nial powers with whom, in alliance, we share responsibility for defense of the free world. Despite the cascade of colonial authority in the last two decades, our allies have deep sentimental, financial, and military ties with their former colonies. Not infrequently their view of what should be done in a given country will conflict with local opinion in that country and with our own. Whether they are right or wrong, this situation continues to confront Washington policymakers with a series of dilemmas. In the Department of State, policy is often thrashed out in a logrolling contest between the "European desks" and the new offices dealing with the new countries. This is understandable, but it is unfortunately true that policy may sometimes be subject to a kind of immobilism or an imprecision in definition caused by these conflicts of views.

If this triangular situation leads to deadlock, the chief of mission may carry policy along by persisting in his view, or he may at least help to precipitate decision.

The booming economic recovery of our allies has coincided with the increasing disinclination of the American Congress to bear a disproportionate share of the cost of free world defense and economic development. U.S. balance-of-payments difficulties are widely attributed to foreign aid expenses.

The U.S. Government is paying heed to the flood of advice it is receiving to encourage its allies to do more in the underdeveloped areas. There is a tendency to look to the former colonial powers to call forth their special knowledge of their former territories, and to accept increased or primary responsibility for policy decisions and external assistance. An effort is made to ordain priorities by making distinctions between those territories which have frontiers contiguous with the Sino-Soviet bloc and those which do not.

One cannot quarrel with the motives of this approach. It will, however, occur to a number of U.S. representatives in new countries to prefer a case-by-case method to blanket doctrinal application and to test each case for practicability.

In a number of localities the former colonial power cannot bear the burden, or as much of it as we would like. In some places the former colonial power can step up its efforts without reopening old sores. In some places, it cannot. In every case we should consider the effect on the U.S. political and economic position in the country, now and in the future.

It seems unnecessary, therefore, for the United States to go all one way or another; either to go it alone or to pass the play entirely to our allies. It ought rather to play the hand, card by card, in loyal cooperation with our allies and consistently with our sympathy with the aspirations of formerly dependent peoples.

Nor should we be too sure that the countries bordering the Communist empire are in the greatest danger of attack. Communist subversion seems every 5 years or so to find new forms heretofore unfamiliar to us and hence not quickly recognized. At any rate it has shown that it is able to leapfrog boundaries and start a focus of infection far behind where the front lines are assumed to be.

In a few of the developing countries, the American diplomatist will find himself dealing with a fourth entity in addition to Washington, the host government, and the former colonial power. This fourth estate is the United Nations in those countries where it maintains

forces or an extensive civil affairs program. This is a highly specialized situation beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that work with regional organizations and international organizations, especially as they are represented in underdeveloped areas, is an extra dimension for U.S. diplomacy.

In the Congo, the U.S. mission has assisted at a laboratory development of an international force under U.N. mandate. Because it was on the spot and could measure the needs with the means, the mission's recommendations were important to U.S. support of the U.N., despite the clamor of questions which were raised. Through it, also, U.S. views on U.N. activities could be brought to bear directly in the field as well as at U.N. Headquarters at New York. It also saw and urged the need for a prolongation of a U.N. presence after the original terminal date of December 31, 1963.

Fairly frequent visits by an American Ambassador to Washington for consultation are bound to be beneficial. If at all possible, he should take part in discussions with the President and the Secretary of State, NSC and Cabinet-level consultations, and top meetings with Pentagon, AID, and USIA officials. His consultation with committees of Congress and key Senators and Congressmen are also useful, provided it is understood that the Secretary and his principal lieutenants remain the responsible spokesmen before the Congress.

Visits to the field from Washington are, of course, also helpful but very easily overdone in view of the lesser facilities available at some posts. The country desk, or the appropriate Assistant Secretary, should provide a clearinghouse for proposed visits to insure that they are timely and do not overlap or duplicate each other.

V. THE CHIEF OF MISSION AND THE SERVICE

We have talked, so far, of the chief of mission as if he were alone on the bridge. He does occasionally know the loneliness of command, but he could achieve little without the support of his interdepartmental crew and the Foreign Service nucleus. If he has emerged from the ranks of the Foreign Service, he will have acquired along the way an almost organic connection with it. If he is a political appointee, he will depend upon it for support in a new endeavor.

When he arrives at his new post, the chief may be surprised to find how diversified an apparatus is at his command. Behind the signature of Ambassador X at the foot of telegrams to "Secstate" stand the counterparts of most of those who backstop the signature of "Rusk” on messages to "Am Embassy."

It will soon occur to the Ambassador to wonder whether this team is as large, larger, or as small as it should be.

No one can deny that Parkinson's law operates in American offices abroad as well as at home. The size and obtrusiveness of American representation sometimes constitute an irritant in our foreign relations little recognized by the American public. There are places in which the American mission is as large as the Foreign Office of the host country.

The nucleus of the organization is still the chancery, including the Ambassador's office and relatively small political, economic, and administrative staffs. By far the larger part of the typical embassy

is composed of attached economic and military aid missions, USIA, the staff of attachés, and various other groups.

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The effect of these numbers is not uniform nor necessarily bad. large embassy is more easily assimilated in capitals where there is a large population of foreigners and a sizable group of migrants and where local living standards do not sharply differ from the Americans. This is not the case in many poverty stricken and lesser developed

countries.

The chief of mission is in a position to set himself against the trend to multiply positions under his control. He can at least try to reduce and consolidate staff and rationalize functions. One way to hold the line is to consolidate similar positions such as, for example, that of the Economic Counselor and the chief of the economic mission. Consolidation of administrative services is one obvious possibility. However, chiefs of mission may find the savings from consolidation illusory because the combined administrative organization seems to acquire an organic life of its own and soon begins to inbreed a number of its own new positions.

Although the evils of overstaffing are obvious, one must recognize that there is a limit to possible compression. After all, the size of the mission is really a function of the enormously expanded responsibilities which have been entrusted to our representation abroad. If we could actually do away with economic aid and military assistance, with our appetite for full and immediate reporting, with our rapid-fire communications system, with our requirements for airtight security, and with the obligation to make known the truth about American policies, we could make much deeper cuts. But this in effect means turning the clock back to an easy prewar state of semi-isolation.

Such nostalgic dreams are dangerous. Indeed this writer hesitates even to call attention to the possibility of reduction in force for fear of playing into the hands of those interested not so much in economy as in fleeing from America's obligations as a world power. We might more profitably look for economies among the range of supporting and housekeeping functions with which the Service is now supplied. But here again we must recognize that the Service is the mirror of the people it represents. In the last 25 years the American people have come to take as their right an abundance of welfare services for which their grandfathers would have found it hard even to find names.

Foreign Service expectations of logistic support have also been influenced by military precedents. We find the most far-reaching supply, maintenance, personnel, and general administrative services in those areas where large American garrisons exist or where they have left behind a tradition of well-manned administration.

Even sturdy Americans abroad, exemplars of economy and selfreliance, will expect to be met on arrival, accommodated in housing found or supplied by the Government, given appropriate allowances, medical care, transportation, schooling for their children, and access to commissaries and recreation facilities. Of course, not all these services will exist everywhere and in some places in Asia and Africa they are necessities, not amenities. And some of them are supplied not by the Government but by cooperative staff efforts. Yet very many younger Americans will expect them as part of the American way of life even abroad. The percentage of young men entering the

Service who are married is doubtless far greater than it used to be 25 years ago. Family status certainly creates a demand in the Service for familiar comforts.

The disadvantage of the excellent administration which can provide such services is not so much the expense as the isolation from the local community which may accidentally result from its efforts. If the chief of mission is an oldtimer he can recall a day when everybody seemed to get along fairly well without most of the assistance one now receives. But his job is to get the most out of a happy, productive staff and he will therefore try to strike a balance between his own Spartan pretensions and a more modern standard. The chief of mission must, of course, leave to his deputy chief of mission and administrative officers most detailed and day-to-day responsibilities for budget and fiscal work, general services, some kinds of personnel work, and communications and records. At no time, however, should it be possible to mistake the chief's restraint or the way he budgets his time for lack of interest or attention. Nothing can better preserve morale nor cure ills more readily than visits by him to these operations and an occasional shakedown inspection by him or his deputy chief of mission.

The Foreign Service Inspection Corps has made remarkable contributions to the efficiency and responsiveness of the Service since its establishment on an expanded scale some years ago. It should by no means be limited to the administrative services. Our Inspection Corps differs from most similar groups in the service of other countries in its concern for the substantive work of the mission and how it is being discharged. It is obvious that the ability of the Corps to perform in the substantive field depends upon the selection of superior individuals for this service. Their reports should have high-level distribution and a summary of them should permit those in authority to make a rapid overall estimate of the state of the Service as a whole. A number of chiefs of mission have suggested the possibility of increased decentralization of authority in the field. This is particularly desirable in the unstandardized conditions in lesser developed countries. It is to be hoped that the Department of State will undertake a survey of the possibilities.

The task of coordinating the various missions and keeping track of assigned projects is one which the Ambassador will share with the deputy chief of mission. No position in the Service is trickier and has fewer guidelines than that of the DCM. The job is not codified, its responsibilities are not precise, and the way it is handled depends so much on relations between the Ambassador and the DCM and the way their personalities mesh. The chief of mission ought to be able to pick his own DCM or to give the departmental personnel people a short slate of nominees.

In the Ambassador/DCM relationship either may gravitate toward executive direction while the other concentrates on writing and planning.

In the typical arrangement, the DCM will serve as chief of staff, exercising overall direction in the Ambassador's name, especially on projects which involve more than one section or agency of the combined mission. Ideally he will be the alter ego of the chief, replacing him without a policy break in his absence, and alternating with him

on trips within the country, so that the mission can accomplish a wider and indispensable travel program.

The DCM and the chief will have the task of welding a unit out of the diverse missions in the embassy and the different kinds of people who compose them. In very recent years, these relationships seem to have shaken down better than in the postwar period, during the acute phase of successive reforms aimed at wider integration of the separate services. The Foreign Service has finally acquired a better understanding of the contribution of military and economic aid and of the uses of the informational machinery of USIS. At the same time, the career principle is being more widely installed in the newer services. In the less developed countries, the rapport between agencies ought to be all the closer, since it is easier for all involved to perceive the common problem and to measure the impact of team operations. This awareness ought to surmount such petty administrative problems as differences in allowances, housing, and position on the diplomatic list. Haggling can perhaps never be ended altogether, but encouraging progress has been made.

This observer is not one who believes that all civilian services abroad can or ought to be completely amalgamated, homogenized and run as one. There is bound to be a permanent core of diplomatists, recruited at the bottom, bred to Service disciplines, available for service anywhere, subject to selection-out procedures, and, in the main, composed of generalists rather than specialists. There is also bound to exist, as long as the United States continues aid abroad of the present type, several groups of specialists of shorter tenure, recruited for specific jobs, and assigned levels commensurate with their age and experience.

The Foreign Service ought to take very liberal views of such things as interchange and transfer between services, shared regulations, and analogous treatment, lateral entry into the Service, and the assignment of temporary personnel to key posts in missions abroad.

Most Foreign Service officers would now agree that the Wriston reforms (named after a vigorous educator and friend of the Service) were beneficial, especially in making talents in the Department and the Foreign Service interchangeable and available to a single career. The program seems, however, to have been less realistic in the scope of the merger it contemplated, and in the speed at which it proposed to move. The departmental and Foreign Service combination, limited as it has had to be, has yielded good results. However, the attempt in the field service, to bring into the Foreign Service Officer Corps, at ranks commensurate with length of service and pay scales, various administrative specialists (e.g., some communications personnel, garage superintendents, etc.) has not been invariably successful and has had to a certain extent to be undone.

The Foreign Service seems entitled to some assurances that it will continue to exist as a career service (just as the armed services exist) and will not be submerged and transformed into some foreign extension of the domestic civil service. Perhaps it needs a breather from continuous reorganizations, for a short time anyway.

One prime justification for the career Foreign Service is its ability to supply men of all ranks for service in the more rugged and undeveloped areas who are actually better than they need to be to hold down