alliance operations and the crisis in NATO, An eminent analyst of the Presidency, the author of "Presidential Power"- 1960?and ? a consultant to' President My professional preoccupation, as you know, has been what someone recently caned "President watching"? to wh,lch, of late I've added as a hobby a bit of intermittent Prime Minister watching. But no one save a Presi- dent or Premier really can be expert on the , conduct of their offices. And not even a I President knows half of what goes on be- neath him and around him in our govern- mental world, to say nothing of other gov- ernments. As an observer?for the most part an observer from outside?I know a great deal less. So all I have to offer are some personal reflections drawn from limited observation. Second, I appear here at a mement when our Government is struggling with the very sharp dilemmas of two complicated crisis operations overseas, while academic criticism of them both mounts higher than at any time I can remember since the regime of the late John Foster Bulks. But even though I come here with an academic title, I've no we began to fashion our defense and our f diplomacy in modern terms, we frequently have followed the assumption in those spheres as well, with consequences which 0. appear to prove it out. Witness Franklin. Roosevelt's war-production targets, and lend ? lease, or Harry Truman's aid to Greece, the ?:1 Marshall plan, the Berlin airlift, NATO. In ..cf? instances like these, a calculation of admin-. Istrative prospects from the standpoint of 11; ? existing capabilities or past performance would have been depressing, to say the least. - Happily,, the men who made such calcula- tions at the time?and drew from them the ' counsel of inaction?were overruled by Pres- idents with faith that we could improvise. A In these instances, and ,Others of the sort, ot the faith was justified. . , But faith was helped by fortune in these .? ? ? cases, Running through them all were cer--'?tc ? ? tam n favoring conditions. These were in- stances when we espoused a large objective. ".? simple In conception, easily identified and stomach for the role of critic-of-the-moment, understood by managers at many levels, ; Nothing I shall say here passes judgment bearing some analogy to previous experience. t on our current operations. I have enough and calling for an effort of great scale, not 1, experience in Government to know how great precision. These were moreover, cases Kennedy and to President Johnson, much I do not know, from the outside, where the need was plain enough to spur the , ? . about the issues of Vietnam and the Do- effort. An overriding menace to our country ',' , ..-.? I, Richard Neustadt Is a professor of gov- . ernment at Harvard University and is ?. associate dean of the Harvard Graduate -., School of Public Administration. ? , I believe Professor Neusts,dt's initial % 'statement at our hearing on June 29 will ? be of special interest to all Senators, and also to other Government: officials in Washington and to many private citizens, worth pursuing. The first of these is what come prerequisites for an effective outcome 'It '.., Therefore, I ask unanimous, consent that you have called operational feasibility. The of decisions which take management on? ! the statement be printed at this point second relates to alliance operations. Let me faith. Unfortunately, these conditions are Irt ? . in the RECORD. ? ? deal with each in turn. ? . not always present. In their absence, per- '.., . r There being no objection, the state- OPEFLATIONAL FEASIBILITY ? . t? ier minican Republic as those present them- was personified in Hitler, then in Stalin. selves to our decision-makers. And I have too And where we had to work through govern- much sympathy for men who bear the ments abroad, their operators saw the men..,.4. burdens of decision to allow myself the lux- ace too, and saw it in our terms, and even ury of current criticism without current more so. Also we were favored rather often information. ? by good luck: Tito's break with Stalin, for , So much for limitations. Now for your example, cost the Greek guerrillas an im. ? ? memorandum: I find in it two fresh con- portant sanctuary. ceptions which strike me as particularly Such favoring conditions, / suspect, be. A. a of our recordwicear thansincea ld000 ktthheoef lannrs et necwearcteus ifferent qa justuittyeci. They . ment was sordered to be printed in the ? Your memorandum state: ? RECORD, as follows: ? "Top policy officers tend to pay a great ' s STATEMENT BEFORE SoneomiurrrEE or; NA- deal of attention to what is called political : . Here too, the issues of administrative least- .. Witty were not pursued until after decisions TIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL feasibility. They also need to give a great. ?''. , OPERATIONS , deal of attention to what we might call op- had been taken. But here the consequences (By Richard E. Neustadt, professor of gov- eratlonal feasibility. Is the plan of action . were unhappy. Faith iti our capacity to un- ,i,' ? do-able, in terms of real men * * * given the proviso is justified, it seems, tinder par- .' ernment at Harvard University, Jtine .29, ticular conditions, and. not otherwise. ., 4 /1965) ? realistic limitations of knowledge, resources, : Let me cite a few examples on the un- .,) and organizations with which they must Mr. Chairman, members of the subcom- -make , time aim, from 1942, that we should occupy successful side: consider Roosevelt's war- mittee, 'I take your invitation to appear dor ' ?? The distinction you suggestions here is im- portant. Gov ? a northern zone in Germany, extending to ?? ? today as a command which I obey with pleasure and Appreciation. This is, for me; ' Berlin. Or take what is supposed to have Melons, the decisions which accrete into what . a rather sentimental occasion, having been . been his decision that we should not let the ' w we call public policy, always involve weigh- ,??, associated with your work, from time to y, French return to Indochina. Or think of ing the desirable against the feasible. i.' ' time, since the first "Jackson Subcommittee" . Th 'Fruman trying to conduct a limited war with ?. \ . public officer at every action-level asks hlm- got its start 6 years ago. Also, this occa- General MacArthur as his agent. Or look '.',?? - self not only what but also how, consider- . at Eisenhower trying in the last year of his Mon lets me emphasize again the gratitude ? ? Mg not only goals but al so ways and means, ' ? of those of us who teach in universities for term to move toward a d?nte with Soviet, and t your assistance to our work these past 6 Russia. Or take Kennedy's endeavor in the ',? the means. Consciously or not, the man In ? years. first weeks of his term to undermine the ?, public office has to make that calculation . Whether you know it or not?and I expect e government of Cuba. every time he contemplates an action. (Th , you do?the academic specialists in policy In all these cases we had qualified objec. ?i academic man does not, which frequently development lean heavily upon you as a tives, subtle aims based on a line of reason- ' accounts for differences between them.) source of reading matter for their students. g c p o w e were ar , . 0 Your subcommittee documents appear rou- - And it is fair, I think, to say what your from fully understood by cperators in our 4 tineiy in the reading lists and reference statement implies, namely that our public own or other governments, and often were ? ? books assigned to college classes across the officers have generally inclined to make the not shared by those who did perceive them. 'i - country. There is no comparable source of ? calculation without bothering their heads , Subtlety was matched by strangeness; we 1. '? ? Information and appraisal on the conduct too much about administrative means. Gen.. were trying to accomplish unfamiliar 'things '. of our Government in foreign affairs. So, on , erally speaking, they have tended to assume , in unaccustomed ways. Effective follow- .;? , behalf of all of us who teach, and for our , that if they could secure political assent, through would have required great preci- ; 'students: Thanks. they could invent, or improvise, or some- Mon in obtaining information and coordi- how force the requisite responses from the You have asked me to consider and to rutting action on the part of the American t comment men who actually would do the work, in on ideas and issues raised in the bureaucracy. It also would have called for ,.' , Initial memorandum of April 26, with which : Government and out. The great machines great precision in relating our own actions , ? ? you opened this new phase of your con- of management would surely manage-some-. to the acts of other governments. But 1,, ? tinning inquiry, se far as I am able I am how, if thi3 necessary sectors of the public,', large-scale organizations find it hard to be .",. or the press, or Congress, or the Cabinet, as . happy to respond, but I fun conscious of two precise. And it is hardest when they tackle limitations as I do so. Let me tell you what the case might be, were acquiescent, novel tasks for obscure reasons. , these are: That assumption probably has roots deep The Korean war provides perhaps the most , First, the memorandum bristles with ques- In our history: Americans have often im- dramatic instances where our decision- .1 tions, many of them basic, penetrating ques- provised the means to do What nobody had makers took too much for granted on the side? tions---any many of these penetrate beyond . ' done before. We invented federalism, won of operational feasibility. In the fall of , my range of observation or analysis. They the west, conducted civil war on an unprece- ?1950 there were few things Truman wanted 1 - ' impress me very much as the right questions dented scale, coped with immigration, mas- less than a severs and costly clash with the ,,. to ask. But / do not impress myself at all tered mass production, built the Panama Chinese. But to assure himself that he ' as the men with the right answers. Indeed. Canal. herl 110 calculates his chances to secure could minimise the cost wOuld have required . I have no ready answers. . . ' And since the start of World fst when hint to override the then prevailing military ., - . Sanlazed ApproVed,Pc41Releae June 30, 1965 Sanitized cocaiyffili4SONPFroi,Fitil6fili4P:--efiVIVINV5-00149R000400176M3 doctrine of autonomy for field command- ers?or at the least to appoint a more malleable commander. Ho also would have had to build a better capability than we possessed for judging what went on inside Peiping. He would have had to use it, too, Instead of leaning on the hunches of Mae- Arthur. But none of this was thought , through by the President (or his chief ad- , .^ visors) when we chose to support South Korea and then to cross the 38th parallel. In the spring of 1951 there were few things ? Truman wanted more than a negotiated . settlement with the Chinese. This led him , to accept truce talks without a time-limit, ' and without keeping up our military pres- sure. 'That proved to be a formula for stale- 'mate, not settlement. Truman often has been criticized in retrospect for taking off the pressure, halting our advance as talks began , and thus reducing the Chinese Incentive to ' conclude them. But our troops, to say ! nothing of the public or Congress?or our , allies?were psychologically unready to press ? ! forward, take the casualties involved, for the purely political purpose of exerting influence at a conference table. Save for some com- manders in the field, our chief officials, with 1 the President among them, were equally unprepared. By the time talks began, continued mili- tary pressure for this purpose seemed im- possible to them on grounds of management as well as politics. Without it a quick settle- ment proved quite beyond their reach. That might have been foreseen by the decision- makers who had long since settled on negoti- ation as their means to end the War. Had ? It been fdreseen they might have managed to prepare the ground in popular psychology, and with the troops, and in their own minds. ? Apparently, they took no steps to do so. The Korean war, of course, becomes dra-, matte in proportion to its character its an unprecedented?and entirely unexpected? sequence of events. Truman and his col- leagues dealt with what was then uncharted territory, limited war, with nothing in our modern history, military planning or diplo- macy to prepare them. The whole affair was a gigantic improvisation undertaken in a context of political adversity as well as un- prepardness. When I hear concern expressed about the standing of a Johnson or a ' Kennedy in Gallup polls, / am reminded of the popular approval given Truman in the spring of 1951: 24 percent. I find it hard to criticize the Truman ad- ministration under those conditions. More recent Presidents have had at least a better base of popular support from which to face unprecedented problems. Another source of illustrations, less dra- matic but more frequently encountered, can be found in foreign aid. The Marshall plan was an immense success precisely because it attempted no more than was operationally feasible: physical reconstruction and mod- ernization of economies in countries which possessed political and bureaucratic re- sources to make our money and our know-' how serve the purpose. It is true that por- tions of our own bureaucracy and public tried to aim more broadly, at a social re- construction. But it is also true that the directors of the program kept such alms in check. They fitted ende to means. The Marshall plan's success was not a prec- edent, however, for our aid to less-devel- oped countires. Ever since point four in 1949 our programs?and our rhetoric?have suffered very often from a failure to achieve that fit: we often neither trimmed our aims - to match the means at hand, nor found new' means sufficient to our purpose. Worse still, we often talked and sometimes acted as though we were under no compulsion to do either. Both in economic and and in defense support, I gather that the record has been studded with occasions where we worked with little reference, or with none at all, to oper.. } *Clonal feasibility. Everyone has his pet peeve with foreign aid. Mine is the tendency, marked until recent years, to treat connections between politics and economics in the third world by analogy with some one aspect of historical experience in this country or Europe. You will recall when technical assistance was the rage, on the analogy of land-grant colleges. Later, id the fifties, we inspired aid missions with zeal for private capital, on the analogy of Europe's contribution to our economic growth during the 10th century. When Kennedy was new in office we became pro- ponents of the takeoff, on analogies from the industrialized nation: once a certain stage was reached, political development and economic growth were bound to become mutually supportive. Maybe so. But this assumption by analogy, like the others, seems to me a positive incitement to aid program- ers. Given such assumptions, those who proffer aid for less-developed countries may expect too much by way of bureaucratic and political capacity?or they may think too little about practical political effects. Before the day of David Bell they cer- tainly did both. / take it that they, now do rather better. In my own occasional experience, I vividly recall the report of an expert special panel, _several years ago, which assessed the eco- nomic prospects of an Asian country. Their report proposed to make much of our future aid conditional on tax reforms; these were demonstrated to be well within the cOuntry's economic capability. Not a word was said About itt) governmental capability. Those measures of reform threatened to disarrange ?its system for rewarding Men in public life. The ruling politicians and the bureaucrats who would have had to put the measures through were vary much affected by them, not just personally but in terms of settled custom and procedure. The operational question for our Government is obvious. That panel never asked it. By definition, foreign aid presents this sort of question. It is at once the hardest sort to answer in advance and the least safe to leave for improvising later. No wonder our aid programers have trouble. For on mat- ters of this sort, a judgment of the feasible in operating terms involves not only our ma- chines of management but also those of other countries, and not alone their governments but oppositions too, overt and otherwise. Foreign aid, indeed, presents routinely and in lower key the operating problem we ap- parently confront in our two current crises: how to guide another country without run- ning it, or still more crudely, how to govern through another government. In .the hey- day of 19th century imperialism this was no trick at all. Tho device of the "protectorate" was well developed. And in the heyday of the empire of Stalin, party discipline served even better. But we genuinely are not im- ? perialists in either sense. We do not want , to be, nor can we be. Devices of both sorts . are beyond our reach. In lieu of command we experiment with influence, a chancy sub- stitute. ? These comments will suffice, I hope, to emphasize two things: first, that we can ill- afford to take administrative feasibility on faith?except under conditions which are frequently denied us?and second, that in calculating feasibilities we often have to reckon not alone with our own men, but also with the men who do the work of other' governments. This puts a premium upon de- tailed control of who does what to whom, with what, and when Maid? our Govern- ment; control is herd to got and hard to keep, but of the essence. And it suggests an equal premium on detailed information, properly appraised, about the who and whom, at cetera, in other governments (or would-be governments). Nothing could be harder to obtain, especially an adequate ap- praisal. But difficulty is no warrant for 'discontinuing either need.,' ? A careful calculation of operational feast- ? bllity, in terms like these, can be rewarding even though we act despite it, as we often must. We need control and information to dispel the risk of action-In-the-dark. The next best thing, however, is awareness of , how much we have not got. A grasp of limi- tations makes for careful footwork. This it- self reduces risk and often Is the most we can achieve. The alternative is action with- out careful calculation, hoping we will be sustained by favoring ?conditions, trusting? our capacity to improvise after-the-fact. This has worked'before7--sometimes?but I would hate to count on it. This is a way .to maximize the risk. Let me turn now to another aspect of your memorandum. ALLIANCE POLITICS Your memorandum states: '"An alliance in operation is a group of governments each made up of men who, by the nature of their work, are bound to view the purposes for' which they are allied through the perspective of their own national preoccupations," This concept of allies as governments, and governments as politicians-on-the-job cuts through our native tendency to talk about alliances in terms,of their machinery or goy- ' ernmenta in terms of single individuals. / see two implications, one of which you in- dicate: "When external dangers are immediate and, severe, and the situation looks similar from the several national perspectives, then , closely alined 'courses of conduct can be ? expected. When external dangers are less . severe, alliances are bound to be in some disorder. Pulling and hauling is not neces- sarily a sign of weakness. * * It serves no useful purpose to, complain that national ' interests diverge. They do." In short, when several governments are ? frightened by ite same thing at the same . time, and perceive It much alike, they tend ? to act in concert not because of but regard- . less of alliance ties. Truman used to say 'sometimes that Stalin was his agent on this hill in putting through the landmarks of . our postwar foreign policy. Anyone who recalls the reaction here to the Czech coup, of 1948 will grant his point. And it ap- plies to western European capitals as neatly ' as to Congress. A second implication is perhaps less ob- ?11, vious. Because allies are governments, each. Is a more or less complex arena for internal bargaining among the bureaucratic elements,, and political 'personalities who collectively ? comprise its working apparatus. Its action ' ? la the product of their interaction. They '? bargain not at random but according to the ? processes, 'conforming to the perquisites, re- sponsive to the pressures of their own poli- tical systein. Some men and some machines within the system thui3 are naturally ad- vantaged over others, With us, Defense and Treasury, for instance, are frequently ad- ,- vantaged over State. /n foreign policy the; , President is usually advantaged over Sena- tors. Sci it goes. In Prance, the Elysee is currently advantaged over everybody 'else,", if and when De Gaulle himself is known to take an Interest. (The qualification, I sus- pect, may mean more than we think.) It follows that relationships between allies ? ? are something like relationships between two great American Departments, say Defense and State?except that there Is no Supreme - Court like the White House to adjudicate their differences or overcome them. These are relationships of vast machines with dif- ferent histories, routines, preoccupations, prospects. Each machine is worked by men .. with different personalities, skills, drives, re- sponsibilities. Each set of men, quite nat- . urally, would rather do his work in Independ- ence of the other set. They overcome that preference when they find the others 'useful , or essential in their busineett.' The impuhe 14856 Sanitized - ANNZYSAftAtisatiMRCIA-RIEWIAME00149R000460V700Q0S5 to collaborate is not a law of nature. It. emerges from within, arising on the job, ex- pressive of a need for someone else's aid or , service. From this, two more things follow: First, if one government would influence the ac- ? tions of another, it must find means to con- vince enough men (and the right men) on the other side that what it wants Is what they need for their own purposes, in their ? own jobs, comporting with their own inter- nally inspired hopes and fears, so that they will pursue it for themselves in their own bargaining arena. This is what we did, with Stalin's help, in Europe nearly 20 years ago. , This is what we failed to do, without that help, on EDC 11 years ago. And second, if one wants to tie the policies, of governments together, over time, one seeks Joint ventures or concerns which link the - daily doing of keymen on either side, mak- ing them dependent on each other in their work. giving them concrete incentives to col- laborate. Before NATO, the most intimate, sustained peacetime alliance between major powers in the modern world was that of Germany and Austria-Hungary, from 1879 to 1914. Save for ? some joint meetings between military staffs, ? this alliance lacked machinery such as we associate with NATO. But what It had in- stead was great weight in the public politics and also in the bureaucratic politics of both regimes, together with the sanction of a powerful tradition: Except for 13 years after the Austro-Prussian War (and a decade in Napoleon's time), the two countries had al- ? ways been mixed up with one another. In July 1914, the bureaucratic politicians of Vienna pulled a fast one on their colleagues at Berlin and dragged them into war. In 1917 Berlin got its revenge and made the Austrian Emperor drop his separate peace negotiations. The ease with which each side ? compelled the other testified to the political , imperatives behind their close connection. Shore of the pervasive links in politics which characterized Berlin and Vienna, par- ? ? ticular joint ventures often have contributed to binding an alliance. Until the missile age, for instance, while the bomber still gave SAC its strength, the shorter flying time of " Britain's bomber command made English ? capabilities count heavily with us. In the deterrent business we, of course, were senior partner, but the British saved us trouble, also money, and indeed provided something irre- placeable, an "unsinkable carrier." Ameri- can defense officials, therefore, had to think about the British every time they thought about themselves. That is a very binding tie between two governments. The common status of the dollar and the pound as reserve currencies for the free world becomes another tie of roughly the same ? sort, and one which still is very much at work? between these governments. As Eisenhower found in 1956 when he decided to change British policy on Suez, there is a lot of lever- age in this relationship. But as we have seen recently there also is a lot of common ground because of it. Ventures or concerns in common of these sorts give men inside each government a handheld on the hopes and fears of men inside the other as they do their work, pur- sue their needs, in their arena, day by day. For a peacetime alliance, lacking Stalin or? , his like, few things can help more to keep two governments together. Our current problems with Be Gaulle now - seem to stem, at least in part, from the fact or appearance that he has several handholds on men in Donn, and Bonn, in turn, has many holds on Washington, while we and they alike cannot return the favor. In the - current French political and economic con- text, his "presidentialist" regime seems ? smooth as glass, impervious to us or to the ? Germans. He must know that he needs us , to deter the Soviet'. But this we do on our account, not his, so French security in the strategic sense gives us no hold on him. We seem to have no others, though this may be more appearance than reality. But even the appearance gives him more room for maneuver on his side than we on ours. So at least I gather from the New York Times. To comment on alliance operations with- out mentioning machinery Is to give our NATO organs, and others of the sort, less than their due. They play a role, undoubt- edly. But in the terms of this analysis it is and has to be a derivative role. Alliance - institutions, civil and military, are not sov- ereign states?though SHAPE at one time of en played the part and got away with it? but rather they are creatures, or at least . creations, of the governments concerned. Thus their importance turns on their sym- bolic quality, together with their actual ca- pacity (which often is not very great) to influence the work of men inside those gov- ernments. For short of open war, it is the government machines, not those of the alli- ance, which alone possess the capability to , act. And short of imminent incursions into. NATO countries from the East, the views of SHAPE or North Atlantic Council (NAC) officials Matter less in many governments than views of men with power in their own right close to home?or nearer Wash- ington.; . If alliance organizations are to make a larger impact, they require greater leverage upon the work and worries of keymen in national machines. This is what distin- ? guishes the EEC from NAG. "Eurocrate can do (or at least start) some things, quite ? independently, which vitally affect the work of ministers in government. A dozen years ago, the same thing could have been said about SHAPE, in fact if not in form, but less so now than in the days of Eisenhower, who was something of a sovereign power in I himself. However, it does not appear to me self- evident, or even likely, that alliance agencies can have such leverage (or, anyway, can keep it if they get it). I do not see the payoff for the national machines. Confederacies are another matter, but NATO governments make no pretense that their alliance is a nascent state. EEC and NAC are thus in different categories; the one is not a prece- dent for the other. Nor do I see ,why we should mourn the passing of our "procon- suls" from SHAPE. At the present stage of our political development, alliances exist to serve their member governments; not vice versa. And governments are served by meaningful relations with each other. These center necessarily upon each other's capitals, upon the great machines and their internal bargaining. Alliance agencies are on the margin. This does not mean that alliance organi- zations serve no useful purpose. At the least they serve as symbols and as supple- mentary switchboards for communication among national machines. Still more, they may provide a .quiet corner where keymen from different' capitals review the bidding on collaborative plans and action.' This ? last, I take it, is a major aim of NAC. If so, ? 'then the small subgroup of key ministers,' recently suggested by our Secretary of De- fense, might be a very useful supplement. But machinery is the least of my concerns today. MEN AND MACHINERY These comments on alliance operations reinforce my comments on operational feast-' bility. For if peacetime alliances are what / ' think they are, then our ability to make pro- ductive use of them depends, at least in part, upon our comprehension of the who- and-whom, and what, and why, in other gov- ernments. It also will depend in part Upon the skill with which we translate compre- hension into appropriate action, a delicate endeavor calling for control. Put these two. parts together, add material resources, and i you have a formula for gaining from alit- .1 ances; leave either out and you do not, un--. less by luck or with a substitute for Stalin. In working an alliance, as in calculating. feasibilities of any other operation overseas, ;7 the premiums are on control and informa- tion. I have testified before about control, the. need for it and difficulties of it in our govern- !4 ment. There is nothing I would add today except to note that Johnson, quite like Ken- . nedy before him?some say even more so, t.! many say too much?is trying to control de- ? tails of operation in each crisis situation. .1 ' ? ? overseas. Seen from the outside, he seems to. act as though he thought his every purpose were at risk in anything subordinates con-?J trived without his knowledge. If this in- deed should be his thought, he would not, . lack, for reasons' froth the record of the. ? Presidency or its outlook since the missile age began. I cannot think him wrong to try. The difficulties, naturally, remain. Information presents still more difficulties. .' ? From what little I have seen of our intelli- genco and our political reporting I surmise that the chief difficulty is conceptual: ap- parently we lack a frame of reference in our', heads to prompt the questions on which we. ? are often most In need of answers?or to f, ' guide appraisal of the answers we can get. . This is not a problem inside government 7 ? alone; far from it. It also is a problem in the scholarly community. Curiously, we are , very much aware that our own Government is not a monolith, yet we are prone to treat r. a foreign government as though it were. We . know that our own public officers are bound ? to think not only about men across the wa- ter, but also and intently about colleagues 4 here at?home. 'Yet we often neglect the pos-7 I sibility that foreigners do likewise. .1 In the sphere of military' operations, we , have learned with pain and slowly but quite ?: thoroughly, I believe, that ends take means, .1. . while means take application to a given case, ,y and application calls for an assessment of the case, before, during, and after. In recent years, particularly, we have made serious ef- forts to review our aims and to refine our 'means in light, of our experience and pros- poets, Case by case. Not only have we tried 5 - - to do these things but also we have tried to Instill knowledge of the doing, and of how, and why, in the upcoming generation of staff planners and 'cOmmanders. War colleges, I . gather, turn experience into doctrine as fast ? as they can. They even make a place for.' planners out of uniform, from State and CIA..; " .or even Budget, on the theory that it pays to p . spread the word. In the "political" sphere, so called?a term.t for anything or everything except the actual.; use of force?what comparable efforts do we make? Virtually none. The intelligence . community has little taste for history, or so ? it seems. At any rate it continually looks. forward, rarely back. The Foreign Service, while at home with history or at least anec- dote, seems prone to a professional astigma- tism which mistakes diplomacy for govern-; ? ance. The ,Pentagon, although no stranger to political work, is under a constraint not. ?? to tadmit what it is doing, even to itself. De-? :c? fense officials, in and out of uniform, are ? ? likely to display a double standard: hard- 'headed and informed on feasibilities of force, haphazard or unknowing (or simplistic) aboutleasibilities of politics. Many of them: . are experienced in bureaucratic... politics at home; some of them have extraordinary ex- perience with governments abroad. But ? nothing in their training tells them to treat. this experience as carefully or as analytically. as they would treat combat experience. I made a bow Just now to the war col-. logos. But it is pertinent to add that they . . reserve no time for studies of what actually went on inside of governments as one ot? ' , ? ? roved 4Fot :Rale at :GIA-RD1376,4111-49R00Q4001700283 . , June 301 1965 Sanitized efikp1nfebRALlitteigttYX*84411175-00149R00,040017R18133/44 those bmeblups dealt with ntiother, Noe, lint ttt%i', Is I Imo devoted ho lhih,h%nI5 ofwind to (ti, 11. allythIng, about. restatalit probienin. Tile colleges are not to blame: they do not have such studies. And with rare, piece- meal exceptions, neither do Defense, nor State, nor CIA, nor AID?I may have missed a hidden treasure somewhere, but I doubt it?to say nothing of our universities, where, , scholars either pine for lack of access or ac- cept as gospel what they clip out of the New York Times. 1. Were this the situation on the military, side, we would not tolerate it for a moment. I ? The question becomes, what to do about it? With that question let me bring this ' statement to a close. The answer, obviously, depends on many people in and out of ? government. None of us here can speak for all of them and I would not presume to try. But it is plain, / think, that steps toward an answer will involve at least two sorts of studies. First are studies of method, of our training needs and programs, inservice or out. Congress has been cool to a civilian counterpart for the war colleges. If not that, what? Second are studies of substance, of relevant historical experience in critical encounters between governments looking at what happened inside national machines as well as across national frontiers. Just as we dissect past military actions, so we should examine such administrative confrontations, and for the same reasons: to sharpen our perception of our problems, to enhance our capabilities for training, to improve our question asking, and to give us the begin- nings of a frame of reference adequate for future operations. Studies of the first sort certainly are open to the competent authorities at both ends of the avenue. Studies of the second sort , could well be fostered by many institutions both downtown and outside government. ? Security requirements are such that govern- ment support is always indispensable, but, private capabilities would also be essential. Cooperation is indicated. Some of us In Cambridge hope we ,can contribute to this work through our established organizations and also through the institute of politics, honoring President Kennedy, which Harvard Is In process of creating. Other research centers elsewhere in the country should chime in, or take a lead. I hope they will. For this job is bigger than all of us. And studies are but steps toward answering the question. One other thing is plain: this question and ' its answer are not matters of machinery. To be sure there are some problems here of method and procedure. But the question does not pose ,issues of government reorga- nization, The answer does not turn on whether we have more or fewer members of the National Security Council. Machinery, t is not of the essence here. Men are of the 1 essence: what they carry in their heads,. and how they use their minds, and where tthey look for Information. d 'rat this seems to me preeminent among, the long-term problems In the Oonduat of our foreign operations. ? ?-? Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000400110028-3