When you come to a post which is always in the public eye, such as Paris, and if one goes in for a week on a mission or to attend a conference, one may be surprised at the number of chauffeurs and extra clerks on the administrative staff and one overlooks the fact that as soon as you leave, another party is going to come in, and this is a continuous burden placed on many posts on the main travel routes. Notwithstanding, I do feel that the growth on the administrative side has been disproportionate to the growth on the substantive side. Senator PELL. On the substantive side, would you think that the present size of the Foreign Service Officer Corps is about right! Could it be smaller, or should it be larger from the viewpoint of the effective performance of the Nation's business? I am talking here not of specialists, but of the FSO's.

Ambassador MERCHANT. I am inclined to say, Senator, that I am not at all sure I am competent to have an opinion, but I am inclined to say that the present Foreign Service Corps is on the low side rather than the high side, given our responsibilities. I think one might over the years want somewhat to change its composition, which could only be done by starting at the recruiting level and you might say at the training and career development level. Any basic reorientation of the Foreign Service will require 20 years before the result is fully reflected. By that time the circumstances may have changed, of

course.

I think it is now about right. I think that we went a little too far under the Wristonization program in blanketing into the Foreign Service a number of people who occupied positions of great importance in Washington, where the occupants developed a very high degree of expertise and accumulated a great deal of experience. By forcing some of these people into the Foreign Service and sending them out to the field, you put some square pegs in round holes and went too far in that direction.

I think this is being corrected and I think that we should accept the fact that there should be a permanent civil service staff of some reasonable proportion in the State Department.

Senator PELL. When you talk about the complexion of the Foreign Service, are you thinking there that there might be merit in returning to the concept of specialists in the field, as opposed to those who are supposed to be generalists?

Ambassador MERCHANT. Well, I found in this subcommittee's report on the Secretary of State, for the first time I think, in my consideration and discussion of the subject, on many occasions, a statement on the relationship of specialists to generalists with which I totally agreed.

The burden of this statement, of course, was that you should attempt to develop in the early stage of a man's career a specialized knowledge for which he has some talent, or bent, or interest, and give him an understanding in depth of that area.

Then assuming that he has the other qualities and the necessary potential for growth, you should develop him into a generalist rather than start at the bottom and say, "We are going to have all generalists," or start at the bottom and say, "We are going to have certain commercial specialists and financial specialists and specialists in communism, and political specialists," and then expect them to make their

maximum individual contribution to the U.S. Government by honing that one specialty and trying to invent ways in which you can give them satisfaction in rank or salary, at the end.

I think this would lead to disaster in the Foreign Service. You would have a group of sabertoothed tigers who were so overspecialized that they became obsolete because they reached the point where they could kill anything in the jungle, but no longer could eat or chew what they killed.

Maybe I am prejudiced because I came into the Department and the Service in a wartime economic job, for the duration of the war. I never got away and I never regretted it. But in those days, the Foreign Service was smaller, there were 600 or 700, and it was still run pretty much in the old European prewar style of diplomacy. The Department had in those early days of the war and through the war, I think, considerable difficulty in accommodating itself to the new tools that were invented or conscripted to execute our policy abroad.

I was labeled, quite obviously. I came from Wall Street and I had had some economical and fiscal background in international affairs. I was labeled as the economic type, and in those days anyone who was the economic type was instinctively anxious, if he had any ambition, to become a political type, because they got to the top of the ladder and found greater satisfactions and opportunities to use their talents. Senator JACKSON. I can't think of a better background and training for the job of being a generalist in the broad area of national security than investment banking

Ambassador MERCHANT. I think that this is true.

Senator JACKSON (continuing). Because you are dealing with many different and conflicting elements that you somehow have to put together.

Ambassador MERCHANT. That is right. I think one of the greatest talents required and possibly one has to be born with it but it can certainly be developed by experience the greatest talent, certainly in the field of foreign affairs, for anyone to hold a real position of responsibility, is the ability unconsciously to synthesize a wide variety of factors and elements and see the interaction and interrelationship of one action on areas which at first glance don't seem to be associated. But if I can finish this, the specialist, having benefited from acquiring a knowledge in depth of some important field, and if he has the talents, should be given the opportunity to develop into a generalist. When I said earlier that I think that you have to start with recruiting ultimately to develop the Foreign Service with the necessary talents, I think what I primarily had in mind is that there are so many more fields of possible specialization today than there were in any foreign service of any country 20 or 25 years ago.

For example, I don't see how any Foreign Service officer can hold an important post today and prepare himself for more important posts if he hasn't some understanding of nuclear physics, and atomic science, and some conception of space.

This is just one example of absolutely new areas which are going to impinge on foreign policy and international relationships. The whole economic field is breaking down, I think, into broader areas areas of fruitful study and application-and I think that you have to get these

bright young men in the Service and make sure that you spread them around and give them the opportunity to develop specialties which would have been completely unorthodox or considered irrelevant 20 years ago, if you are going to produce the men at the end of the pipeline with the necessary brand of understanding in the modern world. Senator PELL. A passing thought here. Realizing that we think our present Ambassadors are the finest in the world-and I think many of them are-I believe some of our old career Foreign Service chiefs of missions prior to World War II, and I am trying not to think of my father who, although he had earlier passed the diplomatic examination, was a political chief then, were as fine and able as the men we have today and they came out of that rather obscure system. You can't find men today who are better than were Phillips or Castle or Welles.

Ambassador MERCHANT. That is true.

Senator PELL. It is very difficult to emulate them today with all of this new, changing emphasis.

Another thought in recruiting. I am wondering what your views are. Very often young Foreign Service officers come here on the Hill and we all try to give them a few words of wisdom. One thought strikes me: Many of them are really going into the Foreign Service with the thought that someday they will be ambassadors, and yet you look at the actual numbers who are in the Foreign Service, numbers with which you are more familiar, and the number of countries, and you find the chance of being an ambassador is akin to that of an Annapolis graduate becoming an admiral.

A similar way of life, I believe, would be the clergy, whose life is one of service, movement, human contact, and discipline. Many, as a rule, don't go into the clergy to become bishops. They go into it because they like the way of life. And this, I believe, should be the basic motivation for going into the Foreign Service.

I was wondering if you thought anything could be done to change this impression young FSO's have of their ambition to be an ambassador. Perhaps their ambition could be more directed to the acceptance, enjoyment, and fulfillment of life as a career Foreign Service officer. You don't tell every young clergyman that he can or should want to become a bishop.

Ambassador MERCHANT. I guess this involves a position of personal philosophy or a certain point of view.

Senator PELL. And it can involve many frustrated men who don't achieve it.

Ambassador MERCHANT. Yes, it can. I think the "primary" motivation, and I don't like that word, but the "primary" motivation that one should look for and be satisfied exists in every candidate for the Foreign Service is a desire to serve his country rather than to attain glory.

I think in addition, for the Foreign Service, one has to have a sense of adventure which will sustain him over the hardships and the difficulties and the inconveniences, and even the dangers of the career.

I think, however, with young men particularly, you should also have a proper measure of decent ambition. I doubt that you get your best! service unless most of the youngsters who enter at the bottom of the ladder have the honest, decent desire to attain the highest rung.

Now, you are quite right. This can lead to frustration. But I think as a man matures, and in fact I personally think the sign of maturity in a man is when he comes to terms with himself in objective judgment on where his talents entitle him to go, once he has made that judgment, which some men make earlier than others, and some men we all know never make-if he makes that adjustment, then you are not going to have dissatisfied, unhappy class I officers just because they haven't been appointed ambassadors and never will be.

But if you are going to insure this, any administration has to do something more than has been done so far, I think. It has to give more of a sense of dignity and worth to important and vital jobs which have to be done, by experienced, senior officers, jobs which don't carry with them the glory and the prominence and the perquisites of a chief of mission.

For example, there is a very small thing, which I have long felt— and incidentally a great deal has been done in the last few years on this particular point-but I think, for example, that no man should retire from the Foreign Service after, say, 30 years, or 25 years of devoted service to the Government, as, say, a class I or class II officer who has never hit the top hierarchical rank-he shouldn't be permitted to retire without the Secretary of State or, in his absence, the Acting Secretary of State, taking 5 minutes to call him into his office and hold a little bit of a ceremony.

We all know how much human beings rely on a sense of being appreciated. There are many things like that-petty things, for example. I think a Foreign Service officer who has retired-and I believe this is not permitted now by the regulations-should be allowed to have in retirement the satisfaction and the sense of achievement which would come just from the notation in his passport that he is a retired Foreign Service officer of the United States of America.

There are so many things like this which aren't very time consuming or very radical, but which can give a sense of satisfaction and substitution for trappings of high office.

Senator PELL. In connection with that, as you probably realize, exambassadors receive Government passports, but ex-ministers do not. It is a very interesting distinction. This is the kind of thing that is utterly artificial and could be changed very easily, so that they both received special passports.

Do you know the reason for this differentiation?

Ambassador MERCHANT. No, I don't, Senator. The regulations have recently been changed to enable retired Foreign Service officers of the rank of career ambassador, or career minister, or class I, if they have held the rank of ambassador, to receive and retain in retirement diplomatic passports.

Senator PELL. That is official passports, or diplomatic?

Ambassador MERCHANT. Diplomatic passports. This is a development of the last few months. I don't think it is so important that they should have diplomatic passports. You do get into difficulty if you have a great many diplomatic passports floating around the world for people who aren't, in fact, on diplomatic missions for the Government, but I was saying I thought every retired Foreign Service officer in his regular passport should have this notation. It is a small thing, but it means a lot.

Then another thing that I think can be done in this area of assuring that you retain the most effective performance from officers who are reaching the higher ranks and holding responsible jobs, but are not going to become chiefs of mission or hold posts comparable in importance; I think you can make sure that a minimum of those situations are due to thoughtless or imperfect career planning through the whole course of their career.

Great emphasis, rightly, is now being given to this in the Department. I think of one Foreign Service officer who retired about the same time I did who was a consular officer in charge of a relatively small consulate in Canada. He had had 32 years in the Service. He was a man of industry, of intelligence, engaging personality, and complete dedication to the Government, and he was only about 50

when he retired.

But I looked up his career, because I couldn't understand why this man hadn't gone where I thought his natural talents entitled him to, and I found something out in this exceptional case, which illustrates how I think the Government can waste potential by thoughtlessness or inadequate attention.

Of his 32 years in the Service, all of them had been spent in consular work. Fifteen of them had been spent in various consulate posts in Mexico. He had had 5 years in the consulate visa section in the Embassy in Buenos Aires. The remaining 12 years of his service had been in consular posts in five different cities in Canada.

Senator JACKSON. What happened in the promotional system? Ambassador MERCHANT. I don't know.

Senator PELL. This brings up a very interesting point that the committee has been pursuing-I don't mean to speak for my colleagues on it but certainly I have been bothered by it. We have been trying to get the facts from the State Department as to the number of promotions of those whose service has been mainly consular as opposed to political or economic and others. The consul is the real generalist of the Foreign Service; he is in charge of his little post and in daily contact with the functions of representation, negotiation and reporting.

We cannot get these figures out of the Department of State after, as I recall, two efforts we have made now. I wonder if we could make a third effort.

Senator JACKSON. We will keep digging.

Senator PELL. All right, but it ties so very neatly in with Ambassador Merchant's thought here.

Senator JACKSON. Is this individual otherwise in your judgment quite a competent person?

Ambassador MERCHANT. Extremely competent.

Senator JACKSON. And he should have been in the other areas of service?

Ambassador MERCHANT. I felt that he obviously should have had the opportunity to develop other talents, to poke his head up above the water level and to have more opportunities for a still further development of talent which I thought existed there.

Another thing which I have always been prejudiced in favor of is when you have a young officer in the middle grades who maybe has made a name for himself in political reporting or economic reporting,