Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, General: Economic and Political Matters, Volume I, Part 1

110/1–1653

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (Sargeant) to Secretary of State-designate John Foster Dulles¹

confidential

Washington, January 16, 1953.

• Subject:
• Restoring Public Confidence in the Department of State

As the Secretary of State and the President are aware, the restoration of public confidence in the Department of State will depend primarily upon its having the wit, the wisdom—and the luck—to be associated with policies that yield readily perceptible results favorable to the national interest, particularly in Korea, Western Europe, including Germany, and Iran.

At the same time, measures not directly related to substantive policies can be taken that may be expected to produce a more favorable atmosphere than has lately surrounded the Department. These include:

1. Regaining the Confidence of the Congress

Lack of public confidence in the Department has been materially contributed to by criticism originating in the Congress. As one means of forestalling uninformed criticism, the Secretary might consider the desirability of assuring the widest possible understanding in the Congress of the problems facing the Department. He might hold regular or bi-weekly meetings with the chairmen and the ranking members of the committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives dealing with foreign affairs. He might instruct the Assistant Secretaries and other substantive officers of the Department to hold similar regular meetings with members of the committees dealing with problems of mutual concern. He might further encourage officers of the Department to cultivate friendly relations with the members of the Congress. The end sought should be understanding of the requirements of foreign policy as it develops rather than when a crisis is reached. Confidence in the correctness of policy in given circumstances will breed confidence in those who shape it.

2. Restoring Confidence in the Personnel of the Department and of the Foreign Service

(a) Although the Secretary of State cannot divest himself of his personal responsibility for the fair and expeditious handling of charges that may be made against personnel of the Department and the Foreign Service, he might contribute to popular confidence by appointing a body of consultants to advise him concerning the effectiveness of departmental mechanisms designed to assure the loyalty, the security, the morality and the competence of personnel. The consultants, who might include a respected military officer of general or flag rank, a highly regarded public servant not connected with the Department or the Foreign Service and a distinguished citizen drawn from private life, could be asked to report within six months. Their inquiry would concern only procedures, not cases closed or pending. In addition to creating confidence that the procedures are adequate or can be made so, their report could serve to reassure personnel that their rights can and will be maintained.

(b) Personnel of the Department and the Foreign Service should be encouraged, at times even instructed, to make public appearances throughout the country, particularly in the Middle West, the South and the Southwest, and in small as well as large communities. The purpose would not be primarily to communicate policy, although better understanding of policy might be a helpful by-product, but to demonstrate that those charged with the handling of foreign relations at many levels are capable, responsible and congenial human beings drawn from and representative of the people as a whole. They should be encouraged to contribute, in accordance with established procedures, articles on their personal experiences to newspapers and to magazines, particularly when they have a story to tell that will offset impressions that personnel of the Department and the Foreign Service are exotic dilettantes.

(c) For several reasons, including the high degree of specialized training normally required, the personnel of the Department has tended to be somewhat less widely representative than the personnel of other executive agencies. Without the sacrifice of exacting professional standards, the appointment of individuals drawn from a wider circle to ranking positions in the Department would tend to arouse the interest of women, Negroes and others, enhance the representative character of the personnel and thus develop confidence in the Department. Similar considerations might continue to be taken into account in the appointment of delegates and alternates to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

3. Developing the Role of the Secretary

(a) The Secretary of State is inescapably the living symbol of the Department in the public mind. His public appearances and his public statements are therefore highly important to the prestige, the reputation and, hence, the effectiveness of the Department. The press is the medium through which, over the long term, he will make a deep impression on a great number, and the press will reflect him primarily through his periodic press conferences. Although these are given over primarily to an exposition of specific policy questions, the Secretary might also occasionally utilize them to discuss departmental affairs. The Secretary can also command space in the press by submitting signed articles to newspapers and magazines; the utility of the Sunday magazine sections for making an impression is not to be underestimated.

(b) Television and radio are equally important as means of creating a popular impression. The Secretary may wish to consider utilizing them not merely for disseminating major utterances but for giving currency to excerpts from press conferences and, together with newspaper photographs and newsreels, for helping to present a sympathetic image to the public mind.

(c) Other media have supplemented but they have not supplanted the public address as a means of illuminating a subject, attracting or solidifying the support of a specific group and making a personal impact. The Secretary will be called upon to make many such appearances during the course of a year. By making several, notably in areas such as the Middle West and the Southwest, he will contribute to the prestige of his office, thus developing support for imperfectly understood policies and creating confidence in the Department.

(d) In his own press conferences and public utterances, the President can contribute significantly to augmenting and reenforcing the efforts of the Secretary to restore public confidence in the Department. He can further contribute to this end by timely public appearances with the Secretary, thereby reaffirming his own confidence in the Department over which the Secretary presides.

(e) In addition to regular press conferences, the Secretary can develop effective press support for the policies that he is carrying out by a series of off-the-record conferences with selected correspondents. The Assistant Secretaries and other knowledgeable officers of the Department should be encouraged to make themselves available to selected correspondents for off-the-record discussions.

(f) The Secretary will have relatively few opportunities for direct contact with individual citizens. However, he can to some extent compensate by making time for brief interviews with representatives of many influential organizations of citizens whose support of foreign policy is important to its success. The meetings might be attended by one or another Assistant Secretary, with whom the individual or organization might have subsequent business.

(g) The effectiveness of the foregoing actions would be increased by greater coherence in the public relations activities of the Department. Although the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs has a broad responsibility in public relations matters, his actual working responsibility is in fact vague. SA/M is the point of contact for the press, but its working relationship with P is not clearly defined. To a major degree A and to a lesser extent L take responsibility for many public announcements on departmental affairs. These announcements are sometimes cleared with P and frequently are not. S/P has produced press releases and speeches on a variety of subjects. The speeches of the Secretary are written by an officer on his personal staff, although they are prepared in close collaboration with P and other areas of the Department. With the exception of the preparation of the speeches of the Secretary, most of these activities proceed on a piece-meal basis in answer to some urgent need and do not reflect carefully considered public relations. A carefully integrated program would contribute to the improvement of the Department’s sometimes confused relations with the press.

4. Reenforcing Public Impressions

The actions of the Secretary will need to be reenforced by measures in which he and his immediate staff are not directly involved. The Office of Public Affairs is preparing a detailed outline of specific measures. Given the authority to do so and the necessary budgetary support, it can introduce into its publications, its conferences with non-governmental groups, its radio and television activities discreet but effective material contributing to the development of public understanding of and popular confidence in the Department. It can, among other things, arrange for the production of a documentary film demonstrating how foreign policy is made and executed. It can help to develop public interest in the building in which the major activities of the Department are located. It can develop exhibits that will stimulate public interest in the operations and the achievements of the Department. The need to avoid contra-productive propaganda is clearly recognized. Equally recognized is the need to help to develop public understanding of the role of the Department as a guardian of the national interest.²

Howland Sargeant

1. A covering memorandum of transmittal from Assistant Secretary Sargeant to Dulles, also dated Jan. 16 reads: “I promised you a memorandum of the suggestions that my colleagues and I have been developing on this subject. I am attaching a short memorandum which summarizes our thinking, and I am sending a copy of this to Carl McCardle.” McCardle, at the time Washington Bureau Chief of the Philadelphia Evening-Bulletin, became Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs on Jan. 29, 1953.
2. A memorandum of a telephone conversation between Secretary Dulles and Attorney General Brownell, dated Jan. 28, 1953, reads in part as follows: “The Secretary telephoned the Attorney General about the multiplicity of hearings and investigations into the Department and said that they were calling various clerks and swearing them in at Executive Sessions and generally ruining the morale of the Department. He said that he thought only the President could cope with this and that some thought should be given to it. There are now about ten Committees investigating the Department.” (Eisenhower Library, John Foster Dulles papers, “Telephone Conversations”)