In support of this alternative it is stated that the development of foreign policy objectives and the framing of foreign policies and program proposals is a field in which the Department of State performs best. The Department, it is said, is well organized for these purposes. Its face-to-face contacts with other governments, its possession of foreign intelligence, its research and analysis organization, and its policy planning staff, indeed, are said to form the indispensable background for these functions. Moreover, it can be shown that the impetus for most of the foreign programs adopted in the last 5 years came, in an organized way, from the Department of State. The GreekTurkish aid program, the European recovery program, the North Atlantic Treaty, and the mutual defense assistance program all either originated or were developed in the Department. On the basis of this record it can be argued that no other agency is so well equipped to perform these functions.

Within the field of responsibilities covered by this alternative, the Department of State, it is argued, must act as an adviser and assistant to the President. All these functions are the primary responsibility of the President himself; but they are ones for which he needs systematic and organized help of the kind that only an institution such as the Department is able to give him. The special relationship of the Department to the President, the argument continues, requires it to take the initiative in securing the coordination of all aspects of foreign activities throughout the Government. Extensive coordination has been required in support of every major program proposal submitted to Congress since the end of the war, and the Department has been the agency primarily responsible. Review of objectives, policies, and programs, in the light of performance, might be said to be a logical outgrowth of the exercise of these functions.

The argument against this alternative is directed not so much against the participation of the Department of State in these fields; it is directed rather against any attempt to secure an exclusive or fixed position for the Department. The argument is not only that these functions must be shared, both with other departments and agencies, and with units in the Executive Office of the President; it is also that the lead in particular cases must be taken by the agency primarily concerned with the subject matter involved, or by the agency that the President designates. The Department of State, it is conceded, will have a permanent interest in the matters covered by this alternative, and should always participate in decisions concerning them. But it does not necessarily follow that the Department should always have the leading role.

The functions under discussion are in essence the giving of foreign policy advice to the President. The President should always be in a position to make up his own mind as to where he wishes to

obtain his advice, and as to the soundness of the advice he receives. He should not be hampered in this sphere by any predetermination of his relationship to his own principal subordinates.

On the basis of such arguments, the departments and agencies involved in foreign activities tend to argue that the conception of the Department of State as a staff aide to the President, in any way that distinguishes its relation to the President from their own, is false. They accept the Secretary of State as the principal adviser to the President on matters of foreign policy; but they argue that this is a functional responsibility that is on all fours with those of other Cabinet departments in their own fields. They seriously resist any suggestion that the responsibilities of the Department of State place it in a superior position to themselves regarding the foreign aspects of their own subject matter interests.

Alternative 3 is the additional responsibility for the development and coordination of program plans and their presentation to Congress.

The argumentation on this alternative has two main aspects. The first is the responsibility for the initial development of program plans, and the first presentation to Congress. The second is the responsibility for subsequent program planning and congressional presentation. In regard to the first aspect of the question it may be argued that program planning and the initial presentation of program proposals to Congress are a secondary stage in the process of foreign policy planning itself. It is essential at this stage to demonstrate in some detail how the proposed objectives are to be met; how much weight the program is to carry in the total foreign effort; how the proposed cost of the program is to be justified; and how administrative arrangements for the program are to be established. These questions are said to be closely allied to the special responsibilities of the Department of State to the President, and it is argued, therefore, that the Department should be responsible for coordinating them on a permanent basis.

On the other hand, it may also be contended that the jurisdictional interests of the Department of State may warp its views on such matters, especially on the issue of program administration. The presentation of a proposed program to Congress, particularly an important foreign program, needs the support of all interested agencies of the executive branch. At the same time, other departments and agencies may not wish to be coordinated by the Department of State on questions that affect their own relations with Congress. This will be particularly the case if another agency has aspirations of its own in regard to the operation of a proposed program that are at variance with the views of the Department of State. This approach to the question would conclude that an impartial agency, such as the Executive Office of the President, should be responsible for coordination of program planning and presentation to Congress.

The argument on the secondary aspect of the question is that the Department of State is concerned primarily with program plans from the point of view of consistency with foreign policy; and is also concerned with the size of the total budget for all foreign affairs activities. Finally, it is the normal channel for presenting the foreign affairs proposals of the executive branch to the committees of the Congress. These responsibilities are said to make necessary the active participation, if not control, of the Department of State in the planning and the presentation to Congress of all foreign programs.

The contrary view is that program planning and congressional presentation, once a program is in operation, should be the primary responsibility of the program agency. On the side of programing the responsible agency knows it own requirements best; on the side of congressional presentation the agency can best justify them. The total foreign affairs budget is said to be a Presidential responsibility, exercised through the Bureau of the Budget. Naturally, a program agency would seek the cooperation of the Department of State on this matter. It should not, however, be placed under the control of the Department.

Alternative 4 is the additional responsibility in Washington to coordinate and control program operations in detail in relation to foreign policy and foreign affairs.

Coordination of program administration may be deemed necessary on the following grounds. Operating personnel, faced with a multitude of day-to-day decisions, are likely to deviate from the main line of policy unless the decisions are subject to a continuous check from the source of policy. Representatives of the policy formulators need to make this check by participating in the making of operating decisions. Only in this way can effective and continuous efforts be exerted to keep operations within the framework of policy.

If this point of view is accepted, the secondary position follows that the Department of State should be primarily responsible for the coordination of operations. The Department of State has had long experience in this field, and no other agency has comparable experience. There is no other logical place to center the responsibility outside the Executive Office of the President, which is already overburdened.

A contrary point of view holds that any such philosophy of interagency relations would defeat the possibility of orderly and purposeful administration. It is the responsibility of the head of an operating agency to ensure that operations are consistent with policy. Interference in operations, under the guise of coordination, tends to break down this responsibility and defers the attainment of program goals. If the head of an agency is not able to fulfill this responsibility, he should be replaced. He should not have to suffer under a system by which subordinate personnel in another agency define policy for the benefit of his own people.

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This view does not preclude the possibility of a post-audit of administrative decisions of one agency by another agency with policy responsibilities. Some proponents of the position believe that such a post-audit is a necessary and desirable thing. It does foreclose on the implicit veto power involved in participation by policy people of one agency in the operating decisions of another. The adoption of the post-audit position would deny the Department of State responsibility for currently coordinating program administration involving other agencies.

FURTHER ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

This chapter is concerned with a problem that is broad but not unlimited, that of the proper relationship of the Department of State to the operation of foreign programs. Any conclusion on the problem in general will have implications for the specific responsibilities of the Department with respect to the programs of military and economic aid, the administration of occupied areas, and the conduct of the information program. Moreover, unless the Department is to operate all these programs, a conclusion that seems unlikely to occur in fact whatever the merits in theory, the issue arises as to the nature and extent of the Department's responsibility for securing coordination in those cases where it does not have full operational responsibility.

In the earlier discussion in this chapter of the general issue as to program operations, it was brought out that the minimum operational role is related to the concept of the Department of State as a staff agency of the President, while the maximum role is related to an administrative concept under which all work of the executive branch would be carried on through a limited number of major purpose executive departments. The issues as to program operation and coordination thus involve questions as to the general role of the Department in the Government as a whole. An attempt cannot be made here to answer those questions completely, but the present discussion must necessarily go on within a larger framework.

Status of the Department of State in the executive branch

Perhaps the most illuminating way in which to approach this complex matter initially is to ask three questions: Is the Department of State not only an executive department but also a Presidential agency such as the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion of the last war? Is it a Presidential staff agency, such as the Bureau of the Budget? Or is it an executive department with certain special characteristics but nevertheless inherently of the same organizational status as the other executive departments?

The importance of these questions arises from the potentially fundamental and far-reaching implications of status within the executive

branch. An "executive" department presumably can appropriately be given responsibility for the execution of policies; that is the main activity of most executive departments although they participate also in policy formulation. Conversely, it is ordinarily the function of a staff agency in the specialized sence to advise and assist rather than to execute, and a staff agency seldom has executive responsibility for the matters on which it prepares advice.

There is no doubt about the fact that the Department of State is legally an executive department in the full constitutional and statutory sense as now constituted. Moreover, there has never been a serious public proposal to the effect that the legal status of the Department should be changed. Nonetheless, there is sentiment to the effect that the normal status of an executive department is not well suited to the performance of many tasks of great importance for the Department of State. This in turn suggests that the Department can and should function in a dual role, both as a staff agency of the President and as an executive department. Alternatively, such suggestions might be taken to imply a need for consideration of some fundamental change by which the Department would cease to be an executive department and would be redesignated as a unit in the Executive Office of the President.

Before considering any possibility so drastic, attention should be given to the extent to which the roles outlined above are compatible with each other. In other words, if the Department of State remains an executive department, can it also act as a Presidential agency with command powers directed toward the other executive departments? Or can it act as a staff agency of the President, but without exercising command authority in its own name?

Our conclusion is that the various roles are incompatible with each other. So far as the Presidential agency concept is concerned, this has had intensive study within the Government during the last 12 months in connection with the organizational requirements arising out of the defense emergency. The view that essentially Presidential powers of a chain-of-command nature can be successfully delegated under some circumstances was basic to the creation of the Office of Defense Mobilization, but it continues to be generally agreed that the circumstances under which this is possible are rare. At the same time, it appears to have been generally agreed after intensive discussion that the delegation of such powers to any single member of the Cabinet is not consistent with workable relationships within the executive branch. As the Under Secretary of State remarked in a recent public address:

Of course, we all know that no Cabinet member can be put in the chain of command between the President and another Cabinet member. We also know that it is the rare exception for anyone in the Executive Office short of the President himself to discharge successfully a chain of command function.