Career Chiefs of Mission by grade, (as of November 1, 1963)

ATTACHMENT C-Continued

Ages of Chiefs of Mission (as of Sept. 1, 1963)-Continued

EXHIBIT IV

REMARKS TO THE FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION BY LUCIUS D. BATTLE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATIONAL and Cultural Affairs, AS RETIRING PRESIDENT OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION

I would like to make a few comments today on life as seen from the vantage point as president of the association. I would like to talk about its role and the challenge that it has and the Service itself has in these times. Many of you will disagree with my ideas, and the fact that there may be disagreement is the best reason I know for giving expression to my thoughts. For there is much that needs airing and discussion.

As you have heard from the chairman of the board, this has been a year of progress. It has been a year of change. Some would say, "let us pause for a moment." But I can only look ahead, pleased though I am at where we are, to things we must consider further and have only touched on this year.

In my view, the association, its board, its policies, its actions reflect the stance and posture and even that horrible word "image" of the Foreign Service of the United States. The association has, I believe, an important role to play and a role that only it can play. It has several functions that may not be in its charter and are probably not written down anywhere. Let me say what I think they are.

The association must take positions on issues affecting its welfare. It has a real stake a vital stake-in decisions made concerning it and it must speak up on those matters. These views must be constructive, far-reaching, and represent realities of our time. They must be stated with tact, dignity, restraint, and detachment. We must make every effort not to be in direct and irresponsible conflict with those in authority, and we must avoid public difference, if at all possible. But on matters affecting the Service, our voice should be heard. There are other duties the association should undertake. The problem of keeping our membership informed of developments in these United States is of real concern to us. For example, the United States is a nation whose cultural growth in recent years has been astonishing. Most of our membership has lived abroad during the years of cultural explosion and have not felt the impact on American art, literature, and music of these exciting years. The association could well assume responsibilities directed at increasing the knowledge of the membership, both here and abroad, of the cultural developments in this country of ours.

The educational committee has an impressive record but the association has not as an organization yet tapped fully the foundation world nor some of our financially fortunate alumni for funds for scholarships and related projects. Foundations are popping up these days for every known purpose. With proper stimulation by our association, some might well be created for our benefit, direct or indirect.

Another vital function for the Foreign Service Association is the field of public relations. We created this year, for the first time I believe, a public relations committee. It has a formidable task, but we all have that task, not the committee alone, and each of us must help. During the 4 years I was out of the Service I made, literally, dozens of speeches on how foreign policy is made and how the Foreign Service of the United States operates. Ignorance about us is abysmal. I spoke in one small town (a friend of mine said after that one, I had nowhere to go but up). This audience, literally, was shocked to find we had a Foreign Service and, I suspect, was a little surprised, and probably disapproved of the fact that we have foreign relations. Knowledge about us varies but prejudice about us is very nearly universal. I am not one who believes that so-called images can be built. In the main, images or postures result from the realities of what we are. But they can be helped along a bit. I refuse to believe

that the task is impossible. But the will of all of us must be engaged and all of us must give some little bit of our time and of ourselves to speeches, calls upon key individuals, to writing articles, and a general effort at toning up our relations with the outside world.

While we are talking about the outside world of which I was lately a member, let me make one or two comments that have some relationship to us. While it is popular to accuse the Foreign Service of being protocolaire, even at times stuffy, let me say that we are as nothing compared to other worlds with which we are less familiar. The emphasis on advancement, status, rank, and material symbols in the world outside Government makes us appear completely devoid of any superfluous trappings. Believe me, the personnel of the Foreign Service, when compared with our brethren in other fields, are paragons of virtue, character, simplicity, and competence.

The Foreign Service, through the association, should anticipate where it is going and what its goals are and should always try to be one step ahead of the Department in anticipating where it ought to be going. That way, it can influence; it can guide. It must remove itself from the posture it has had in years behind us of opposing and following. It must lead.

The Herter report talks of a family of services. Exactly what is meant by family is open to interpretation but regardless of legal relationships, there are several agencies closely related which must work together and work amicably. The Foreign Service Association must encompass the personnel serving abroad for these agencies, and there can be no class structure among us. The State Department's Foreign Service should be the "Big Daddy" of the outfit, but it will be so only if it deserves to be so only if its leadership is superior

and its actions warrant the responsibility of leadership.

In short, the Foreign Service, both within the association and in that complex that produces foreign policy, will lead-if it deserves to lead; it will be dominant-if it dominates; it will be superior-if it is superior. Legislating or directing dominance or a leadership role for any group does not make it so. Leadership rests on ability and willingness to assume power and accept its consequences. Not all consequences will be pleasant ones.

While Foreign Service personnel must try to avoid involvement with domestic political issues, we must distinguish between issues of principle and issues of domestic politics. On issues of principle we must, as individuals in performing our duties, stand up and be counted. But we must recognize that today's principle may be tomorrow's politics and that some of us may be hurt in the process. But the hurt to all of us will be greater if we view ourselves only as implementers and not creators of policies on international issues. For we could not survive the inaction of being mere eunuchs in harems.

I have often noted that we in the Department of State tend to quote either Alice in Wonderland, Alexis de Tocqueville, or each other. I will now set the art of quotation back at least a century and quote myself. I directed a memorandum to the board last fall, since the issue of expanding membership was to come up at a meeting I could not attend, and I felt called upon to state my views, which follow in part:

"I have often wondered why we, as a Service, have feared to act progressively for so many years lest people would control us. In so doing, we have lost the opportunity to control other people, and the power and influence of the Service have been weakened thereby. I believe that we can handle our problems, and that our capacity as a Service to lead is greater than we have ever been willing to test."

In other words, let us have enough confidence in ourselves to broaden our horizons and attempt to be master of them. But we can dominate them only if we deserve to dominate them and by our own true superiority. This leads to an inevitable and obvious conclusion and that is we must do everything we can to strengthen the Service, to give it a capacity, a confidence, a knowledge and an expertise necessary to do its job and to meet the requirements of excellence that are placed upon it. In passing judgment on the inevitable reports and studies of the Service and in our own individual reaction to issues facing us, let us ask ourselves not whether the prerogative of one or another among us is challenged but rather whether a proposed action strengthens the ability of the Service to do its job.

Serious challenges to our superiority have come not when we wished to expand our influence but rather when we viewed it too narrowly. The challenges have come not because our horizons were too vast but because we made them

too restrictive. We declined in years past to face new realities in the fields of foreign relations-intelligence, information, economics, political-military relations and to equip ourselves for these challenges in times when the inevitable importance of these fields was apparent to some of us. We declined to press upon ourselves and the Department of State the urgent need for facing these new areas of international policy. As a result, new agencies were created to do what we should have done but would not accept as legitimate. We did not staff ourselves to permit us to fill adequately, requirements we rejected as unsuitable. The association can help enormously in keeping an alert eye to the future. For today there are still uncharted courses ahead.

In conclusion, may I leave one thought-and only one with you, and that is that we must so discipline ourselves in our sense of direction to insure that we are truly the best Service we can be. "Best," in this instance, must be at the very opposite pole from my good friend August Heckscher's description of the new Department of State building. He referred to it as "standing as a particular monument to false functionalism and false grandeur." "Best" within my meaning of the word, has to do with quality of mind; it has to do with spirit. It has to do with high purpose; it has to do with confidence.

Let us always remember that our greatest protection and our strongest armor is excellence and that excellence in our field requires open and broad minds, a good deal of courage, a dash of humility and unequaled dedication.

Thank you for permitting me a place at your table and for the chance to serve a noble organization of which I am truly proud.