MSAFOA Director’s files, FRC 56 A 632, “Latin America–1954”

Memorandum by the Acting Regional Director of the Office of Latin American Operations (Hardesty) to the Director of the Foreign Operations Administration (Stassen)

confidential

Subject:

  • Need for a Clear Understanding Between FOA and State on Program Development in Latin America.

Differences between FOA and State on program development in the fields of industry, labor and private investment were highlighted in the views expressed at the Board Meeting1 of the Institute of Inter-American Affairs on Wednesday, November 10.

While this memorandum is submitted in specific response to your directive (at the November 3 meeting1 on FOA World-Wide Financial Status) that I prepare a brief memorandum on FOA and State differences concerning the development of the Technical Cooperation Program in Latin America, it may also serve as a basis for your discussion with Dr. FitzGerald this afternoon.2

FOA’s Position on Program Development

It is my understanding that FOA believes that in extending technical assistance to host countries we should be free to discuss with them their overall problems of economic development, to assist them in identifying weaknesses and sources of potential strength in their economy, and to join with them in developing the plans and means through which to eliminate such weaknesses and to realize such potential strengths. One of these means is, of course, the provision of technical assistance through the FOA program.

As a natural outgrowth of the above, FOA believes that USOM staffs should be provided with properly qualified specialists to make such discussions meaningful, to identify problems correctly and to develop plans realistically. Examples of such specialized personnel include advisors in the fields of general resources management, labor, industry, private investment, finance and economic development. In many instances, advisory assistance in these fields should be viewed as being of a program development and support nature as distinguished from technicians assigned to implement specific programs. The use of such program development and support personnel is necessary to determine the advisability of carrying out a program in the particular field involved, and where it appears advisable to carry out a program in the particular field, such advisory assistance is essential to the proper determination of the nature, size and direction of such a program.

[Page 259]

Our Experience with State on Program Development

Understanding and cooperation between FOA and State in the development of programs in the so called traditional fields of activity in Latin America—agriculture, health and sanitation, and education—continues to be excellent. However, in certain of the so called new fields of activity, as measured by their recency of introduction into our program in Latin America, experience has shown that State disagrees with several aspects of the FOA position on program development. For example, State does not agree that FOA should assign a labor advisor or labor economist to any USOM staff. Furthermore, OLA understands that State policy will not permit FOA to join with Latin American countries in identifying their economic problems or the planning for their solution if such problems are outside the scope of current FOA operations, except in such cases where the host country makes an official request for such discussion or planning and obtains acceptance from the United States. In net effect, this policy prevents assignment to USOMs of certain types of specialists who are needed: (1) to analyze certain of the host country’s basic economic problems and potentials and advise the USOM Director in planning, guiding and evaluating the FOA program; and (2) to advise the host country, when it so desires, on that country’s economic development requirements.

Specific illustration of State’s viewpoint concerning the assignment of personnel in the fields of industry, labor and private investment are shown in draft comments which were submitted informally by State concerning the FY–1955 Program Plan for Technical Cooperation in Latin America. These comments were prepared for the Board Meeting last Wednesday and pertinent extracts applying to the fields of industry, labor and private investment are attached.3

As you will note from the attached comments, State appears vigorously opposed to the utilization of any program development or support personnel such as labor advisors or labor economists, and seems strongly opposed to the use of trade and investment types of personnel. In the case of industry, the lack of an official request by the host government for a specialist in this field is emphasized. The position is taken that an official request is a necessary precondition to the assignment of any personnel in the industry field.

In regard to this requirement for an “official request from the host government”, I might state that our programs in the so called traditional fields of activity did not develop purely on the basis of official host country requests but were often preceded by our sending a specialist in that field to the host country to work with officials of the host country government. This later resulted in the development of a realistic program and an official request for assistance. An excellent case in point is [Page 260] the agriculture program in Colombia in which case we had an agriculture specialist in our Mission for some six months preceding an official request for assistance in that field. Frankly, I strongly doubt that we would have a technical cooperation program in Latin America of even its presently limited diversity had we awaited official requests by host country governments before sending program development personnel to the field.

In general State considers that the assignment of specialists in the so called newer fields of activity is a matter of “whetting the host country’s appetite” and that such specialists may be categorized as “salesmen”.

Recommendations

It is recommended that a high level agreement be reached between FOA and the Department of State:

(a)
To clarify the program development responsibilities of FOA; and
(b)
To resolve the present conflict of views concerning the inclusion in our Technical Cooperation Program in Latin America of activities in the fields other than those currently forming the major components of our program there.

It is further recommended that FOA and State jointly inform all officials concerned in Washington and the field of the understandings reached.4 A clear and definite statement will assist in avoiding future misunderstandings.

  1. No record of this meeting was found in Department of State files.
  2. No record of this meeting was found in Department of State files.
  3. No record of the referenced discussion was found in Department of State files.
  4. Not printed.
  5. Department of State files for 1954 contain no record of an understanding between the Department of State and FOA along the lines recommended by Mr. Hardesty.