# I. Introduction

1. This study addresses the coordination of the various Executive Branch agencies with responsibilities in foreign affairs. It seeks to answer the question of how the formulation and execution of our overall foreign policy, under the direction of the President, can be better integrated and supervised. Our foreign affairs establishment must be made more capable of efficiently advising the President and effectively carrying out his wishes. The national security process must be characterized by cohesion and cooperation rather than by fragmentation and competition.

2. Any system must, of course, depend upon the individual wishes and style of the President, the competence and personality of his chief advisors, and the relationships among them. It would be foolhardy to attempt to develop a precise system in the abstract. But certain recommendations for improvement can be made. A general structural scheme for the administration of foreign policy should be helpful to the President-elect and his advisors in that field.

3. The incoming President will want a system peculiarly his own -- which will reflect his own authority and *modus operandi*, meet the demands of the current environment, and be regarded as a new system rather than an arrangement adopted from the past. The President-elect is already publicly committed to revitalizing the NSC machinery.

4. The interdepartmental organization and procedure which the President initiates at the very beginning of his Administration must be strong

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enough for him to grasp early control of the process but flexible enough
to be refined after the operation has shaken down and specific requirements
and preferences have been sorted out. The recommendations in this study
would not require any statutory revision.

5. In his efforts to set up a system responsive to his paramount authority in the field of national security and foreign policy (the two terms are used interchangeably), the President should not attempt to add on to the existing institutional structure -- by imposing a ballooned Executive Office operation on top of his principal departments and agencies, or by inserting another layer of bureaucracy between himself and his Cabinet officers, for instance. He should rather attempt to improve and establish control over what he's got. He should streamline, restructure and integrate the working components which make up his foreign affairs establishment. There is no revolutionary cure-all, no shiny panacea.

6. Essentially, the President needs a system which effectively advises him on foreign policy -- with relevant information, analysis, and policy alternatives; which includes a dynamic forum for actual decision making; and which provides strong instrumentation for the execution of his decisions. He must have a system which enables him to determine overall strategy and provide policy guidance accordingly. It should bring to him the specific problems that he personally does need to know about and act upon, and not burden him with those which he does not. The President should not have to inject himself into operational and tactical detail.

7. The classical debate on national security machinery divides
between a central NSC model and a State Department-oriented model. Neither

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extreme is good. The two systems are not mutually exclusive, and a
combined system is best. The President requires an interdepartmental national
security mechanism at the top level of government which is clearly his own
executive instrument to decide his foreign policy. It must be streamlined
in order for him to exert dynamic leadership. Such a central organization
should not be located in the State Department, nor should it be merely
an extension of the White House staff. It should have an independent
institutional identity.

8. Likewise, the President requires an effective operational instrument to administer his foreign policy throughout the entire system. This means a strong Secretary of State and a competent and influential Department of State. The notion that a President who wants to assume complete command of U.S. international relations should have a "weak", "permissive", or "technician" Secretary is a mistaken one. It is quite the opposite: the President who wants to run his own foreign policy must have a powerful Secretary of State. The character of international relations has grown enormously in complexity. U.S. interests and involvements abroad have greatly multiplied and are transacted daily in a huge number of exchanges at all levels. Our livelihood is profoundly affected by an increasing variety of foreign developments. The President must have a widespread organization capable of handling these matters. This requires a strong agency in the midst of the process to execute the President's policy in areas of its direct responsibility, and to interpret, coordinate and supervise where other agencies have operational responsibilities. The traditional role of the Secretary of State as the chief advisor and administrator of the

nation's foreign policy is more valid than ever. His is the only agency
which is competent by its broad outlook to play the principal role, under
the President. Other agencies are too parochial; and one agency must be
principally charged with this responsibility, it cannot be parcelled out.
If the President undermines the influence of the State Department either
directly or tacitly, he will be losing his chief ally in his endeavor to
achieve a cohesive foreign policy which meets the nation's overall goals.
The challenge is to refine this instrument, fasten it to the hand of its
master, and apply it for his purposes.

II. Proposal

1. Basic Framework

There are three essential components which constitute an effective system for Presidential control over foreign policy:

(a) The President's own immediate White House Staff, headed by his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs; (b) a central Cabinet-level interdepartmental mechanism chaired by the President which he uses to help him shape the basic strategy and make the biggest decisions in the national security field, and communicate them; (c) an interdepartmental network for supervising and coordinating foreign policy formulation and execution throughout the sub-Cabinet levels under the direction of the Department of State. The division of responsibility employed and the continuity achieved among these three components will determine the success of the system.

Under President Eisenhower, the National Security Council system, made up of the Council itself, the Planning Board, and the Operations Coordinating Board, insured tight control and coordination over all aspects of foreign policy. Its comprehensive and deliberate examination insured against hasty action, and the cross-governmental exercise of integrating all pieces of policy into a common whole proved extremely valuable. But this system became bureaucratically cumbersome, clogged with paper, and too formalized to be dynamically responsive to the problems at hand and the President's needs. Too often it presented a policy recommendation which was a watered down compromise. Attendance at Council meetings was much too large; it was not a place where issues were sharply enough set forth and alternatives

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vigorously enough examined. Too much time was spent by too many high officials reworking detailed language of policy papers, which in turn were too often cast in concrete. The OCB in particular became burdensome, a forum for unproductive haggling. The utility of the State Department as a valuable instrument of overall foreign policy administration tended to be compromised by the existence of a large, dominating NSC mechanism.

Under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the Security Council system was virtually dismantled, in favor of informal arrangements featuring an enlarged staff working exclusively for the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, and ad hoc task forces and special policy groups working separately on problems as they arose. The Security Council was used infrequently and usually for theatrical purposes, to dramatize publicly the Administration's involvement with a given problem. Eventually the "Tuesday Luncheon Group" was established which allowed the President to meet regularly with his Special Assistant and his Secretaries of Defense and State, and later the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency became members. The preparation for these meetings and the systematic follow-up after them was at best thin and at worst non-existent. This device dealt almost exclusively with short-range problems. Continuity was pathetically lacking between the Tuesday Luncheon and the sub-Cabinet level interdepartmental foreign policy coordinating structure directed by the State Department set up in the Johnson Administration. Given actions did not conform to overall strategy. So the practices during the present decade were lacking in tightness and order, and the dangerous result was a failure to carefully prepare a policy decision, with proper inter-agency coordination and a clear

awareness of all its implications, before it was taken.

A new system for a new President should obviously avoid the
disadvantages of the Eisenhower and the Kennedy/Johnson experiences. It
needs the integration and control of the Eisenhower system but the
flexibility and sharpness attempted in subsequent arrangements as well.
It should achieve discipline and order but be dynamic and creative at the
same time. The regular use of a small Executive Group of the National Security
Council, with staffing resources and procedures to help prepare for the meetings
and communicate their results, can accomplish this.

The President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs
would serve as the Executive Secretary of the Executive Group, working
closely with the Under Secretary of State (a member of the Executive Group).
These two officials would work with the NSC Staff to prepare the agenda and
develop papers for the meetings of the NSC Executive Group, and would be
responsible for promulgating the decisions made.

A renovated version of the Senior Interdepartmental Group/
Interdepartmental Regional Group structure now in existence and chaired by
the Under Secretary of State can provide direction and coordination in
both the formulation and implementation of foreign policy matters at levels
below the National Security Council. The SIG/IRG system would engage prob-
lems which did not require the direct attention of the President and those
which needed a thorough interdepartmental examination before they were brought
to his attention at a meeting of the NSC Executive Group. The follow-up
functions of the old Operations Coordinating Board would be carried out in
effect by the SIG/IRG mechanism.

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This arrangement would provide strong linkage for the three
components -- the President's personal staff, the President's Cabinet-level
NSC mechanism, and the State Department sub-Cabinet level SIG/IRG. It
would assure strong Presidential leadership throughout the system with full
coordination. It would select out the issues that needed the highest
level treatment and relate decisions to a strategic whole. The limited
membership of the NSC Executive Group would allow more bold and lively
freedom of exchange with the President and his top advisors. A select
NSC staff would encourage more succinct and less static preparation,
treating paper work as a means rather than an end in itself, and drawing on
staff resources available in the SIG/IRG system as appropriate.

2. The White House Staff

The White House Staff role in the national security area should
be four-fold: (a) to inform and advise the President, and communicate his
wishes; (b) to serve as the President's conduit to and from the Secretaries
of State and Defense; (c) to act as prodder for timely Departmental action
and stimulant for creative Departmental recommendations; (d) to assist in
the coordination process in the new National Security Council mechanism.

These tasks require a sensitive touch and a discreet style.
The President's Special Assistant must be resourceful and discriminating in
order to represent effectively the President's interests without attempting
to substitute for or undermine the Secretary of State and other agency heads
with major responsibilities in national security matters. He and his staff
must serve as the President's eyes and ears throughout the foreign policy
establishment. They will be responsible for adequately briefing the

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President on current developments, and for providing an independent, analytical capacity to enable him to measure and question the policy recommendations of his Cabinet Departments.

The President's Special Assistant should have a small staff of the highest calibre, qualified in geographical and functional expertise, particularly in the military and defense field. He should appoint a Deputy to serve full-time as Director of the NSC Staff, and he may need a general Deputy as well. The President may wish that the foreign policy responsibilities in his White House Staff be divided among more than one Special Assistant, and in any event these functions should not be delineated in a rigid or exclusive manner.

### 3. The NSC Machinery

The NSC Executive Group could include in its membership: the President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of CIA, the Under Secretary of State, and the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. This small group would meet without staff present, the Special Assistant to the President serving as staff with help from the Under Secretary of State as needed. Heads of other agencies such as AID, USIA, ACDA, AEC, the Budget Bureau, Treasury, Commerce and Agriculture would be invited to attend the Executive Group meetings only when issues directly involving their agencies were to be discussed.

The NSC Executive Group would meet regularly once a week. The full National Security Council could meet whenever the President felt

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a formal meeting of the full body would be appropriate. Task Forces and other special policy groups could still be set up by the President when useful; the overall system would be flexible but would not depend exclusively on the informal approach. The recommendations of a given task force, moreover, would be reported through the NSC Executive Group to assure continuity.

This device would not interfere with the President's individual relationships with his chief Cabinet officers, but would give him an efficient vehicle for examination and decision concerning the most crucial foreign policy problems -- current or anticipated crises, setting of priorities on long-term strategic concept. Major issues not dealt with by the lower-level Senior Interdepartmental Group/Interdepartmental Regional Group network, either because they were too sensitive or political or because time did not permit, would be examined here. Recommendations made to the President by the SIG could be reviewed here. Important impasses between Departments which had not been broken at lower levels would come here for action. Yet issues not absolutely requiring this high level treatment would be ferreted out to avoid clogging.

The President's Special Assistant and the Under Secretary of State would be responsible for disseminating a concise written record of decisions made, and action assignments. They would also be chiefly responsible for determining the agenda for meetings of the Executive Group, and for assigning staff preparation for them. In carrying out this latter set of duties, they would work closely with the Director of the NSC Staff and the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council and consult with high officials in other agencies as appropriate--the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, the Chairman of the Joint Staff, the CIA Deputy Director, and so forth.

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The selection function of this process is essential. The discrimination practiced as to what will and what will not come before the Executive Committee of the NSC is crucial to the success of the overall system.

A select NSC Staff should include representatives assigned to it by the principal foreign affairs agencies. This staff would prepare policy papers on topics to be examined by the NSC Executive Group, vet recommendations which were passed up from the SIG, and undertake special planning and evaluation studies, as assigned by the Staff Director following the consultation defined above. The NSC Staff would rely heavily on the interdepartmental Policy Planning Council (an integral part of State's SIG/IRG system), calling upon it for basic analytical materials essential to the preparation of agenda items for the Executive Group. The presence of the Chairman of the Council as a special member (in addition to the full-time State representative) of the NSC Staff, working closely with the Staff Director, is intended to facilitate this practice.

Policy papers for the Executive Group would be circulated and exchanged among its members prior to a meeting but no effort would be made to "coordinate" them among the agencies involved. The NSC Staff should not seek advance agreement on issues coming before the Executive Group.

Lowest-common-denominator recommendation based on "consensus" must be avoided.

The spirit of this NSC mechanism and the format of its staff work should emphasize analysis and recommendation which will not hide the key arguments, alternatives, and implications from the President but lay them out for him, and which relate individual policy decisions to overall strategic concept.

Finally, NSC staff papers should be streamlined enough to avoid getting bogged

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down in detail which could result in time wasted and needless flickering at
the Executive Group meetings.

The close working relationship of the President's Special
Assistant and the Under Secretary of State in the NSC Executive Group (and
the NSC Staff Director and the State Planning Chairman on the NSC Staff) is
a key element of the proposed system. Close linkage must be maintained
between the NSC machinery and the SIG/IRG machinery in order for the overall
system to function.

4. The SIG/IRG Machinery

The Senior Interdepartmental Group/Interdepartmental Regional
Group machinery was set up in March, 1966 to assist the President in
carrying out his responsibilities for the conduct of foreign affairs
principally through the direction of the Secretary of State. It is
calculated to give the State Department more punch in the "overall direction,
coordination and supervision of interdepartmental activities of the U.S.
Government overseas." This machinery examines foreign affairs matters
requiring interdepartmental attention at successive levels, serving as an
instrument for formulating policy and for overseeing its implementation.

The SIG is chaired by the Under Secretary of State, and its
membership is: the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Administrator of AID,
the CIA Director, the JCS Chairman, the USIA Director, and the Special
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Deputies or
heads of other agencies with responsibility in matters to be discussed
attend by invitation of the Chairman. Each IRG is chaired by the regional
Assistant Secretary of State, with counterpart representation from the other

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six agencies. Country Directors chair similar groups below the IRG. The concept of executive chairman is employed whereby the State Department representative has full powers of decision on matters within his jurisdiction, with the right of appeal by a dissenting member to the next level up (i.e., to IRG, from IRG to SIG, from SIG to the President).

The history of the SIG/IRG system has been spotty, but it has strong potential given some improvements, including: (a) more vigorous use by the Under Secretary of State; (b) better linkage to the NSC mechanism, so that each knows what the other is doing and uncertainty as to role and relationship is removed; (c) a larger and more competent staff at its disposal; (d) stronger input of functional and transregional considerations as distinct from simply regional orientation.

The existence of a cohesive overall system should encourage the Under Secretary to employ the SIG/IRG tool energetically -- along with a very understanding and cooperative relationship with the Secretary of State, which is another requirement for this proposal to work successfully. The linkage problem has been addressed above. An enlarged and improved SIG Staff could be accomplished by adding slots to be filled by officers of the highest calibre from the Department and by bringing in specialists from other agencies on full-time assignment to the SIG Staff -- from the Joint Staff, AID, Treasury, Agriculture and the Budget Bureau, for instance. The SIG Staff must have the capability for independent analysis and evaluation. It must be able to prod the IRG's to get them to act meaningfully on problems they might be reluctant to consider, and to require the system to employ evaluated alternative policy options rather than single recommendations so that the real differences get well worked over.

The SIG/IRG system must be addressed to a proper consideration of those policy issues which cross regional boundaries and those policy functions which affect all areas of the world. Strengthening of the SIG Staff as discussed above will help. The use of special meetings within the Department of State prior to an IRG or a SIG meeting, and the attendance of officers from the functional bureaus at IRG and SIG meetings when relevant, can both improve the situation. Functional problems can be handled also by the formation of interdepartmental groups set up in the State Department to deal with a given subject having the same relationship to SIG as the IRG's have. The Policy Planning Council can be treated in this fashion. Inter-departmental Committees handling Political-Military, Budgetary, and International Economic matters now exist which can be brought into the SIG/IRG system.

## 5. State Department Organization

The President's view of the State Department -- how strong it is and what it can accomplish for him -- is crucial to any system. In order to make the State Department the policy instrument of the President, several urgent changes have to be made in its staffing and organization. The Department of State must be streamlined in order to enable the Secretary of State to fulfill his enormously difficult job which combines advising the President, supervising the overall conduct of U.S. foreign policy, globe-circling personal diplomacy, dealing with the Congress and the press, and managing the State Department. A close and trusted relationship with the President is one prerequisite, of course. So is the clear definition of the State Department's role vis à vis the HSC mechanism.

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The next most important condition is a strong working
association with the Under Secretary, and the elevation of the latter's
status and role so that he can take much of the load off the Secretary and
operate as his "alter ego". The two must be virtually interchangeable.
To help accomplish this, the Secretary should delegate to his Under Secretary
the authority to act with the full authority of the Department of State even
when the Secretary is not away (i.e., even when he has not been designated
"Acting Secretary"; this is the same authority which the Deputy Secretary
of Defense has in his Department).

The State Department must in addition have greatly improved
staffing at the Secretary and Under Secretary level. Finally, there must
be some realignment of responsibilities among certain of State's top officers
and within the organization of the Department.

Under present practice, the Secretary and Under Secretary rely
almost exclusively on the Assistant Secretaries and their Bureaus for
staffing. This is roughly analogous to the Secretary of Defense having to
depend on his Service Secretaries for advice without having OSD resources.
The Assistant Secretaries have major, time-consuming operational jobs and
they each head up a demanding constituency. When an Assistant Secretary
comes into the Secretary's office, he does so more as a petitioner than as
a disinterested personal adviser. The Secretary and Under Secretary need
their own staff to provide independent support and analysis. This staff
should include the personal staffs of the top Department officials, the
Executive Secretariat, and the SIG Staff, mentioned above. It should be

administered by a Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Review and Coordination, and improved by the addition of more and better talent, along the lines indicated above in the discussion of a capable SIG staff.

In addition to the Secretary and the Under Secretary, there are other top-ranking State officials whose responsibilities must be efficiently designated. The third-ranking man in the Department is the Under Secretary for either Political Affairs or Economic Affairs. Unless the Under Secretary has unusual competence and interest in international economic matters, this job should have the economic designation. Although the Under Secretary should be a man of Catholic talent, as the number two man and the Secretary's alter ego, he will be deeply and constantly involved in what are, broadly speaking, political matters. The Under Secretary for Economic Affairs will work closely with the Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs and his staff. There is now a strong need for economic expertise on the 7th Floor at State, particularly in the International Monetary and the Trade and Development fields.

The notion that one man should be specifically assigned the job of "running" the State Department (suggestions have been made that the third man in the Department be an "Executive Under Secretary") are unwise for two reasons. First, policy and operations or policy and management cannot be easily separated in the State Department (they can be separated somewhat more easily, for instance, in Defense) -- they are perpetually interwoven. Second, the Secretary and Under Secretary cannot abdicate their active responsibility for such crucially influential matters as personnel and administration. The two top State officials must be continuously "running" the State Department as they conduct their daily business, working through the Deputy Under

17

Secretary for Administration, but also through the two other Deputy
Under Secretaries (for Policy Review and Coordination, discussed above; and
for Political-Security Affairs, discussed below) and the Assistant Secretaries.

The fourth man in State is the Deputy Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs. This job is traditionally filled by the highest-
ranking career diplomat, and has at times become a sinecure instead of a
highly dynamic and influential position addressed to State-Defense-CIA
coordination and the integration of political, military and intelligence
considerations into common national policy. This job should be upgraded,
redesignated Deputy Under Secretary for Political-Security Affairs, and filled
by a career foreign service officer only when he is clearly qualified for
such a highly-charged political and interdepartmental mission. Its
incumbent must maintain a close relationship with the Director of Intelligence
and Research as well as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Political-Military
Affairs and his staff.

The question of more priority accorded in the Department of State
to transregional and functional matters has been discussed above, with the
principal reliance for improvement placed on a strengthened 7th Floor Staff
and the inclusion of functional interdepartmental committees within the
SIG/IRG machinery. A word more can be said with regard to planning and
research -- neither function is given systematic enough emphasis under
the existing organization of the Department.

The impact of planning on the formulation of policy -- both
long-range planning and basic conceptual planning (as distinct from
"implementation" planning) -- should be enhanced by a multi-faceted role

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for the Chairman of State's Policy Planning Staff. Under this proposal
he will serve concurrently as: (a) the Secretary's personal planning adviser;
(b) the Chairman of the interdepartmental Policy Planning Council, which
will be plugged into the SIG system; (c) a special member of the NSC Staff.
The Policy Planning Council feeds in to both the SIG and the NSC mechanisms
and responds to assignments levied by both.

The need for a stronger research input into State Department
policy-making can be handled in one of two ways: (1) the research role
of the INR Director can be enhanced generally by the Secretary and
Under Secretary making it clear that they accord a greater priority to
research in policy decisions and by "research officials" playing a greater
role in IRG and SIG and intra-Departmental meetings; (2) the research
effort within the INR Bureau can be separated out from the intelligence
effort insofar as possible and divided up between the 7th Floor Staff and
the staffs of the regional Assistant Secretaries.

III. FURTHER COMMENT

1. White House Staff

The President's own foreign policy aides must spend a good portion of their time on intelligence-gathering. They must dig up significant information and ideas from within the Departments which don't filter up through the layers of bureaucracy. They must know where to get relevant and speedy policy-oriented analysis when it is needed (INR and CIA officers are peculiarly good in this respect). There is a valuable policy monitoring and evaluation role involved here, also, but it is probably good to keep this informal.

The Special Assistant for National Security Affairs and his staff must know exactly whom the President wishes to deal with in a crisis situation, knowing the key Assistant Secretaries of the Departments intimately, and even identifying the ablest men below that level for special needs.

The specialized expertise on the national security staff must be of the highest quality -- a crackerjack international economist, a man richly experienced in the budgetary process, an intelligence expert, and perhaps above all a tough, courageous military man who can tell you what is happening in the Joint Staff and what paper is going to emerge from the JCS two weeks before it does.

The composition and the work of the White House Staff should be flexible and resourceful enough to compensate for strengths and weaknesses in the various agencies concerned with foreign affairs. If a given area

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wasn't performing up to snuff, the White House Staff should beef up its
capacity accordingly to be sure that the President's overall staffing
didn't suffer gaps. For instance, if the Treasury, the BOB, the Council
of Economic Advisors, State and AID had remarkably productive cross-consultation
on international development policy, there might be less need to keep as intent
an eye on that subject. Or, if OSD suffered a diminished influence in
military policy vis à vis the Chiefs, the President's Special Assistant might
want to beef up the expertise independently available to the President in
that area. It is important in such cases that the basic authority of
the Agency officials involved not be pre-empted or substituted for and
that over-reliance on the White House Staff not be induced. The coordinating
function played by the President's national security staff within the
NSC and SIG/IRG structures can be made more active or passive based on
their performance, but if the White House Staff itself tends to adopt a
dominant role in foreign policy coordination, the State Department will be
given too good an opportunity to evade its basic responsibility.

Whatever decisions the President makes on the organization of
his national security staff (regarding designated vs. undesignated Special
Assistants, more than one Special Assistant in the foreign policy area
vs. the use of Deputies, etc.) virtually all his aides in this area ideally
should have the competency and trust to deal with the President directly
when desirable. Also, there must be open communications across the White
House staff, between the national security types and other specialists as
well as the more versatile, all-purpose Presidential aides. This is
necessary to avoid undue compartmentalization and also to insure sufficient
cross-reference in such areas as the budget, science and technology,
and Congressional and domestic political problems.

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## 2. NSC Machinery

Essential to the functioning of the overall system is the continuity between the NSC device and the SIG/IRG network, as mentioned previously. The reliability of the process is found largely in the dual existence and the dovetailing of the two mechanisms. Both are interdepartmental; one is small and exclusive, the other is large and comprehensive. They are strongly connected. The NSC Executive Group and its staff operates at the highest level and the SIG/IRG network operates at the levels beneath. A given policy issue can come up through both systems in the formulation phase, and then go back down for implementation. Another might originate in the top system. Yet some policy questions can be decided and carried out within the bottom system -- the NSC Executive Group is not the only place where foreign policy decisions are made; it only sets those decisions which absolutely require treatment at that level.

There is a danger in this dual system that it may slip off in one direction -- toward the domination of the NSC and away from a strong State Department role, for instance. That will simply have to be checked carefully in practice -- the system has enough built-in controls so that an imbalance should be avoidable, but flexible enough to find its own efficiency.

"Splits" on policy recommendations between the Secretary of State and Defense will automatically come to the Executive Group from the SIG, and will emerge naturally within the Executive Group in the case of issues which were not worked on in the lower system. The SIG sends agreed policy recommendations along to the President, through his Special Assistant (and through the NSC Staff if they are to be reviewed in the Executive

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Group).

The NSC machinery must be kept from becoming bureaucraticly sluggish, and stifling to the other parts of the process. If the NSC Executive Group and Staff are not kept small and their work selective, this danger will not be avoided. The inherent conflict between the recommendation and coordination functions must be carefully watched in this respect -- the need to achieve ultimate agreement on a policy issue tends to intimidate clean decisions under the pressure to compromise. The papers and records of the NSC mechanism are extremely important to keep the system dynamic and unclogged. They must be clear and complete and quickly disseminated. Preparatory papers must be thoroughly developed, with analysis, argument, and alternatives. On follow-up, memcons or minutes are needed in addition to action instructions -- giving officials who must execute the President's decisions the "feel" of his reasoning, and the debriefing following Executive Group meetings in relevant parts of the foreign policy establishment must be painstaking in order to avoid confusion, uncertainty, or misinterpretation. But all papers should be concise and sharp, and they should be kept limited in number.

The NSC Staff, principally made up of representatives assigned from the major foreign affairs agencies, should have enough time to keep well informed on developments internationally, on activities in the agencies they represent, and -- through good communication with their staff colleagues -- on the opinion and perspective of different specialties and agencies.

This staff will preserve the function of doing independent policy evaluation and planning studies in special cases, but will concentrate on developing papers for Executive Group meetings in close conjunction with and reliance

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on the Policy Planning Council.

One specific area which should be covered by the NSC Executive
Group and its Staff is resource allocation. This machinery must be
capable of relating basic national security considerations to basic
budgetary decisions before the pie is divided up. Policy decisions must
be made and guidance provided on the establishment of priorities early
in the budgetary process so that our national budgets reflect such priorities
rationally rather than set them accidentally. This is an enormous problem,
on which the President, his Cabinet and his Executive Office must devote
great effort, but the NSC Executive Group, with the Budget Director in
attendance, should be able to provide a valuable contribution.

3. The SIG/IRG System

The SIG/IRG system -- intended to strengthen the political-
strategic leadership of State and assure that legitimate concerns of
other agencies are adequately brought to bear -- has suffered from insuffi-
cient use. It has other weaknesses as presently constituted. Workable
improvements must be made for this system to fulfill its own functions, which
are neither independent nor self-sufficient, but interdependent with those
of the NSC system.

At the present time, the SIG/IRG machinery lacks sufficient
credibility to achieve its potential. The President hasn't made it
clear that he will back up its authority, and even the Secretary appears to
view it askance. The Tuesday Luncheon group deals with the really big issues,
and the absence of linkage with SIG/IRG makes the latter feel that it
isn't cut into the overall process. The State-directed system presently

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doesn't provide input to the President's level and get output from it
in a reliable and continuing manner, and this is really needed. Vietnam
is handled outside the SIG/IRG. Since the two principal Secretaries
do not serve on the SIG, there is the latent feeling that they'll carry
their pet problems directly to the White House anyway. The military
and intelligence communities seem to have some fairly large escape
hatches by which they can avoid the discipline of the system. The Assistant
Secretaries are reluctant to refer issues up to the SIG from the IRG
either because they want to show that they can solve their own problems,
because they don't want to lose any battles in open court, or because
they feel that the machinery just doesn't function effectively upstairs.
Staff resources to beef up the system and keep it honest are insufficient.
Apart from these problems, there are certain highly-charged issues which
the lower levels of the Government simply aren't qualified to handle,
and some events may move so fast that the multi-tiered approach and
the fairly large interdepartmental representation of the SIG/IRG network
is inappropriate.

Most of the weaknesses present can be eliminated by changes
in structure and procedure which have already been discussed, such as
the clear linkage between the NSC and the SIG and better Staff resources.
The essential point is that the NSC and the SIG/IRG devices are integral
parts of a common whole. They need each other in a relationship of
mutual confidence. The existence of each strengthens the existence of the
other. They are not competitive, they are complementary. An authoritative
SIG/IRG machinery, providing supervision and coordination throughout the
lower and outer reaches of the system, enables the NSC to be streamlined,

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efficient and selective. An NSC which has close and orderly dealings
with the President and his top advisors and can cleanly bite off the
toughest issues keeps the SIG/IRG unclogged and at the same time charges
it with direction.

Two additional points can be kept in mind to insure that the
SIG/IRG system is neither over-loaded nor over-rated. First, its job --
government-wide foreign policy supervision and coordination in both
the formulation and implementation phases -- is enormous. In all this,
it must deal through rather large committees and at the same time avoid
being strangled by them. If SIG/IRG also had the job of Staff work for
the President and his Cabinet advisors in foreign policy, it would give
its essential responsibilities short shrift. Second, major international
problems that are outside the normal interdepartmental beat really
don't lend themselves effectively to solution by the SIG/IRG. For
instance, certain balance of payments problems with Treasury and "food
for peace" problems with Agriculture can more effectively be worked out
at a higher and more select level. A number of State-Defense conflicts
will inevitably have to be referred to the President, moreover.

The experience of the various IRG's shows that they function
somewhat differently, and this degree of flexibility is good. Some
emphasize long-range planning, others are more directed towards fairly
close-range problems. (Any IRG serves as the basic "task force" for
management of a crisis situation in its area -- the interdepartmental
personnel and structure is in place, functioning, and familiar with itself).
The Latin American Bureau, for instance, uses Country Analysis and Strategy

- 26 -

Papers, which come before its IRG and provide policy review and
guidance to operating agencies. One function of the CASPs is to relate
budgetary problems to the broad political and social setting of U.S. policy.

Below the IRG level, the Country Directors provide the
coordinated direction of policy execution, other than the Ambassador
running the "Country Team", closest to the programs themselves, again
employing the concept of executive chairman in the interdepartmental
committees which enables State to maintain the principal policy control.

4. The Secretary of State and His Department

The Secretary of State must be encouraged and enabled to do
his job. He can be encouraged by being told that he is to do it and
by no one else attempting to do it for him. He can be enabled by
having effective staffing and structure which he doesn't have now.

The Secretary must think like the President, not like the
senior representative of the Foreign Service. He is not the agent of
the political counselors in our Embassies; he is the representative and
advocate of overall U.S. foreign relations. He is the chief official
in the Government under the President to keep the President and U.S. policy
consistent with basic strategic concept. He must be these things --
the President needs such capacity in a single advisor who is also the
President's chief executor. Only the Secretary of State can be charged
with and only the Department of State is constituted for this task.

Through the recommendations contained in this proposal, the
Secretary can be "liberated" from some of the burdens which afflict and
immobilize him. He can then have the time to be assertive both inside and
outside of the Department, to be accessible to his Assistant Secretaries, to

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deal effectively with those issues which the SIG doesn't, using the
special advisors he wishes, to look at various points of view and arbitrarily
exclude none.

This process of freeing up the Secretary to better fulfill his enormous
responsibilities is helped immensely by the working relationships he
achieves with his top officials. He must have the principal role in these
appointments or they will not feel responsible enough to him and he will
not be able to achieve the needed professional and personal relationships
with them. If he is the President's man, they will be the President's
men through him -- the size and nature of the Government doesn't allow
them to serve the President directly anyway.

The Under Secretary is the most crucial of the top appointments, as
already indicated -- he simply cannot be treated like a second string
quarterback. It may be that the third man in the Department (discussed
above in terms of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs) should play a
versatile role, so the Secretary can use him in a flexible manner as a
rover handling a variety of responsibilities in addition to international
economic matters. The importance of Defense-State-CIA and political-military-
intelligence integration requires the Deputy Under Secretary rank to provide
the needed interdepartmental clout; either this official or the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs under him will serve as
the Chairman of the Political-Military interdepartmental group earlier discussed.
The continuation of a Deputy Under Secretary for Administration will be
helpful from a Congressional standpoint and can be used to give the management
effort greater strength and status. The assistant Secretaries who wield

the Secretary's major operational power, who run the show regionally,
must also be politically loyal and responsible to him.
They, in turn, must be delegated the authority, and given the trust to do
their jobs, and if so, the top officials of the Department will be freed
to troubleshoot and fashion foreign policy into a cohesive whole.

The process of freeing up the Secretary is also accomplished by
more competent and better organized staffing resources. Better management
and a stronger priority on management skills and techniques is critically
needed, keeping in mind that the management of ideas is a different
challenge than the management of tangible products or services. Here is
where the "7th Floor Staff" and its Director, the Deputy Under Secretary
for Policy Coordination and Review, comes in. This group must manifest
esprit and self-confidence, and a broad and ambitious concept of its job.
It cannot be restricted to the traditional representation-negotiation-reporting
outlook of the State Department, but must be competent and willing to consider
scientific matters, budgetary problems, public opinion, domestic political
factors, and so forth -- to view foreign policy as a dynamic whole instead
of a stagnant fragment. The addition to this staff of men assigned by
other agencies is thus extremely valid.

Rejecting the notion that policy can be separated from operation and
administration, the 7th Floor Staff -- through its service to the principal
officers of the Department in their dual intra-Departmental and inter-Depart-
mental roles -- must find the proper mix of the two. It must organize itself
underneath the Deputy Under Secretary in the way that he feels best, but
avoid a regional breakdown suggesting a surrogate Department and potential
competition with and undermining of the Assistant Secretaries. The Deputy

Under Secretary in charge of this staff must have, again, a combination of nerve and tact. He and his men must scare out what's really going on in the nether regions of the Department as distinct from what is being coughed upstairs, but he must not debilitate the line functions.

The Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Coordination and Review must insure that functional and transregional considerations get a much stronger input in the staffing effort. The top officials of the Department on the 7th Floor have the responsibility to work foreign policy into a cohesive whole and depend upon his staff for crucial assistance in this respect. Since the Department is fundamentally organized along regional grounds, there is a tendency to overlook or resist factors which don't fall neatly into a geographical category. The resulting policy is not only liable to be too fragmented but too much directed towards individual countries. This "client" orientation tends to produce institutional bias in favor of an extension of U.S. commitments abroad which must be challenged.

## 5. The Liabilities of a Super-Cabinet Officer Approach

The suggestion that the foreign affairs of the nation be run by a single super-Cabinet officer or an Executive Vice-President sitting over Cabinet Officers and other agency heads with major operating responsibilities in the area has more disadvantages than advantages. Aside from the difficulties in obtaining statutory authority for such a plan and in hiring the highest quality Department heads who would serve under such an official, it would be likely to aggravate the President's burdens and frustrations rather than ameliorate them. It would also compromise the principle of conservation of authority, without any guarantee that the scheme would work in a managerial sense.

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The various Cabinet Secretaries with foreign affairs
responsibilities each have a constituency of their own and are not going
to be screened from the President. They will continue to require direct
access. This structure would also tend to make these officials more
parochial advocates and lobbyists of the bureaucracies they represent.
It would tend to create more layering. The foreign affairs czar
would need a staff of his own to process, evaluate and integrate the
recommendations of the various departments and agencies involved. Not
having a political base of his own, he will naturally attempt to build
up his own staff to protect himself and artificially to strengthen his
power.

The President cannot delegate his own ultimate decision-making
authority, and there is no class of decisions which fall in between the
Cabinet level and himself. That is, those high priority and politically
sensitive circumstances in which a super-Cabinet officer would be useful
are the very same circumstances when the President himself must be
personally involved, when the Presidential power must be directly brought
to bear.

6. <u>An Information System for the President</u>

Attention must be given to designing and setting up a
comprehensive information system for the President which is capable of
adequately briefing him on a day-to-day basis on current international
developments, providing him with early warning on trouble spots before they
actually confront him, and developing major policy alternatives in
response to projected developments with an evaluation of the probable con-
sequences of each. Such a systematic and rational organization of information

does not exist at present. The application of relevant criteria and
modern techniques of storage and retrieval should be employed.

The White House Staff would have a key role to play in the
briefing function, the President's Executive Office could be assigned
the surveillance-and-anticipation portion, and evaluated alternatives
might be produced by the combined effort of his national security
process, perhaps focused in the NSC staff. In any event, the system
should be a comprehensive whole, and should not be set up with disregard for
other staffing and consultation arrangements.

Closely related to this information system, an independent
program of policy monitoring and evaluation should be available to
assess how well policy is working in terms of the U.S. national interest.
Whether it is centrally located in the Executive Office of the President
or performed simultaneously at several loci in the Executive Branch
(such a function has already been mentioned in regard to the White House
Staff and the NSC Staff; it could also be performed in State) remains
to be determined.

7. Semi-Autonomous Agencies

AID, USIA, ACDA, and the Peace Corps possess some degree of
but not total independence within the Executive Branch. All have important
responsibilities in the foreign policy area. Both AID and the Peace Corps
are agencies "within the Department of State", whereas USIA and ACDA have
a larger measure of autonomy but in practice are closely connected to State.
Although their present status is probably as good as can be arranged, this
subject should be seriously addressed. For consistency's sake, USIA and
ACDA could be brought back under State or AID and the Peace Corps could be

brought outside, but the reasons for treating them differently are most
likely more substantial. The formal practice might be adopted, however,
whereby all these agencies are required to pass to the Secretary of
State their written reports to the President, though they are free to
report what they wish and to maintain direct access to the President.

8. State-Defense Relationships

A special note needs to be registered on improving the
relationship between the State and Defense Departments, which lies
at the core of the whole national security process. This is the
"central partnership", ideally a sympathetic relationship able to
properly relate military means to political ends. The strengthening
of the role of the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political-Security
Affairs (including the Political-Military interdepartmental group
and State's Political-Military staff), already discussed, should help.
The importance of the Office of the Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs (the Pentagon's "carbon copy" of the State Department)
cannot be overemphasized here. Its highly talented mixed staff of
military officers and civilians is devoted to achieving a dynamic
integration of political and military policy, in close communication with
the Department of State, which is immensely valuable to the overall system.

There is an inconsistency between the greater policy-influencing
power of Defense (with greater resources in manpower and money) and State's
mandate to seize the totality of international policy. Suggestions set
forth as part of this proposal are calculated to correct this imbalance, so
that the proper weight be assured for State's political assumptions, values
and appraisals. State can't handle military policy but Defense mustn't set
strategic doctrine by itself. A key to this objective is State's role in

budgetary matters. The Political-Military Staff at State keeps in some
touch with OSD's development of Draft Presidential Memoranda (as
they affect military assistance, force levels, deployments, overseas
bases, etc.) but this liaison should be strengthened. The appropriate
State Department officials should insure that careful views are made
available on the Defense budget before it is finalized. This input
must be made more systematic, for instance through the Political-Military
and the Budgetary interdepartmental groups effecting a timely SIG role
in the process.

9. The Foreign Service

Reform in the organization and management of our foreign
affairs personnel system is badly needed. Several useful studies on
this subject have been done in the past and should be dusted off and
updated. The current recommendations of the Foreign Service Association
should be carefully studied. At the minimum, a family of compatible
career services in the foreign affairs field must be effected.

Personnel -- along with management -- problems should be given high
priority by the top leadership of the Department of State and other
agencies with international responsibilities. If that is not done,
morale among career officers will continue to sink and the enormously
talented and dedicated professional human resources available will not
be mobilized to their high promise.

A part of the problem is the relationship between non-career
and career officials, between political appointees and the diplomatic corps,
in the State Department. Somehow, the diplomatic corps must better encompass
the political dynamics which characterize its new environment and role,

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without compromising its career status. Tradition and the natural
by-products of an elite group have tended to overemphasize the
gentlemanly and clubby characteristics of the Foreign Service.
There's a new ball game, and they must learn how to play it. At the
same time, Foreign Service personnel should not be asked to undertake
jobs for which they are untrained and unqualified and which require
a high "political" participation, loyalty and risk. Political appointees
must be careful to handle senior career officers with respect, dignity,
and graciousness, particularly at the time of a change in Administration.

A related problem which must be carefully studied is the staffing
of our overseas missions, with an eye to cutting down the quantity of
people assigned to them, as some impressive reports have recently
recommended. This is not only an administrative problem, but a substantive
one -- the number of official Americans in a given country can profoundly
influence the basic psychology of political relationships. The Government
of an underdeveloped country under pressure from the local Communists, for
instance, will have a much easier time defending itself against charges of
being puppets or stooges of the Americans if those Americans do not
appear to be mobbing the joint.

10. The Budgetary Process

Although the need for overall foreign policy judgement to be
brought to bear in the setting of national priorities and the allocation of
national resources has been reiterated at several points in this proposal, a
final reference is necessary. Several suggestions have been made herein
intended to enhance the effective conciliation between substantive and
budgetary considerations during the cycle before the ceilings are set.

- 35 -

Last year, important progress was made when the SIG Staff and the
International Division of the Budget Bureau conferred on the final prepara-
tion of the President's Budget (after the recommendations were in to BOB
but before the budget had gone to the President). But a thorough analysis
should be made of the problem to insure that the best actions are taken to
alleviate it.

11. Planning

Another area emphasized in this proposal -- the dual role of the
interdepartmental Policy Planning Council, for instance -- but which should
be watched very carefully in practice is the planning function. Presently,
there is an enormous gap here -- effective, useful planning is simply not
influential within the process. The overall system isn't structured appropri-
ately to absorb long-range or conceptual planning and the planners themselves,
sensing that careers are made and the real action is found in the headlines,
tend to get too operationally involved in day-to-day problems.

Foreign policy needs a strategy as well as a framework, and that
strategy can't be determined and sustained without strong planning. With
planning and strategy a general direction in international relations can be
pursued over a period of time toward a set of goals, through various crises
which must be handled and solved but should not interfere -- other than
slowing down the momentum -- with the basic thrust.

The planning officer mustn't feel so separated from the consumer
that his work is unreal or sterile. There needs to be a good conduit to
the operational leadership. The planner must be associated with operational
activity without having a vested interest and without trying to make operational
decisions.

- 36 -

Among ideas to keep in mind are: (a) there should be more planning done on the line, decentralized (in the regional bureaus, for instance); (b) the top officials of the State Department should get personal exposure to planning exercises (not only at SIG meetings which do not provide a particularly desirable forum, but at intra-Departmental meetings in preparation for SIG where the planning input could be vigorously examined); (c) it is the process of planning and not the paper of planning which is important.

## 12. The Technological Revolution

Tremendous technological progress in various areas directly involves U.S. foreign policy, and technological considerations should be insured adequate input into the policy-making process. This is yet another "functional" area that under present organization and procedure may not be getting adequate attention. Oceanographic exploration, satellite communication, environmental problems, and weather modification are just four areas which carry severe implications for the conduct of international relations in general and the concept of sovereignty in particular. The Office of Science and Technology obviously has an expanded role to play here, and the White House foreign policy staff, the NSC Staff, State's 7th Floor Staff, and the Policy Planning Council may all want to carry expertise in and devote more attention to this area. Perhaps the Office of the Science Advisor at State needs higher priority, and the Committee of Principals on Arms Control matters -- deeply involved in scientific and technological progress, may also play a more useful role.

-38-

## 2. Other Studies

In addition to this proposal, there are many outside studies being done on this and related subjects, a few of which are listed below. These papers are worthy of close examination. In many cases they are complementary to one another and contain a useful overlap of concepts and suggestions.

1. Institute for Defense Analysis -- The National Security Process

2. Harvard Institute of Politics Faculty Study Group -- Transition, White House Staff, National Security Organization

3. American Foreign Service Association -- Foreign Affairs Personnel Administration

4. Council on Foreign Relations Study Group on Intelligence and Policy

5. The Brookings Institute -- "Agenda for the Nation"

6. Among various transition check-lists and organization studies being prepared within the Executive Branch, the best include:

a. Under-Secretary of State's staff;

b. Bureau of the Budget;

c. The "Heineman Report" -- a classified study in the White House.

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3. Author's Biographical Sketch

Jonathan Moore

Born September 10, 1932, New York City

Home address: Tonset Road, Orleans, Massachusetts 02653
(Tel. 617/255-0785)

Office address: Institute of Politics, 78 Mt. Auburn Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
(Tel. 617/868-7600 Extension 792)

Married to the former Katherine Weeks Andres of Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Four children: Joan Brooke, 8; Jennifer, 7; Jocelyn Andres, 4; Charles Frederick IV, 3.

B.A. degree, cum laude, Dartmouth College, 1954.

Masters degree in Public Administration, Harvard University, 1967.

Resident Fellow, Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, September, 1966 to April, 1967 and
October, 1968 to January, 1969.

Public Affairs Assistant, United States Information Agency, Washington, D.C.,
Bombay, India, and Monrovia, Liberia, 1957-1959.

Assistant to the Minority Leadership, U.S. Senate, 1959. Legislative

Assistant to Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R., Mass.), 1959-61.

Political-Military Affairs Officer, Office of International Security Affairs,
Department of Defense, 1961-63. Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant
Secretary and to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Affairs, 1963-64.

Member of interdepartmental Congo Working Group; official travel
in Central, South and East Africa including the Congo and Rep. of South
Africa; Director of India Affairs, negotiations in London and
New Delhi on U.S. military assistance program for India; Delegation
staff, NATO Ministerial Meeting; Special assignments on Balance of
Payments, Cuban missile crisis, Congressional relations; Speech-
writing, Staff administration in ISA Office.

Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, March, 1964 to June, 1966.

Executive Secretary, Far East Interdepartmental Regional Group; Delegation staff, SEATO Ministerial Meetings; Staff representative at U.S. Ambassadors Far East regional conferences; Official travel throughout the Far East, including Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam; Congressional relations, speech-writing, staff administration in FE Bureau.

Director of the Office of Public Affairs, Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, Department of State, June, 1966 to August, 1966.

Foreign Affairs Advisor on campaign staff of Governor George Romney, April, 1967 to March, 1968.

Foreign policy research and speech-writing on campaign staff of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, April, 1968 to September, 1968.

November, 1968