3. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs-Designate (Kissinger) to President-Elect Nixon1
SUBJECT
The State Department has now begun to object to the NSC procedures which you approved in
Florida. ( Bill Rogers had agreed to the general outline in Key
Biscayne, but now—in light of the objections of his Foreign Service
subordinates—wants to reserve judgment. Mel
Laird agrees with the memo I showed you—with one minor
caveat.)
General Goodpaster and I will be discussing State’s objections with you,
but I thought you might want a brief summary of the arguments for a
State-centered system (Tab A) and the counter-arguments which led Andy
and me to recommend the system which you approved (Tab B).
A delay in establishing the new NSC
structure will mean a concomitant delay in getting down to business on
the many serious foreign policy issues you will have to face in the
opening months of your
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administration. It would not be helpful to begin the Administration with
a bureaucratic disagreement—particularly since it would be over an issue
you had already decided at Key Biscayne.
Tab A
The Case for a State-Centered System
The Foreign Service arguments are as follows:
- —The existing SIG/IRG mechanism makes the State
Department the executive agent of the President for the
conduct of foreign policy. This would be destroyed by
instituting an NSC system
such as you approved.
- —The interdepartmental machinery should be staffed by the
State Department. The leadership in defining the issues,
formulating them, and bringing them to the attention of the
President should be taken by the State Department. The
committees do not vote; the State Department decides, with
other departments having the right to take disagreements to
the NSC.
- —There is an organization in being (the Department of
State) staffed with experienced personnel, with geographical
and functional structures established to cover the various
areas and issues which arise in the conduct of foreign
relations.
- —If the Secretary is to pull together foreign policy
positions, he must have authority not only over the State
Department, but over other Departments as well. He, through
the Under Secretary, and the other Departments through their
Under Secretaries, must review papers on their way to the
NSC to see that all
options are adequately examined. The NSC should act primarily as an appeal board
when Departments disagree.
- —To the extent that there are limits to State’s ability to
provide a Presidential perspective, NSC staff members can participate in SIG/IRG mechanisms without prejudice to the State
Department’s power of decision.
- —Our Ambassadors are expected to coordinate policy and
operations abroad. (Indeed, there is no realistic way to
create another system overseas.) Since the Ambassadors
usually report directly to the State Department, it is
essential that the Department be similarly organized.
- —The Foreign Service does not serve the State Department,
but the United States and is, in a real sense, the
President’s staff—avoiding the parochialism often seen
elsewhere. To the degree that State is parochial, this can
be overcome as Department officers are forced to work with
other Departments in the SIG
and IRGs.
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Tab B
Counter-Arguments
- I.
- The State Department is unable to take the lead in managing
interagency affairs because:
- —The staff is inadequate to the task of planning or of
management.
- —The Foreign Service, by training and background, is
not capable of the planning you want. Their forte is in
compromising differences, and avoiding a confrontation
of conflicting points of view.
- —Evidence of this is the Department’s consistent
failure to utilize its own Policy Planning Council
adequately. Studies have been unrelated to real
problems, have had no effect on policy, and have
obfuscated rather than clarified alternatives.
- —An attempt by State to dominate the other agencies
would, over time, make it the direct focus of
Congressional attack, thus weakening its position on the
Hill.
- —Senior officers within the Department must, to some
degree, become the advocates of their subordinates. As
they do so, they represent parochial interests.
- —The parochial interests of State and the Foreign
Service are not removed by simply describing themselves
as the President’s men. —When the State Department has
attempted to manage operations— as in Vietnam—it has not
worked and has had to be changed.
- II.
- Protecting the President’s interests.
- —The only way the President can ensure that all
options are examined, and all the arguments fairly
presented, is to have his own people—responsive to him,
accustomed to his style, and with a Presidential rather
than departmental perspective—oversee the preparation of
papers.
- —If the President wants to control policy, he must
control the policy making machinery.
- III.
- The present system permits an adequate role for the State
Department.
- —Issues may be raised in the interdepartmental groups,
under the chairmanship of the relevant Assistant
Secretary.
- —State is represented on the NSC Review Group.
- —Issues may be sent from the Review Group to the Under
Secretary’s committee (chaired by the Under Secretary of
State) when they do not involve Presidential decision or
Cabinet-level discussion.
- —The proposed system gives State a larger role than it
had under John Foster Dulles. It can make of the system
what it wants.
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Attachment2
NSAM 341
Following are highlights of NSAM
341:3
- —Reaffirms the Secretary of State’s “authority and
responsibility to the full extent permitted by law for the
overall direction, coordination and supervision of
interdepartmental activities of the United States Government
overseas.” (Military forces operating in the field are
specifically excluded from such activities.)
- —Creates the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), chaired by the Under
Secretary of State, “to assist the Secretary of State in
discharging his authority and responsibility for
interdepartmental matters which cannot be dealt with adequately
at lower levels…”4
- —Creates Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRG) for each geographical region
of the Department of State, under the chairmanship of the
relevant Assistant Secretary of State.5
- —The SIG and the IRGs are given “full powers of
decision on all matters within their purview, unless a member
who does not concur requests the referral of a matter to the
decision of the next higher authority.”
From the point of view of the Department of State, the most important
aspect of NSAM 341 is its
reaffirmation of the Secretary of State’s position as primus inter
pares on matters relating to the conduct of foreign affairs. The
SIG/IRG system is looked upon as an important tool in
carrying out this responsibility, but the delegation of
responsibility itself is the essential ingredient of NSAM 341.
