151. Letter From the Chairman of the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee (Ingersoll) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Management (Eagleburger)1
Under the Committee’s responsibility to review the staffing needs of on-going programs overseas, I am requesting your cooperation in a review of regional office staffs which the U.S. Government maintains in foreign countries.
Regional office personnel service requirements in two or, normally, more countries. The objective of the review is to identify possibilities for reducing the numbers of such personnel overseas, relocating their operational bases to the United States and realizing savings which could flow from a lowered USG profile abroad.
The clear and continuing necessity to control federal spending provides one important motive for this review. We need also to weigh the impact of improved communications and transportation, inflation, and the rising costs of operating in many foreign countries, increased risks to the safety of personnel and dependents abroad, and possible efficiencies of consolidating field staffs with Washington staffs covering similar problems or performing similar functions.
To facilitate our review, I am asking that for each overseas regional office which your agency maintains, a summary assessment with recommendations be completed, according to the specifications listed on the enclosure to this letter.2 Please submit these assessments to my office by February 27, 1976 for review.
If that review identifies likely staff adjustment possibilities involving your agency or its interests, your agency will be notified and expected to participate in the resolution of the issue. Decisions will be reached in accordance with provisions of the MODE guidelines dated[Page 528]May 23, 1975.3 Interagency disagreements at the level of geographic Assistant Secretary of State will be subject to adjudication by the Senior Management Review Group or, where necessary, by the Under Secretaries Committee itself.
To assure that we overlook no reasonable opportunity for savings or efficiency, I am also asking the Committee’s MODE Staff to seek the views of appropriate ambassadors concerning possibilities of achieving staff reductions in overseas regional organizations. Such queries will be coordinated in advance with the agencies involved.
If you have questions concerning the enclosed table of specifications, or about other aspects of this effort, I would appreciate your having them raised in the first instance with the Committee’s MODE Staff Director.
Very best regards.
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Miscellaneous Management and Management Operations Files, 1969–76: Lot 82 D 210, RORG—Regional Overseas Review Group. No classification marking.↩
- Attached but not printed. On January 27, Sohm requested reports on overseas personnel requirements from all functional and regional bureaus. (Ibid.) In a February 10 memorandum to Lord, Sayre, Laise, Thomas, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Julius L. Katz, Sohm reported that a working group had been created to review all bureau submissions. (Ibid.)↩
- The Department’s guidelines for the MODE program, May 23, 1975, designed to replace those established under OPRED, detailed each agency’s personnel ceilings and reporting requirements. These guidelines were forwarded to all Department of State Principal Officers, regional and functional Assistant Secretaries, and Office Heads by Sohm on June 6, 1975. (Ibid., Policy and Procedural Files of the Deputy Under Secretary for Management: Lot 79 D 63, Management by Objectives MBO, 1975)↩
- Ingersoll signed “Bob” above this typed signature.↩