Foreign Service officers of career ambassadors, career ministers, and FS0-1 level by fiscal year

Percent of Foreign Service officers to be promoted to F80-1 level1

1 For statistical purposes the number of Foreign Service officers used in this report do not include CA, CM, and FSO-1's.

Career ambassadors, career ministers, and Foreign Service officers, class 1, who entered the Foreign Service in the junior grades ▲F80–8, 7, 6 or comparable) as of June 30, 1964

Senator PELL. I was also struck by your reference to the three great callings the clergy, the teaching profession and the military profession. I once considered the one, and I tried the other two, and I thought politics might be added because it combines elements of all three. I am not sure that is a valid point.

I was wondering what your reaction was to the rather trite comment by Von Moltke who said in substance that if an officer was energetic and intelligent, he should go on the staff; if he was intelligent and unenergetic, he was suited for high command; if he was not too intelligent nor too energetic, he was suited for normal command; and if he was stupid and energetic he should be quickly fired.

Colonel LINCOLN. There is folklore about the latter category that General Patton commented that you should just shoot him and push him in the ditch before he gets you in trouble.

Senator PELL. Two minor points: Speaking to you as an intellectual at the academy, why do you use the word "counter-insurgency"? To my mind that is a very dangerous word, indeed, because actually we encourage some kinds of insurgency. Most of us would not be here if we had not been insurgents in politics, and I thought we ought to get away from this phrase because it looks as if we want to discourage insurgency. That is not true for a nation born in revolution.

I have tried with the Joint Chiefs and with the Secretaries to get this thought across. We ought to leave that word behind us omit it from our arsenal of words and use some other word.

Colonel LINCOLN. I couldn't agree with you more. The difficulty is that it has become so imbedded in the vernacular that it is the word you use when you want to create a particular image nowadays of a type of problem and a type of operation. It was given great status, I believe, at the start by being used in a speech or press conference by President Kennedy, and it has now permeated all down through the schooling system.

I am aware that the intellectuals in the State Department and the Government structure generally, and some people in the Pentagon, would like to find another term. I believe we are now trying to use "internal defense." I would be much happier using "internal defense", but I am using, in effect, the vernacular, which I didn't need to in this distinguished gathering, to express a thought that was the same as yours.

A full description of "counter-insurgency" is: "Helping new nations through the modernization barrier while preserving internal defense." The "new nations" are, implicitly, less developed-sometimes "traditional societies"; the "internal defense" is at the minimum insurance against communist takeover. If the Senator can find one dramatic, acceptable term for all that-many will be grateful.

We deal with a rate of transition that is revolutionary, a transition which is a mixture of matters poltical, economic and social. The movement is to a new order. Such a transition inevitably involves exercise of power and struggles for power. Such struggles often develop to use of force, a form of power. Hence military resources are always the backdrop against which the transition takes place and sometimes move onto the stage.

Senator PELL. May I have inserted in the record at this point a statement on the subject of counter-insurgency?

Senator JACKSON. Certainly.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT BY SENATOR CLAIBORNE PELL ON THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE, AUGUST 8, 1963

Mr. President: I should like to call the attention of the Senate to a semantic skirmish in the battle of words and labels which is such an important part of the Cold War. It is a skirmish, too, which we are completely losing.

I speak of our choice of the phrase "counter insurgency" whereby we damage our own cause and unwittingly aid our enemies.

Our policy is not to counter insurgency, but to support democratic insurgency. In many parts of the world today, we are encouraging and conducting socalled "counter insurgency" operations. Here in Washington we speak of "counter insurgency" measures and "counter insurgency" planning, and we refer to "counter insurgency" as a desirable and necessary form of activity.

We all realize that this form of activity, the combating by unorthodox means of various Communist regimes and Communist-sponsored guerrilla activity, is both a necessary and a desirable policy. However, when we use the phrase "counter insurgency" to describe these operations, I believe we damage the image the world should have of our Nation and our purpose. By our very use of this phrase, our Nation indicates our opposition to "insurgency" or "insurgent activities." Surely this is not the image we wish to project in the developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Actually, when the objectives of insurgents in any part of the world are freedom, liberty, or independence our policy cannot be described as one of "counter insurgency." Rather, it is just the opposite-we support this type of “democratic insurgency."

To be more personal for a moment, let us elected politicians look at ourselves. Many of us won our first election as "insurgents"! Almost every free nation was originally born in insurgency, and our United States was no exception. In our current battle for the minds of men, it seems to me that such distinctions are truly important. We must take care to tell the world clearly and concisely just what we stand for and just what we are trying to do. In this instance, I believe that we are being careless and unclear in our choice of words. In fact, we are saying just the opposite of what we mean. By doing this, our motives can easily be distorted in the minds of people who should be our friends. It seems to me, therefore, that it's time for a semantic shift. Our cause will be stronger for it.

Accordingly, I urge that steps be taken within the Executive branch of the Government to substitute for the negative and inappropriate phrase "counter insurgency" a positive term more genuinely descriptive of our actions and attitudes. Such a positive term would be "democratic insurgency." Or, we could speak of "internal defense" or the encouraging of "counter guerrilla" or "freedom fighting" activities.

Senator PELL. I was interested in your views with regard to academy appointments, because we have the responsibility for appointing young men. I know the system that I and my colleague have evolved is one of going on the basis of straight marks. I think it is highly unsatisfactory. We do not take into account motivation, and yet in order to keep the thing perhaps as uncontroversial as possible, we do it on this basis.

It seems to me we on the Hill would be well out of the academy appointments role, and I was wondering what your view was of that. Colonel LINCOLN. I have a rather definite view on that.

Senator PELL. I am a Coast Guard officer myself, and I rather like the appointment system we have.

Colonel LINCOLN. I believe in the geographical appointment system, if only from the practical political standpoint, that we need the country behind us and the Congress behind us at these academies. But

I believe firmly in Congressmen making nominations, but nominating without designation, and let the academies pick the man out of six, I guess the law now reads.

Senator MILLER. Four for West Point.

Colonel LINCOLN. I think we are going in the new law to five. Certainly the Air Force Academy and West Point have very professional entrance programs now. I can't comment on the Naval Academy because I don't know them at all, but I know well both the Air Force Academy and the Military Academy.

We have very professional entrance systems, professional registrars and professional registrar staffs. We have the closest collaboration with civilian colleges who are studying how to do this thing.

So I think you could well put the faith in our system to pick the best man out of the five. I could go into detail for an hour.

Senator JAVITS. Colonel Lincoln, I have one question which interests me greatly.

I am interested in one line in your statement, which you and I have discussed before. It is where you say: "Nor do I list the 'defense intellectuals', whoever they are."

As a staff officer myself, and in my relation to professional officers, of whom you are an extraordinarily brilliant example, I have been troubled by how you did bring the brilliant civilian mind to the highest level of your own decision. Now, when I was there, and I think the practice has been pursued since, there was a tremendously laborious process of trying to drag in good civilian thinking and it very rarely, in my judgment, had the impact that it should. It only percolated through to the top where the decision was made through a lot of people who may have disagreed with it or may not have thought too much of it, or were kind of more or less inclined to dismiss it. I think that the military forces only really get the brilliant civilian thinking from contractors where you have a specific thing that you are trying to accomplish, or from the occasional enlightenment of a particular commander in calling in high-level people, because they are all available to him.

For myself, I have always been troubled by the fact that we have some brilliant thinking in this country, and how does it get brought into the decisionmaking process at the top in our military establishment? What are the techniques for that, if any? What thinking has been done about it?

Colonel LINCOLN. I have two comments. The first one is very firm. I don't like this term "defense intellectuals," and I guess it is a little unpopular in the Pentagon, but it is being used rather widely, and for what it is worth, I consider that it should be applied equally to some people in civilian clothes and to a very large number of individuals in uniform.

After all, General Taylor is a Defense intellectual, taking the precise meaning of the words, and General Goodpaster, and General Wheeler are Defense intellectuals. There are a large and increasing number of younger officers who are able to think and talk and debate with the best individuals in civilian clothes on these terrible, difficult problems we face in national security.

Now, as to the procedures in bringing people in, one can select an individual, or individuals, and put him in a position of formal re

sponsibility and perhaps the best example is the arrival of Mr. Hitch, supported by Dr. Enthoven whom this committee might like to talk to sometime.

Senator JACKSON. I have talked with him. By the way, he comes from my home area, Seattle, Washington.

Colonel LINCOLN. You will find Dr. Enthoven has some very interesting ideas on the topic that we are here discussing. I think that he would support most of the things that have been said here. This method of placing outside thinkers in positions of authority is one way to do it. This method causes strains, which have been reported in the press. The method, however, at times may be the least worse way to handle the matter.

You, of course, are not often going to get these people full-time and you are not going to keep them very long.

Another way is the consultant or board of consultants. If military leadership wants to use these individuals, the board can be a very powerful consulting, reporting organization, or very useful in pushing forward ideas, in analyzing proposals, and in requiring that the broader view be taken.

Senator JAVITS. I would hope that our staff, in preparing what will result from these hearings, would give consideration to the actual state of the utilization of civilian brains by our whole defense establishment, and make comparisons with the NIH in its war on disease and so on.

Other agencies of Government have rather elaborate set-ups for advice of that kind, including the National Security Council-let us see if we should make some recommendation for a formalization of a really high-level consultative body to deal with our armed forces, and endeavor to bring the impact of the best national thinking that we have on their problems.

Senator JACKSON. Just as a point, in the area of science we do have a lot of advisory committees made up of extremely competent, professional people. We have the Science Advisory Committee to the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Army, as well as one in the Defense Department. The Armed Services have many ad hoc groups that are brought in from time to time-there is a long list of such committees and groups. But we will check on that.

Senator JAVITS. I think it is well worth looking into, as well as the contract arrangements with universities and so on.

Senator JACKSON. There is of course the Rand Corporation, and similar groups.

Senator JAVITS. I think that there is some remarkably good thinking in the country. I have always worried about whether in this indispensable, critical area, we were really delivering to the point of contact everything that we have available back in the zone of the interior.

Colonel LINCOLN. Could I make another comment to this, sir? I think a most desirable way for the introduction of this resource comes through easy interplay between military people and the minds that we are speaking about here.

That comes about as the individuals know each other, or the categories know each other. Now, the officer who has been personally acquainted with this type of individual, maybe not the specific in