ADMINISTRATION OF NATIONAL SECURITY

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 1963

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

STAFFING AND OPERATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

[This hearing was held in executive session and subsequently ordered made public by the chairman of the committee.]

The subcommittee met at 9 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 3112, New Senate Office Building, Senator Henry M. Jackson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Jackson, Pell, and Miller.

Staff members present: Dorothy Fosdick, staff director; Robert W. Tufts, chief consultant; Robert C. Fisk, research assistant; Judith J. Spahr, chief clerk; and Laurel A. Engberg, minority consultant.

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Senator JACKSON. The subcommittee will come to order. Today our subcommittee continues its hearings on the role of U.S. ambassadors and the missions they head in the conduct of our relations with other nations.

This subject forms part of the subcommittee's broad nonpartisan study into problems of national security administration.

We opened this phase of our hearings last month with testimony from two recently retired career ambassadors-the Honorable Ellis O. Briggs and the Honorable H. Freeman Matthews. Today we hear from an outstanding noncareer ambassador.

We are pleased to welcome the Honorable Edwin O. Reischauer, Ambassador of the United States to Japan. Ambassador Reischauer did his undergraduate work at Oberlin College and his graduate work at Harvard University. He has had a distinguished career as a student and teacher of Far Eastern affairs, and was called from his professorship at Harvard to his present post. Over the years the Government has frequently drawn upon his knowledge and experience for advice on important matters.

He is the author of a number of books, including Japan, Past and Present (1946); Wanted: An Asian Policy (1955); and United States and Japan (1957).

Ambassador Reischauer is a gifted linguist and a distinguished scholar, qualities which have contributed greatly to his work in a country of very great importance.

Ambassador Reischauer, we are all happy to have you with us today.

I believe you have a prepared statement, and if there is no objection on the part of the subcommittee, we shall include it at this point in the record.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWIN O. REISCHAUER, AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN

Ambassador REISCHAUER. I am very pleased to be here with the subcommittee today to discuss the administration of national security with particular reference to the role of the Embassy in Japan. Some idea of the amount of coordination required for the administration of national security problems in Japan may be gained by noting that there are 21 different departments and affiliated agencies of the U.S. Government represented in Tokyo in addition to the State Department. As a matter of convenience, I attach to this statement two organization charts, the first giving the division of work in the Embassy itself, and the second giving the Embassy's relationship to affiliated U.S. Government agencies.

The important things to note in looking at these charts are first, that USIS operates as an integral part of the Embassy, forming one of its five major sections, and second, that with a few exceptions, which I will refer to at greater length below, each one of the other affiliated agencies is administratively attached to an operative section of the Embassy itself. Thus, for example, the Federal Aviation Agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the U.S. Trade Center, the Maritime Administration, the U.S. Travel Service, the Office of International Finance of the Treasury Department, the Bureau of Customs of the Treasury Department, and the small remnant of AID left in Tokyo are assigned for administrative purposes to the economic section. Similarly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are assigned to the consular section, the General Accounting Office to the administrative section, and the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, with its laboratories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the political section.

Several offices are for administrative purposes assigned directly to my own, which includes the office of the deputy chief of mission. This is the situation with respect to the scientific attaché, who coordinates closely with representatives in Tokyo of the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. The same is true of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) and the attachés of the three military services. All these offices also coordinate very closely with the political section. With respect to MAAG and the service attachés, a special branch of the political section, the politico-military branch, is constituted for the specific purpose of coordinating matters with the military sector. Thus, the politico-military branch has responsibility for day-to-day coordination of all matters coming under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and the Status of Forces Agreement with Japan, the Security Consultative Committee, military aid program, and so on. Again, although the scientific attaché and the service attachés are, as I say, attached to my office, the latter also attend the staff meetings of the political and economic sections at least once a week, and a representative of the scientific attaché attends political section staff meet

ings daily. For purposes of even closer coordination in the important scientific sector, the representative of the Atomic Energy Commission also sits in once a week at the political and the economic section staff meetings.

You will have gathered even from these preliminary remarks that a good deal of staffing is required for proper coordination of the manifold duties performed by the Embassy and its affiliated agencies, and in order to permit representation of the U.S. Government in Japan to be orchestrated so that they are in harmony with each other as well as with overall U.S. policy toward Japan.

It might therefore be of interest to you if I proceeded to set forth in somewhat more detail the staff meeting schedule established in the Embassy for the purpose of that orchestration to which I have referred. All the operative sections of the Embassy as a general rule have morning staff meetings shortly after the opening of business each day. One of the functions of these meetings is to sift out important matters to be taken up at my own staff meeting, which is usually held daily at 10:30 a.m. This is attended by the chiefs of the political, economic, consular, and administrative sections and by the Director of the U.S. Information Service in Japan, as well as by the deputy chief of mission, my special assistant and staff aide, the press attaché, and such other officers as each regular participant might consider as contributing usefully to any subject which may be due for discussion on a particular day.

In addition, a country team meeting and a so-called large staff meeting are held alternately each Thursday in place of my usual staff meeting. The "large staff meeting" is attended by the representatives of all the sections in the Embassy and of all affiliated agencies in Tokyo. At this larger meeting, we discuss matters which are of wide common concern, such as, for example, cotton textile negotiations, or the basic elements of the problem created by the U.S. Government's desire to have nuclear-powered submarines visit Japanese ports.

At this point, I should like to speak in more detail about the country team and its place in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy in Japan. In my view, the execution of U.S. national policy and the coordination of policy recommendation and guidance have been greatly facilitated through the agency of the country team. Thus, the country team has provided an excellent mechanism for continuous discussion and coordination of action relating to such significant problems, for example, as the implementation of provisions of the security treaty with respect to U.S. military forces in Japan, the military assistance program, and the overall review of situations in nearby troubled areas as they apply to U.S. objectives in Japan. As these and other problems have become more and more complex, and have required greater joint efforts by U.S. Government officials and agencies in Japan, the system of fortnightly meetings of the country team referred to earlier has evolved. By providing a forum more suitable for complex discussion than earlier informal luncheon meetings, which were the means used to bring together what is now the country team prior to 1956, these fortnightly meetings have increased the value and usefulness of the coordination process.

A significant increase in the value of the country team concept has also resulted from the participation of a wide range of U.S. officials in

team meetings. While the formal members of the country team include only myself, the commander, U.S. forces, Japan, and the Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, regular participants in team meetings in Tokyo, and in the day-to-day work of the team, include in addition the deputy chief of mission; the minister for economic affairs; the minister for cultural and public affairs (USIS); the political counselor; the Army, Navy, and Air attachés; the chief of the internal affairs branch of the political section; and the chief of the political military branch of the political section.

It will be noted that in addition to Chief, MAAG, the commander, U.S. forces, Japan, is a key member of the country team. This is essential for the proper consideration of the many vital policy problems which arise in Japan as a result of our security treaty and the presence of some 45,000 U.S. military personnel (plus an additional 55,000 dependents) in the country. It will also be noted that unlike the situation in many other countries, AID is not a constituent member of the team. This is because the economic assistance program in Japan has been eliminated and only a residual AID office remains in Tokyo to supervise offshore procurement and third country training in Japan. Coordinating country team operations, staffing for position papers, recording and distributing the minutes and preparing agenda for country team meetings are responsibilities of the Embassy's politicalmilitary branch. Happily, in spite of the relatively great distances physically separating the basic elements of the country team-U.S. forces, Japan, for example, is over an hour's drive from the Embassy— coordination has been accomplished without serious difficulty.

It may not be inappropriate at this point to note that successful coordination is at least partly a result of the excellent personal relations existing among country team participants. These relations allow the group truly to function as a team and not merely as an assembly of representatives of different government agencies.

The fortnight meetings are held in the Embassy conference room. Complete flexibility in scheduling meetings is maintained, however, and ad hoc meetings are held as necessary. Similarly, regular meetings are canceled if none of the members has sufficiently important business to justify holding them.

Basic procedure for preparing the agenda for these meetings is well established. At the beginning of the week in which a meeting is scheduled, the chief of the Embassy's political military branch communicates with (1) the Secretary, Joint Staff, Headquarters, Commander, USFJ, and (2) the Office of Chief, MAAG, Japan, in order to ascertain what items those components of the team wish to propose for inclusion in the agenda. This information, along with any agenda items the various sections of the Embassy may wish discussed at the meeting, is then passed to the Counselor for Political Affairs, who outlines the proposed agenda to me at my daily staff meeting. On the basis of the proposed agenda, and after such consultation with other U.S. officials as may be required, I decide whether or not to hold the regular meeting.

While the activities of the country team are most clearly focused in fortnightly meetings, they are not limited to them, for by necessity much work requiring sustained attention and effort must be dealt with on a continuous basis outside the structure of actual meetings.

Indeed, matters which may require country team approval are most often staffed through the country team mechanism without there being any need to convoke a formal meeting. Further, it would be rare for any item on the agenda of a given meeting not to have been fully staffed at the working level before becoming a subject of country team discussion. To a great extent, therefore, the country team's work involves reviewing recommendations worked out at the staff level and arriving at an agreed position or course of action.

Thus, by means of a system of fortnightly meetings and extensive staff work outside these meetings, the work of the country team in Japan is coordinated, and discussion and implementation of U.S. policy on a broad front are facilitated. It is my belief that the system which has been evolved is well suited to assist in the formulation and execution of U.S. Government policy in Japan.

I would imagine that this brief statement of the organization of the Embassy and of its role in the administration of national security has raised some questions in your minds. My hope is that what I have said will serve as a basis for a more detailed discussion of this subject and I welcome any questions you might have.

(The two organizational charts referred to previously entitled "The American Embassy, Tokyo, Japan, July 1, 1963" and "The American Embassy and Affiliated Agencies, Tokyo, Japan, July 1, 1963," appear at pp. 223 and 224.)

Senator JACKSON. We are very happy to have your statement, Ambassador Reischauer. We will proceed now to ask questions.

Do you have any additional comments that you wish to make prior to our questions?

Ambassador REISCHAUER. I might just add a few remarks.

First of all, I am testifying from a very different point of view from your previous witnesses. Not having had a career in the Foreign Service, all I can possibly add is a freshness of point of view of an outsider who has been in it only a little over 2 years.

Some of the problems that have come up have been problems of whether or not the overall diplomatic establishment was too large for adequate policy coordination, whether or not the flood of messages back and forth between the embassies and Washington was so great that policy was somewhat lost sight of in this great flow of words. My own feeling, after two and a quarter years' experience in Japan, is that neither of these worries is really well founded.

We have in Japan a fairly large diplomatic establishment.

I have seen no problem of policy coordination, no problem of organization. These certainly are not too large to handle, by any means. It does take a certain amount of organization, perhaps, to see that different diverse branches do not get in each other's way, but I have not seen any serious problem of that sort at all in Japan.

And while we do have a tremendous exchange of materials between ourselves and Washington, it has always seemed to me valuable. You need this exchange at all sorts of different levels, and I think there is a pragmatically efficient way, a very sensitive way, of sorting out. the important things for the right sort of attention.

There are perhaps ways in which this can be further perfected, but the whole mechanism seems to me to work very well.