Secretary in charge. This is in keeping with what the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch calls the requirement offixing of responsibility for action in five line units under five Assistant Secretaries.

The Commission's report observes:

* Four of these Assistant Secretaries would head up regional units, with the responsibility for the four traditional geographic segments of the world. A fifth would be in charge of relationships with international organizations, including the United Nations and its affiliated organizations.

Both the regional and international organization Assistant Secretaries would at the action level be responsible for and be equipped, in terms of personnel, to deal with not solely "political" aspects of foreign affairs, as is the basic conception of the duties of the existing geographic office directors, but for all aspects, whether they be political, economic, public opinion, intelligence, or administration.

Operations will be carried on in keeping with the following principles quoted from the report of the Commission:

Within the action units responsibility for decisions should be clearly fixed with adequate machinery by which the decision-maker can consult but never be required to obtain the concurrence of staff advisory units or other action units. The five Assistant Secretaries with action responsibilities should serve as the focal points of contact between the Department and the overseas and international organization missions in both substantive and administrative matters.

The improvements in performance which the Congress may expect of the Department of State in the sequel to this legislation may be evaluated by taking into account the sharper defining of the line of authority and the addition of new power at the top level of administration. The latter topic is discussed subsequently in this report. It is well to point out here, however, that with the direct, single line of responsibility and with some of the burdens lifted from the leaders of the Department by improvement of staff, it should become possible for the Department to realize the recommendation of the Commission that

The fundamental world objectives and foreign policies of the United States * be continuously defined so as to permit delegation of authority to the line units to take action within the objectives and policies so defined.

The Commission's report observes, in this connection:

The State Department, since the war, has at all levels been too much concerned with "details" and not enough with "policy." The Secretary-Under Secretary top command is overburdened by being drawn down into participation in too many daily decisions with the consequence that the entire Department lives day. to-day, and policies tend to be determined in terms of short-range decisions.

The State Department began in recent years to endeavor to reduce the United States objectives and foreign policies to writing. Continued emphasis on this admittedly difficult task, and on making such written statements available to all concerned, will provide the means by which the regional Assistant Secretaries and the international organization Assistant Secretary may assume responsibility for all but the most crucial decisions and afford the top command time for reflection and long-range thinking.

* * *

The regroupings of functions and responsibility discussed above. can all be accomplished within the authority of the Secretary to administer the Department and, in his own discretion, to delegate responsibilities to subordinates.

C. RELATION BETWEEN THE DEPARTMENT AND THE FOREIGN

SERVICE

A change requiring specific statutory interposition, however, relates to the peculiar position of the Foreign Service as an adjunct of the

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Department. The bill would repeal those portions of the Foreign Service Act of 1946 providing a special administrative set-up for the Foreign Service and specifying special duties in relation thereto for the Director of the Foreign Service and other officers subordinate to the Secretary. Their powers and responsibilities are thus gathered into the hands of the Secretary. It may be that the Secretary will reassign these duties along the same lines as now set up in the statute, but, if so, they will be reassigned in his discretion and not as a result of legal mandate. It is contemplated that the personnel, budgeting, and administrative units of the Foreign Service at the Department level will be combined with the corresponding agencies for the Department as a whole, rather than functioning as duplicating units as at present. The bill does not abolish the post of Director General of the Foreign Service-in contrast to the recommendation of the Commission on Organization in the Executive Branch. Such an officer is considered necessary so long as the Foreign Service is maintained on its present basis. The bill does, however, abolish the post of Deputy Director of the Foreign Service, as recommended by the Commission. This post has not been filled and is considered superfluous.

It should be noted that presently planned action does not go as far as the broad recommendation of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch that

The personnel in the permanent State Department establishment in Washington and the personnel of the Foreign Service above certain levels should be amalgamated over a short period of years into a single foreign affairs service obligated to serve at home or overseas and constituting a safeguarded career group administered separately from the general civil service.

The Department is proceeding with a prudent regard for the view expressed by the Honorable James E. Forrestal, then Secretary of Defense, in reserving his position on the above recommendation:

* * * that it is of crucial importance that this process not be permitted to operate so as to destroy the morale of either group.

Foreign Service officers are given special consideration in pay and tenure because their status involves the obligation to serve abroad at the convenience of the Government-an obligation that does not devolve upon personnel of the Department proper. To require at once of all officers of the Department the obligation to serve overseas whenever and wherever assigned might serve only to deprive the Department of the services of many valued servants whose personal positions preclude such an obligation. The general purposes of the relevant recommendation of the Commission-namely, to do away with the cleavage between the Foreign Service officers and the officers of the Department and to develop a unified service adequate to the needs of foreign policy both at home and abroad-cannot be accomplished by a single legal or administrative action; they can be worked out only over a long period. The following observations of the Commission, however, are noted by the committee.

* This division of forces between a Foreign Service centering on a separate corps of officers, mostly stationed abroad but partly in key positions in Washington, and a group of employees who work chiefly at home is a source of serious friction and increasing inefficiency. Such a division of personnel in foreign affairs has been abandoned in all but a handful of countries. Among those in which it still exists, the United States is the only great power.

The division leads to jealousies and to inequality of compensation among people doing much the same work. The Foreign Service, through long periods of service abroad, undoubtedly loses contact with American domestic conditions.

The civil service employees, who seldom or never serve abroad for any long period, fail often to understand other nations and appreciate foreign conditions. In recommending approval of the instant bill, the committee also expresses its hope that the task of working out the basis for a unified service to handle foreign relations will be pursued energetically by the Department of State. In the meantime, the committee would look with disfavor upon any interpretation of the proposed legislation as justifying an attempt to impair existing procedures for objective, independent examination of candidates for appointment in the Foreign Service. The Department of State has given assurance that there is no intention to do away with the Board of Examiners for the Foreign Service or to impair the independence of its procedures.

III. ADEQUACY OF STAFF AT THE TOP LEVEL

A. THE TWO NEW DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARIES

The observation, made above, that adequacy of staff and clarity of the line of authority are inseparable is repeated for emphasis. The relationship is appreciated when one scrutinizes the chart of the existing organization of the Department of State. Differences and deadlocks between the coordinate elements at the line level can be resolved only by reference to the Secretary or the Under Secretary. Thus two men besides bearing enormous responsibilities for the conduct of affairs abroad-must find time to resolve countless disputes rising on subordinate levels. Insofar as they cannot find the time, as all too often they cannot, then the result is paralysis of action at the lower level. The solution must be found not only in the principle of a clear line of authority, by fixing responsibility in subordinate units and giving them power commensurate with responsibility, but also by providing more top-level people authorized to make final decisions.

At present the Department has only two such people, the Secretary and the Under Secretary. Under the contemplated reorganization, it will have 4-the 2 above plus 2 Deputy Under Secretaries to be chosen by the Secretary from among the 10 authorized Assistant Secretaries. This is in keeping with the recommendation of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch for

the strengthening of the Secretary and Under Secretary level by the addition of two Deputy Under Secretaries, the one to act in matters of substance, and the other, as "general manager," to administer the Department and the overseas

service.

The bill departs from the Commission's recommendation in one respect: It does not itself establish the two Deputy Under Secretaryships; it leaves it to the Secretary to designate as Under Secretaries two of the Assistant Secretaries. This departure from the Commission's recommendations is believed to be consistent with the principles of flexibility and of centralization of authority in the Secretary.

The two Deputy Under Secretaries will speak, within the Department, with an authority superior to that of the other Assistant Secretaries. No law can prevent someone down the line in the Department from seeking to appeal to higher authority a decision made by one or the other of the Deputies, but the subordinate wishing a reversal might be expected to consider his course gravely before challenging the authority of someone above him in the chain of command invested with such clear authority as the two Deputy Under Secre