Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VIII, Public Diplomacy, 1969–1972

132. Memorandum From the Chair of the USIA Young Officers’ Policy Panel (Grooms) to the Members of the Young Officers’ Policy Panel¹

Washington, April 23, 1971

Friends,

The new YOPP met for the first time April 14. This letter describes some of the results of our day-long meeting. Briefly, we developed a rough agenda and agreed upon procedure. Panel members found that their concerns tended to fall into three intellectual pigeonholes: Problems of Agency structure, professionalism, and communication with constituents. We discuss each in turn.—

1. The structure of the Agency encourages inefficiency and should be changed. Our present system of vertical compartmenting leads to a duplication of effort, difficulty in coordinating the work of the media and the field, and a waste of talent. Horizontal communication, so important to creative programming, is limited and ineffective. We work in isolation.

For example, radio, press, television and film, and other media offices in USIA are artificially separated. The workers in one medium are usually ignorant of what takes place in the others and are not normally encouraged to find out.

It is difficult for one media to use talent assigned to another even though such exchange may be in the best interests of the Agency. There is an overall need to coordinate the media and to break down bureaucratic barriers.

The division of USIS posts into information and cultural sections is another example of a structure of doubtful efficiency. And our vast and anonymous administrative bureaucracy presents what may be the most intractable problem of all.

Given these difficulties, it seems reasonable to ask if we might not find some better way of organizing ourselves. And it seems reasonable to suggest that we might redesign our bureaucratic apparatus to encourage initiative rather than continue to strangle it. YOPP hopes to develop concrete suggestions for reorganization of the Agency, and plans to make specific proposals on individual issues. We need your ideas.

(And then we have the distinction between young and old in USIA, as if there must be some qualitative philosophical difference determined by chronology. Why do we have a Young Officers Policy Panel? Are we better than older officers? Are we worse? Perhaps the YOPP could, in its fervor to reorganize, reorganize itself. We may pursue this speculation.)

2. Through improved training and greater job mobility, the Agency should make better use of its personnel. The Director has decided to establish a Foreign Affairs Specialist Corps (FAS). A long-range goal of the Agency is to staff all officer positions under Foreign Service personnel authority. All officer positions will be designated FSIO or FAS. (See the attached announcement² on FAS.)

YOPP wants to know more about FAS. We are looking into it. The new system could help improve job mobility and reduce bureaucratic barriers to communication within USIA, if it is properly carried out.

Under this topic of the improvement of the use of personnel, this panel asks itself if the present enforced distinction between “specialists” and “generalists” should be continued. Are these two forms of humanity mutually exclusive? The panel feels that, in the business of professional communication, excessive and enforced specialization is stultifying to the individual and consequently bad for the Agency.

Several panel members note that media personnel have little chance to learn about their audiences and in consequence produce in a vacuum. Because of this, persons in the field often find media products irrelevant to their audiences and hence ineffective. This is an old complaint and the problem persists despite the years of complaining.

To help improve matters, the panel proposes to encourage the exposure of working-level media personnel to information about their audiences. This can be done through open forums, visiting lectures (both U.S. and foreign nationals), and more frequent working-level conferences. Eventually FAS might have a salutary effect in helping promote contact between media personnel and audiences.

If specialization frustrates the specialist in Washington, the generalist doctrine equally keeps the generalist down. Officers in the field, our so-called generalists, are often inadequately trained in the tools of their trade. They are especially unfamiliar with modern techniques—multi-media, layout and printing, Abstracta and other modern exhibits tools, contemporary graphics, etc.

Is it unreasonable to suggest that we might profitably generalize the specialists, and teach the generalists something about the specialties of the trade? The panel thinks that this is reasonable and will seek ways to promote training and, for want of a better word, cross-fertilization. Let us hear from you.

We need to look closely at recruiting, JOT training, membership on the Board of Examiners and promotion panels. It is rumored that the Agency has difficulty in recruiting the best minds of our generation. Is this true? Can we do anything about it? Should we do anything about it?

3. YOPP is faced with the problem of getting in touch with the people it claims to represent. We want to direct more energy to communicating with you in Washington and in the field, and become less exclusively concerned with direct communication with the top levels of the Agency.

To this end we hope to increase the frequency of the YOPP letter, and turn it into an opinion forum open to any constituent, member of the panel, or guest. We will continue to use the YOPP column in the USIA World,³ but will try to improve the column’s format.

We will sponsor more open discussions and bring more speakers, especially professionals in communication and the media, to the Agency.

We encourage constituents to attend weekly YOPP meetings, and will invite non-constituents to attend as appropriate. This is our meeting schedule—

First Thursday of each month—IMV (In the Old Post Office until it is destroyed)

Third Thursday of each month—VOA (In HEW North)

All other Thursdays—Room 600 in 1750 Pennsylvania

Call Larry Ott, IMV/PS, x51866 for the room location in IMV. Call Wendy Ross or Tom Eichler, IBS/PW, x54193 or x54585 for the room location in VOA.

In addition to our regular meetings, we plan organized debriefings of persons returning from the field. We hope to show new media products and send you interesting documents.

We hope to explore the use of more effective and cheaper media tools, and will encourage the elimination of costly and ineffective products and services.

So much for the preliminary shopping list. We’ll keep in touch.

[Omitted here is a listing of YOPP members and their contact information.]

Sally Grooms

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, USIA Historical Collection, Subject Files, 1953–2000, Entry A1–1066, Box 1, Organization, 1945–1978. No classification marking. An unknown hand circled “Young Officers Policy Panel” in the top left-hand corner of the memorandum.
2. Attached but not printed is an April 9 USIA announcement entitled “Agency Decision on FAS Program.” The announcement stated that IPT “has been instructed to develop the details” of the FAS program, noting that an IPT study group had been established to develop a detailed plan.
3. Reference is to an internal USIA periodical.