The role of the Department of State in program operation and coordination

1. The issues as to the role of the Department of State in program operation and coordination involve questions relative to the general status and role of the Department in the executive branch as a whole. We conclude that while the Department has certain special characistics as an executive department, it nevertheless is and should be of the same organizational status as the other executive departments. It would be incompatible with that status to vest authority in the Department of State to direct the work of other executive departments and agencies concerned with foreign affairs. It would likewise be incompatible with the status of the Department of State as an executive department to treat it as a staff agency of the President in any specialized sense; the staff agency concept is usually understood to imply a mode of operation that would be unworkable in the case of the Department of State. A staff agency can seldom be given executive responsibility for the matters with respect to which it performs advisory functions, yet it is essential that there be an executive department with general responsibility in the field of foreign affairs.

2. Pending some resolution of the questions referred to in a previous section of this summary, which may eventually require the organization of a new Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of State should continue to serve as the executive department with general foreign affairs responsibility. Like other executive departments, it should perform major policy and operating functions within its own major purpose field. It should not take over all foreign affairs work, but it should maintain a review of all such work wherever carried on. It should give concentrated and expert attention to the major problems of foreign policy planning.

3. We are unable to accept the thesis that as a general rule the Department of State should not be given responsibility for the operation of specific foreign programs. Only in rare instances and in connection with programs of outstanding importance should it be necessary to establish new special purpose agencies for the administration of foreign programs. It would seem unwise to establish a new general purpose agency for the administration of foreign programs; the proposal for a new Administration of Overseas Affairs, to administer overseas programs other than the diplomatic and consular services, should, in our opinion, be rejected. Foreign programs should seldom be administered by departments or agencies whose concerns are mainly domestic, unless the program itself is a mixture of foreign and domestic activities in which the domestic element predominates. As the general purpose foreign affairs agency, the Department of State should ordinarily be the agency to administer foreign programs. In doing so, it should seek actively to make use where appropriate of the facilities of other agencies.

cern.

4. Every executive department should be regarded as having responsibility for leadership in securing coordination throughout the executive branch of the matters for which it has the primary conAs the general foreign affairs department of the Government, the Department of State should be regarded as having the responsibility for leadership in securing coordination throughout the executive branch of the matters with respect to which the foreign affairs interest is primary. Its responsibility in that regard is not the neutral responsibility of a staff agency assisting the President; it is a positive responsibility arising out of the major functions of the Department as an executive department. The foreign affairs aspect will not necessarily be primary in every foreign affairs matter; in those cases the Department should accept a secondary place in the coordination process. Any question of jurisdiction as to which department or agency has the primary interest, unless arising out of conflict of laws, should be settled by the President with the assistance of appropriate staff work in the Executive Office.

5. The assignment of responsibility for leadership in securing coordination at the departmental level does not imply any vesting of command authority. The assignment is to secure voluntary agreement among equals who are responsible alike to higher authority. While any participant may withhold agreement for cause, all are obligated to work together in search of agreement. The department or agency with the leadership responsibility for securing coordination has the further responsibility for promptly referring any unresolved disagreement to higher authority.

6. In program coordination, the Department of State should normally have the responsibility under the President for leadership in securing coordination in representing to other governments the views of the United States, reporting to Washington the views of those governments, and leading the necessary negotiations at the governmental and departmental levels. It should likewise be responsible in Washington for leadership in securing coordination of the views of interested agencies, preparatory to the conduct of negotiations. Ordinarily it should have the primary responsibility for securing coordination of the operations of particular programs insofar as relations with individual countries are directly affected. When the primary responsibility for a particular foreign program is vested in another agency, the Department of State should have at least a joint responsibility for negotiations at the governmental level.

7. All existing programs of military and economic aid should be directed toward the same goal in the present national defense emergency. The current diffusion of such programs, with variety in objectives as well as in administrative arrangements, is no longer appropriate. All forms of foreign aid should so far as possible be

conceived, authorized, and carried out as one program, with a single controlling declaration of policy.

8. The administration of a unified program of military and economic aid should be carried out jointly by the Department of Defense, the Economic Cooperation Administration, and the Department of State. Some form of central coordination or direction must be provided, but the method by which this is to be done with sufficient effectiveness is a matter of great difficulty and complexity. It is our conclusion that effective authority to direct the operations of all three agencies in a unified program cannot be vested in any one of them, in view of the magnitude and importance of the tasks to be performed by each of the several agencies and their status as coequals.

It may be possible, nonetheless, to secure successful program administration while relying primarily upon voluntary interagency agreement through the existing mechanism of the International Security Affairs Committee, of which the Department of State holds the chairmanship. The test of the effectiveness of this device, however, is whether three important conditions are met. One such condition is clarification of relationships between the Economic Cooperation Administration and the Department of State. Another is continued activity on the part of various units of the Executive Office of the President in support of coordination at the departmental level. A third is sufficient unity in the Government as a whole to make it possible for the Department of State to exercise effectively the leadership responsibility that has been assigned to it.

If some or all of these conditions cannot be met, it may become necessary to give further consideration to the possibility of appointing a director of military and economic aid in the Executive Office of the President. Consideration should also be given to the possibilities inherent in the further development of the National Security Council through the establishment of a full-time vice chairman with responsibility under the President for executive leadership in the coordination and execution of all phases of national security policy, including the unified program of military and economic aid. Meanwhile, the existing arrangements in the form of the International Security Affairs Committee and the Director of International Security Affairs in the Department of State should not be lightly upset. Basic policy underlying the program should continue to receive the attention of the National Security Council in the preparation of recommendations for approval by the President.

9. No change in the existing arrangements for the administration of occupied areas is recommended. Should a similar problem arise in the future, we would be doubtful as to the desirability of vesting primary administrative responsibility in the Department of State. A separate special purpose civilian agency at the seat of government

might be preferable, if the problem is not resolved by the establishment of an international administrative agency, as suggested by United Nations arrangements for Korea.

10. We believe that the existing overseas information program of the Department of State should remain under the administration of that Department and that a great part of the overseas information program of the Economic Cooperation Administration, particularly in Western Europe, should be transferred to the Department of State. Representation in foreign countries

1. The necessities of military representation appear to require the assignment of military staffs abroad. The existing organizational relationships between the military groups and the diplomatic missions at the posts abroad appear for the most part to be stable and satisfactory.

2. Country missions of the Economic Cooperation Administration should be brought into a closer relationship to the diplomatic missions than has obtained in the past, and should be under the authority of the chiefs of diplomatic missions at least to the same extent as the military aid missions. Some variation in pattern from country to country will be necessary and should be accepted; in the case of those countries with respect to which the Economic Cooperation Administration and the Department of State are able to agree, or the President so directs, there should be full consolidation under the ambassador, with transfer of administrative funds accordingly to the Department of State. The Economic Cooperation Administration should continue to be responsible for defending the estimates and authorizing expenditures in detail for personnel engaged in its work abroad, and for nominating any personnel to be appointed for duty abroad on its behalf by the Department of State.

3. Many of the interests of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor can appropriately be met abroad by personnel who are fully under the permanent jurisdiction of the Department of State; other and more specialized interests should be met by the nomination of qualified individuals for temporary duty abroad under the Department of State with the expectation of eventual return to the nominating agency. The existing arrangements for Treasury attachés appear to be working well, but in the interest of consistency it would seem desirable for those attachés to be nominated to the Department of State for appointment for their periods of duty abroad. In general, we believe that all agencies with specialized requirements for representation abroad should be permitted to detail their own employes for such service, but that ordinarily the process should consist of nominating the employees to the Department of State for temporary appointment during the period of duty abroad. The agencies

requiring the specialized work abroad should be responsible for securing the necessary funds and for making such transfers of funds. to the Department of State as are necessary to finance appropriate arrangements.

4. To the extent that there is permanent or temporary integration of other staffs into the diplomatic missions, questions as to the authority and responsibility of the ambassador for supervision and coordination will be largely resolved. Where independent staffs remain, there should be full recognition of the leadership and coordination functions of the ambassador as representative of the President.

5. The problem of communications control likewise will tend to disappear to the extent that there is permanent or temporary integration of other staffs into the diplomatic missions under the administrative authority of the ambassador. But to the extent that the autonomy of agency representatives abroad is deliberately maintained, freedom of communication between the agency and its representatives is an essential part of that autonomy and should at most be subject to substantive control in the nature of the suspensory veto.

Personnel administration for overseas civilian staffs

1. Prompt and adequate staffing of the agencies, mobility and interchangeability in the staffs, adequate specialization and training of the personnel, preindoctrination 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 recommendations 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 long-range 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 Administration, and the civilian personnel of the Department of Defense who are stationed at diplomatic missions abroad.