Musings from State

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Testifying last month in closed hearings before a Senate subcommittee, Secretary of State Dean Rusk mused about his department and its problems. As made public this week, it was pretty fascinating. Excerpts:

"We do business now with more than 112 governments. During the present calendar year, there will have been elections or changes in government in more than 50 of them. Now I suppose there would be ten or twelve of those changes of government which were unscheduled. That creates a turbulence in our scene. The little island of Zanzibar becomes an independent state this month. How many islands of the Pacific will want to be independent states? The prospect here is to me unsettling, at least.*

"But this multiplication of states has greatly changed the conduct of business and foreign policy. The Department of State receives every working day throughout the year about 1,300 incoming cables. I will see 20 or 30 of those on a usual day. We send out 1,000 cables a day, on every working day, and I will see perhaps six of those; the White House may see one or two."

A Drawer Full of Clippings. "The ghost that haunts the policy officer or haunts the man who makes the final decision is the question as to whether, in fact, he has in his mind all of the important elements that ought to bear upon his decision or whether there is a missing piece that he is not aware of that could have a decisive effect if it became known.

"I think we can be proud of the extraordinary improvement in our intelligence and information-gathering activities in the last 20 years. When I was assigned to G-2 in 1941, I was asked to take charge of a new section that had been organized to cover everything from Afghanistan right through southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific. The materials available to me consisted of a tourist handbook on India and Ceylon, a 1924 military attache's report from London on the Indian army, and a drawer full of clippings from the New York Times gathered since World War I. That was literally the resources of G-2 on that vast part of the world a year after the war in Europe had started. We have greatly improved our ability to gather relevant information. However, our problem is how to get it to the people at the top. When a crisis occurs, it is then almost too late to educate those who have to make the decision."

Trouble with Layering. "Inside the department, our principal problem is layering. When I read a telegram coming in in the morning, it poses a very specific question, and the moment I read it I know what the answer must be. But that telegram goes on its appointed course into the bureau and through the office and down to the desk. Then it goes from the action officer back up through the department to me a week or ten days later, and if it isn't the answer that I knew to be the answer, then I change it at that point, having taken into account the advice that came from below. But usually it is the answer that everybody would know has to be the answer. I think we do need to do something about layering."

* For how Rusk's worries about Zanzibar have come true, see THE WORLD.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.