on in an embassy. The best thing he can do is go to the State Department and, through papers and conversation, absorb what has been happening. I don't think this presents any real problem for an intelligent fellow.

What I do reprobate is the interval, which is usually long, between the departure of one ambassador and the arrival of another. These intervals are often too long. It is a bad thing, I think, to have any protracted period between the headships of a mission.

Professor ENGBERG. I have another question which is in an entirely different area. I suppose this is because of my past experience and training in administration-I find it very difficult to separate policy and policy recommendation from what it is going to cost. I asked this question of another ambassador, and he said, "well, we have just so big a pie to split," and that answered the question.

I think he is perhaps correct, but I am still interested in it. For instance, how much consideration is given to your views on the money to be spent or allocated for programs in England in connection with your recommendations for future policy?

Ambassador BRUCE. Well, I have had a steady reduction in officers since I have been in London.

I think it depends entirely on whether the program which you advocate is sufficiently appealing to your headquarters so that they will divert funds from some other program to your own. And by a program you really mean officers, in this case political and economic officers.

Professor ENGBERG. One further question: You were with the Service during the past administration and you probably knew a former head of the Foreign Agricultural Service.

This gentleman wrote me a letter a few months ago in which he said that one of the problems that they were faced with was that communications from Agriculture personnel that went to State, through the ambassador's office and on to Washington, were frequently very different from the communications that came to Agriculture and to his office from the field. Very often people would come back into his office and say, well now, State had this policy and we termed this letter in this particular way, but here is the actual situation.

I was wondering whether you had any experience in that area and whether you did or did not, what your thought would be in regard to our total policy and security if you had two different types of communications coming in from the field to the two different agencies?

Ambassador BRUCE. I think two different types of communications would be not only confusing and unnecessary, but would also reflect bad administration. From a policy standpoint it is devastating.

In London, I never read any operational cables either coming from our agricultural attaché there or emanating from the Department of Agriculture, except occasionally on a policy matter, say one involving the sale of large amounts of surplus agricultural products, or one relating to some big exhibition which they are to have in the United Kingdom. But I frequently talk to our agricultural attaché about the program of his Department in the United Kingdom, which is an extensive one.

As regards communications, I have never had an instance of the kind that you mentioned, nor has any been called to my attention.

52-721 0-65- -22

Professor ENGBERG. I think that if it should happen there would be no way of having a set policy. That was my reason for asking the question.

Thank you, Senator Jackson.

Senator JACKSON. Thank you, Mr. Engberg.

Ambassador Bruce, on behalf of the committee I want to express our appreciation for your most generous, illuminating, and helpful contribution to our hearings.

The record will remain open for a memorandum by the Honorable Samuel D. Berger, U.S. Ambassador to Korea.

The committee will now be in recess subject to the call of the Chair. (Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.) (The memorandum of Ambassador Berger follows:)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY SENATOR HENRY M. JACKSON

The subcommittee is pleased to be able to publish this memorandum by the Honorable Samuel D. Berger, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

In connection with our inquiry, we asked Ambassador Berger if he would be willing to prepare a memorandum containing the main points which he especially feels it is important to have us consider as we proceed with our study.

Ambassador Berger is among the Nation's most outstanding Foreign Service professionals. Joining the Foreign Service in 1945, he has risen through the ranks to the top positions of deputy chief of mission and now Ambassador. With experience largely overseas, he has seen a good many different ways of leading an embassy and a country

team.

We are grateful to Ambassador Berger for making available to us this discerning and helpful statement.

FOREIGN SERVICE STAFFING AND OPERATION PROBLEMS AND THE ROLE OF THE AMBASSADOR

By Hon. Samuel D. Berger

(United States Ambassador to the Republic of Korea)

Memorandum for Senate Subcommittee on National Security
Staffing and Operations

I am honored by the kind invitation to submit my views on this subject as it relates to our Foreign Service and the role of an ambassador. I have read with the greatest interest the reports and documentation prepared by the subcommittee and its staff and the testimony of those who have appeared in person, and am deeply impressed with the searching character of this inquiry.

By way of introduction a brief reference to my background and experience may be pertinent, for they have a bearing on my views. I have been working in foreign relations since March 1942 when I joined Mr. Harriman and the lend lease mission in London as a specialist in labor problems. By arrangement with Ambassador Winant I also served as labor attache to the Embassy-the first such appoint

ment in any diplomatic service. In 1945 I was invited to enter the Foreign Service at an intermediate grade as an auxiliary officer. This was converted into permanent status in 1947 after an oral examination under the 1946 act to expand the Foreign Service by lateral entry. Between 1948 and 1950 I worked both in the Embassy and with the Marshall plan mission in London. From 1950 to 1953 I was assigned to the Mutual Security Agency in Washington to work on economic aid problems. Subsequently I served in Japan as political counselor (15 months), as deputy chief of mission in New Zealand (4 years), and in Greece (2 years and 9 months). My work during 21 years has thus been in the political, diplomatic, and economic aid fields, as both a specialist and generalist. Before entering the Foreign Service I did undergraduate and graduate work in labor problems, economics, and history at the University of Wisconsin and the London School of Economics; worked with the Rochester (N.Y.) Civic Committee on Unemployment; directed a training center for trade union officials in Chicago; taught trade union problems for five summers in the School for Workers in Industry of the University of Wisconsin; spent nearly a year in England studying the British labor movement, a year in New York as director of the statistics department of a large social service agency handling refugees from Nazi persecution, and a year and a half in Government service working on problems of manpower mobilization.

IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSIFIED EXPERIENCE AND ECONOMIC TRAINING

This variety of education and experience, in and out of government, has been of immense help to me in my Foreign Service career, and it has colored many of my views of the problem of staffing and improving our Foreign Service.

Although there are exceptions, in general an officer who brings to the Foreign Service a broad liberal education with a solid grounding in economics and a variety of experience has an advantage over those who enter the Foreign Service directly from the university with little or no economics training or experience in other fields of work. To correct this, promising officers have in recent years been afforded the opportunity during their careers to diversify their experience by work in other departments or agencies of the U.S. Government, and to spend one or two years in a university to make up gaps in academic training.

I would like to see this program expanded and, especially so, in two directions. In many countries economic aid and development problems now represent a major preoccupation and concern of an embassy. Moreover it is impossible to understand many political situations without a full grasp of the economic setting. A promising officer can develop his knowledge of history, law, politics and diplomacy by reading on his own time. But economics is a more technical discipline requiring university training; and knowledge of economic aid and development programs requires actual grappling with the problems. I have found that senior Foreign Service officers who have neither are handicapped in dealing with many of the basic as well as day-to-day problems which confront the United States in many countries. Experience in military matters is also of great value. I would like to see more of our most promising Foreign Service officers assigned to the

aid program and to the Department of Defense in order to help obtain that cross-fertilization of ideas and experience which I feel is so necessary in much of our oversea work.

CAREER VERSUS NONCAREER AMBASSADORS

I believe in the career principle, and as the years pass I would hope that more and more chiefs of mission will be selected from the career service. I am not, however, a purist. I have worked under noncareer ambassadors and know what a tremendous contribution they can make. This source of talent, leadership, and inspiration should not be cut off in the interests of a principle. There is, however, nothing to be said for appointment to this office of a noncareer man who brings neither interest, nor aptitude, nor professional skills. It is also worth mentioning that short-term noncareer ambassadors usually have no great interest in the long-term improvement of the Foreign Service.

However, if career men are to fill more and more posts as chief of mission, the Foreign Service must be able to produce a larger supply of senior career officers of first-rate ability. I have often been asked how this can be done. My answer is to concentrate on developing more deputy chiefs of mission of top quality. The deputy position is the final testing and training ground for ambassadors, and this assignment should be reserved for officers whose record clearly indicates that they are promising material for ambassadorships. The deputy chief of mission position should not be filled by any officer who is clearly not promising in this respect, nor should it be offered as a reward to an officer for long service, when it is clear that he cannot make the grade to ambassador.

Two reforms recently instituted in the State Department will help in this direction. A special committee under the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Personnel was created last year to identify and develop a list of the ablest and most promising officers who can be groomed for appointment as deputy chief of mission. Additionally, efficiency reports since last year require in the case of class 5 officers and higher an indication of whether the officer is or is not career minister potential. With these two reforms and the rapid promotion of our ablest younger officers, the career service should before long be in position to supply a much larger number of officers of unquestioned competence for the senior positions both in the Department of State and abroad, which will form the reservoir of talent for eventual appointment as deputy chief of mission, and ultimately ambassador.

THE FUNCTION OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION

There is considerable variation in the way a deputy chief of mission functions in our embassies. In some he is a superpolitical counselor, with little interest in or responsibility for the overall work of the embassy. Sometimes he is a kind of handyman to the ambassador with loosely defined functions. This is often the case where an ambassador tries to run all aspects of an embassy's operations from the top and wastes his time doing work that should be left to his deputy.

There is some room for variation for not all embassies have the same problems, and the personality of an ambassador and his deputy chief

of mission are also factors in the situation. There are, however, certain essentials in the operations of every embassy, and it would be desirable if what is now the best practice for deputy chiefs of mission, or something approximating it, was established everywhere.

The concept of the deputy chief of mission held by Ambassador Briggs, with whom I had the privilege to serve as deputy in Athens, is the one which commends itself to me as the ideal. This concept treats the deputy chief of mission as the alter ego to the ambassador. Since the deputy is in charge during the ambassador's absences, he is cut into everything and knows everything that goes on. The administrative device to achieve this is to have the deputy present at all the ambassador's meetings; accompany the ambassador on every possible occasion, including his meetings with the foreign minister; be present when the ambassador receives callers; be present as often as possible at the ambassador's representational functions; have the deputy see all incoming and outgoing official ambassadorial correspondence; and have all work and papers within the embassy come to the ambassador through the deputy. In short, have the deputy serve as “chief of staff" or "executive officer."

Under this system a strong deputy chief of mission can relieve an ambassador of an enormous amount of work, afford the ambassador time to read, think, and write, and to manage his heavy representational responsibilities. For example, if the deputy accompanies the ambassador on a call on the foreign minister, the subsequent reporting can be done by the deputy or divided between them. Since the deputy is constantly exposed to and thoroughly conversant with every aspect of the ambassador's work, views, and activities, he can guide and instruct the section chiefs and heads of the associated agencies with confidence that he is expressing the ambassador's views. Conversely, since the embassy section chiefs and heads of the associated agencies such as USOM and MAAG go through the deputy to the ambassador, the deputy is kept continuously and thoroughly informed on the whole range of problems which confront an ambassador, and he is in a far better position to comment, advise, and even disagree with the ambassador.

The deputy must not be a bottleneck, nor does it follow that no one can see the ambassador directly. What happens in practice under this system when an officer comes to the deputy on a matter that requires ambassadorial attention is that the two go directly to the ambassador to discuss it.

This concept of the deputy's function imposes an enormous amount of work and responsibility on the deputy, and it is by far the most arduous job in an embassy. But by serving in the fashion I have described, the deputy acquires broad knowledge of an embassy's operations; he acquires self-confidence in dealing with every kind of problem; and he is trained and readied for the time when he will be called on to become an ambassador. This concept, or variations of it to suit the personalities involved or the local situation, should become standard practice in all embassies.