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But I don't think that there is any easy answer. I think it is a question of training the best human material that you can find into exercising the necessary quality of judgment in order to distinguish the important from the very important and from the trivial and deciding what can wait, and what the President must know within an hour of its arrival in the Department.

Mr. ENGBERG. That brings up the last question I had.

Ambassador MERCHANT. This sounds defeatist but it comes down to men.

Mr. ENGBERG. That is what we want. This brings up another question

Ambassador MERCHANT. Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but don't misunderstand me. There are things that you can do. There are a lot of things that have been done and maybe we will find other devices. For example, we have the establishment of the Secretary's secretariat, by General Marshall, I think. It was an enormous step forward in the Department of State to insure that the Assistant Secretary concerned and the Secretary and the President were kept as instantly informed of what was truly important as human judgment could devise. And I think that you can make organizational improvements. But fundamentally it comes down to the quality of your men and the existence of judgment.

Mr. ENGBERG. In relationship to this matter of communications, including some of the ideas the committee members have presented about related agencies and the different departments, and in view of your very extensive experience, what is your reaction to a top coordi nating agency such as the National Security Council or something similar, in coordinating the entire foreign policy field? We can't get away from the fact that foreign policy and domestic policy in the different departments are all vitally interested in all of these particular situations.

The President has to make a final decision.

Ambassador MERCHANT. I feel very strongly, sir, that under our Constitution and under our traditions and by experience and thought has been applied to this problem by many people I feel strongly that nothing should be organizationally done which downgrades the Office of Secretary of State. There is obviously the final role of coordination which could be said to be the marriage, I suppose, of domestic policy, military policy, and foreign policy in dozens of questions a year. Only the President can make these decisions. That is the burden of his Office, or one of the burdens of his Office. To the extent that coordination can and must be delegated in the general field of foreign policy, I think the Secretary of State has to exercise this as the first Cabinet Officer.

I think the President must always support the Secretary of State and the authority of his Office. I think the President obviously must be served by a small but extremely talented staff-but staff and not line people-operating in this complex field of foreign relations, including defense strategy and problems. I think the Secretary of State has to be clearly first among equals. He can't overrule the Secretary of Defense, but I think that the Secretary of Defense in any Cabinet must have a clear understanding of the all encompassing responsibilities of the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State can never overrule the Secretary of Defense and there should be cases where he will persuade him, but if there is a continuing difference of view only the President himself can resolve that. I think it is essential for orderly government under our Constitution that this principle be maintained.

Mr. ENGBERG. That is all, Senator Jackson, and thank you.

Senator JACKSON. Mr. Ambassador, in response to the many ques tions that we have asked you, you have given us much helpful advice and counsel which I trust will reach the right places. We are hopeful that something constructive will come out of the series of hearings that we have held in this field. We are most appreciative to you and grateful.

Ambassador MERCHANT. I am very appreciative of having had a chance to sit here and discuss these important matters. I would repeat, I think the work that your subcommittee is doing, Senator, is of utmost value. You have approached the whole problem so constructively and it is one of the great examples of the unique wisdom of our Founding Fathers, I think, in the Constitution. You are doing something here which I don't think could be done by the executive branch and I don't think it could be done by any outsider-any outside experts or consultants or anyone.

I only hope, and I am sure it will be the case, that to the extent that your conclusions affect the Foreign Service and the Department of State that they will be given the attention they obviously deserve.

Senator JACKSON. We thank you very much. We have been aided by very fine members of the committee and by an excellent staff, which is crucial.

We will, of course, welcome any other comments you might wish to send us, which we could include in our record.

(Text of letter from Ambassador Livingston T. Merchant, March 2, 1964.)

Hon. HENRY M. JACKSON,

U.S. Senator.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 2, 1964.

DEAR SENATOR: In connection with my appearance before the Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations on February 27, I did not find the occasion to discuss one matter relating to the organization of the State Department. If there is any appropriate fashion in which this letter could be appended to or otherwise related to my testimony, I would be most appreciative.

I strongly recommend the concept that the existing position of Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs be customarily filled by a Foreign Service officer and that the tradition be further established that a change in the incumbent is not made except under unusual circumstances, where there is a change of administration in the White House. I make this recommendation with high admiration for Averell Harriman who now occupies that position and who happily comes as close to being a professional Foreign Service officer as any non-FSO can. And certainly I would not want my recommendation to be construed other than as inaugurating the custom in the future and in normal course.

My reasons for the proposal are twofold. First, it would insure continuity at a very high level in the State Department hierarchy

which would be of particular value when administrations change. Second, it would not only, I believe, improve the morale of the entire Foreign Service but I think in the long run it would favorably affect the quality of young officers being recruited into the Service. I believe that the Foreign Service contains and must in the future continue to seek men of such outstanding ability who are entitled to such an opportunity for recognition of their talents and need to have the possibility of achievement of such a role of responsibility to keep them at full stretch. Incidentally it is a practice long ago adopted and followed by the British and French.

There are several objections which can be raised with this suggestion. The first is that it would be unjust and unfair to the Foreign Service in general and to a Foreign Service officer appointed to the position because of the inevitable exposure to public and at times even partisan attack. My reply is that this sort of heat can equally expose an Assistant Secretary or an Ambassador and yet appointment to such positions of Foreign Service officers is common practice. Moreover I do not know any Foreign Service officer worth his salt who would not philosophically, if not happily, accept such risks in exchange for the satisfaction of serving the country in such high office. Second, it can be said that there is no assurance the Foreign Service will produce men of the quality and caliber to fill such a responsible office. To say this is contrary to past experience when one considers the success of professional diplomats running from Grew and even earlier Under Secretaries of State on through such men as Doc Matthews and Bob Murphy. I believe the Foreign Service will continue to produce a spate of qualified officers. In any event I am not suggesting that this be made a matter of statute but rather one of practice developing into tradition. This would meet the argument that a time might come when no suitable, qualified officer seemed available. The third argument against establishing this practice is to cite the obvious right of the President to be served in positions of high responsibility by men of his own choosing. Nothing in my suggestion would prevent a President from making a change whenever he desired for whatever reason. I would, however, submit that wisdom would merely argue against making a change in the holder of this position in the early months of any new administration when the thread of continuing experience is so important in assuring the continuity of coherent foreign policy.

I hope that this suggestion will commend itself to you and your colleagues on the subcommittee. Thank you again for all your courtesy. Sincerely yours,

LIVINGSTON T. MERCHANT.

Senator JACKSON. I wanted to state that we will hold the record of this hearing open for a memorandum which we have requested from the Honorable Edmund Gullion, until just recently our Ambassador to the Congo, on the subject of our hearing today.

(Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned subject to call of the Chair.)

(The memorandum of Ambassador Gullion follows:)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY SENATOR HENRY M. JACKSON

The subcommittee is happy to be able to include in its record a memorandum by the Honorable Edmund A. Gullion, career Minister, and most recently U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo.

We requested Ambassador Gullion to prepare a statement containing comments on the main points which he thought we should consider and reflect upon, and he has responded with this lucid and thoughtful contribution.

Ambassador Gullion is a career Foreign Service officer of 27 years, who has come up through the ranks to the top position of Chief of Mission. He has served abroad in a series of posts in Europe, the Far East, and Africa, and at home in a variety of assignments in the Department of State, including the policy planning staff.

Ambassador Gullion has just completed a 22-year tour of duty in one of the Nation's most difficult and sensitive posts-we are grateful that he was able to give us this helpful statement just at this time.

THE AMERICAN DIPLOMATIST IN DEVELOPING

COUNTRIES

By Hon. Edmund A. Gullion

(Career Minister and, recently, Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo) Memorandum for Senate Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations

(March 23, 1964)

I. THE NEW ENVIRONMENT

All of us are still under the sway of President Kennedy's powerful, positive concept of the Presidency-a leading, creative, wide-ranging force in American life, culture, government, and foreign affairs.

Mr. Kennedy had a matching concept for the Department of State. From the outset of his Presidency he wanted to restore to it primacy in the conduct of foreign relations. He reversed a tendency to consider the Department as but one of many agencies involved in external affairs. He cut back the undergrowth of interdepartmental committees in the management of foreign policy. He summoned the Department of State to guide the work of other agencies within the framework of that policy.

Part of the Kennedy plan was to strengthen the hands of the American ambassador abroad. In addition to a direct and sometimes disconcerting personal interest in the problems of particular missions, this took the form of explicit instructions from the President enjoining all American ambassadors to grasp leadership of American Government activities in their areas, and to make the best contribution they knew how to policy formation.

If it had become easy to think of the chief of mission as typically the agent of policy, reduced by modern communications to the role of mere executant, this was not the Kennedy idea.

Just as he saw the Presidency as a restless, inquiring, energizing force, so he strove to pass this impulse all through the executive chain of command, at home and to our missions abroad.

In this dynamic kind of diplomacy, the chief of mission was to be considerably more than chairman of the board, a distinguished American symbol, a gracious host, and the passive editor of his staff's reporting.

Nowhere was there to be found a greater challenge to an ambassador's creativity, stamina, flexibility and foresight than in new and lesser developed countries.

From 1946 on, as scores of new nations surged onto the world stage, the U.S. Government moved with creditable speed to create pioneer embassies in the new countries. The measure of the gap we had to fill is revealed in the figures:

In 1939 we had 46 diplomatic posts in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. That number has since grown very little. But then we had only 11 posts in Asia and Africa and today we have 64. Even in the brief period since the war, the roster of countries has exactly doubled-from 57 to 114.'

The new countries are jealously nationalistic. They are still evolving their own character, institutions, and ways of looking at the outside world, including the United States. They may adhere to patterns inherited from the former colonial power, or they may break sharply with precedent. The only safe prediction for them is their unpredictability.

Looming before them and confusing their choice is the competition between the free world and Communist patterns of social organization. The conduct of U.S. missions in such countries takes on a character very different from that in more settled areas.

It is no derogation of the major importance for U.S. foreign relations of the great historic capitals, to observe that the U.S. embassy in such places accounts for relatively less of the total contact of the United States with the host country than do American missions in many newer countries of Asia and Africa.

If we conceive of the overall relations of the United States with a given country in terms of a "pie chart," then the section of the pie represented by the U.S. Embassy in London or Ottawa or Stockholm will be relatively small. The widest arc of the pie will be composed of segments representing ties of business-to-business, family-to-family, history-to-history, institution-to-institution, travel and tourism and all the myriad contacts which relate the more established nations in the world community to one another.

But if we consider the Embassy in, say, Amman, or Dar-es-Salaam, or Vientiane, the sector of the pie representing its relative responsibility for contacts with the host government and peoples, it will be seen to take up practically the whole plate.

These new countries comprise the area in which most U.S. economic aid is concentrated. Their borders often constitute the frontier of freedom of which the United States is the principal defender. Yet the unofficial U.S. presence in these areas, our investments, and, often, our knowledge and historic ties are less than commonly supposed.

Most new countries are former colonies. We may have shared some dramatic moments of history with them, but it is sometimes forgotten

1 "The Reallocation of World Responsibilities," Under Secretary George Ball, Department of State Bulletin, p. 287, Feb. 24, 1964.

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