Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I

Department of State Administrative Files²

Statement by the Secretary of State Before the Home Committee on Foreign Affairs³

[Washington, March 11, 1949.]

The President in a Message to the Congress has called attention to the increased functions and responsibilities which have been assigned to the Department of State since the war and has outlined the general changes he has approved in the organization of the Department.⁴

The members of this Committee and of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate know first-hand the problems to which the President has referred. The Legislative Committees and the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate on several occasions have expressed their concern with the need for revision in the general organization of the United States Government for the conduct of foreign relations.

A number of improvements in the organization of the Department were made by Secretary Marshall⁵ and Mr. Lovett.⁶ These changes were made to deal with urgent requirements. In addition, a year ago a comprehensive plan for the reorganization of the Department was developed under their direction by Mr. Peurifoy.⁷

This plan, after being generally approved by the President, was made available to the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. A Task Force of the Hoover Commission, headed by Mr. Harvey H. Bundy and Mr. James Grafton Rogers, both former Assistant Secretaries of State, with the advice of Mr. Henry L. Stimson,⁸ reviewed and generally endorsed this plan in their report to the Commission.⁹ As a member of the Commission, I participated in the consideration of the Task Force Report. The Commission adopted a report accepting the basic plan with a few modifications.¹⁰

Both Mr. Webb¹¹ and I have now had an opportunity to review the Department’s reorganization plan and the Hoover Commission Report in the light of actual operating experience in the Department. With some slight modifications in these plans which Mr. Peurifoy will explain, we have directed that the reorganization of the Department be undertaken.

I would like to say just a word about some of the things we hope to accomplish through the proposed reorganization of the Department. Our primary objective is, of course, to improve the work of the Department. That work includes an extraordinary number of complex functions and relationships.

The Department of State is the principal staff arm of the President in the conduct of foreign affairs. One of the principal tasks of the Department is to advise and make recommendations to the President. In this connection the Department is not the only agency of the Government that is concerned with the formulation of our foreign policy. The Department must consult with and advise other departments and agencies of the Government, both with respect to the formulation of policy and in administering foreign policy.

To perform these functions the Department must be organized internally in a manner that will produce the best results with the least expenditure of time and effort. The report of the Hoover Commission calls attention to certain existing organizational defects now present in the Department. These defects include obscure lines of authority, the lack of an adequate number of top level assistants with a consequent burden thrown upon the Secretary and Under Secretary, the resultant absence of good staff work, and the slowness with which decisions are reached. We propose to correct these faults.

In any reorganization of the Department it is a fundamental that the Secretary of State should be in full command of the Department and the Foreign Service so that the line of authority from the Secretary to the Under and Assistant Secretaries to subordinate officials in the Department and overseas is clear and unmistakable. The bill before you will remove the ambiguous language in the Foreign Service Act of 1946¹² to which attention was called by the Hoover Commission, and clearly establish the authority of the Secretary.

In order to fix responsibility clearly we propose to simplify the structure of the Department. We intend to establish four bureaus organized on a regional basis, each headed by an Assistant Secretary. These Assistant Secretaries, together with the Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, will be the officers to whom the bulk of action responsibility will be assigned.

The proposed legislation would give us an adequate number of Assistant Secretaries, in addition to the Counselor and the Legal Adviser, to make it possible to reduce the burden now carried by the Under Secretary and the Secretary. Those top level officers would also give the Department the personnel necessary to perform which the Commission has stated is inadequate. In order to provide the advisory and staff services which are needed, the reorganization plan calls for three Assistant Secretaries—for Economic and Social Affairs, Congressional Relations, and Public Affairs. It also calls for a Legal Adviser, a Counselor who will also be Planning Adviser, and a Special Assistant for Intelligence. I will look to these officers for long-range planning and recommendations. In this way, I hope to stay on top of our foreign policy responsibilities, and not be forced to improvise on a piece-meal basis.

I believe the proposed basic organization will handle our work more expeditiously. For example, the proposed organization will eliminate the necessity of trying to determine whether an action matter is political or economic. Under the present organization, action matters may find their way to two different types of unit, one political and one economic, each reporting to a different head. As the Hoover Commission has pointed out, the present arrangement often results in prolonged and time consuming efforts at getting clearances and concurrences between various offices, with the result that there is some duplication of work, and responsibility is not clearly fixed.

With reference to the administrative side of the Department, we hope to bring about certain improvements by integrating management of personnel and budgetary matters, to cite but two illustrations, thereby eliminating a certain duplication of effort and confusion.

We do not know as yet how much, if any, will be saved in the way of personnel or money as the result of the reorganization. As I have already said our immediate objective is to create a better operating mechanism. As the Hoover Commission indicated in its report, it will be difficult to calculate the immediate savings, but I hope substantial savings may come from having a more efficient Department that is better suited to meet its responsibilities in the conduct of our foreign relations.

Certain changes have already been made in the Department’s organization which are consistent with the recommendations of the Hoover Commission. We have designated an Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations; we have created an Assistant Secretary for United Nations Affairs; we have abolished the posts of Assistant Secretaries for Political Affairs, Occupied Areas Affairs, and Transportation and Communications; and we have established an Office of German and Austrian Affairs by merging the staffs in the economic, political, and information offices concerned with Germany and Austria. In addition, we are preparing detailed staff plans for putting the other recommended changes into effect. To accomplish this, we must have the legislation before you today.¹³

The reorganization of the Department along the lines I have described will complete what we consider to be phase one of our total job. The Hoover Commission has stated that, in their opinion, 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. Although the Department of State in general agrees with the views expressed by the Hoover Commission and supports the recommendation, it is recognized that the reorganization of the Department and the amalgamation of the two services are separate problems. The amalgamation of the two services will require further study before final recommendations can be made. Until these studies are completed, it will not be possible to present carefully developed proposals for achieving amalgamation. We have begun such studies and I expect to complete them before the next session of Congress.

2. Lot 54D291, consolidated administrative files of the Department of State, 1949–1960.
3. Secretary Acheson presented this testimony in executive session.
4. For the text of President Truman’s message to Congress, March 4, 1949, transmitting suggestions on foreign relations policy and the transfer of certain powers to the Secretary of State, see Department of State Bulletin, March 13, 1949, p. 333.
5. George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, January 1947–January 1949.
6. Robert A. Lovett, Under Secretary of State, July 1947–January 1949.
7. John E. Peurifoy, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration.
8. Secretary of War, May 1911–March 1913 and January 1940–September 1945; Secretary of State, March 1929–March 1933.
9. Task Force Report on Foreign Affairs Prepared for the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, January, 1949 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949).
10. Foreign Affairs: A Report to Congress by the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, February, 1949 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949).
11. James E. Webb, the Under Secretary of State.
12. 60 Stat. 999.
13. Pursuant to the Secretary’s request, Congress approved Public Law 73, 81st Congress, May 26, 1949; for text, see 63 Stat. 111, or Department of State Bulletin June 26, 1949, p. 835.