U.S. Department of State

After the Department of Defense received the draft paper on "U.S. Overseas Internal Defense Policy," along with Foy Kohler's covering January 5, 1967, letter asking for agency comments (Document 105), Commander J. Fitzgerald of the Policy Planning Staff (DOD/ISA) sent a January 10 tasking memorandum to the directors of military assistance and of the geographical regional areas within DOD/ISA, asking for comments on the paper and indicating that the Joint Staff was preparing a reply for General Wheeler that would be coordinated with that of Deputy Secretary Vance. (Washington National Records Center, OASD/ISA Files: FRC 330 71 A 4546, 381 1967 February)

In a February 10 memorandum to these same directors, Colonel John G. Wheelock III, Director of the Policy Planning Staff (DOD/ISA), noted that on the basis of internal replies a suggested DOD revision of the State Department draft had been prepared that recommended "among other things the formation of an interagency working group to deal with the question of roles and missions in our overseas internal defense programs." (Ibid.) A copy of this 15-page revision prepared by Colonel Lindjord and Commander Fitzgerald on February 9 is ibid. Attached to it is a draft letter from Vance to Kohler. Memoranda from Philip E. Barringer, Acting Director of Near and South Asia Region (DOD/ISA), and Maurice J. Mountain, Director of the Office of Military Assistance Policy Review (DOD/ISA), to Colonel Wheelock, both dated February 15, which generally approved of the proposed response to Kohler and offered a few additional suggestions, are ibid.

Neither the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this draft paper nor a final approved version of Vance's reply to Kohler has been found.

Meanwhile the National Security Council Staff was reacting to the draft paper. In a January 7 memorandum to Francis Bator, William Bowdler, Edward Hamilton, William Jorden, and Howard Wriggins, Bromley Smith requested their views on the draft paper. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, SIG, Vol. I, 13th Meeting, 7/26/66) A handwritten note from Bowdler on this memorandum indicates that the paper looked "OK" to him and that he had no comments on it. In a January 13 memorandum to Smith, Jorden said he had "no particular problems with the proposed revision" but did not like its emphasis on thwarting aggression designed to overthrow "'governments which the U.S. has a cogent interest to maintain.'" He thought the "main concern" of U.S. policy should be "not the continuation of any particular 'government' but rather of a given political or social structure." In a January 16 memorandum to Smith, Wriggins thought the paper had "merit," but added that the Department of State and AID budgeting processes were "not adequately related to intricate and discriminating involvement in other societies" to provide for effective follow through, and he believed that "more careful research" and budgetary rethinking might be needed. (Ibid.)

For the views of Hamilton and Bator on the draft paper, see Document 109. No response to Kohler offering White House comments has been found.

Washington, January 9, 1967, p.m.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, SIG, Vol. I, 13th Meeting, 7/26/66. Confidential. The memorandum is misdated January 9, 1966. An undated, handwritten note from Bator at the end of the memorandum reads: "Walt--I won't do a separate memo since the above is a fair representation of my views. I am especially concerned about the point in par. 3 of page 1."

WWR:

SUBJECT
Comments on Proposed Internal Defense Policy

General:

/2/Document 105.

1. When placed in the spectrum of U.S. foreign policy directives, this one contains only three fundamental points not better spelled out elsewhere:

--subversive aggression is a serious problem which deserves our attention;

--every mission should have a plan to deal with it;

--every officer should receive special instruction in these matters.

These points are legitimate. I have no serious quarrel with the way they are put.

2. However, a good deal of the statement is devoted to the non-insurgency side of things. It is certainly true that the best long-term attack on the causes of insurgency is an economic development program. But it seems to me that this paper should either confine itself to that observation or make a serious effort to incorporate all of the reams of instruction which now exist to guide our State/AID personnel. The present paper does neither--it lists, in extremely general and opaque language--some of the activities which some of our programs involve. Even if the terms were precise enough to exclude anything, all of this guidance would not be relevant to any one country; neither would it be sufficient to any.

3. The paper draws an extremely fine and partially implicit distinction between support for a particular Government (or governing group) and support for a non-communistic system of government. Unless one reads with a microscope, it is very easy to derive the impression that it is U.S. policy to resist any movement to change an existing Government if there is any sign that external forces may be involved. I doubt that this is what is intended. (If this is the intent, I don't believe the policy is workable.)

4. The document contains a good deal of Cold War jargon which will make it difficult for many officers abroad to take it seriously. Parts of it look as though they were written in 1949. I am referring particularly to paragraph 5.

Thus, my general prescription would be a drastic shortening aimed at making the three points mentioned above, together with the policy principles which underlie them. I would leave the development business to other papers. I would also try to reduce the sleep-inducing quality of the language.

1. If we really want internal defense plans, with some action content and effect on the real world, we cannot be as ambitious as paragraph 3 suggests. Such undertakings simply don't get done in most missions. Thus, I would limit internal defense plans primarily to internal security.

2. In paragraph 6, the distinction between points (a) and (b) escapes me.

3. We should decide on what adjective describes the kind of government we will support. Paragraph 6(d) says "legitimate"; paragraphs 9, 10, and 11 use "local"; paragraph 14(a) says "established"; and the phrase "where the U.S. has a cogent interest" is liberally used. We should try to be clear about whether we are talking about (1) the present Government, or the system of government, (2) which, if any, current Governments we will stand and die for, and (3) how we go about deciding where we have a "cogent interest".

4. Paragraph 14, except for point (c), is straight boiler-plate-and redundant at that.

5. Section V (in connection with point general 2 above) has all the standard disadvantages of a list; it states too much, but is far from exhaustive. In particular, the priorities implied by the order of points under 18(b) are not in accord with any approved development strategy of which I am aware. Indeed, the only part of Section V which seems to me to add anything useful to the current body of doctrine consists of paragraphs 19, 20 and 21.

EH

Washington, January 9, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-Katzenbach Files: Lot 74 D 271, Chron, Mr Katzenbach, 1966-67. Limited Official Use. Rusk initialed the memorandum at the top of page 1.

SUBJECT
Idar Rimestad

/2/Not found.

As you know, I strongly prefer the designation of Assistant Secretary with respect to this job. I feel this way for the following reasons:

1. While I think Mr. Rimestad is a good administrative officer on his record, I don't believe he has the personal or professional stature of Bill Crockett and I would be reluctant for this reason to designate him Deputy Under Secretary.

2. I would like to hold the Deputy Under Secretary's job vacant for the next three or four months while I see if I can establish a policy programming exercise here in the Department, similar to what Mr. McNamara has accomplished in Defense.

I think it is essential that we program on a Government-wide basis if we are to get a more rational picture and control of our foreign policy objectives throughout the world. Performance of such a job would require a lot of interdepartmental work and for this reason it would be helpful to use the Deputy Under Secretary designation for the man responsible. It would also help to attract the right man.

It is clear to me that Mr. Rimestad could not begin to perform the programming function.

/3/John Rooney (D-New York).

/4/Rimestad was appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Administration on January 26 and entered on duty February 3. He served until October 2, 1969. In Programming Systems and Foreign Affairs Leadership, pp. 185-188, Mosher and Harr characterize his period as Deputy Under Secretary as "a return to administrative business as usual, pre-Crockett." They note the death of the Comprehensive Country Programming System by summer 1967, the departure of the programming staff, and the demise of other Crockett innovations.

Nicholas deB. Katzenbach

Washington, January 13, 1967.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, State Department, Consultants Panels. Confidential. Rostow penned a note to Bromley Smith on the memorandum that reads: "Remind me to check again at, say, the end of April."

SUBJECT
Status Report on Panels of Outside Advisers

The panels of advisers to the Department's regional bureaus, and to the Bureau of International Organization Affairs and Policy Planning Council, are now constituted, and all but one have been publicly announced. Announcement of the panel of the Bureau of African Affairs has been deferred pending the security clearance of one member (Dr. Martin Kilson of Harvard), whose case is being expedited but may still present problems.

/2/See Document 125 regarding evaluations of the panels by NSC staff members.

East Asian and Pacific Affairs. This bureau has formed two panels. Its ten-member China panel will meet for the first time on February 1-2 to discuss the major problems bearing on U.S. policy towards Communist China. The East Asian and Pacific panel, under the Chairmanship of former Ambassador Reischauer, will hold its first meeting on February 3-4. Sixteen of the nineteen members (including two who are also on the China panel) are expected to attend this initial discussion of our Asian policy; in the future smaller groups drawn from the panel as a whole may meet to discuss particular questions.

European Affairs. In view of the broad range of European problems, the bureau does not at this time plan to convene formal meetings of its 22-member advisory panel. Instead, it is scheduling meetings with smaller groups of three to five specialists at which particular problems can be discussed. The first such meeting, to consider the US/UK/FRG Trilateral negotiations, NATO problems and Atlantic military affairs, was held on December 2, 1966.

Two further meetings are planned for this Spring to examine the question of British entry into the Common Market and the problem of East-West relations.

Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. This bureau is also planning to convene initial meetings of groups of advisers drawn from its panel, rather than a formal meeting of the panel as a whole. The first group will meet for two days in mid-February to discuss some of the central problems of U.S. policy in the Eastern Arab world. Shortly thereafter, a second meeting will be held to consider the problems of the South Asian subcontinent.

International Organization Affairs. Formation of this advisory panel was announced in mid-October, and the group held its first meeting at our UN Mission in New York on November 3 to discuss Southwest Africa, the mini-state problem and planning for the 1968 UNCTAD Conference. Another meeting is planned within the next few weeks to consider the Rhodesia and Southwest Africa problems.

Policy Planning Council. The Council has formed two panels of advisers, composed of experts on the problems of developed nations and on food and population matters. Neither group has yet convened, but initial meetings are scheduled within the next two months. The developed nations panel will consider a paper (being prepared for the Spring meeting of the Atlantic Policy Advisory Group) on relations in the 1970's between Western Europe and (1) the United States and (2) the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; the food/population panel is being asked to assist in a study of the world food problem.

African Affairs. The panel will hold an initial meeting as soon as Dr. Kilson's security clearance problem has been resolved. Thereafter, its work will be harmonized with that of the African Advisory Council formed in 1961. While formal meetings of the new advisory panel and Council could later be scheduled, none are contemplated at this time. Instead, the bureau plans to convene small meetings of experts drawn from both groups to work on specific African problems. Ultimately it is hoped that the two groups can be merged.

In addition to the foregoing, the pre-existing Council for Latin America continues to function effectively. Its Board of Trustees will hold a meeting in New York on March 6, and the Council's various geographic subcommittees are planning to meet in Washington this Spring with appropriate Country Directors and staff personnel of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. Informal, ad hoc meetings between Assistant Secretary Gordon and selected members of the panel of academic consultants to this bureau have also been held in recent months. At the last such meeting the subjects discussed were education, proposals for the establishment of multi-national institutes, and ways to improve scientific and technological training in Latin America were discussed.

We have been pleased with the interest shown in the new panels, and will continue to report on their more significant activities and contributions to the work of the Department.

BHR

In January 1967 the Department of State published Some Causes of Organizational Ineffectiveness Within the Department of State by Professor Chris Argyris of Yale University. A condensed version appeared in the January 1967 issue of the Foreign Service Journal under the title, "Do You Recognize Yourself?" Argyris based his report on tape recordings he made of three Airlie House management conferences held by the Department in 1965. Attended primarily by Career Ministers and Class I Foreign Service Officers, their purpose, according to Argyris, "was to help the participants enhance their competence in dealing with people and managing systems (such as embassies, regional bureaus, functional departments). During the discussions the men diagnosed with earnestness and commitment their personal limitations as leaders of people, as well as the problems of the Department of State as an organization." Argyris concluded that the Department's interpersonal milieu, its "living system," predisposed it to ineffectiveness and destined reform efforts to mediocre success at best and failure at worst. Among the system's norms, according to Argyris, were "withdrawal from interpersonal difficulties and conflict, minimum interpersonal openness and trust, [and] mistrust of one's own aggressiveness, and aggressiveness of others." The result was a Foreign Service culture that discouraged forthrightness and risk-taking and encouraged those who played it safe and did "not make waves" either in their behavior or their writing. Argyris offered a series of recommendations for altering the living system so that it would reward risk taking and initiative. (Ibid., pages 21-26) Readers' reaction to Argyris' report was printed in the March, April, and May issues of the Foreign Service Journal.

Prior to publication of the report, Robert Peck of the Department of State's Office of Operations objected to a number of quotations in the report by Foreign Service Officers. He argued in a December 30, 1966, memorandum to Deputy Under Secretary of State Crockett that they presented "a rather dismal picture" of the Department and would incur publicity that would affect it adversely. Therefore they should be deleted. (Kennedy Library, Crockett Papers, MS 75-45, Argyris Report, 1966-67) Crockett decided not to delete any material, however, noting in his preface to Argyris' report that the decision "to publish it without censoring the quotations was not taken lightly" but that "being honest and open about the problems dealt with in this study offers the best beginning for dealing with them effectively and constructively." (Some Causes of Organizational Ineffectiveness, page iv)

Washington, January 17, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, ORG 1-1. No classification marking. Mosher served as a consultant to the State Department during the summer of 1966 and then worked under contract to the Department. He also served on the Hitch Committee. In the introduction to the report he states that it was based on: his experience on the Hitch Committee; interviews with officials of the Departments of State, Defense, and Agriculture, AID, USIA, BOB, and the Peace Corps; and interviews during October and November 1966 with officials at U.S. missions in Germany, France, Great Britain, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, conducted together with John Adams (see Document 104). The report is attached to a January 19 memorandum from Francis Lambert, Staff Director for the ARA Interdepartmental Regional Group, to Robert Sayre, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, in which Lambert makes a number of comments on the report and calls it "a first-rate paper. I have no quarrel with anything he says." Regarding the report's circulation, see also footnote 1, Document 104.

PLANNING, PROGRAMMING, AND BUDGETING FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

[Omitted here is the Introduction.]

Findings

Although tremendous efforts in the past and at present have been directed to the development and justification of budgets for American activities overseas, there has been and is no mechanism whereby all American undertakings in any given country or any given region can be authoritatively evaluated comparatively and together at the same time. From the initial development of a budget estimate for an overseas operation in a given country, through all the executive and legislative processes, reviews, and decisions to the allotment and expenditure of funds, it is considered and evaluated as an extension of a particular department, bureau or other agency in Washington. At no point in the entire process, which usually runs one and a half to two years, is it considered in relation to programs of other agencies in the same country or region. At no time is its effectiveness evaluated against that of other agencies in the same country or region.

The various Federal agencies have directed a great deal of effort to the planning, the programming, and the budgeting of their activities, but rarely have these efforts been effectively related to one another, to the comparable activities of other agencies, to the comparative costs of alternative actions which might be beyond their agency jurisdiction, or to a total view of American objectives in any given country or region. American objectives in some individual countries have been described in policy documents of the Department of State, but few of these have been sufficiently specific to provide guidance for the development of operating programs.

Despite various expressions over the last several years that each Ambassador should "take charge" of activities of all agencies in his country, and despite the fact that aggressive Ambassadors can inject, and have injected, their own views on programs and activities of non-State Department agencies from time to time, there is little in the budget system to encourage a broad, overall view of all programs and to meld them into a "country program." In fact, the system of individual agencies, as they have developed and congealed, militate against it; they are more likely to encourage, even require, a parochial agency view.

There are striking and relatively consistent differences between the developing countries (A) where the United States has substantial programs to assist in development and countries which are already developed (B). These include:

a. a stronger sense of unity and identity of purpose among different sections and agencies in A than in B;

b. a stronger development of the country team idea in A than in B;

c. a greater recognition of ambassadorial leadership in A than in B;

d. a greater preponderance, in B than in A, of programs which are viewed as extensions of domestic activities and purposes and as only tenuously related to foreign policy;

e. greater ease in identifying "packageable" programs in A than in B;

f. greater concern about evaluating effects and outputs in A than in B;

g. far greater receptivity to the concepts of program budgeting in A than in B.

All of the countries visited in Europe fall clearly in the B category. All in Latin America except Mexico are in the A category. In most of the dimensions noted above, Mexico is clearly in the B category.

With a few noteworthy exceptions, the current feeling about both CCPS and EROP, in those posts which experienced either or both, and among those officers who had experienced them at other posts, is critical and negative. Among some officials in all agencies, this feeling is reflected in cynicism about any future efforts toward systematic programming. In fact, there seems to be an inverse correlation between receptivity toward a new system and amount of experience with an old one. The principal complaints about CCPS and EROP are:

a. they involved a tremendous amount of time and effort and paper work;

b. they were of little or no local use;

c. they formented much restiveness and low morale among personnel who feared for continuance of their jobs;

d. recommendations growing out of them affecting other agencies (other than State and USIS) were not backed in Washington, causing friction, embarrassment, and frustration in the field;

e. the only results were cuts in budget and personnel, in State and USIS.

My own assessment of these complaints is that a and c are considerably exaggerated; that b results in part from an absence of interest and capability of some top officers in the field of management, and that d and e are substantially, but not entirely, true. (Some reductions in other agencies were made at a later date than the exercises themselves, often by Congress.) There was also some feeling among officers of agencies other than the State Department that the Ambassadors had inadequate knowledge, competence, or true authority to look into their business, but this was usually only hinted in open conversations.

Against these arguments, some officers advanced advantages of CCPS and EROP:

a. they forced individuals to look at and assess their own and their section's work against objectives;

b. they provided information useful to top managers in their total managerial job;

c. they identified problem areas and surpluses in personnel.

At least one Ambassador is continuing an annual CCPS-type review on his own authority.

My personal reaction to all these reactions of others is that CCPS was probably a useful and perhaps necessary exercise preparatory to a program-budgeting system, even though it aroused antagonism in many quarters. It provided at least a beginning prod toward looking at the foreign affairs job as a whole and at management as a significant factor in overseas Missions. It produced a number of young FSO's motivated and knowledgeable in this field--the Executive Assistants--who can be a great asset to future efforts. And it pointed up certain pitfalls which should be avoided in the future. Those which I think were basic shortcomings of CCPS and EROP include:

a. there was not enough other agency participation in Washington in the development of the system and the grid;

b. there was virtually no support or follow-through from the top and from the substantive bureaus in the State Department;

c. neither CCPS nor EROP was tied in with the budget process; they were extra and outside the normal procedure for the allocation of resources;

d. CCPS and particularly EROP were or became in the field closely identified with reductions in complement; they were oriented toward economy rather than program and output--cuts rather than trade-offs, transfers, increases (as well as decreases) where warranted;

e. the system required altogether too much detail, particularly in the allocation of manhours to activities;

f. there was too much attention to many activities for which there is little realistic measurement or even judgment of output--such as "presence," direction, representation, reporting.

Of these, I understand that e and f have already been corrected in the new FAPS; modification of both c and d is implicit in the Hitch Committee recommendation; a can be corrected if the interdepartmental group once again becomes operative; and b remains crucial.

Over the last thirty years of serving in or observing large-scale organizations, I have learned that field suspicion and distrust of headquarters is a standard, expectable phenomenon. Field personnel commonly feel that headquarters does not understand their local problems, fails to delegate sufficient authority, demands too much paper work in terms of reports and justifications, issues directives with insufficient knowledge of their probable effects on the firing line. Though this feeling is prevalent also in the foreign affairs agencies, it seems less virulent than in many large organizations, perhaps principally because almost all of the leadership personnel have themselves served in their headquarters and are familiar with, and somewhat sympathetic toward, the constraints and pressures that abound in the Potomac Jungle. By and large, these people seem to me pretty sophisticated.

Yet, there is a rather special kind of cynicism toward the State Department--held both by those within and outside the Foreign Service--on matters of organization and management. Even when it officially delegates new authorities to the field, there is doubt that the Department really means it and will support officers in the field if they dare to give it expression. One Ambassador said that the letters of Eisenhower and Kennedy really brought no change in the roles of Ambassadors. Most of them did not agree about this, but most had interpreted the letters within quite narrow parameters involving little break with precedents. The feeling of some at least that the Department had failed to back them up on their EROP recommendations as they applied to other agencies strengthened their skepticism. Few seemed to attach much importance to NSAM 341 which, on paper at least, looks like the most momentous document in relation to foreign affairs administration in American history. The attitude that "I'll believe it when I see it" toward NSAM 341 is fortified by the absence of any visible change, other than the establishment of a new group of committees. And the equanimity and "academic" interest of representatives of other agencies to reflect their confidence that the State Department would not really do anything about it.

A country-based program-budgeting system seems today the most likely device to attach some muscle to the skeleton of NSAM 341. But it cannot be done from the field. The key is decision from the very top of the Department and implementation through the regional bureaus, commonly referred to as "substantive." It will surely fail if viewed as an administrative exercise initiated and carried out by a group perceived by others as efficiency experts.

There has been a certain unreality in much of what has been said about the SIG and the IRG's. Part of this lies in the frequent consideration of these committees, which is after all what they are, as responsible decision-making organs. My reading of NSAM 341 suggests that they are advisory, not decisive, and that the responsibility for decisions rests in their respective chairmen. They should be useful in helping him to arrive at constructive and viable decisions and providing a forum for better communication and for the airing and discussion of plans and differences in points of view. Their purpose is to enhance the ability and authority of their chairmen to reach sound, balanced, and forward-looking decisions--not to dissipate that authority among a group of agency representatives.

A second kind of unreality lies in the tendency to assume that these committees will in fact have time to consider and discuss all the significant problems in their respective jurisdictions. Literally, this would mean meetings around the clock seven days a week. In light of the heavy responsibilities of their numbers, it is unrealistic to suppose that they could or should meet more than occasionally except, perhaps, at certain critical periods in the program-budget cycle. Most of the intensive study and most of the interagency negotiation must be carried out before questions reach the IRG's and the SIG. This suggests that the respective chairmen should each have a small but high-powered permanent analytical staff to which could be co-opted staff members from the various agency members on detail. It also suggests that negotiations at the country level be conducted in Washington under the direction of the appropriate country director, whose responsibility in this regard should be comparable to that of the Assistant Secretary for the region as a whole and to that of the Ambassador in his relation to the country team.

/2/The committee on Foreign Affairs Personnel, Personnel for the New Diplomacy, 1962, pp. 11-12. [Footnote in the source text.]

The Under Secretary is as pressed as the Secretary by immediate problems on the international scene. He acts as an alter ego to the Secretary, and frequently serves as Acting Secretary. Neither man can give continuous attention to the management of programs and activities of the Department of State and to their coordination with the programs of other Government agencies engaged in foreign affairs.

The relative inactivity of the SIG since it was established in March, 1966 suggests that these observations remain true.

Judging by the posts visited on this project and in historical perspective, I would say that the concepts of ambassadorial leadership and the country team have made significant strides over the past two decades and even during the last three or four years. Just about everyone gave them more than lip service. There were, in general, real efforts to keep the Ambassador informed, to seek his approval and support on proposals and problems, to communicate up and down and across. At most of the posts visited there were regular, sometimes daily, country team staff meetings which served at least the limited purposes of keeping all informed and establishing inter-personal acquaintanceship across agency lines. Most of the Ambassadors and/or DCM's exercised--though in varying degree--direction and supervision over many if not all American activities in their respective countries.

/3/A separate discussion of several agencies is included below in VIII. [Footnote in the source text.]

1. the Ambassador is primarily the personal representative of the United States (President); he is concerned with those parts of the American Mission that can help him most immediately on problems of concern to him; he is concerned with other parts only sporadically when their actions do or threaten damage to the American "presence";

2. the Ambassador is "in charge" of all American activities in the country but differentiates among different agencies in the degree of his surveillance and control; he respects the internal "sovereignty" of agencies in technical fields other than foreign policy and doubts his own competence or authority to pass judgment on their internal programs and operations;

3. the Ambassador is the commander of U.S. undertakings in the country; the initiative is (or should be) his on most matters--all those that directly affect foreign policy; he should view his scope as complete and his job as managerial.

As suggested earlier, the Ambassador is more likely to incline toward the 3 end of the spectrum in Latin America, the 1 end in Europe. Partly this affects the nature of the American goals in industrial and in underdeveloped countries. In the former, the more traditional and more limited view is stronger. Partly it reflects the personalities of the individuals, but this may in turn reflect the considerations which entered into their assignments.

In spite of the above, it cannot be said that we found anywhere that the Ambassadors could effectively manage the substance of most operating programs, even where they wanted to. Contributing to this are a number of factors:

1. the feeling--and to a degree the fact--that agency representatives in the field operate under laws, authorities, appropriations, allotments, directives, and procedures which they receive from Washington, principally from their own agency headquarters; initiative and discretion among the different agency representatives is more or less severely circumscribed though there is considerable variation among different agencies;

2. during the operating year, there seems to be remarkably little flexibility in the use of agency funds and almost none available to the Ambassadors;

3. primary loyalty of agency personnel as well as their orientation to objectives is to their agency, not to the total country job; there are exceptions to this, but by and large I feel it is true; most of them were brought up in their own agency, were assigned to country X by their agency, and will still be with their agency long after they leave country X;

4. with the rotation policies of the different agencies, there is a continuous turnover of leadership personnel, and an accompanying absence of long-term commitment to the total program in a country; I would guess that the majority of those we talked to expect to leave their present countries within a year and a half;

5. the feeling on the part of most concerned that, in event of major disagreement between agency representative and Ambassador, the former would be backed up in Washington and would prevail--that the Ambassador would not be backed up; (as one Ambassador put it, in connection with one of the other agencies, "When I really put it on the line with them, I always lose");

6. the mechanics of programming and budgeting whereby each agency operates on its own premises, guidelines, classifications, and schedules; even where the Ambassador undertakes seriously to review, criticize, and make recommendations on projected programs and budgets, he must deal with them on a piecemeal basis as they reach him at various times through the year; and their categories prevent effective comparisons and aggregations across agency lines, (in this connection, I feel sure that if PPBS continues and becomes congealed along the agency lines currently pursued, it will serve to weaken the managerial role of the Ambassador and make more difficult the elevation of his role in the future);

7. the lack of confidence of some agency representatives--and indeed of some Ambassadors themselves--in the ability of the Ambassadors to deal knowledgeably and effectively with the specialized and technical content of agency programs; in this connection, there is some doubt, which I share, that the Chiefs and deputies have either the time or the qualified staff to carry through on a full-scale program-budgeting and management job.

Added to these obstacles, as suggested before, is that some of the Ambassadors and their deputies do not consider this kind of activity appropriate to their role. They lack either the experience or the inclination to take real command of the total American Mission.

[Omitted here is the balance of the report.]

During a telephone conversation with Senator Fulbright that began at 5:30 p.m. on January 20, 1967, President Johnson raised the issue of a replacement for Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lincoln Gordon, who had indicated he was going to resign. The President then stated: "I want to get a good man that can move forward and be progressive and I have nobody to reward, as you know, in the State Department, and never have had, and I've just looked at 'em, and I'm tellin' you, the Foreign Service from a Latin American standpoint's awfully weak. As matter of fact it's weak everywhere, Bill. We've got to find some way to go into these universities. Some of these lectures you give, you ought to go out here--we ought to try to bring in some young people into this place. The ones we got are just, they're just--I just pick 'em over just like eatin' second day turkey." (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of a Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Senator Fulbright, Tape F67.03, Side A, PNO 1) The portion of the conversation printed here was prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume.

Washington, January 27, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-Katzenbach Files: Lot 74 D 271, Administrative & Personnel. No classification marking.

Dear Nick:

Today is my last official day in this job and I write this note to say goodbye, to thank you for your interest and support, and to express my personal keen regret that we did not have an opportunity to work together longer.

/2/Before leaving office, Crockett prepared for publication a manuscript of approximately 240 typed pages entitled "Management in the Department of State and the Foreign Service." In his introduction Crockett wrote that the "Department of State and the Foreign Service, although they may have been late in joining it, are now in the forefront of the management revolution" and thus he prepared the manuscript "in order to give to the public, and to our own people, a description in layman's language of what the management of the Department and the Foreign Service consists." Crockett circulated the 13 chapters among members of his office for review, comment, and approval. The manuscript was never published. A copy is in the Kennedy Library, Crockett Papers, MS 74-28, Book-Personal, W.J. Crockett.

/3/President Kennedy called the State Department a "bowl of jelly" in 1961. (John Franklin Campbell, The Foreign Affairs Fudge Factory. New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1971, p. 6) Joseph Kraft called the Department a "fudge factory" in a May 20, 1966, Washington Post column that stated: "The fact is that the Department has not been run primarily as a decision-making instrument. It has been run as a fudge factory. The aim has been to make everybody happy, to conciliate interests, to avoid giving offense and rocking the boat."

I know you have devoted considerable time and thought to the problems and I feel sure you will be able to go a long way toward solving them. I'm confident that Idar Rimestad and the O staff will give you the maximum cooperation and support.

For my part, if there is any time in the future when you feel that I could be of any use, I would be delighted to serve in a consultant capacity or in any other way that you consider suitable.

I am leaving my friends and colleagues here with a great deal of nostalgia, but firmly convinced that change is in itself a stimulating factor in organizational development and that new faces will bring with them new and valuable ideas. I am confident you will find the ways to use them.

With warm regards and the good luck without which none of us would ever survive.

Sincerely,

Bill

Washington, January 30, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-SIG Files: Lot 70 D 263, SIG Documents--Instructions and Authority. Limited Official Use. Attached to a February 2 memorandum from John Steeves, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of State for Administration, to Katzenbach.

SUBJECT
Inspection Corps' Views on Policy Management

In their partial inspections November 21-December 16, 1966 of EUR, AF, ARA and NEA, the Inspectors focused their attention on two specific subjects: (1) the functioning of the new Country Director system in terms of foreign affairs management within the Department and (2) the effectiveness of the new arrangements for inter-departmental policy coordination and decision-making through the SIG-IRG-Country Director machinery. Conclusions reached are regarded as tentative in view of the short period the new system had had to gather momentum.

In general the new system is functioning within the Department quite smoothly under able, experienced Country Directors. The greater knowledge, understanding, and judgment that the Country Directors have brought to the problems of each country have in some cases resulted in more timely and effective handling of operational problems, particularly in the context of bilateral relations with single countries. In these instances, the Country Directors have been able to make more decisions at the country level than was true under the previous system. In single-country Country Directorates, a supervisory layer has been eliminated with beneficial effects, but in Directorates having responsibility for two or more countries the vertical layering problem is essentially the same as before. A commonly observed debit factor is that the proliferation of basic units has made additional horizontal clearances necessary and in some cases tended to impede two-way communication between the Assistant Secretary and his Deputies on the one hand and the Country Directors on the other. In the case of at least one Bureau (ARA), the new system seems to have contributed on the administrative side to the creation of additional support positions. In contrast to the beneficial effects with respect to bilateral relations with single countries, the ability to deal with area-wide issues and multilateral relations may have been impaired. In cases such as the Near East, where four Country Directorates have replaced the former Officer or Near Eastern Affairs, area problems which before were handled by the Office Director must now often be referred to the Deputy Assistant Secretary level. In another Bureau, ARA, the Inspectors specifically recommended that an Office of West Coast Affairs be reestablished. Finally, looking beyond the pres-ent initial stage of the new system, there are two potential developments which could have injurious effects. First, the narrowed focus of the Country Directors' responsibilities could well engender a more parochial outlook on their part than was the case with Office Directors. Second, the importance and attractiveness of the desk or country officer position are likely to be downgraded.

That consideration be given after the shake down period, to the recreation of area-wide offices in certain cases (e.g. ARA-West Coast Affairs and NEA-Near Eastern Affairs).

The utility of the new inter-agency coordinating and decision-making machinery can be evaluated only partially and tentatively, because it has been used relatively little. That the SIG, the capstone of the structure, has not met since July 1966 has undoubtedly been a major factor behind the relative lack of activity at the IRG level.

To the extent that the new machinery has been employed at the IRG level, it has generally worked quite effectively. The Regional Groups have considered both policy and contingency planning papers and some action-oriented problems, but more of the former than the latter. They constitute potentially useful forums for coordinated inter-agency examination of major policy and operational matters, and the result generally has been a somewhat speedier and more clear-cut decision- making process than existed previously.

It is our conclusion that the SIG-IRG-Country Director System has great potential for the management of Government-wide foreign affairs. However, this potential has not to date been exploited.

Below the IRG level there has been no appreciable practical change in inter-agency relations. The Country Directors do not and cannot function as the leaders in Washington Country Teams, in the fullest sense as ambassadors in the field, because they have not been given decision-making authority. Under the NSAM and the Secretary's statement of March 4, 1966, they are, in effect, more like DCMs than like Chiefs of Mission and they are DCMs whose authority has not yet been established as such. Moreover, their agency counterparts are not empowered to commit their principals and generally regard the Assistant Secretary as the first decision-making level in the Department. Lacking the requisite authority, the Country Directors have to rely, as their predecessor Office Directors did, on their persuasiveness and personal prestige in seeking to gain the agreement and cooperation of other agencies. Country Directors in ARA, who speak for AID as well as the Department, have of course much greater ease in this effort.

The role of the Country Directors in inter-agency relations should not be limited solely to one of coordination and clearance. As a minimum, they could be charged with responsibility for refining issues before they are brought to the IRG and ideally they should reach decisions at least of a preliminary nature. To enable the Country Directors to perform this latter function more effectively, their position and authority will have to be strengthened by action at the SIG and IRG levels.

/2/Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

Washington, March 10, 1967, 1:10 p.m.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSAMs, NSAM 341. Confidential. The memorandum was included in the President's Night Reading. A handwritten note at the top of the memorandum reads: "Mr. Rostow notified Mr. Katzenbach."

Mr. President:

Nick Katzenbach asks your approval to get Tom Schelling for the State Department as a Presidential appointee to drive forward the programming work in foreign affairs. A slot is available.

I strongly recommend that you approve this request for two reasons.

--The work will simply not be done unless a man like Schelling is brought into the State Department.

--Schelling is just about the best man I could conceive of for this, if Nick can hook him.

/2/Nick has thus far been busy and hasn't given this high enough priority; and the machinery is beginning to rust, with considerable disappointment over your NSAM 341. [Footnote in the source text, handwritten by Rostow.]

Walt

/3/The President checked this option.

Disapproved

/4/The President checked this option. Attached to Rostow's memorandum is a memorandum from Rostow to Katzenbach, March 18, indicating the President's approval of hiring Schelling and stating: "It is the President's understanding that you will also drive forward other elements in NSAM 341 and, in particular: hold a Senior Interdepartmental Group Meeting approximately every two weeks and personally see to it that the Interdepartmental Groups are actively carrying out their responsibilities under NSAM 341."

See me

/5/Confidential.

Washington, March 7, 1967.

SUBJECT
Foreign Affairs Management

I thought you might be interested in some observations and recommendations about which I perceive to be some of the management problems which exist among the foreign affairs agencies.

First of all, I am impressed by the number of steps which you and the Secretary have taken to improve the overall management of foreign affairs. The following steps, in particular, seem to me to have been significant:

1. Improvement of communications facilities;

2. The establishment of the Operations Center as part of the Executive Secretariat and the clear benefit it has provided to intragovernmental communication and effectiveness.

3. The Secretary's sound insistence that operational responsibility rest primarily with the Assistant Secretaries;

4. The recent reorganization of P.L. 480 mechanics;

/6/A reference to President Kennedy's May 29, 1961, letter, printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 1345-1347.

6. The provisions of NSAM 341 which established the Senior Interdepartmental Group, whose potential I have, as its chairman, come to prize, and the Regional Interdepartmental Groups; and finally

/7/See the attachment to Document 99.

It is with respect to implementing this last recommendation that I call particular attention. I do so for two reasons. The first is because the Secretary directed me personally to take charge of the Hitch Committee effort. The second, more fundamental reason is that we are not yet on top of problems which, fundamentally, stem from the greater overall United States governmental involvement in the post-World War II world.

The Hitch Committee pointed out that there was relatively little benefit to programming foreign policy activities of the Department of State, but potentially great possibilities in programming activities of the government as a whole relating to foreign affairs. This was, I believe, the same concept which led you to issue NSAM 341. The problem is now to implement it fully.

We cannot now do so because we are unable, in sufficient detail, to relate the main programs--AID, P.L. 480, MAP, Peace Corps, CIA, USIA, and others--and our foreign policy objectives in particular countries. We cannot now allocate our resources on the basis of sensible and moderately long-range priorities.

Granting that it would be far more difficult for foreign policy than it has been, for example, in the Department of Defense, I am persuaded that programming can provide a rational framework within which decisions can be more intelligently framed and decided. And I believe such a framework is urgently necessary.

At present, programs tend to be oriented more towards their agencies than towards the countries or regions which they are designed to assist or influence. While the Department of State does coordinate such programs to a greater or lesser extent, I think it fair to say we do not use them sufficiently or efficiently in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives.

/8/Not further identified.

In short, we must make greater effort to organize and distribute our resources, not according to agency objectives, but according to overall United States objectives. This is what programming might be expected to accomplish.

I believe the SIG mechanism provides a ready framework under which to undertake programming. Our budget requests include a modest amount (I assume Rooney will give us about $300,000) to hire a small group of skilled professionals who have experience in the substance of foreign affairs--and who have the technical expertise in programming.

This background is critical, because any such effort will fail unless we are able to do it well enough to involve all bureaus of this Department and all interested and affected government agencies. This will take both superior skill and time.

I have spent considerable time trying to locate the man who would be best equipped to assist the Secretary and myself in this endeavor and I have sought names from many people inside and outside of government. The unanimous view of all those consulted is that the two best men would be Charles Hitch himself or Tom Schelling, now Professor of Economics at Harvard.

Hitch would not be available, but I believe I could get Schelling to take on this assignment as a part-time consultant from now until June and full time after June. To do so, I would have to act quickly and be in a position to promise him a presidential appointment. You will recall that there is presently a vacant Assistant Secretary position, last used for Administration.

Schelling has remarkably varied foreign policy and interagency experience and now simultaneously serves both the Departments of Defense and State. He worked for the-then AID agency from 1948 to 1950 and on the White House staff as an economic adviser to Averell Harriman and Linc Gordon from 1950 to 1953. He taught economics for five years at Yale, spent a year at RAND, and has been a Professor of Economics at Harvard, on the faculty of the Center for International Affairs there since 1958.

Schelling is an expert on military policy, is a member of the Defense Department's Air Force science board, and has held a variety of advisory positions at Defense. I understand Bob McNamara has tried to lure him to Washington several times, without success.

In addition to his AID and Defense background, he also is highly regarded in the Department of State, which he now serves as a member of the Panel of Advisers for European policy, and he has been an adviser to the Disarmament Agency.

Schelling is 45. He was born and raised in California. He has a current security clearance.

I would like your approval to make an offer to Schelling on the above basis. The Secretary concurs in this recommendation.

Respectfully,

/9/Secretary Rusk's initials appear in his own hand below Katzenbach's signature.

Washington, April 15, 1967.

/1/Source: Papers in Francis Bator's personal possession. Sensitive.

/2/The President's Task Force on Government Organization, chaired by Ben W. Heineman, was organized in October 1966 and worked from November 1966 until October 1967, producing several reports. It devoted most of its time to reviewing domestic agencies, but during spring 1967 a subgroup, chaired by Heineman, focused on foreign affairs. McNamara, a Task Force member, had strongly recommended from the outset that the group look into the foreign policy formulation process. (Memoranda from Califano to the President, September 30 and October 10, 1966, February 3 and 25, October 11, 1967; Johnson Library, White House Central Files, Subject Files, Ex FG 749) The subgroup's final report, forwarded to the President in October, is Document 127. Bator's presentation provided the basis for his more extensive testimony on managing foreign economic policy on July 25, 1972, before the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. For text, see the Committee Print, U.S. Foreign Economic Policy: Implications for the Organization of the Executive Branch (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), pp. 107-121, 129-137.

I. Introduction

A. Having rashly accepted this assignment--rashly in view of the experience and knowledge represented on this committee--I have tried to collect my thoughts around four sets of questions:

1. Should we move back towards formal standing committees--along the lines of the pre-1961 structure--for managing the interdepartmental aspects of defining strategic choices, structuring the process of decision, and overseeing execution? And if not--my vote would be strongly against it--how can one improve the present less structured arrangements: the overlapping aggregations of ad hoc task forces, the informal networks of sub-cabinet and cabinet officers, and the occasional formal but limited standing committees? And what role is there for the one across-the-board committee of fixed membership at the under secretary level, the SIG?

2. Second, what is the foreign policy role of the White House Staff?

3. Third, what could be done to strengthen the State Department's hands, to improve its performance both in its internal operations and in imposing foreign policy considerations on the other departments?

4. Fourth, a perhaps less conventional question: how could one improve the foreign policy performance, and make more responsive to foreign policy considerations, the non-foreign affairs departments--Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture? Is there anything one can do to improve the foreign affairs sensitivity of these Departments--besides simply making the Department of State more effective?

The fourth question reveals, I am afraid, a second prejudice: I think it's high time to give up the fiction that even in principle the Department can and should get exclusive control under the President of foreign policy formulation and management. It cannot--and it would be wrong if it did. I think the right strategy for the Department is to focus less on its jurisdictional prerogatives, and to try to be more energetic and skillful in engaging the right people in the other agencies at the sub-cabinet level in the foreign policy process, thereby imposing foreign policy considerations on the workings of the other departments.

B. Before getting into the substance of these questions, I should say that I will take advantage of the knowledge and experience of this committee and not waste time in qualifying the applicability of the points that follow. It is clearly more useful to you if your witnesses freely allow themselves to be captives of their experience: in this instance European affairs and non-regional international economic matters (trade and commercial policy, international money, balance of payments)--with a special lookout for Presidential issues. A lot of what I should like to say is far less relevant to policy formulation and management vis-?-vis those parts of the underdeveloped world where we engage in long-term development with a lot of money. And perhaps my views are also overly colored by the peculiarly interdepartmental quality of foreign economic issues and the consequently intense White House role even in issues which are just barely Presidential.

C. Further, my experience is largely restricted to a period during which President, Sec. State and Sec. Def. necessarily preoccupied with Vietnam. I will defer to McNamara and Bundy on applicability to handing any overriding issue of the day, where in effect the ruling ad hoc task group which manages the issue on a continuing basis consists of the President himself and his principal senior advisors in security affairs.

D. Last, I worked only for one President, one with very firm views on the general rules he wants enforced. The following two are particularly worth keeping in mind:

1. The President's options must be kept open as long as possible. It is expected that other costs will be paid to this end, even sometimes substantial costs. And the President will wish frequently to protect or exercise his options personally by continuing tactical control, especially where bargaining or correspondence or contact is involved with other heads of government, or when issues raise a domestic-political question, especially with Congressional content; or when his checkbook is involved.

2. Any important controversial recommendations for Presidential action should originate with a named individual whom the President feels he has calibrated by past experience. With the exception of recommendations which bear the certain mark of deep personal engagement by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense, or at most two or three other people with whom the President is in continuing personal contact, it must be certified or commented upon by members of the White House Staff. (These may be very special rules. I suspect not and that, to a point, most Presidents will want them followed.)

II. Government by Task Groups

A. I might now spend a few minutes on the first set of questions: formal broad-purpose standing committee structures versus management by more or less informal networks and ad hoc task groups.

1. It is an overriding fact of life in foreign affairs--and a commonplace--that virtually no issue of any importance involves interests and responsibilities of only one agency. Especially true of Alliance politics. But also to lesser degree true even of Soviet relations, and obviously of foreign economic matters.

2. To avoid total immobility, a great deal of decentralization is essential, with each department (and sometimes even offices and bureaus) carrying on in their areas of primary responsibility--sometimes directly with their overseas counterparts--informed by general conception of Presidential policy, but inevitably heavily influenced by priorities which are more narrowly the concern of that department or bureau.

3. Until choices must be made between goals--or priorities established among them--or hard international bargaining engaged in across a front involving several of our objectives in order to test how much freight the situation will carry--this sort of decentralization is entirely legitimate and essential for effectiveness.

B. Two crucial questions for organization emerge:

1. What sort of mechanisms or procedures will have a high batting average for identifying and surfacing situations where such decentralization begins to cause serious trouble, or to lose out on major opportunities--where it becomes grossly ineffective to allow each department independently to keep operating its own set of buttons without central guidance? What are workable mechanisms for identification and early warning (before lower-level tactical decisions have seriously narrowed Presidential options)--identification of clusters of issues when centralized structuring of choices for Presidential decision and centralized strategic management become necessary or fruitful?

2. The second question: once such identification is made of a particular cluster of issues, situations--what mechanisms and procedures are appropriate for managing the process whereby options are formulated, laid out, brought to high-level decision and, further, in an open options regime, subjected to appropriate and continuing strategic management?

/3/Brackets in the source text.

This identification job may be one place where SIG, supported by a strong executive director, could play an enormously useful role. (This is also an area, incidentally, where White House foreign affairs staff has and will have, I think, a continuing significant role.)

D. I would like to say rather more about the second question, which I think is perhaps easier to answer. Once it is clear at sub-cabinet levels that we have hit a situation where important choices are possible or necessary, what is the best management structure--especially under "open options" ground rules?

1. I would argue that no single across-the-board committee of senior officials should be counted on to manage or supervise all these situations. Further, I think there are very few cases where a fixed formal standing committee of limited purposes is the right way to work:

--By definition the situation is one which requires the sustained and close attention of high-level sub-cabinet people;

--Such a group must be sufficiently acknowledged as authoritative to command the bureaucracy and to minimize the temptation to end-run;

--What is needed is the smallest number of people who are (a) senior enough to marshall the resources of their agencies; (b) not so senior as to make it impossible for them to keep up with detail, or spend the time needed for comprehensive and substantial exploration of each other's minds; and (c) close enough to their Secretaries to serve as double-edged negotiators (operating for the Secretary in Task Group jockeying, and in turn representing the group's recommendations to the Secretary).

E. In my judgment these criteria do not lead to an elaborate superstructure of standing committees through which decisions filter upward. Rather they suggest a need for mechanisms which assure timely formation of ad hoc groups charged with management and forward planning on specific issues or clusters of issues. I don't wish to overstate the distinction. Choice never clear-cut or exhaustive. And I am not addressing here a question of external usefulness of high-level committees, e.g., textiles, balance of payments, on problems of special public and Congressional concern. Often not easy from table of government organization to discern which way choice has been made. Almost reduces to matter of style, but stylistic difference which has great impact on substance.

F. Some nostalgic feeling in town the other way--we should move back towards the arrangement of the 50's.

This feeling, I think, inevitable consequence of combining ad hoc style with "keeping options open" ground rule.

1. Formation of ad hoc groups always resembles accident, guaranteed to make bureaucracy nervous. (In fact there is element of accident in assuring strategic consideration at the right time. But that will not be eliminated by fixed superstructure.)

2. Ad hoc task groups often appear consumed in tactical and operational aspects of crisis, unconcerned with longer-term implications.

3. "Open options" involve no "established policy," no general guidance," no written 1-year, 2-year, 5-year strategy which can give a sense of assurance, continuity and guidance to bureaucracy; it severely limits the number of people who know the plans, goals, and strategies in heads of the President and the Secretaries; it creates a sizable crowd close enough to problems to see them disappear into the black box, but not privy to subsequent handling and susceptible to presumption that no smoke means no fire.

G. These are real costs, and not merely because of anxiety on the edges. But the alternative costs of the fixed membership superstructure are, in my judgment, far greater, even apart from the open option ground rules:

1. Serious work just doesn't happen in a crowd. Blue chips are not played if marginal people present, records kept, etc. Also they do not get played for subordinates representing their superiors. You are all familiar with what happens to quality of discussion when participants wrapped in their institutional roles and surrounded by a constituency of committed and watchful retainers.

2. Fixed committees have fixed tendency to expand, and no capacity for shrinkage. Rule of relevance very difficult to enforce. Further, they are very hard to kill off. They have to be superseded and that's always painful, especially if they are superseded by another formal committee. I am sure all of you have played Brutus to moribund committees--doing it the way we did it with LRIPC?.

3. Fixed committees tend to breed special staffs divorced from ongoing operations. People with time enough to keep up with involved intramural politics of large fixed committees almost disqualified for serious business by definition. (Examples: NAC for International Financial and Monetary Problems.)

4. Fixed committees make problem of reasonable press security impossible.

5. The result of all above is that when fixed committees exist--except when limited functional role as board of directors is absolutely clear, and numbers kept rigidly limited--bargaining takes place outside committee framework.

6. Problem of structuring fixed committees presents Hobson's choice between groups with general foreign affairs mandate and large membership to match, and groups with specialized charters which usually turn out to be too narrow for most major issues. (Examples: Balance of Payments Committee, European IRG.)

H. "Open options" make the case against fixed committees even more powerful:

1. Multiplies the importance of selective and flexible club membership. Demands that at least some members of Task Groups on important Presidential issues be personally known to President and feel themselves under Presidential discipline.

2. Rules out extended agendas, widely circulated written arguments, and other paraphernalia.

3. Requires constant contact and collegial action that makes limited and highly knowledgeable membership an administrative necessity. Unwieldiness not just complicating, but intolerable. One can make 5 calls a day to only a very small number of people.

4. Requires--and I think this is an absolutely key point--unusually frank and open discussion of long-term context and background of immediate policy choice. This is by far the best--and virtually the only relevant--form of forward planning. Essence of "open options" rule is that this thinking can rarely be written down. Thus, enormous premium on discussion. Simply cannot risk inhibiting forum.

5. To do its work properly, task groups must be privy to most subterranean kinds of problems and constraints, and unthinkable intentions. Must be capable of political as well as policy bargaining. Such bargaining never appears in minutes of fixed committee, and never will.

6. Presidents who are sensitive to their flexibility--which I think includes most Presidents--simply will not entrust management of delicate issues to something that looks like a machine. It is in their nature to regard visible fixed committees as repositories for problems on which the President has decided to give up some of his flexibility in return for the substantive quality of advice expected and/or the benefits of spreading responsibility. Presidents just will not trust fixed groups to manage the playing of their own hands, or to handle really delicate issues. (Examples: Post-Kennedy Round Planning; P.L. 480.)

I. How, then, to proceed in thinking about structure? Is it feasible to devise a system which gives reasonable assurance that right clubs will be formed around right issues at right time with right connections above and below? Confess to bias that determining factor will not be so much the "system" as particular people making effective use of personal and bureaucratic ruts worn by past experience.

J. Yet, some structural steps can help:

1. SIG could be charged with ferreting out issues requiring task force treatment before tactical moves close options. To serve effectively for this purpose, I would think it would be useful to make its membership more flexible and more subject to the problem at hand. SIG might be charged with identification of issues, and help in establishment of appropriate task groups.

/4/The Trilateral history is most instructive on this score. No time here to go into detail-in any case very delicate. Suffice it to assert that apparent "disorder" reflected the "state of play" among the principals, served the President's purposes, was creative in its results. [Footnote in the source text.]

3. Central to improving the work of the government is that heads of departments and their senior people should give up the notion that any single agency can or should be exclusively responsible for strategic choices and strategic management (as against tactical management) of the important broad-cutting foreign affairs issues. This does not run counter to the leadership role of the Secretary of State or his Department. In my judgment, it suggests a strategy to make that leadership more effective.

--But State cannot alone manage the NATO crisis, or the NPT.

--Treasury cannot and should not alone manage policy on money, balance of payments and multilateral aid.

--Even together, Defense and Treasury cannot manage such things as the German offset.

--Commerce--textiles.

--Agriculture--food aid.

/5/For case studies of two special groups created in 1965 to deal with foreign economic policy (the Deming Group, and Special Committee on U.S. Trade with East European Countries and the Soviet Union), see Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, June, 1975: Appendices (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), vol. 3, pp. 72-85, 127-132. For text of President Johnson's memorandum to Secretary of the Treasury Fowler mandating establishment of the Deming Group, June 16, 1965, see Foreign Relations, 1964-1968, vol. VIII, Document 64.

326

III. Role of the White House Staff

A. Might make a few points on function of White House staff beyond obvious duty to serve President's immediate and self-generated needs.

B. My observations not directly relevant, I suspect, to one or two issues on which President and senior Secretaries are their own desk officers.

C. White House staff role on first-level issues--which require heavy but intermittent Presidential involvement--has been organization, active membership in, and, sometimes informal, sometimes formal (e.g., Kennedy Round Control Group) management of ad hoc task groups. Have already suggested that setting up of appropriate groups may in future be proper role for SIG, but no substitute, in my opinion, for active White House membership:

1. Someone on President's staff who does his job, can bring feel for knowledge, instincts, priorities, style and preferences of President which are very hard for any Assistant Secretary and most Undersecretaries to acquire and maintain. (Brief description of life of Assistant Secretary, emphasizing value to White House man of simply living with President--osmotic transfer, etc.)

2. President faces similar problem with most Assistant Secretaries--can't know and calibrate them all, or most of them. Cannot imagine any President enduring situation in which there is no one on his personal staff current on important issues, versed on positions of his senior advisers, and prepared to give him full rundown on subject at moment's notice.

3. White House man's beat usually much broader than Assistant Secretary's. If any good, likely to be more sensitive to full range of constraints on President, and to try to think of whole spectrum of U.S. interests in problem area--including U.S. domestic politics. This right and proper.

4. White House staff role in part to provide insurance for all parties which holds ad hoc task group together. Useful to everybody to have someone with strong professional interest in meticulously fair solicitation and presentation of all relevant views. This does not imply neutrality on substance--White House man may have strong views. But if he is any good, recognizes main job is to shepherd process whereby President is given full map of real choices.

5. White House staff officer useful and, if he is any good, dependable link with respect to atmosphere and detail between Presidential/Cabinet decision councils and senior sub-Cabinet people who must execute, but are rarely present when decisions are made. (This calls for delicacy and tact--must not cut into chain of command. But this perfectly manageable.)

6. White House man consultant on vital matter of form of communication with President. Much of task group's effectiveness depends on ability to convey findings and recommendations in concise, rigorous, complete, and reasonably readable form. Also, often valuable to group to have available neutral drafter to whom all members willing to entrust group presentation--or a systematic, independent neutral presentation.

7. White House man can also play useful stimulant and "scapegoat" role. Important gain of Kennedy/Johnson years has been explosion of mystiques surrounding military, business community in budget balancing, etc. In Defense, Secretary, backed by two Presidents has overpowered vested interests with sheer personal force. In other areas--e.g., Secretary of Treasury vs. international banking community--necessary for Secretary to keep foot in charmed circle while nudging community in constructive direction. Combination requires that some such nudging appears to happen over Secretary's objection. Thus, need for radical devil to whom sin can be attributed. Careful White House staff man can play this role without embarrassing President or subverting Secretary.

8. Particularly when concentration of three principals focused on single great issue of war and peace which exhausts many hours of each day, immense pressures develop in senior levels of both key Departments to avoid head-to-head collisions. Sometimes, in my judgment, this cannot but tend to obscure arguments of which the President really must be aware when making a decision. White House staff officer with tact and discretion can fill this need.

D. On lesser issues, where President required only to make discrete, one-shot decision--and when Secretary cannot be fully and personally involved--White House staff's main job is to be sure he gets rounded view representing full canvass of relevant people, and that execution takes place according to letter and spirit of President's wishes-which may change when outside pressures--such as domestic politics, to which system is not sensitive--are generated as a reaction to a decision.

E. Much of secondary-level job is constant refereeing of technical debate between agencies which President couldn't and shouldn't do himself, but which cannot effectively be done from anywhere but White House. Part of judgment of White House man's effectiveness in this area is infrequency with which he must bother President.

F. On low-level issues which never rise above Assistant Secretary level, White House staff role is to help keep informal networks going and open, gently--or, when President's wishes clear and it is necessary, un-gently--steering substance in direction consistent with President's desires, and keeping vigil for President to see that he gets shot at decisions which merit his attention. (Again, this is relevant to issues on which Secretaries can't spend serious time.)

IV. Notes on the State Department

Some random propositions:

A. True interest of Assistant Secretary of State is not served by games of bureaucratic chicken with his counterparts in other Departments. He cannot win often, and Government often suffers later if he does. Rather than grasping issues to his bosom and seeking to keep his colleagues out, he would do much better to try to establish dependable lines with good people in other outfits and operate as a primus inter pares. (He has information and other advantages to sustain leadership on most programs if he makes effort.)

B. Other main point penetrates to mode of thought which pervades State. For long-standing, structural reasons, Department has overwhelming tendency toward pre-cooked solutions rather than spelling out of choices, arguments, and recommendations. Notion of rigorous analysis just now sinking in to most superficial level of Department routine when serving Assistant Secretary or sometimes Secretary. In three years, have rarely seen a Department product for President which is really first class example of analytic mode.

C. Preference for description and moralism is partially result of entrenched tradition which rewards flight from responsibility and renders most of Department substructure irrelevant to major issues. Risks of advocacy much greater than benefits. Ordinary desk officer (a) probably not inclined to serious analytical staff work on issues, (b) aware that there is only minor chance his work will rise more than two floors even if he does spectacular job, (c) given very little guidance as to what constitutes good analysis, and (d) is privy to only slightly more information on topside thinking than a careful newspaper reader.

D. There are no quick answers. Believe most necessary reforms have been identified by Herter and other exercises. PPBS useful in

rationalizing resource allocation and should have fallout which will help on this front. Schelling group should also help, in part by making clear what is expected and appreciated by Seventh Floor.

Washington, April 27, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, O-Files of the Deputy Under

Secretary for Administration: Lot 70 D 403, ORG 1. No classification marking. Drafted by C.E. Hulick on May 2.

PARTICIPANTS
Deputy Under Secretary Rimestad
O-Mr. Jules Bassin
O/DG-Mr. James E. Hoofnagle
O/DG-Mr. William Belton
O/FPP-Mr. Robert Hennemeyer
O/SO-Mr. William O. Boswell
O/SO-Mr. Charles Hulick

SUBJECT
Briefing on Status of FSR-1 and FSR-2 Officers in Domestic and Overseas Positions

Without attempting to provide a full account, the outcome of substantive interest of an hour's discussion was the following:

1--Failure to obtain passage of the Hays Bill was interpreted by Mr. Rimestad as meaning the end for practicable purposes of the concept of staffing the Department's positions exclusively with Foreign Service personnel (FSO, FSSO, FAO and FSS); that consequently it was a mistake to have replaced Civil Service hire with FSR hire for domestic positions; that we must return to a system of staffing Departmental officer positions with a mixture of Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel; and that as a target date we should attempt to be in a position by July 1, 1967, to have new outside hires for domestic positions to be in the Civil Service category, noting that by this date he wanted in a broader sense to have a clearly defined personnel policy and classification system.

2--With respect to the position set forth in (1) above, Mr. Rimestad stated that even if the Department should decide to go back to Congress three or four years from now to obtain a Foreign Affairs Personnel system such as contemplated in the Hays Bill, we could not afford to adhere in the interim to the present unsatisfactory system of using the Reserve category, which is a temporary system with no career status, to fill permanent positions in the Department. He rejected the idea of utilizing annual legislative authority to extend Reserve commissions for one year beyond the maximum of 10 years.

3--Mr. Rimestad said there should be an identification bureau by bureau of which areas of the Department should be staffed primarily by Foreign Service personnel and which ones by permanent Civil Service officers. By way of illustration he said the geographic bureaus would be almost exclusively staffed by Foreign Service officers, the P area just the reverse, and E and INR with a more even mixture of both, recognizing that in E most of the top level positions probably would have to be Civil Service to get the kind of specialized expertise required and which the Foreign Service by its nature could not produce. In response to Mr. Hoofnagle's inquiry, he said O/DG should prepare a memorandum for him with its conclusions and recommendations in three copies with no lateral distribution.

4--With respect to the FSR-1 and FSR-2 officers, he said he was not interested in numbers and charts. As to those with reemployment rights (half of the total of 345) he stated there is no urgency to do anything about them at this time, indicating his recognition that there was the problem of supergrades, for which there was no immediate solution. With respect to reconverting to Civil Service, he said he had no objection so long as it was done in such a way as to avoid posing a potential public relations problem with Congress. As to the Reserve officers without reemployment rights, Mr. Rimestad wants them handled on a case-by-case basis. He is not concerned whether extensions are for one, two or five years. However, in every case where it can be demonstrated there is no further need for the services of the officer or where perform-ance is unsatisfactory, he wants their commissions terminated with reasonable notice of three to six months.

5--Mr. Rimestad emphasized his interest in having the best man for the job, irrespective of his personnel classification (FSO, FSR, FSSO or GS). He dwelt at length on his concern at the inability of the Service to terminate the services of senior FSOs who had peaked. He described this as our most serious problem and not that of the Reserve officers, stating that we would find no sympathy at the Assistant Secretary level on terminating Reserve officers' commissions, so long as they had officers of the latter category on their staffs who were better performers than senior FSOs. Although he thought reduction of the time-in-grade would go a long way to solving the problem of too many officers at the senior level, he expressed his disappointment with the functioning of the Selection Boards. He said something would have to be done to insure a higher rate of selection-out of those officers who had peaked. Mr. Belton suggested that one way to help the Selection Boards would be to provide them with material which is available but not contained in the performance files; i.e., information available concerning factors which have made it difficult to place certain FSO-2 and FSO-1 officers in senior level positions. Mr. Rimestad agreed this might help.

6--In the foregoing connection, Mr. Boswell explained that over the past year and one-half he has talked frankly to about 200-250 officers concerning their standing in the Service; and that to all those who had reached their plateau (about 100) he had explained they could not expect to get better or more responsible position assignments. Mr. Rimestad expressed his surprise that this had not produced more voluntary retirements. He thought that once an officer is told he has no future in the Service, his pride alone would lead him to retire. Both Mr. Boswell and Mr. Belton explained that it was pride in part which motivated most officers' decisions, under these circumstances, not to retire. Other considerations were financial. It was pointed out that unlike the military whose annuities were calculated on the basis of the base salary at the time of retirement, the FSO's base was the average of his salary over the last five years. Mr. Boswell pointed out that with the pay increases of 1964 and 1965, waiting two to three more years would make a substantial difference for many officers in their annuity. Mr. Belton explained that there were steps which could be taken which would make for more honorable and dignified conditions of retirement which undoubtedly would lead more officers with twenty or more years of devoted service and recognized performance of quality to elect earlier retirement. In addition to improving the retirement annuity and out-placement service, Mr. Belton mentioned meaningful retirement ceremonies which gave the officer recognition for his contributions in the Service.

7--The meeting was concluded with Mr. Rimestad suggesting that the same group meet again Friday, May 5, 1967; and that SO bring to this meeting some documented cases of senior Reserve officers and FSOs whose services were no longer required or who had plateaued with respect to performance.

Washington, June 27, 1967.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSAMs, NSAM 341. Confidential. Attached to a June 27 memorandum from Rostow to the President, that states: "Herewith the statement you wanted me to formulate." The memorandum indicates that the President saw it. No information was found to indicate how the President used the statement.

I issued in March 1966 NSAM 341, after a thoroughgoing review of governmental organization in the field of foreign affairs conducted by General Taylor.

My decision was to assign responsibility for the direction, coordination and supervision of overseas interdepartmental activities to the Secretary of State. A key part of that decision was to activate the Senior Interdepartmental Group, which was to be chaired by the Under Secretary of State and to include those at the Under Secretary level from the various departments and from the White House.

The simple fact is that for 15 months now NSAM 341 has not been implemented.

I have felt the lack on many issues; for example, the Middle East, Viet Nam, counterinsurgency problems in Latin America.

I have come to the conclusion that either the Department of State must now energetically and effectively implement NSAM 341--and, especially, make the Senior Interdepartmental Group perform its functions--or I shall have to organize this kind of leadership and coordination out of the White House.

/2/Confidential.

Washington, May 20, 1967, 11:40 a.m.

Mr. President:

Herewith Gen. Taylor raises a real and serious problem.

We thought we had it solved with the Schelling appointment--after great delay. But he's bailed out.

Gene tells me he has recommended Franklin Lindsay for the Schelling job; but action apparently awaits Nick's return.

I believe it essential that Sec. Rusk understand your personal concern that NSAM 341 has not been effectively implemented.

Walt

/3/Confidential.

Washington, May 17, 1967.

SUBJECT
Implementation of NSAM-341, dated March 2, 1966

Shortly after my return from Saigon in 1965, you directed me to review all governmental activities in the field of counterinsurgency and to make appropriate recommendations to assure our readiness to cope with other situations similar to that in South Viet-Nam. The principal outcome of this review was the promulgation of NSAM-341 in March, 1966.

The effect of this decision on your part was to assign responsibility for the direction, coordination and supervision of overseas interdepartmental activities to the Secretary of State as your agent who was to be assisted by the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) chaired by the Under Secretary of State and including as members the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Administrator, AID, Chairman, JCS, Director, USIA, and the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The SIG was to absorb the responsibility in the field of counterinsurgency which, since 1962, had been concentrated in the Special Group (CI) and, in addition, was to serve as a focal point for decisions on all important interdepartmental matters arising overseas.

During the past year, I have naturally watched the implementation of this decision with great interest, hoping that the procedures directed by NSAM-341 would bring method and flexibility into the conduct of our overseas business and remove our dependence on the initiative of individual officials or on ad hoc committees which, in the past, have often been improvised to deal with critical overseas issues.

I regret to say that it is my opinion as a bystander that the SIG and the supporting interdepartmental committees at the level of the Assistant Secretaries of State have not fulfilled the hopes which we had for them more than a year ago. Far from being a forum regularly used by senior officials to discharge expeditiously their interrelated overseas problems, the SIG has met with decreasing frequency during the last year. In the last six months of 1966, the SIG met three times and has met only twice in 1967. It is significant that it has taken no part in the conduct of our most serious and complicated overseas operation-Viet-Nam. I find little indication on the agenda of its infrequent meetings of any serious attention to counterinsurgency and matters related to "Wars of Liberation," a task which required almost weekly meetings on the part of the old Special Group (CI). My overall impression is that the intent of NSAM-341 has been only partially fulfilled and that whatever vitality the new system had at the outset is apparently on the decline.

Rather than allow the NSAM concept to die from atrophy as it seems to be doing, I would suggest at least one final look to see whether we should formally abandon it, try again to set it in motion, or seek a better alternative. There are several courses you might consider. (1) One would be to ask the heads of all departments and agencies represented on the SIG to comment to you on the effectiveness of the NSAM-341 concept, the desirability of its retention, and the possibility for improved implementation. (2) Another would be to ask only the Secretary of State to make such a report. (3) A third would be to ask some outsider with government experience to review the situation for you. Personally, I would be inclined to recommend the first course with Walt Rostow charged with getting the views of the SIG members.

/4/Taylor forwarded this memorandum, dated March 27, to Rostow, who drafted a covering memorandum for the President on March 30, but did not forward either memorandum. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Box 260, Gen Taylor)

Maxwell D. Taylor

/5/None of these options was checked.

No action now

See me

Washington, July 21, 1967.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, Bator Papers, Chron File. Personal; Sensitive.

SUBJECT
Lawrence Eagleburger

/2/Not attached.

As the report indicates, Eagleburger is a first class young officer. He was Dean Acheson's assistant during the 1966 exercise on European policy, and has worked effectively for me for the past year. I think he is more than ready for a serious, responsible position in one of our major European embassies. But I know this will mean swimming up-stream. At age 37, after more than ten years in the service and excellent efficiency reports throughout, he is in Class 4. Under normal circumstances, he must look forward to another five years or so of subordinate positions before he is ready to head up a section in a major embassy.

What is so sad about this is that, far from lagging behind, Eagleburger is among the very few in his entering group who have reached Class 4. He was barely eligible to be promoted to Class 3 in the last annual series; I recommended him very strongly. In its wisdom, however, the Department elected not to recommend a promotion because of the large number of people who had spent more time in Class 4.

In my judgment, this is the practice which is losing the Foreign Service many of its best young people. I wonder how you or I might choose if we were in our late 30s with 10 years of experience in our craft and were faced with a further 5-7 years of apprenticeship before we could count on running even one section of an embassy staff in a country that mattered? Obviously, for the really good people, the chances that they will choose Foreign Service in these circumstances--over the many alternatives in and out of government--are just terribly small. The proof of the pudding is the exodus of good, middle-rank officers which, I understand, has now been going on for several years.

I don't wish to preach, cushioned by the fact that I am not responsible for running a sensible personnel operation. But I strongly believe that in Eagleburger's case--and in others I know about-failure to make special arrangements for especially good people costs the Department and Foreign Service much more than they gain by their current "even-handedness." There have been many attempts to grapple with this problem, and no outstanding successes. I hope you'll have better luck.

End of speech. Consider it my valedictory--with the license accorded those about to depart.

/3/Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

Washington, July 21, 1967.

/1/Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Registry, Job 80-B01580R, FAPS. Secret.

SUBJECT
Latest Developments in Foreign Affairs Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (FA-PPBS) (Formerly Foreign Affairs Programming System)

1. In a conversation on 20 July 1967 with Mr. Robert Bonham, Director of the Office of FA-PPBS, Department of State, the latter confirmed what I had already heard a week ago, i.e., that Mr. Tom Schelling had turned down Under Secretary Katzenbach's job offer. Schelling was, with White House approval, to have become an Assistant Secretary of State for FA-PPBS.

/2/Katzenbach's efforts to hire Schelling and Schelling's decision to withdraw are also discussed in Mosher and Harr, Programming Systems and Foreign Affairs Leadership, pp. 181-184. According to Mosher and Harr, Schelling had a number of discussions with officials at State, BOB, and the various foreign affairs agencies and decided that the situation offered little prospect of success within the year he planned to serve.

3. Bonham further advised me that his office had just been formally disestablished and that he was looking for other employment. What time he has left before his departure would be taken up with the interment of FA-PPBS, which he claimed would be without benefit of obituary notice or funeral service. A small PPBS office, which he felt would be a "window dressing" effort by the Department, would be set up either under Mr. Katzenbach or in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration.

/3/For more information on CASP, see Document 136.

/4/Printed from a copy that indicates [name not declassified] signed the original.

Washington, July 28, 1967, 7:40 p.m.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, State Department, SIG, Memos & Misc., IV. Secret. The memorandum indicates the President saw it.

Mr. President:

Inside your government I have two constructive things to report.

1. Nick Katzenbach is now making SIG move, and is getting a first-rate foreign service officer in to help him--Art Hartman. Today we reviewed Haiti and Bolivia. At your instruction, I had gotten solid work going on this and other Latin American insurgency problems; but it was good to see them reviewed at the Under Secretary level. We can expect, I think, steady initiative from now on. I have held back from doing it not because I'm shy, but I do not think this town works properly for the President unless State assumes its responsibilities. I now hope--and begin to believe--it will happen.

[Omitted here is discussion of a meeting of the Vietnam Group.]

I report this not because we solved any great problems for you today but because I felt better about the working of your government in foreign affairs than for some time.

Walt

Washington, July 31, 1967.

/1/Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-Katzenbach Files: Lot 74 D 271, Rosenthal, Jack. No classification marking.

Nick:

Here are a few personnel thoughts.

1. Insularity might be typed as the largest of the obvious personnel problems. This embraces the following:

a. Insularity as reflected in the premium placed (esp. by promotion panels) on straight political work within the Department. As a consequence it is difficult to get officers into other foreign affairs agencies (e.g. your conversation with Vaughn, AID, even Agriculture).

This problem is of course paralleled by the problem those agencies have of getting able people.

b. Insularity as reflected in lack--almost absolute lack for most officers--of any contact with Congress.

c. Ditto for press and public relations, although a fair number of officers get PAA (Public Affairs Adviser) type assignments from time to time.

d. Insularity as reflected in the low priority and low percentage of time devoted to further education--as I recall the comparison with DOD is something like 5 percent versus 12 percent for the amount of time spent on outside education during an average officer's career. N.B. the fact that Tony Lake had to sweat to get leave without pay, and will take a financial beating to do so.

e. Insularity as reflected in the isolation from private industry, whether in terms of business thinking, modern management methods, or in serving as an emissary to dinosaurs.

2. Size is an equal problem, which I put second only because it could be largely if not completely solved with the solutions to the Insularity point (i.e. farming out officers to school, private industry, other agencies, and the Hill would take a good deal of the pressure off).

a. One manifestation of the problem is the overage in class 1 and 2, which is reason for concern in and of itself (because of makework, phony titles, increase of layering, and morale).

b. Probably the more damaging manifestation is with respect to younger officers (e.g. the observation of one AF Country Director that he was doing the same thing as country director that he did as desk officer 20 years ago, only under a different title). Under this heading should come both the expressed and unarticulated damage--the almost open revolt of the Junior Foreign Service Officers Club (J'FSOC), as well as the painful lack of responsibility by comparison with bright young men in other agencies (e.g. Henry Ruth or Bill Pittman at age 35 vs. any FSO at age 35).

3. Recruiting cannot help but be damaged by these factors. I don't know of a quantitative measurement but I would strongly suppose the present quality of younger officers is diminishing. Some of this surely would be because of Viet-Nam disenchantment on the campus. But is that the only reason?

Another facet of this question is whether we make implied, dishonest promises about where a Foreign Service career will lead. What proportion become Ambassadors? Why, in view of the low proportion, do some Ambassadors get two or three posts?

/2/Not further identified.

4. Responsibility for selection of subordinates is possibly separable as a topic. You know my nutty thoughts about this in extenso. Whether one agrees with the solution or not, I believe the problem is unarguable. Why do we go through the motions of a centralized system when assignments are by and large the subject of private negotiations between bureau heads? Why a Senior Assignments Board except to ratify what has already been decided?

5. You may or may not wish to bring up the question of politicizing Assistant and Deputy Assistant Secretaries (with a fallback to the top of GS-15).

/3/Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.

Under cover of an August 3, 1967, memorandum Bromley Smith, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, forwarded to President's Special Assistant Walt Rostow evaluations of the panels of outside advisers for the State Department's five regional bureaus and the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. The evaluations were prepared by members of the National Security Council staff who had attended meetings of the panels. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, State Department, Consultants Panel)

The evaluations included both positive and negative comments. For example, in an August 2 memorandum William Bowdler stated that the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs had "made extensive and effective use of its advisers" and that the consultations had been "substantive and not pro forma," while in an August 3 memorandum Edward Hamilton called the African Bureau's advisory panel "too large to provide any real help as a body." In a memorandum of July 18 reporting on the panel for the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Howard Wriggins summarized "three unambiguous advantages" of the panels:

"(a) they impose an occasion for which the State Department operators have to state or write succinctly what they are trying to do, forcing a review which, in the normal course of bureaucratic pressures, is often avoided; (b) it faces qualified and influential outsiders up to the ambiguous and difficult choices we have to face. This should contribute in the long run to a clearer understanding among their constituents of how narrow are our margins of policy choice; and (c) sometimes their questions penetrate beneath to the assumptions of the bureaucrats and provoke second thoughts about intentions, capabilities and means. This most useful outcome, however, is very rare."

Washington, August 28, 1967.

/1/ Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, O/MS-Management Staff Files: Lot 70 D 474, Department of State, 1967, Country Director Organization. Secret.

SUBJECT
The Country Director--One Year After

1. Although it would be more appropriate to comment on experience as a Country Director after a longer period in the saddle, I wish before departing on field assignment to record something of the satisfactions and frustrations of this newly established position. I expect that the satisfactions are relatively widely shared by other Directors and that the frustrations are largely peculiar to my own assignment on Laos affairs.

2. Within the Department, I believe the Director system is working well. It is a great satisfaction to the officer immediately charged with the business of a single country to know that he is directly responsible for the adequacy and accuracy of knowledge about his country and its problems presented at the Bureau level. Working laterally with other bureaus, I have found cooperation and responsiveness without exception.

3. Similarly I think that removal of the Office Director layer has increased satisfaction to Country Officers, who have much more frequent direct relationships at least to the level of the Deputy Assistant Secretary.

4. In my own case at least it has been possible to keep the Laos problem "on the fifth floor" except with respect to policy or program questions directly relating to conduct of the Southeast Asian war. I take it that this is what the Secretary desired in establishing the system, and I believe there is great scope for a Director to exercise judgment and leadership. The exception noted above is obviously a large one. It is also a completely proper one. In arguing against various proposals from the parochial standpoint of their potential impact on Laos, I have recognized throughout that larger considerations were frequently apt to lead to decisions contrary to my recommendations. In these matters I have considered my obligation discharged if argument helped to insure that all factors bearing on the question were taken into account in reaching frequently difficult decisions.

5. There have been no large differences as to policy or program emphasis between the Ambassador and those of us who seek to support him in Washington. By heavy reliance on informal communications, I believe that I have maintained good understanding between the Department and the Mission.

6. It is not surprising to me that establishment of the Country Director system has made less difference inter-departmentally. There have been some gains, principally in two respects: 1. the generally more senior Country Directors are able to deal across agency lines on a wider basis than the former "Desk Officers", i.e. with policy officials to the Assistant Secretary level as well as at the working level; 2. there is to some degree an aura of responsibility around the Director's head and inclination to respect the care with which Country Directors are assumed to have been selected, which facilitates the exercise of leadership and program management. But there is nothing in NSAM 341 which endows officers of other agencies, at any particular level, with authority larger than that which they previously exercised to commit resources or to take policy positions. The key battles are therefore fought at the same, more elevated levels as before. I have had all the support to which I could aspire in such instances. But there may be more frequent opportunities for you and your Deputies to avoid entanglement in specific problems simply by indicating to your other-agency counterparts that, with reference to the particular question, your Country Director will exercise Bureau responsibility.

7. It does not seem to me that the Director system has resulted in changes in ritual behavior comparable to the actual changes in working procedures. I have seen no recent contributions to a series of memoranda between Protocol and 'O' dealing with the admissibility of Directors to White House functions, but have the impression there has been no significant change. When Ambassador Sullivan was last in Washington, Secretary McNamara thought the Country Director should not accompany him on his call. I understand that this decision was born of a desire to obtain Ambassador Sullivan's views on sensitive Vietnam questions, but as a result I have been unable to resolve practical problems that were discussed because of differences between Ambassador Sullivan's and DOD's understanding of what was said. I am somewhat disappointed to have seen the Secretary only twice and the Under Secretary only once in the course of a year's service--on all three occasions merely to accompany a visitor, but to the extent that this means that Laos has not been a frequent item on the Secretary's grievously long list of problems, it is a source of satisfaction.

8. One frustration quite peculiar to Laos has been the distortion of effort on the part of my entire staff in the direction of concentration on military-type questions. In addition to a stream of fairly significant policy matters, there has been the daily necessity to monitor on-going programs in detail to insure or to restore compliance with agreed procedures.

9. The result of this distortion is that I am somewhat dissatisfied with my own performance in the area of forward planning. I think we have achieved effective inter-agency coordination of operations, but this becomes a matter of watching trees instead of the forest unless the Director can devote a meaningful portion of his time to ensuring that current activities contribute to realization of regularly re-examined future goals. This has simply not been possible to the degree I consider desirable under the weight of daily requirements.

[Omitted here are comments on Laos.]