visiting firemen, should be the spokesman for the American government. Once the firemen have left, an Ambassador may have an unnecessary and difficult job of tidying up, not to mention the fact that the value of his own words may have been depreciated by the prolixity of his departed guests. A non-stop fight against over-reporting.-The in-boxes of Washington and the field are overflowing with papers-thoughtful and otherwise. To the degree that we overburden Washington as audience, and the field as source, with broadside reporting, we reduce the time available in both places to work on things that matter to Presidents and Ambassadors. Professor Richard Neustadt said to the Subcommittee: I suspect that while nuclear weapons have introduced a new dimension of risk, another dimension of risk has been introduced by typewriters, mimeograph machines, radio, telegraph, and telephone. Choking people to death with information is one of the oldest bureaucratic techniques known to man. Never have there been such opportunities as now. Occasional efforts to correct over-reporting will not yield lasting results. The fight must be waged continuously. Ambassador David Bruce spoke to this problem before the Subcommittee: With the growth of traffic between countries and increasing population, I see no way to control the flood of paper except from the standpoint of requirements. The essential has to be separated from the nonessential; for example, reports should not be asked for on things which substantively have little importance. In other words, requirements ought to be screened down as far as it is possible to screen them. Reporting for action purposes should be pithy and to the point. Reporting for information purposes must be increasingly analytic if it is to be useful to the policy maker. In addition, a disciplined restraint needs to be exercised by both the senders and the receivers of messages. Without such restraint, even the best definition of requirements will be ineffective in holding down the volume of words. IV. The Modern Ambassador: Adviser In thinking about problems of administration, too much attention tends to be paid to system and perhaps too little to men and their relationships. System is obviously important. But policy is not the product of a system. It is the product of responsible men who are in touch with one another. General Lauris Norstad, Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations, March 11, 1963 Basic policy decisions will continue to be made in Washington— for obvious reasons. Yet it is up to the Ambassador to make clear to Washington what he believes is needed in his country of assignment, and what he thinks is likely to work. The advice of our Ambassadors should be significant in shaping policy, and could be more important than it has been in the past. Since an Ambassador contributes to the policy process from the perspective of a single-country embassy, his advice may often appear parochial or irrelevant and sometimes it is just that. His ability to give helpful counsel, and to get attention paid to it by policy officers in Washington, depends in great measure on seeing his country problems in the perspective of American policy as a whole. CONSULTATION Today more than ever before our Ambassadors need to keep in close touch with thinking in Washington. They should frequently return to Washington-probably in the usual case for a week or ten days of consultation two or three times a year-although it may be desirable to alternate now and then with their deputies. It is false economy, as Congress should note, to skimp on such consultations: the cost should be more than offset by improved understanding between Washington and the field. Retired Ambassador and former Under Secretary of State Livingston T. Merchant put it this way to the Subcommittee: *** I am satisfied that unless you periodically and frequently, as an Ambassador, reimmerse yourself in both the atmosphere and the stream of policymaking in Washington, you can become quite rapidly removed from reality. Moreover, I think the signature at the bottom of an Ambassador's telegram is or can be certainly more impressive with the President and the Secretary and the top hierarchy of the Department and the top officials of other Government agencies principally concerned if there is a continuing, personal, restored relationship. PLANNING Consultation is also a key to better use of the embassy in planning. A mystique has grown up around the idea of planning which favors the notion that planning requires talents found only in Foggy Bottom. Although the comprehensive planning paper, in which all contingencies are itemized (except the ones circumstances will produce) and all possible courses of U.S. action are carefully delineated (except the one we will actually follow), may be useful, its importance is vastly overestimated. It is partly because "comprehensiveness" has triumphed in planning circles that Presidents and Secretaries of State are properly skeptical about endorsing country and regional plans. The planner's world too often has a dream-like logic. To be sure, foreign affairs, like defense, now involves large programs with long lead-times. The Executive Branch must budget and Congress must appropriate on the basis of plans and programs drawn up well in advance of the circumstances to be faced. Detailed planning is therefore necessary, although it probably has been carried too far in some areas. In this connection it is well to bear in mind the warning of Wilfred J. McNeil, former Comptroller of the Defense Department: An effort to be too accurate or too precise can get the real objective lost in the details. Yet it is a matter of importance that we improve our capabilities for intelligently relating programs to basic national policies. No one should be misled by this activity. It does not provide a preview of events to come. A plan is nothing but today's best guess about what and where next year's campaigns will be and what resources will be required to wage them. It should be as good as possible but it will seldom, if ever, be more than a rough guide to action, and it should have flexibility built into it. In this connection the State Department's Policy Planning Council is working with officers at home and abroad on a series of strategic studies, called National Policy Papers, intended to be operational plans governing all U.S. programs in certain critical countries. It is to be hoped that these papers will help prepare Washington and the field for prompt and flexible responses to the unforeseen dangers and opportunities that the future will surely bring. Planning in the sense of detailed programs is not a cure-all and may be a narcotic. The conduct of foreign affairs will continue to be mainly a matter of detecting changes promptly and of devising action quickly and appropriately. No plan is a satisfactory substitute for a strategic and tactical sense, though it may be essential as a basis for building capabilities. A sense of strategy that cuts to the heart of an issue is the vital element and it is not likely to express itself in the form of "comprehensive" papers-the appropriate image is the scalpel not a filing case or, for that matter, an IBM computer. Seen in this light, as the shaping of strategy and the building of capabilities, an Ambassador and his staff should have important contributions to make to policy planning. Their involvement in operations, so often cited as an obstacle to their participation in planning, is, or, should be, a positive advantage. For it is in the course of actual operations that opportunities are discovered and weaknesses in our position detected. This does not mean, of course, that a field commander will not be overruled by GHQ or an Ambassador by his President and Secretary of State. It does mean that they should not treat lightly the insights and advice of their men on the spot. If these men offer few insights and poor advice the cure is not to disregard them but to move them-or remove them. Given the ease and velocity of modern travel and communications, Washington and the field should be able to collaborate more easily than ever before on both parts of the planning task-the making of guiding decisions and the preparation of country and regional programs. Officers from Washington and from the field should frequently work together-in both places-and State should be encouraged to seek funds from Congress adequate to permit such collaboration. V. The Modern Ambassador: Executive ***Government has now become gigantic at the very moment in history when time itself is not merely a measure, or a dimension, but perhaps the difference between life and death *** This huge organization would be hard enough to run if authority were given where responsibility was placed. Yet, that frequently is not the case. Robert A. Lovett, Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on Secretary of State Dean Rusk made this comment to officers of the State Department in 1961: If the Department of State is to take primary responsibility for foreign policy in Washington, it follows that the Ambassador is expected to take charge overseas. Because an Ambassador serves as the personal representative of the President and because his primacy in the mission has been affirmed in directives by three Presidents-that might seem to take care of the problem. But it does not. The catch is this: in practice, the primacy of an Ambassador among American representatives is no more fully accepted than the primacy of the State Department with respect to matters administered by other agencies. A military assistance advisory group (MAAG), for example, which is deep in operations and has its own reporting line to the Pentagon, does not welcome an Ambassador stepping between it and the Pentagon on matters of budget, program, personnel, or operations. The political counselors and other members of the diplomatic staff, however, have no line of reporting except through the Ambassador; they are fully dependent on him, and naturally have great interest in supporting him. Other elements fall somewhere between these two positions. USIS is closer to the diplomatic position, while CIA comes closer to the MAAG position, and AID is somewhere in the middle. Important elements of our major missions thus look beyond the Ambassador to intermediate headquarters or Washington for guidance, support, and staff, and their loyalties tend to run in the same direction. This fact was recognized in President Kennedy's 1961 letter to Chiefs of Mission: Needless to say, the representatives of other agencies are expected to communicate directly with their offices here in Washington, and in the event of a decision by you in which they do not concur, they may ask to have the decision reviewed by a higher authority in Washington. The differences of concern and loyalty separating elements in a modern diplomatic mission are the cause of much past difficulty, distracting interagency rivalry, and confusion of effort. They will continue to be a source of trouble. On specific issues, however, an Ambassador's support may be useful and this strengthens his influence. It is also evident that a strong Ambassador can do a great deal to pull a mission together and give the American effort in a country focus and impact. He is the "boss"-if he wants to be and works at it-until and unless he is overruled by Washington. THE COUNTRY TEAM Each Ambassador struggles afresh to make the units and people he finds around him work in ways which match his idea of what is needed. Many Ambassadors have found the country team concept a helpful coordinating technique. "Country Team" entered the language via the Clay Paper in 1951-an interdepartmental agreement providing that the Ambassador and the heads of the military and economic aid programs were to "constitute a team under the leadership of the Ambassador." The country team concept was introduced in many embassies during the 50's, and has generally been used to good advantage. The prudent Chief of Mission composes the country team meeting according to his own view of the scope and priorities of the job facing him. If skillfully managed and chaired by strong Ambassadors, country team meetings can be useful-to assure regular consultation by an Ambassador with his key civilian and military advisers, to give each adviser his say, and to provide a set procedure for an Ambassador to hear conflicting viewpoints before committing himself. Yet, like other inter-agency committees, some country teams exact a toll by diluting the authority of the Ambassador, obscuring the responsibility for getting things done, slowing decision-taking, and generally wasting time. The itch to get in the act-what Robert Lovett has called the "foulup factor in our equation of performance"plagues the field as well as Washington. It is worth commenting that the purpose of the country team has become at least as much to make the ambassadorship serve the needs of the members of the mission as to make the latter serve the former. In a 1960 circular instruction, Secretary of State Christian A. Herter gave this warning: *** The country team concept which is used to such excellent advantage in many countries as a vehicle of coordination under the leadership of the Ambassador must not be permitted to become a vehicle for decisions which are in the final analysis the responsibility of the Chief of Mission. Wisely, the Department of State has opposed mandatory introduction of the country team technique, on the assumption that Chiefs of Mission should be free to exercise their discretion as to the best coordinating methods for the task in a given country. Where there is an area commander of U.S. forces, for example, a critical factor is the direct relationship between the Ambassador and the commander. It is obvious that a Chief of Mission is not going to interfere in the conduct of campaigns and troop training, but he can help the commander function within general U.S. policy. Speaking of the embassy and U.S. forces in Japan, Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer made this comment before the Subcommittee: Actually, we have an extremely close relationship. We have a country team which formalizes this relationship, but the essence of it is the fact that the commander of the U.S. forces in Japan *** and I are in very close contact. It is like the traditional school, one person at each end of a log. We are two people at each end of a sofa, and we get together all of the time and talk over each of our problems |