456. Letter from Ball to U.S. Ambassadors, May 111
The President’s program for dealing with our persistent balance of payments deficits places special emphasis on the Export Expansion Program. Effective export expansion activities by our Government urgently require renewed, vigorous efforts on the part of the Foreign Service on behalf of the Department of Commerce and the American business community. With a view to achieving a more effective contribution on the part of the Foreign Service, the Departments of State and Commerce have jointly reviewed their mutual responsibilities in this field. As a result, a new agreement has been reached between the two Departments which provides for a Commercial Specialist Program within the Foreign Service. This Agreement, dated November 15, 1961, has been concurred in by the Budget Bureau subject to a further examination of the budgetary procedures within the next year.
It is clear that your personal understanding and support are necessary to make this Agreement effective in your Post. I am therefore transmitting for your personal attention a copy of the Agreement, and wish to take this opportunity to make a few comments about it. I shall not discuss individual provisions. Rather, I want to stress the importance of the Agreement to the Export Expansion Program and to the Foreign Service.
Basic to the Agreement is the understanding which Secretary Hodges and I have reached that export expansion functions can best be provided within a unified Foreign Service but with a greater degree of specialization than we have known in the recent past. If we all do our share, this Agreement will work and work well.
The Agreement’s substantive provisions are designed to stimulate a professional career specialization in commercial [Facsimile Page 2] work. To this end, the Agreement provides for a series of new and improved personnel procedures; improved opportunities for promotion via the commercial specialist route; budgetary procedures designed to provide adequate resources for this activity; and for increased participation by the Department of Commerce in trade promotion matters.
[Typeset Page 1817]Secretary of Commerce Hodges and I ask that you and your principal assistants give maximum support to our export drive in terms of your own time and effort and by giving guidance to the officers under your jurisdiction directly engaged in commercial work. We also ask that you draw these Commercial Officers into discussions of commercial and economic policy which substantially affect the commercial interests of the United States and the country to which you are accredited. These officers have a real contribution to make in this respect, and we must utilize it to the fullest.
Secretary Hodges and I plan to have senior officers representative of both Departments visit with your Commercial Officers in a series of regional meetings. These meetings will provide an effective forum for discussing the opportunities and responsibilities under the Commercial Specialist Program. They will also afford officers an opportunity to become acquainted with the Program in depth and to ask questions about it before making their choice of a career speciality.
We would welcome any comments or suggestions you may have about the Agreement both now and as it becomes operative.
Sincerely yours,
- Establishment of Commercial Specialist Program within the Foreign Service. No classification marking. 2 pp. Department of State, Central Files, 611.0041/5–1162.↩