FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

ALUMNI LUNCHEON PRESENTATION

By
Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

(4 December 1970)

GENERAL BONESTEEL: (Introduced the speaker.)

DR. KISSINGER: General Bonesteel, General Lemnitzer, General McPherson, and Gentlemen:

As I indicated the other day when I spoke at the National War College, I am not really used to meeting relatively friendly audiences. /Laughter/ My normal function is to be trotted out for protest groups as an example of the depth human depravity can reach /laugh/ and to give additional reasons why I must never be permitted to return to academic life. I always welcome this opportunity. Now, as I look around here and see so many former or present colleagues, I am particularly glad to have had this chance.

I will talk to you very briefly because I would like to answer some questions about some of our general concerns in foreign policy and perhaps, if we have time, give you one or two illustrations. Then I will take some questions.

This Administration came into power at a very complicated period in American history. It is not just that the war in Vietnam had become a major domestic issue; it is also that many of the assumptions on which American postwar policy had been based were coming to the end of their usefulness.

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FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

When the United States launched itself into international affairs at the end of World War II, we were the only non-Communist country that had the economy or the domestic structure to conduct a global foreign policy. At that time it was reasonable to believe that the development and the defense of other areas depended primarily on the American contribution. At that period it was correct to identify foreign policy with the development, execution, and detailed supervision of programs from Washington on a global scale. At that time, too, one could think of the Communist world as monolithic; and at that time we had the luxury of an overwhelming strategic superiority.

By 1968 all of these conditions had changed. We now are dealing with countries all over the world that have regained a great deal of their economic vitality and that should be returning to a more responsible participation in international affairs. We are dealing with the Communist world that has become incomparably stronger but that also has become more divided. One of the most bitter disputes in the world today is between Communist China and the Soviet Union. And this imposes new opportunities, but, for that matter, also new restraints on the conduct of foreign policy.

Finally, we are facing a situation in which the growth of the Soviet strategic nuclear arsenal is changing the military pre-suppositions on which American policy for two decades had been based.

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In the 1970s, with the Soviet Union possessing close to 1,500 long-range strategic missiles, the decision to go to strategic nuclear war is entirely different from what it was in the '40s, 50s, and early '60s. I know that some of us were writing about strategic parity already in the '50s, which just goes to show that even Harvard professors are occasionally wrong! /Laughter/ But whatever may have been the situation in the 1950s, by the 1970s the decision to go to general nuclear war is quite different. And this is one of the reasons why, despite all the newspaper accounts foreshadowing cuts in NATO, the President made a decision which we announced at the NATO meeting that we do not intend to reduce our forces in NATO unless the Soviet Union also reduces their forces, provided the Europeans make some effort to give the military establishment on the continent some rational basis. And we believe (we have studied it rather carefully) that this effort is within attainable means, and we hope the Europeans will respond to this.

In the face of these changed circumstances, it was the conviction of this Administration that we had to devise a policy which enabled other regions of the world to play a more responsible role, in which the United States would not be the only country that was responsible for defense and progress everywhere but in which it could share some of the physical, but even more, some of the intellectual burden.

When I was a professor, and always right/laughter/, I participated in many symposia deploring the inadequacy of governmental

3

planning. Now that we have remedied this situation completely

<u>/laughter/</u> I nevertheless would like to point out one or two problems.

One of them is that planning staffs in the abstract really cannot be helpful unless they can get the attention of the senior people, that planning exercises that are written in planning staffs and are not organically related to the top decisionmakers remain academic exercises, whether they are done inside or outside the Government. But the senior people have only so much time available, and therefore the real competition is for the attention of the senior personnel.

When I was an academician (you more experienced people considered this self-evident) I always thought my major problem was to identify an issue, and once I had identified it, I could spend as much time on it as was necessary and do at least the best with it of which I was capable, which, given the humility of Harvard professors, I probably thought was the best of which anyone was capable. I leave this aside. Today I can identify many problems, and I might even have some ideas of what to do with them--if I could ever find the time to address them! The top officials, therefore, are constantly confronted with the problem of establishing a hierarchy of issues in which it can easily happen that the urgent drives out the important. But whatever the hierarchy is, they have to deal with these issues, hoping that some of the more immediate ones will get settled and that they can turn to some farther down the list

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before they become acute or out of control. So you are always on
a railway track with a train approaching, and you can only hope it
will not hit you before you can get out of the way. When you are
hit, as is inevitable occasionally, then you can read learned dis-
sertations about "inadequate planning."

When all the decision-making is concentrated in one gov-
ernment (the worldwide decision-making), then inevitably the number
of high priority problems that have to be dealt with get to be con-
centrated in an exorbitant manner. Inevitably many other issues
will have to be put lower in the priority scale simply because of
the limited time the top people have available.

So even more than a physical sharing, we are looking for
a psychological sharing. We want other countries to participate in
the formulation at least of the programs for their areas. This in
effect is what the Nixon Doctrine attempts to do: to say that the
security and development of other areas is in the first instance
the problem of the countries concerned, of the regions concerned,
and that the United States should adopt a somewhat lower profile,
a less overwhelming approach in order to liberate some of the local
energies and to get some regional participation.

I am sometimes more appalled by our supporters than I am
by our opponents because there are many people who enthusiastically
subscribe to the Nixon Doctrine as an excuse for bugging out of the
world altogether. And I want to assure you that this is not the
intention of this Administration. The President has said on

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[w]

innumerable occasions that the Nixon Doctrine is his approach of
remaining related to the rest of the world. We cannot seriously
believe that security or progress in other areas is possible without
American participation. What we want to do is to put American par-
ticipation on a basis that can be sustained in the long run, without
the oscillations between euphoria and despair, without the excesses
of paternalism and the excesses of withdrawal that have character-
ized some of our recent performances.

In doing this, we have a careful line to draw between
doing so much for other areas that they abdicate any participation
and reducing our commitment so rapidly that they believe that the
Nixon Doctrine is just an elegant way of returning to American iso-
lationism. There is no cookbook formula which one can apply
equally to all regions, and it varies from country to country and
from region to region.

As I pointed out already, we are not reducing our presence
in NATO, even though a literal reading of the Nixon Doctrine might
lead one to that conclusion.

This is the general approach. I would like to say one or
two words about two problems. One is the relative priority to be
given to military as against domestic considerations. The second
is one of Vietnam.

I must say frankly, one of the phoniest debates that is
going on is the relative priority to be given to military as against
domestic needs. We have set up procedures for the first time in the

6

Defense Program Review Committee in which there are brought to-
gether both the Defense Department and State Department as well as
civilian agencies, trying to look at various packages of military
expenditures and various packages of domestic expenditures and to
see what the possible tradeoffs are. So we have a procedure for
looking at it, but there is one crucial limitation. It is that we
have to begin by realizing that there are not an infinite number
of tradeoffs, that if you do not have adequate security, you might
as well not have any. There is not such a thing as comparing $10
billion for hardware against $10 billion for a social program. The
trick is to have sufficient military force to assure your security
to run whatever risks you prudently want to run but not to delude
yourself that you can simply shift money or resources between mili-
tary and domestic expenditures as if this were simply a political
decision. Below the prudent minimum, any further cuts jeopardize
the whole program and the entire conduct of foreign policy. There-
fore, what the debate really comes down to is to make sure that our
military program does not absorb excessive resources in relation to
foreseeable dangers and foreseeable strategy. If that objective is
achieved, the remainder then can be made available for domestic
needs.

That is not such a startlingly new approach. We hope that
we are looking at it in a reasonably rational way.

In this connection, if I may say it to a military group,
one thing I have very much on my mind (even if it is a little

7

tactless) is this: One of the things of which one becomes very much aware in my position is that professors can write about decisions being made entirely on the basis of abstract rationality. In Washington, bureaucratic considerations play a not insignificant role. Sometimes one confronts a situation in which departments are attempting to psychoanalyze what the White House might want and then to move it as much toward their position as they dare without ever quite coming clean about what they have in mind. I must say frankly, the greatest contribution staffs can make to us is to tell us exactly what they have in mind. Let us cut you, but do not begin by compromising before we even see what people really believe is in the interest of national security, because if those who deal with the White House begin by perhaps misassuming what it is that the President wants and then begin to shade it a little, we never know what the various agencies think--and particularly with this President, who is very analytical, who wants to see the choices. No one ever gets into trouble by saying exactly what they need and exactly what they believe is in the national interest. Then if those who make the claim are overruled, we know that it will be carried out with reasonably good spirit.

Now a brief word about Vietnam, which is really not in need of too much discussion in this group.

We have confronted in Vietnam what has become almost a liturgical exercise. One hears standard arguments repeated ad nauseam. There is no obvious proof that anything that is said

8

[LC]

makes a lasting impact.

We believe, and we are trying to study it as carefully as we can, together with all the agencies involved, that the program of Vietnamization is proceeding, especially since the Cambodian operation, reasonably effectively and that we can bring the war to an end. We are also prepared to end the war by means of negotiation, and of course that would be the quicker way of ending it. There is only one issue left. I do not have to say anything about Vietnamization.

In negotiation, for years now we have been assailed by propositions of what would lead to constructive negotiation: an end of bombing, an acceptance of the principle of withdrawal, a token withdrawal, a significant withdrawal, a 100,000-man withdrawal, letting the NLF sit at the conference table, sending an ambassador back to Paris, offering a standstill cease-fire. We have offered everything, and it has not yet led to constructive negotiations. Now the argument is, if we would only get rid of Thieu, Ky, and Khiem, it would lead to constructive negotiations. We owe it to public debate not to delude ourselves.

What the other side is asking from us is not a coalition government nor the elimination of three people; they want the installation of a Communist-dominated government while we withdraw all our forces unconditionally. And it is a symptom of the moralization of our public debate that this demand, which really amounts to unconditional surrender, is never characterized as such. This Administration will never accept it! Applause This is

9

something we will not do. Therefore, we believe now we have gone
the absolute limit of what can be conceded in negotiations. There
is no sense bringing any more pressure on us to concede any more,
and if we cannot negotiate on the present platform, we will have to
go the route of Vietnamization.

We are reasonably optimistic that if we can retain public
support and if we behave as carefully as we have, that we can end
the war on that route. And this is especially true after the de-
struction of the Cambodian sanctuaries and the closing of
Sihanoukville.

I think I would like to stop at this point but would like
to make one closing observation.

I have talked to you about immediate problems. The
President never tires of pointing out that he does not want to be
remembered as a President who managed crises well; he would like to
be remembered as a President whose foreign policy succeeded to
avoid crises and to build something constructive. This is the atti-
tude with which we have attempted to approach the conduct of
national affairs. That is why we have built the national security
system that we have and which, despite occasional stories in the
newspapers, has worked well, with the extraordinarily good coopera-
tion of all the departments of the Government. And we hope that if
we can retain public support, as we think we can, that we will in
this Administration turn the corner from crisis management to the
conduct of long-range foreign policy.

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10

Now I have about 10 minutes for answering questions.

Discussion

QUESTION: Is there anything that can be done in a more
aggressive and propaganda war? Can't we spread some truth where
it will do some good?

DR. KISSINGER: We have not been traditionally as effec-
tive in propaganda as our opponents, partly because our opponents
have been terribly persistent, and they keep repeating the same
slogan over and over again. We have a tremendous compulsion to
come up with something new every three weeks. If we do not say
something new, we somehow feel we are missing something.

Secondly, the West as a whole has this compulsion to come
to an agreement.

Why, for example, is Hanoi so brutal in rejecting the
President's October 7 speech? It is not because the proposals are
unreasonable. If they were unreasonable, they would be negotiating
about them. It is because they seem so reasonable that if they do
not kill them right away, they are going to be dragged into a ne-
gotiating process in front of world public opinion. So they are
now taking the position in which they brutally do not even permit
any discussion of proposals which go very far toward meeting any
reasonable concerns they might have. And they can count on the
fact that as this continues, after a while people will attack us,
not because our proposals are unreasonable, but because we are

11

making them when the other side has already rejected them.

So it is partly the attitudes in the Western countries toward relations of this kind, especially with the Communists, and partly with the fact that we look at propaganda more from a selling point of view, while they look at it more from a psychological war-fare point of view.

I do not think I have to say this. Our Government is particularly well equipped to look at it. We are making some efforts, especially in relations with Hanoi, to get them more on the defensive. I think in the last year they have certainly not in this Administration managed to create the ground swell around the world against us that they did in the previous Administration. And they have had to be fairly defensive in recent months, both on the prisoner issue and on their obstinacy. This is an area in which we have to do better.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: Part of the problem is, of course, that the redirecting of resources is always a laborious process, as you know from your own experience.

Second, the problem of the infrastructure is really one that is not primarily a resource problem; that is a problem of understanding what you are dealing with. For years, first the previous Administration and now we, have tried to come to grips with getting a good understanding of first, how to identify it and

12

then how to deal with it.

We are now in the process of working out such a program.
We have for the first time what I think is a good intellectual hold
on the problem of the infrastructure, and we will make whatever re-
sources are necessary available to deal with this. But it is true.
I do not think, first of all, you will require anything like the
resources spent on the military side. Secondly you run into the
problem of bureaucratic vested interests--how to shift things from
the Army to the police forces, for example.

On the question of economic support, the brutal truth of
the matter is that it has been a lot easier to fund things through
the Defense Department than through AID. Therefore, we have used
that avenue to take care of some of the supporting programs. It
is certainly true that as the military war winds down, increasing
resources have to be put into the economic side, and if Vietnam
goes sour, it will almost certainly not be on the military side;
it will be on the political and economic side.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: The Soviet behavior globally since the
summer would not be easy to reconcile with an analysis of some of
my erstwhile colleagues that the Soviets always react to American
provocation. Almost every step they have taken since, say, July 1
seems to me to be gratuitously aggressive and not in response to
anything we did. There was no need to do what they did in Cien-
fuegos; there was no need to break the standstill and so forth.

13

How far are they prepared to go in the Middle East?

I do not know whether they know. They have played a
very dangerous game. The one time it got close to the brink, in
September, they backed off, but that was the time when it also in-
volved countries in which they had less of a direct interest.

One of the dangers in the situation is, I do not believe
they want a war in the Middle East, but they may not be able to
calibrate their involvement properly.

In 1967 they also did not want a war and produced one.

They are certainly playing a very dangerous game because
they may intend to squeeze the Israelis back to their pre-1967
border. The Israelis may calculate that the amount of force that
is required to squeeze them back to the '67 borders is indistinguish-
able as far as they are concerned from the amount of force that is
required to kill them. Therefore, there is always the danger that
the Israelis will explode outward. Therefore, I am not sure the
Russians know how far they are willing to go. On the whole, I do
not believe they want a war in the Middle East; I am certain they
do not want a war in the Middle East. But the thing that worries
me most about Soviet behavior the last four months is not that I
believe they want war; I do not believe they want war. It is their
seeming inability to give up a petty temporary advantage in the
face of the recognition that to play for an endless succession of
petty temporary advantages must in time lead to a situation in
which, if you keep getting petty advantages, you will bring about

14

a qualitative change and therefore a reaction by the other countries
--or where, if you do not get the succession, you may trigger a
sequence of events over which you lose control.

What worries me about the Soviets, in other words, is not
a grand strategy but a series of petty tactics over which they may
lose control.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

DR. KISSINGER: You are not going to hear from me that
Allende is going to go away in two years. In fact, I pained some
people in town by predicting the opposite right after his election.

The sequence of events that brought Allende to power is
one we are looking at and in which we are drawing some conclusions
about the analyses that were made in the month before. Now that it
has happened, my judgment is that he will move as fast as he dares
toward establishing a Leninist type of government, that he is ap-
plying salami tactics of slicing as much as he can at a time. He
is now in a period of maximum weakness vis-à-vis the traditional
forces, and he does not want to alarm them excessively.

Whether he will ever get strong enough to do what he in-
tends to do is slightly problematical in some people's mind. I have
seen very little on the part of the traditional forces in Chile to
lead me to believe that they are going to be more astute in the
years ahead than they were in the months just past.

I just want you to know that there are no illusions about
what we are dealing with in Allende, but that we now have a

15

[c]

situation in which what we are trying to do is to prevent him from consolidating himself on a nationalist basis and of appealing against "Yankee imperialists." But we have no illusions, and we recognize that he is not in our interest.

I do not think any great purpose would be served if I tried to give you a detailed description of what we are attempting to do except to say that, in all candor, it is very late in the day for outside forces to do a great deal, but for whatever consolation it may be, we know what we are dealing with, and we are not unaware of the dangers; and we are at least trying to prevent the spread, energetically though not deliberately in low key.

I am afraid that I must run.

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MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

INFORMATION

December 2, 1970

MEMORANDUM FOR DR. KISSINGER

FROM: Peter Rodman

SUBJECT: Your Remarks to the National War College Alumni
Friday, December 4

Lunch begins at 12:15, and you are scheduled to speak at 12:45. They are expecting 15 to 20 minutes of remarks, followed by Qs and As if you choose. General philosophy would be a suitable topic.

General Bonesteel's letter is at Tab A.

You have the usual talking points:

Tab B: General Philosophy of the Administration

Tab C: Vietnam, Mideast, and Mediterranean Trip

Tab D: Summary of October 7 Vietnam Ceasefire Speech

Tab E: Changes in Strategic Balance since 1962 Missile Crisis

Tab F: Your Hartford Backgrounder, October 12.

MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

INFORMATION

November 20, 1970

MEMORANDUM FOR DR. KISSINGER

FROM: Peter Rodman
SUBJECT: Your Remarks at the National War College, Wednesday, November 25, 1970, at 2:30 p.m.

You are scheduled to offer some "general remarks on the Administration's foreign policy" at the War College, at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25. Your remarks can be between 15 and 30 minutes in length; the time remaining (until about 4:00 p.m.) will be devoted to a general question-and-answer session.

This package of talking points includes:

Tab A: Vietnam, Middle East, and Mediterranean Trip (the package which Lord/Rodman did for your meeting with labor leaders last month).

Tab B: Summary of President's Vietnam Ceasefire Speech of October 7.

Tab C: General Philosophy of the Administration (outline).

Tab D: Changes in the Strategic Balance since the Cuban Missile Crisis (DOD and ISS figures).

Tab E: Edward Kennedy's Speech at Worcester, August 21, 1968.

Tab F: Your Hartford Backgrounder of October 12, 1970.

GEN. C. H. BONESTEEL III, USA RTD.

1701 N. KENT STREET, APT. 706
ARLINGTON, VA. 22209

18 November 1970

Dear Henry,

I am delighted to hear that you are going to make
another try at speaking to our Alumni of the National War
College at lunch on December 4th. We were sorry about
the earlier effort but completely understood "the exigencies
of the Service" which prevented your attending and led us
to postpone the affair.

As you may have heard, we had such an unprecedentedly
large list of acceptances for the proposed October luncheon
at which you were going to speak that, had we held it, the
Club at Fort McNair would have been bursting at the seams.
I am sure there will be similar interest in hearing you at
the December luncheon.

On a new subject, in sorting through some old papers of
mine, I came across a copy of a piece which I did for you
when I was in Korea in 1956 for use by the Rockefeller Panel.
I found it amusing to reread and on the off-chance that you
might have time, however unlikely that may be, to glance
at it, I enclose a copy and think you, too, might be amused
to compare the problems of NSC policy formulation as they
appeared to be fifteen years ago with your own experience
today.

Again, thanks for giving us another time for our Alumni
lunch. I look forward to seeing you there. With warmest
regards,

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
The White House
Washington, D. C.

C. H. Bonesteel, III

November 1956 - Korea

# THE MAKING OF TIMELY, LONG-RANGE STRATEGIC DECISIONS

It is my hope to examine, in the relatively brief compass of this paper, the organizational arrangements by which important decisions affecting the national strategy of the United States are arrived at; the institutional or philosophical basis on which these arrangements rest; certain apparent imperfections in the arrangements which might be susceptible of correction; and thus to stimulate further study of a problem of great importance to our continued national well-being.

The importance of this general subject needs little emphasis. The rise of the United States to a position of preeminence in world affairs; the challenge of Soviet-Communism with its capabilities for quick action and its ambition and intention ultimately to surplant all other existing political and social systems; the fantastically rapid developments in technology, both military and civilian; and the ever-widening scope of the world-wide socio-economic "revolution of rising expectations" -- all combine to demand increasing speed, efficiency and correctness in the decision-making process within our government. Arrangements which may have been adequate to meet the requirements of pre-World War II days are certainly inadequate to meet those of today. And today's procedures must be improved and speeded up to meet the demands of the not distant future.

If there be any one area which offers the greatest potential for beneficial action, among all those to be considered in your broad study of the future development of U.S. policies and posture, it is, I believe, this area of the decision-making processes of the U.S. Government.

Furthermore, it is an area for action which lies totally within our own U.S. capabilities to effect -- without consideration of foreign repercussions.

I say this based on a rather unusual experience of having served, at the "working level" in the War Department, the State Department, the ECA and the Department of Defense -- under three administrations. What I discuss below should be read as a genuine effort to be constructively objective. It is not meant as criticism of any individual nor does it relate particularly to any one of the administrations. It is simply a soldier's view, based on almost twelve years in the game.

As we proceed to examine the decision-making process in our own government, it is well to bear in mind one salient fact -- that the efficiency of the workings of none of the major national governments even faintly approximates theoretical perfection. This "inefficiency" is simply a manifestation of the general problem of operating effectively any huge organization, civilian or military. The problem is found in its most complex form in any national government. Strangely enough, it also appears that nearly all governments of the major powers today operate at about the same level of efficiency -- not a very high level as compared to perfection -- even though they achieve what efficiency they have through quite different procedures and through the exploitation of differing national characteristics.

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effectiveness, and it offers a sound foundation on which to build improve-
ments in the over-all governmental system in the area we are discussing.

However, the NSC is by no means the only arrangement for developing
recommendations to be used as the basis for important foreign and security
decisions. There is, of course, the Cabinet itself which, although it is
primarily concerned with internal affairs, may consider from time to
time matters vitally affecting the U.S. posture in foreign affairs. An
example of such consideration might be found in the question of the disposal
of U.S. agricultural surpluses abroad -- a matter profoundly affecting our
relations with nearly all the nations of the world, both consuming nations
and producing nations, and which has important connotations in the environ-
ment of the Cold War.

In the field of foreign financial matters there is the National Advisory
Committee on Foreign Financial Affairs. This is a Cabinet level committee
whose recommendations and sometimes decisions regarding problems in the
field of U.S. financial policies abroad also have considerable impact on our
international relations. Additionally, there is the President's Committee
on Foreign Economic Policy, which makes recommendations within its field.
And there are, of course, a great many other interdepartmental committees
or panels for developing recommendations in more specialized fields in our
foreign relationship -- fields which involve, for example, labor matters,
civil aviation, fisheries, etc.

Because of the wide variety of subjects involved in the projection of U.S. interests abroad, there is probably little that can or should be done to reduce the number of these special groups of experts designed to bring together varying points of view on particular problems in our foreign relationships and thus to develop policy recommendations. This does not mean, however, that the interrelationships between such committees, boards and other specialized arrangements should escape scrutiny and we shall examine these interrelationships later.

In a somewhat different context, there is also the Operations Coordinating Board. Ostensibly the OCB "coordinates the implementation of NSC policies" after such policies are approved by the President. In actual fact, policies written down in some highly classified paper and locked away in a safe mean very little. It is the actions taken under such policies -- tangible steps which have an impact abroad or at home -- which make manifest our policy. Hence, the OCB as it acts on broadly phrased "policy" is very frequently defining the specifics of that policy in the eyes of the world. The OCB is, of course, chaired by the Under Secretary of State, and its working groups are, almost without exception, chaired by State Department personnel. It is a relatively new concept. It can become very useful, if not indispensable. But its current operations need careful re-analysis, and it should not be a vehicle to put other responsible departments in a position of direct subordination to the Department of State. It should, as nearly as feasible, be the top mechanism of the Executive Branch for integrating the carrying out of our National Strategy.

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## The Importance of Good Timing

One of the most basic difficulties in our governmental decision-making process is how to obtain an adequate assessment of the implications and probable repercussions of imaginative alternative courses of action and, at the same time, achieve the rapidity of decision required to meet particular situations in a timely manner. The proper timing of action by our government is becoming increasingly important in our external affairs because we are all too frequently confronted by some very fast footwork on the part of the Communists. It would require very little research to determine examples in our history since World War II of recommended actions that could have been highly effective if promptly decided upon and carried out. But in many of these cases the process of decision was so slow that the dynamics of the world situation had moved ahead so far that by the time decision was reached -- months or years later in some cases -- beneficial results were no longer possible. Sometimes a recommended action, wise at the time suggested, can even become detrimental if delayed to the point that it takes place in a quite different context from that in which it was originally conceived.

## The Dilemma of Speed vs. "Full Coordination"

From the above we can see two mutually reinforcing complications in our decision-making process -- first, there are numerous Cabinet level and interdepartmental committees which consider and make recommendations on important matters to the President or his responsible Cabinet

- 6 -

officers, frequently with no formal effort or machinery to assure an
assessment of the repercussions of a proposed action on other aspects
of our national policies and strategy. Sometimes our national posture
suffers from such lack of coordination. On the other hand, within the
scope of such coordinating and assessing mechanisms as the NSC and OCB
which now exist, we are apt to find so much time is taken in performing the
coordinating function that speed and flexibility in decision-making is lost.
Often the psychological moment for taking a certain action passes while
the process is laboriously grinding away.

Some coordination between the numerous policy formulating com-
mittees in the government that do not fall within the NSC organization is
achieved through the practice that each of the departmental representatives
on any one committee is expected to "staff" within his department the
implications of the committee's proposed action. Additionally, pragmatic
coordination is achieved by the fact that the members of many of the high-
level specialized committees are, as individuals, members of other similar
committees. They may be Cabinet officers, sitting in several Cabinet level
bodies. Or, as another example, at one time the Treasury Member of the
Planning Board of the NSC also attended, at least as an observer, meetings
of the NSC, the Committee on Foreign Economic Policy, and the OCB.
This expedient, however, is not practicable in the case of the Departments
of State and Defense -- the departments primarily concerned with developing

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and carrying out our over-all National Strategy and concepts for reducing
the Communist threat to our national survival -- except at the Secretarial
level.

## Trend Toward "Coordination" by Top Officers

The net result of the proliferation of interdepartmental committees
dealing with broad or narrow aspects of our foreign relations and the
imperfect coordination between them has, in fact, tended to place an
increasing responsibility and burden on the individuals at the highest
decision-making levels to assess personally the over-all desirability of
a recommended course of action. This burden falls most heavily on the
Secretary of State as an individual and to a high degree on the President
himself. It would not necessarily be objectionable except that the manifold
other pressures on the time of these individuals are so great that important
peripheral or long-range implications, which are inadequately brought out
in the staff process, may escape notice, or the decision delayed or straddled
while these busy individuals satisfy themselves personally as to the aspects
of the problem involved.

## The Plague of "Jurisdictionalism"

Our current processes for developing policy recommendations through
more or less functionally compartmentalized committees, tied together only
at the highest level or through members of the committees coordinating within
their departments also tends to exaggerate one of the most grievous imper-
fections in our system, to wit: "jurisdictionalism."

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d

"Jurisdictionalism," as I mean it to apply here, is the exaggerated and sometimes almost emotional conviction which has developed among many of the bureaucratic employees of each department of the Executive Branch that they, and only they, are competent to advise -- or decide -- on problems they conceive to fall within the primary or "Constitutional" responsibilities of their departments. In one way or another this phenomenon has always been the bane of bureaucracies, but it is particularly insidious in our government in these days of the Cold War. Our national concepts and strategy to meet the pressing Communist challenge in the context of the world of today -- and tomorrow -- demand the intelligent and imaginative integration of political, diplomatic, economic, military, technological and psychological factors. No mortal man is capable of being expert in all these fields today. Therefore, in evolving policy recommendations through the means of interdepartmental committees it is unfortunate that we find each departmental representative tends to cleave to the particular expertise assumed to derive from his departmental affiliation and tends to argue for an over-all solution on the basis of his department's particular interest as he defines it. Moreover, he frequently is supersensitive and non-cooperative if some other member of his committee deems to express an opinion on a matter within the area of his "expertise."

The whole "checks and balances" philosophy of our American system of government applies within the Executive Branch as much as it does between the branches of the over-all government, although less obviously. Our policies

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It would be a great step forward in the civilian departments of the Executive Branch, and in the Military Service as well, if excessive "jurisdictionalism" could be transmuted from its narrow ends to apply with equal favor to the advancement of our over-all national interests. The degree of effort wasted in internal warfare among the government departments in Washington would stagger the uninitiated -- and unfortunately this wastage leaves only the residue of bureaucratic effort to be applied to coping with the real and urgent national security problems of our nation -- problems involving even the survival of all of us.

## The Difficulty of Obtaining Agreed Military Advice

The most obvious of the jurisdictional battles is currently being waged between the Military Services, but other active warfare on the working level exists between the State Department and the Department of Defense, between State and the Treasury, etc., etc. Nonetheless, the problem in the Military Services has one particularly deleterious effect on the governmental decision-making process, in that it has for many years inhibited the provision of fully adequate military advice to the highest civilian decision-makers. So much of world affairs today rests on power politics, however much disguised and obfuscated by modern sophistications, that the National Strategy of the United States -- the most powerful nation today -- and our concepts of dealing with the real world should take "power" keenly into account.

Military power is only a component of the over-all power of our country, but it is a vastly important component in the face of potential Soviet atomic

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blackmail. The full appreciation and manipulation of U.S. power -- without, of course, its direct application -- is crucial to the peaceful resolution of the Communist threat. But its full potentials are hard to make understandable to civilian leadership when military leaders cannot agree among themselves as to its best balance and utilization.

## The Impact of Individual Zealots

The violence of inter-service rivalries highlights another area of vulnerability in our decision-making process. This is the case with which individual emotionalism and fervor can affect important decisions. Anyone who has worked intimately in the policy formulation processes of government can name many examples of crusading cliques, civilian almost more than military, whose seal has sometimes outweighed their reasonableness, yet who have by sheer enthusiastic advocacy been able to achieve decision favorable to their narrow ends at the expense of broader interests. And even more disturbing is their ability, if not successful, to delay or forestall timely action not compatible with their views.

## The Need for Imaginative Thinking

In decrying the ability of sealots to affect decisions we must be careful not to confuse emotional sealotry with prescience, imagination, and long-range thinking. Unfortunately these latter attributes are generally most difficult to find application in the policy formulation process. The

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hierarchy of committees presently operative in Washington almost guarantees that new or imaginative approaches to a situation are disbarred. A friend of mine -- one of the most brilliant participants in and observers of governmental processes -- observed not long ago that as the "organization" of the government for foreign policy formulation progressed on from 1945, the ability to introduce big or new conceptual approaches to the dynamics of the world situation steadily decreased in a direct proportion. The committee system, whether it be in civilian or military affairs, diffuses responsibility, degrades authority and invites the overly violent, sometimes stultifying, advocacy of parochial points of view. And because all members of a committee have an equal voice, somewhere along the line new or timely ideas, if they have been introduced, will be shot down and buried without trace. It is questionable that we can adequately face the next several decades of the Communist challenge on this basis.

## The Views of Other Nations

Not to be confused with big and imaginative concepts for keeping up with the dynamics of modern world affairs is the tendency often evident in our policy processes to overexaggerate the importance of the views of or impact upon other nations which may follow some U.S. action. Obviously and properly these views need be intelligently taken into account and this is essential to any successful National Strategy. But U.S. actions and objectives need first of all to have a basic direction and integrity of their own.

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If a too-sensitive conjecture as to what the Patagonians, Luxembourgois or Burmese may think of what we find it necessary to do in our interests and the interests of the Free World is given undue weight -- weight not commensurate to the true weight of these various views -- then the result can be, and sometimes is, stultifying of all decisive action. We must somehow find the way to act at all times in a truly Big way -- with a capital "B" -- as befits our powerful nation, and with sincerity and conviction, and be less concerned with -- though not oblivious to -- the temporary bruises we may inflict on weak but overly sensitive friends. Nothing succeeds like success in international politics, just as in most other fields. The Communists are only too well aware of this fact and unfortunately seem to be doing fairly well in exploiting it. The democracies, and particularly our own as the central pillar of the Free World, cannot become so inhibited by the senescent and meticulous weighing of numerous "pros" against numberless "cons" that they become incapable of timely, courageous, positive and decisive action.

## Our Ponderous Machine

Decisive action is inhibited by another aspect of "Government" -- its sheer ponderousness and immensity. When a committee is composed of representatives of numerous departments, and each representative must obtain the concurrence of all the interested offices or sections within his department as to the position he intends to take, and particularly when the representative is not of the higher, responsible -- and thus more flexible -- level in his department, it becomes obvious why it frequently happens that

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recommendations come forth very slowly and decisions are not reached in time, despite the crucial urgency for some action to be taken to meet a critical situation. I hark back to what I have said earlier in this paper that it does not matter how good a decision is finally reached, if, in the lengthy process, the actions of others or the unimpeded development of a crisis has completely changed the context for which the originally recommended action was designed.

## Perfection is Not Just Around the Corner

In pointing out various imperfections in our decision-making process, no one could be more aware than myself that I am really pointing out the imperfections of human nature itself. I certainly have no illusions that there are any magical "new organizational arrangements" or reorganizations which will rectify these somewhat theoretical faults. Nor do I feel that, with all their faults, our processes are unworkable or seriously inadequate to meet the problems that confront us. We need not hang our heads in comparison with the effectiveness of other governments -- Communist or Allied alike. No other nation in history has taken, within the course of one decade, so many hard but wise decisions or has done such positive things as has the United States. I do not wish to imply that many of the ponderous procedures we follow can be dispensed with. Certainly we must weigh the pros and cons of intended actions. Certainly we should examine all of the major implications and repercussions of possible steps. Certainly

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we must bring to bear on our grave problems -- which may affect the very survival of our great nation -- all the wisdom, experience, and expertise that we can marshal within our entire national resources. But having said this I am equally confident that there are ways and means to lessen our faults and to speed up and make more efficient our policy-formulating and decision-making processes. This can be one of the most profitable and most worthy objectives for study, recommendation and action.

## The Annual Budget and Its Impact

Before concluding with a few suggestions that may deserve some study as to their possible desirability in improving these processes, I should like to comment on a different facet of our governmental system which also affects the flexibility, timeliness and effectiveness of our national security and of our international operations. This area involves the Legislative Branch of the government equally with the Executive. It involves specifically the annual budget process. I do not question the basic political philosophy of our American governmental system which was bequeathed us by the Founding Fathers of the Constitution. There are those who complain that the political theory of balance of powers and of checks and balances makes for too inflexible a system to cope with the alleged effectiveness of totalitarian regimes. Some advocate the "Responsible Cabinet" form of government so widely practiced by the European democracies. To such advocates one can only suggest that they look to where these European forms have put the once great powers they

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governed. To some others who may look surreptitiously, but with little
disguised envy, toward the alleged efficiency supposedly inherent in more
centralized or totalitarian forms of government, we need only point to the
ultimate fate of Hitler, Mussolini and many other dictators. There is no
reason to believe that our form of government cannot fully dispose of Com-
munist totalitarianism as we did of Nazi totalitarianism. Our form of
government is intrinsically American -- it has and it will continue to work,
and it is neither wise nor realistic to propose any basic changes in it. It
is the essence of the way of life we are struggling to maintain.

In our system the control of the purse by the Congress is a fundamental
element. It has long been our thought that this should be done by the passage
of an annual budget. However, I believe it can be proven that the annual
budget process makes considerably more difficult the most effective use of
our national resources in many phases of our national security planning and
in our international programs.

To cite a specific example, one of the most serious threats to our
long-term security lies in the rapid advance in Soviet technology -- an
advance that might soon overtake and surpass our own advances. There
are many aspects to this problem, but among them is the question of the
adequacy of our research and development programs. One cannot get the
most out of such programs, which involve the employment, retention and
best utilization of nearly 50% of our total national pool of scientists and

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engineers, without some flexible funding and the backing of calculated risks in research which cannot always be defined and guaranteed in advance. The research facilities and testing establishments in any one area of development may involve huge sums of money and construction periods of up to as much as five years. To operate these programs with funds obtained through the annual budget process is extremely difficult and highly wasteful in the most precious of all our commodities -- time.

It is common knowledge now that the United States would not be where it is today in the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which we know the Russians are also well along in developing, had it not been for the fact that when budget considerations forced the dropping of the ICBM project back in the late 1940's, the private aircraft concern which was doing contract development on the project carried on the work for several years and held its scientific nucleus together by the expenditure of its own private funds.

In our over-all military programs, if it were possible to establish relatively assured budget programs extending for several years into the future, no matter what preplanned fluctuations in size of forces they contained, this would permit more sensible procurement of weapons and supplies, help stabilize our civilian economy, and aid greatly in the handling of the many manpower problems involved.

Some longer basis for funding programming in the foreign aid field -- both in economic and in military assistance -- would enable us to get far

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more for our money and to do so without many of the unproductive difficulties that arise with the recipient countries due to piecemeal planning or, even worse, piecemeal implementation.

In raising the question of the annual budget process, I am not in any way suggesting that funds should be more easily obtained from Congress or in larger quantities. I am not suggesting a lessening of the Congressional hold on the purse strings. I am, however, raising the question as to whether there are not ways within the Constitutional intent which would enable funding to be obtained for longer periods and with more flexibility in their expenditure. If there are any such ways, they deserve most careful consideration because they may provide a salient advantage over the now normal procedures and lead not only to actual savings in funds and more effective use of our resources, but to a higher degree of speed and efficiency in our whole conduct of the National Strategy.

## Broad Objectives

In conclusion, let me state what I believe to be worthy objectives in a study of ways and means to improve the policy-formulating and decision-making processes in our government.

As a first objective, we should try to achieve procedures which will obviate hasty or imperfectly evaluated decisions while, at the same time, not stultify wise, timely and decisive action through a specious need for inordinate "coordination."

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As a second objective, we should endeavor to reduce the adverse effects of departmental "jurisdictionalism" and narrow loyalties and build up, instead, a better integration of all facets of our strength through the focusing of individual and departmental loyalties on U. S. interests as a whole.

As a third objective, we must find a way to reintroduce the element of sensibly imaginative, big, long-range thinking into our national concepts, even at the expense of the continued existence of our hierarchy of low, medium and high-level committees in government.

## Suggested Areas for Study

I am confident in suggesting specific ways to approach these three basic objectives, but I do believe there are possibilities that deserve careful examination as to their feasibility and desirability.

One such area lies in an expansion and strengthening of the National Security Council concept: by expanding its direct, non-departmental, staff so that this staff may have the capability for the substantive evaluation and integration of "departmental positions" taken at the Planning Board level; by providing this expanded NSC staff with the authority and funds to utilize non-governmental agencies, including universities or research institutions, to study on a scientific basis long-range emerging problems of great national import; and by making subordinate to or absorbing in the NSC the high-level committees and commissions now formulating policy in the fields of foreign

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[d]

financial and economic affairs and in other areas which must be fully
integrated into our over-all National Strategy and concepts.

Another area for improving action lies in a careful examination of
the committee structure that has grown up over the last ten years to see
if better results cannot be obtained, at least in some cases, by substituting
an interdepartmental "staff meeting" concept, where one individual, from
whatever department he may be, or even as a representative of the President,
may be made individually responsible for recommending, over his own sig-
nature the course of action to the appropriate decision-maker or to the NSC.
This person, given real responsibility, should be required to conduct
meetings, similar to committee meetings, at which all interested depart-
ments would be represented and expected fully to voice and argue their views --
but when all this was done the responsible individual would make his own
recommendations, over his own signature. Reclama could then be made to
the higher-level decision-maker. In this regard, careful attention should
be given the Joint Chiefs of Staff organization to see if it would not be wise
to try to change its committee system into a true "staff" system.

The final area in which I would recommend study and full consideration
covers the question of a direct "super-staff" support to all Cabinet-level
officials and for the President. This is, I know, a highly controversial and
sensitive subject, but the plain fact is that the complexity and enormity of

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daily business, plus long-range planning, plus the decision-making function that confronts our top-level officers, as for instance the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense, not to mention the President, is such that they place impossible demands on any mortal individual's mind and time.

The "super-staff" concept I am suggesting is merely the effort to obtain the organized use of specially selected, highly competent and *loyal* individuals to expand the numbers of "grey cells" and the number of minutes in a day available to top executive chiefs. Such staffs could sift out the meat of problems, obtain the views of all contributory or interested offices, reduce the "problem" and the facts bearing upon it to succinct, lucid terms, and present after evaluation a recommended course of action. The staff action officer in such a staff could carry the problem to his chief; could answer all questions; could expand on the matter as required; should know, analyze and present; in addition to his recommended course of action, any contrary views of others, and thus such a super-staff officer could greatly simplify and speed up the time for analysis that his chief must devote to the problem.

This concept worked remarkably well in the Operations Division -- "OPD"-- of the War Department General Staff during World War II. It deserves study and possibly a modified application within most of the Executive Departments.

The NSC concept would need little modification to apply it to serve the President.

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