sonnel of the Department of Defense who are stationed at diplomatic missions. The second stage, to begin perhaps after a year or two of experience and adjustment, would involve the additional overseas civilian staffs of the permanent departments. The third stage, to follow after further experience and adjustment, would involve consideration of the inclusion of any remaining overseas civilian staffs and of those staffs at home substantially concerned with foreign affairs programs. Whether certain marginal groups should be included in the foreign affairs personnel system could then be determined upon the basis of a body of experience not earlier available. Alien staffs abroad would continue to be administered as a separate category within the foreign affairs personnel system, under policies and procedures intended to bring about consistency so far as feasible in the treatment of alien personnel of the several agencies operating abroad in the same localities.

The main technical problem that will remain after the creation of a new foreign affairs personnel system is the issue of transferability of staff between the new system and the civil service personnel system. The removal of barriers to staff mobility should be a prime concern of those who develop the new system. There would seem to be no good reason why, given cooperative intentions, the eligibility of staff members to transfer between the two services should not be made as clear and as workable as such transfers are now within the regular civil service. The present barriers are many and complex; but the creation of a new foreign affairs personnel system would seem to provide opportunity for minimizing, if not for almost completely removing, these barriers. Mobility and interchangeability of staffs in the whole civilian personnel field should be seen as a basic objective of policy and practice.

This new foreign affairs personnel system should permit an emphasis upon program staffing at least as clear as that presented in alternative 3 of issue 2, which proposes a combination of the program and career concepts. The most important requirement in this matter is that official personnel doctrine should be modified to include recognition of program staffing as a legitimate personnel concept, not merely its recognition as a concession to emergency conditions. Program staffing is a necessary and desirable concept in foreign affairs personnel administration. It provides the main foundations for securing the specialization and the adaptability required for foreign affairs staffs in assuming the new and expanding responsibilities of present and future programs. It is, in fact, an indispensable concept in staffing any programs that are new in content or magnitude.

The retention within the new foreign affairs personnel system of a protected career group, analogous to the present Foreign Service Officer Corps, is a separate question. The advantages and disad

vantages of such a career group are much debated, and there is no immediate prospect of any widely accepted resolution of the debate. The most practical disposition of the matter for the time being would seem to call for the continuance of this kind of an identified career group within a broad and flexible foreign affairs personnel system. In such circumstances the value of a separate executive career group can be further tested in comparison with the less protected career groups and with the groups recruited through the use of the concept of program staffing. The successful establishment of a new foreign affairs personnel system depends basically upon a clear and unequivocal fixing of responsibility for initial administrative leadership in the development of a personnel program which will make possible the proper staffing of foreign affairs agencies. For this purpose the location of central leadership and responsibility in the Executive Office of the President seems indispensable. There are at least two organizational arrangements for accomplishing this; they are discussed as alternative 4 and alternative 5 under issue 3 in this chapter. The fourth alternative would seem, under the initial circumstances and as a temporary measure, to have a clear superiority in its prospects for securing action on the problem here under consideration.

Accordingly, we favor the designation or appointment, within the Executive Office of the President, of an administrative assistant to the President with a small high-quality supporting staff, who would devote himself intensively to the problems of foreign affairs personnel administration for a period of at least 1 to 3 years. The initial assignment of this new unit should be to develop as expeditiously as possible, in consultation with interested agencies, a proposed statutory definition of the basic concepts needed for foreign affairs personnel administration, and to supply the leadership and staff work necessary for assisting in its enactment into law. Accompanying this assignment, and hardly less important, is the task of developing proposed arrangements for personnel administration which would be consistent with and would insure, so far as possible, the carrying out of the new objectives to be established in legislation. Upon the enactment of the new statutory foundations for an improved foreign affairs personnel administration, the responsibilities of the unit, in collaboration with the agencies concerned, would consist of the development, drafting, and submission to the President of appropriate Executive orders and foreign affairs personnel regulations.

Thereafter the future of the unit would appropriately be subject to reconsideration. If the unit were to be continued on an indefinite or permanent basis, presumably it would be responsible for the audit of agency performance in foreign personnel administration, the provision of leadership in the continued improvement of foreign affairs personnel administration, and participation in the recruitment, selec

tion, and development of top-level executive personnel for foreign affairs programs.

The importance of the ultimate goal of a more unified Federal personnel program for all civilian employees of the executive branch has long been recognized; its desirability has been stressed by the Brownlow Committee, the Hoover Commission, and other studies.

Accordingly, if a special unit to deal with matters of foreign affairs personnel administration is established in the Executive Office on either a temporary or indefinite basis, one of the major responsibilities of the head of the unit should be to consider from time to time, together with the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, how the two major personnel systems-the civil service and the foreign affairs system-might be brought to the stage of unification under a single center of responsibility for all civilian personnel administration. The ultimate administrative arrangements for central personnel administration, however, cannot at present be clearly foreseen; and that is why we favor initially a temporary arrangement to deal specifically with the problem with which we are here concerned.

Conclusions

1. Prompt and adequate staffing of the agencies, mobility and interchangeability in the staffs, adequate specialization and training of the personnel, pre-indoctrination for overseas service, continuing development of potential leadership personnel, and the progressive adaptation of personnel policies and techniques to managerial necessities are the goals of effective personnel administration for foreign affairs agencies.

2. Greater decentralization of personnel authority and responsibility to the agencies responsible for foreign programs is desirable, coupled with general policy supervision from a central source. Within agencies, there should be greater delegation of authority and responsibility to heads of overseas establishments and missions than is generally the practice at present.

3. The recomendations of the Hoover Commission and of the Rowe Committee are for changes in the direction of an expanded and simplified foreign affairs personnel system. This is desirable and should be pressed, particularly insofar as it can be accomplished through administrative action. There is need for the development of a longrange program involving new basic personnel legislation, which would contemplate the creation of a foreign affairs personnel system inclusive of all, or nearly all, civilian foreign affairs staffs at home and abroad. The first stage in such a program could appropriately include the personnel of the Department of State and the Foreign Service, the home and overseas staffs of the Economic Cooperation Adminis

tration, and the civilian personnel of the Department of Defense who are stationed at diplomatic missions abroad.

4. Program staffing is a necessary and desirable concept in foreign affairs personnel administration. It should not be adopted to the exclusion of the career staffing concept, but should be recognized as legitimate and essential in a balanced approach to the expanding responsibilities of foreign affairs staffs. The new foreign affairs personnel system should give full recognition to the concept of program staffing.

5. The successful establishment of a new foreign affairs personnel system depends upon a clear and unequivocal fixing of responsibility for administrative leadership during the initial period. We therefore favor the designation or appointment, within the Executive Office of the President, of an administrative assistant to the President who would devote himself intensively to the problems of foreign affairs personnel administration for a period of 1 to 3 years, with the assistance of a small high-quality supporting staff. It would be the initial assignment of this unit to develop the necessary legislative proposals in consultation with interested agencies and to be of assistance during the period of their congressional consideration. Upon the enactment of basic legislation, the unit would concern itself with the preparation of such Executive orders and foreign affairs personnel regulations as would then be needed. Thereafter the future of the unit would be subject to reconsideration, taking into account such progress as may have occurred in the general development of the central personnel institutions of the Government.

CHAPTER IX

COORDINATION THROUGH INTERDEPART

MENTAL COMMITTEES

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

As earlier chapters of this report have indicated, a characteristic feature of the executive branch at the present time is the increasing use of interdepartmental committees in situations where there is a need for interdepartmental coordination. This tendency to establish committees is a reflection of the growing problems of coordination throughout the executive branch. Those problems are nowhere more conspicuous than in connection with the administration of foreign affairs. They exist both in Washington and in the foreign field services overseas, with a growing tendency to use committees in both cases.

The methods for bringing together points of view and for securing decisions on matters of interest to several agencies can in general be classified into two main groups, within each of which various subdivisions can be distinguished. One group of methods is essentially voluntary in character, and relies mainly upon cooperation among the agencies concerned, however such cooperation is organized. The other group of methods looks to the exercise of higher authority, and relies mainly upon processes of organization and staff work that will prepare matters for decision and bring them before an appropriate higher official, in many cases the President. The voluntary methods range from the most informal of relationships between agency personnel to the formal establishment of interdepartmental committees whose terms of reference are imbedded in statute law. The methods based on higher authority may similarly vary from the gentlest kind of persuasive comment by members of a higher official's staff to the issuance of a formal command in the form of an Executive order, backed by the President's authority to remove from office if final disciplinary measures become necessary.

On

The two groups of methods can be distinguished, but it should not be supposed that they are necessarily independent of each other. the contrary, voluntary methods may prove futile as a means of reaching agreement in the absence of firm support and encouragement

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