(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200870005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 1999
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: June 20, 1967
• Content Type: OPEN

Sanitized - Approved For Release : Cl
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - NATE B June 20, 1967
plea for a bigger booze Service Officer named Holihes Welch recently
defined the Welch corollary to Parkinson's
?a.a .. chile Y may sound critical, my Law as follows: Every producer of paper
c shed some light on what goes added to the government roster creates the
:~byrlnths of Foggy Bottom, and need for an additional consumer of paper.
;_ i:iate some concern about how to But the latter, when hired, turns out to be
i, qualified and talented people to go a producer too.) What happens to all the
or their government and help formu- paper? It piles up.
c+ carry rut an intelligent foreign Aside
of paper that clog the machinery waste
The S::ate Dep.crLment is relatively smalh time, money, and manpower. Travel and ex-
-,-s 25,700 employees, of whom 3,520 are For- pense vouchers are just two examples. When
-n Servicc Officers, and its annual budget a Foreign Service Officer goes from point A
$393 million make it the second smallest to point B, he must make out a form ac-
,partr eiit of the government. (Labor has counting for every minute of his time in
neple and Justice a smaller budget.) transit (0916-departed terminal, airport tax:
a.isc ?.:- viost far-fiurig-with 1147 em- 7d cents; 0955-arrived chancery, bus: $1.25),
y vnsulates general, and 79 con- Per diem rates vary, depending on where he
cae.tered around the world-and the is and whether he happens to be stationary
,,. verbose-a large embassy on an aver- or in motion. The resulting voucher is both
day will receive more than 400,000 words, complicated and time-consuming for every-
yhhe equivalent of an 850-page book, and in one involved in preparing and reviewing it.
\ti ri_cnington the Department's distribution It has been estimated that the government
scctioa makes copies of 70,000 incoming mes- spends about $10 to process an average
e,es a day. So perhaps the best way of ex- voucher, which can easily double the cost of
tiz;ining what's wrong with the State the reimbursement. It can even more than
-.)ep,artment is to start with the paper. double it, as in the case of a junior officer
Paper work is invented by bureaucratic- I knew in Spain whose quarterly entertain
minded people who, like Frankenstein, later ment allowance, which had to he accounted
become its victims. These are people to whom for, was only $3.
an overflowing in-box is a daily challenge The obligation to justify every penny spent
and an empty one a daily achievement; for not only is wasteful but can be embarrassing.
whom a satisfying week's work consists in A senior officer who is trusted to handle top
initialing as many reams of paper and de- secret documents does not have his govern-
ferring as man; decisions as possible; with men:,. confidence where a dollar is con-
whom you can talk of "action" only in terms cernea. I remember being invited to a meet-
of setting up a committee, hopefully one ing with the Guinean Foreign Minister while
sna will -pawn subcommittees. The chief serving at the UN. The taxi fare to the
side ions, of a bureaucrat are to abide Guinean mission and back came to $2.40. A
n ?etter of the regulations, whatever few days after I submitted the required
::in cons'quences, to keep, a clean desk, and voucher, somebody from the administrative
nee- "make waves." section called me about my taxi ride: "We
acs are fewer bureaucrats in the State have no record,, Mr. Ambassador," said the
Deaa.ztment than in other swollen govern- voice archly, "of any reception being given
rr . t agencies-AID, for example-but at the Guinean Embassy on that day."
-igh to make you wonder at times how a My favorite story is about the Foreign
? idea ever bubbles to the top. The reason, Service Officer returning to Washington on
of course, is that there are generally a few orders. His mother, who was not on govern-
activists at every echelon who enjoy results ment orders, traveled with him. In making
and do not regard moving paper as an end out his voucher, he carefully separated his
in itself. Keeping these activists in the own from his mother's expenses. But the
bureaucracy and recruiting new ones should last item was a taxi from Union Station to
, there is a different
,
his hotel In Washington
.
a priority objective of every incoming Ad- fare if two -people occupy the. cab. Back
ministration.
The production of paper is excessive at came a query: "Did your mother ride in the
cab with you?" His reply made bureaucratic
both ends and solth-generating. embassy Reporting ro e- history: "No. I took the cab. My mother i
rements
from ccuut ers desk-bound the field fid keep embassy alked and carried the bags."
reports getting are ne The sensible and economical way to handle
cars
and around. when Most of they these se should
d this kind of. paper work would be for the
copied, re dh filed e without government to calculate the cost of moving
anybody''s s reading ng the m except, poossissibly, an employee from point A to point B. Anyone
some specialist in the Bueau of Intelligence traveling that distance would then be given
and ResearcYt. Telegrams get more atten- a flat sum to travel as he wished just so long
tiara late they are shorter, but eventh only fa loors few as he got to his destination on time. Time
Ambassador and money would be saved. But it might be
pert the White House. (Former and seventh
J. K. . me the only way the only way necessary to get rid of a lot of people whose
to get Galbraith once told jobs depend on processing the paper' under
the White H the present system.. The Deputy Under-
was get a telegram read r word in it
secretary of State for Administration told me
smuch uch of what reported a it is repris Since House
no practical he was not even able to introduce air travel
or s wondered why
W immediate use, I have often
l with h Its overseas cards as an efficiency measure; the General
mi s the way not deal with Accounting Office has a vested interest in
missinstons the way a news service editor deals
for his ovcre,er bureaus-which is to ask k S keeping imilarly, the system cumambassadorsbersome.
should be given
rot special to exps ect when the correspondents need in ri the e representational funds to use at their discre-
rthan to exph L
^?ithou+ having to make out forms in
d
fiel
ion
i
? r.?
out about anything. Conversely, the men m qu
the field should be spared the eyestrain of social function for which they and their if he lacks friends in the Establishment, on
having to read or even glance at most of what staffs require reimbursement. No diplomatic the basis of one negative efficiency report
comes from Washington by pouch. (Our missions have such big administrative staffs written by one superior who might not have
weekly CIA summary-naturally, stamped as ours; other countries generally treat their liked the way he dressed. (I personally inter-
"secret"-seldom contained anything we ambassadors like men of integrity and.judg- ceded in one such case,)
hadn't already read about in the New York ment-as George Washington treated Ben- Some officers who manage to reach the top
Times Sunday news digest.) jamin Franklin when he sent him to Paris after long years of patient subordination
Perhaps the only way to stop the flow with 50,000 francs and no budget and fiscal tend to become martinets-like British pub-
of paper is to penalize anybody who writes officer to bird-dog him. But that was back lie-school boys hazing their juniors because
reports that could possibly be avoided. But when the U.S. government was too small to they were once hazed themselves. And their
it won't happen; there are too many people afford a bureaucracy. wives can be even more dictatorial: I have
who need to produce paper in order to justify The average Foreign Service Officer is known of some who ordered the wives of staff
their presence on the payroll. (A Foreign forty-one and makes $13,900 a year. When members'around like servants; one who put
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA.-RDP75-00149R000200870005-3
you take into account .:.e education, the
training, and the wide range of skills that
the State Department requires of its officers,
and when you consider what private indus-
try offers talented executives in the way of
salary and advancement, the wonder is that
our government is still able to induce young
people with drive and imagination to make
diplomacy their career. Despite occasional
directives commmending boldness and cour-
age, most FSO's have become convinced
from experience that the way to move up
the ladder is to play it safe. As Averell Harri-
man has said: "I have seen men's careers
set back and, in fact, busted because they
held the right views at the wrong time, or
for accurately reporting facts that were not
popular at the time." Caution, of course,
becomes a habit as well as a necessity for
a man in his forties who needs that next
promotion to put his children through
college.
A good many of our senior FSO's are also
suffering from the McCarthy syndrome; they
have never quite recovered from the experi-
ence of seeing some of their patriotic col-
leagues hounded and persecuted by the late
senator without either the President or the
Secretary of State being willing to stick up
for them. Moreover, a potential executive
who because of the seniority system is not
given the opportunity to exercise his execu-
tive ability in his middle years becomes
bleached out. If he does get to be a chief of
mission, he has often lost the capacity for
controlled indignation--for sticking his neck
out-that is vital to effective leadership.
A system which rewards seniority rather
than ability can produce absurd situations.
I have a friend who was made an FSO-1 at
thirty-nine. The next rung on the ladder is
Career Minister. According to existing regu-
lations, he could not become a CM until he
was fifty. Yet the regulations also stated
that an officer who 1s not promoted for ten
years is subject to "selection-out"-a euphe-
mism for being fired.
From what I have seen of the State De-
partment, the greatest concentration of
executive talent can be found in the thirty-
five to- forty-five age bracket. But most of
these men and women are upper-middle-
level FSO-3's and -4's. Above them in the
hierarchy, as of December, 1966, were 7 Career
Ambassadors, 62 Career Ministers, 313 FSO-
l's, and 452 FSO-2's. With about 36 ambas-
sadorships available each year-of which a
quarter are filled by political appointees-
the chances of a substantial number getting
top jobs in their most productive and vigor-
ous years are practically nonexistent.
What is also discouraging to talented
middle-grade officers is that the higher eche-
lons are cluttered with deadwood--with peo-
ple who drifted up the ladder because some-
body on a promotion panel wanted to give
good old Joe or Charlie a break. (I know of
one of these good old Joes who was finally
moved out of an African post-he had re-
fused to entertain Africans in his house-
and was transferred to a bigger post com-
mensurate with his rank.) The deadwood are
usually officers with bland records, with no
black marks on their efficiency reports, with
no history of ever having gotten out of line
or rocked the boat or questioned their in-
structions. A good energetic officer, on the