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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL JULY 1977 75 CENTS National Interest & Foreign Policy Donald Nuechterlein Eurocommunism Sean Kelly Japan at the Centennial, 1876 Dallas Finn
FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL JULY 1977 75 CENTS
National Interest & Foreign Policy Donald Nuechterlein
Eurocommunism Sean Kelly
Japan at the Centennial, 1876 Dallas Finn
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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL JULY 1977: Volume 54, No. 7
Letter to a Colleague Abroad 3
Communication re: Congressional Committees
THOMAS D. BOYATT 5
National Interest and Foreign Policy
DONALD NUECHTERLEIN 6
Status Report: Eurocommunism, a Year Later
SEAN KELLY 9
Japan at the Centennial, 1876 DALLAS FINN 12
Gut Issues SARA RAU 16
The Fourth at Puerto Velarde ROBERT WILSON 19
AFSA Guest Editorial 2 The Bookshelf 21 Letters to the Editor 31 AFSA News 32
Cover: Tall Ships, by Eleanor Dickinson
American Foreign Service Association Officers and Members of the Governing Board
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KENNETH N. ROGERS, State Representatives PETER WOLCOTT, USIA Representative OLCOTT DEMING & GLENN G. WOLFE, Retired Representatives
Journal Editorial Board RALPH STUART SMITH, Chairman G. RICHARD MONSEN, Vice Chairman JOEL M. WOLDMAN WESLEY N. PEDERSEN JAMES F. O’CONNOR ARNOLD P. SCHIFFERDECKER HARRIET P. CULLEY GEORGE F. SHERMAN, JR.
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FSJ GUEST EDTIDRIAL
DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS
CHARLES W. YOST ®Copyright 1977 Charles IV. Yost
A curious American habit, practiced very rarely in other countries, is that of appointing a substantial propor¬ tion of its ambassadors not from the career service but from a variety of other unrelated walks of life. No one would dream of so acting in the choice of generals or admirals, of corporation executives, of university profes¬ sors or of senior partners of law firms, but it seems to be supposed in our country that any reasonably bright indi¬ vidual can take on so simple a task as conducting our relations with a foreign nation.
In his book “Why Not the Best?” President Carter wrote: “For many years in the State Department we have chosen from among 16,000 applicants about 110 of our nation’s finest young leaders to represent us in the international world. But we top this off with the disgrace¬ ful and counterproductive policy of appointing unqual¬ ified persons to major diplomatic posts on political payoffs. This must be stopped immediately.” This and similar statements made in the campaign naturally raised expectations in and out of the career service that this practice would be drastically curtailed in a Carter Admin¬ istration. So far, however, the score does not seem to be very different from what it has been in the past.
True, it now appears that of appointments to 125 em¬ bassies (this does not include the UN or other interna¬ tional agencies) about 75 percent will be from the active career service, which is five to 10 percent more than has usually been the case over the past 15 years. However, this improved percentage rests heavily on the appoint¬ ment of career officers to 23 out of 25 African posts. In Europe about 30 percent will apparently be political ap¬ pointees and in Latin America nearly 40 percent.
Everyone agrees that a few political appointments are fully justified. Men like Mike Mansfield in Tokyo and Dick Gardner in Rome are as experienced and highly qualified as any career officers. It is, however, hard to see any justification other than political services for sev¬ eral recent appointments, including some of the most sensitive, such as Saudi Arabia.
There should be three firm criteria for political ap¬ pointments to diplomatic posts: first, that the appointee be highly qualified, not simply in his or her previous pro¬ fession but in foreign affairs; second, that these appoint¬ ments not be payoffs for political services rendered; and third, that there not be many of them. One cannot expect the “110 of our nation’s finest young leaders,” to whom 2 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
President Carter referred, to continue to enter the dip¬ lomatic career if they are consistently excluded from 25 to 30 percent of the top posts. The training and talents of many who do enter will be wasted if their experience is not used at the top.
Part of the problem is that the State Department is more often than not regarded with suspicion by President, Congress and the public. Roosevelt was in¬ clined to consider its personnel hopelessly reactionary, out of sympathy with his New Deal reforms and his lib¬ eral attitude toward foreign affairs. Fifteen years later, the pendulum of opinion having swung to the other ex¬ treme, the Department and Foreign Service were be¬ lieved, in some executive and legislative circles, to be populated with Reds and subversives. Both stereotypes were completely wide of the mark.
In my 35 years in the Service, I never encountered an officer who was disloyal or disobedient to an incumbent President. The tradition and training of these officers is to present their views, as candidly and vigorously as the current climate and their position in the hierarchy per¬ mits, before a policy decision is made, but to carry out that decision scrupulously and loyally once it is made.
The essential service which career public officials with long and wide experience can render a President is “to tell it like it is,” in a way his own political entourage may not wish or be able to do, to inform him without fear or favor what the real situation is in a particular part of the world and what are the limits of United States capabilities in respect to it. The failure of many presidents adequately to recognize and use the knowl¬ edgeable people available to them has often gotten them and the country into serious trouble. The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam are conspicuous examples.
Experience does bring one consolation as one observes with the arrival of every new Administration an almost clean sweep of the senior positions in the State Depart¬ ment and the appointment of large numbers of amateurs to embassies. When one surveys the scene three years later one is likely to find, with mild astonishment, that the career service has repossessed many of these positions. The crusaders have grown tired, the political veterans have returned to domestic battlegrounds, and the President and Secretary of State have quietly concluded that those trained for the mysterious job of diplomacy may after all know it best.
“Lives of great men all remind us As their pages o’er we turn, That we’re apt to leave behind us Letters that we ought to burn.’’—Anon.
Lettefc to a co&eagu£ abiwad Dear Jack,
I hope you are still finding Embassy life in Zembla bearable. I was frankly surprised to learn yesterday that Ambassador Ponderosa was still on board, since I had thought the new Administration wanted to clean out the deadwood in Ambassadorial ranks as soon as they could. And your Ambassador certainly is deadwood, I must say. But I was told this morning that the new bunch had decided that it was better to leave the old Chief of Mis¬ sion in place until the new one was set to come, rather than turn an Embassy over to a Charge d’Affaires. Mind you, I myself think that Alan Goodman has all the experience—and brains, and guts, and expertise—that anyone needs to be Charge d’Affaires or, for that matter, Ambassador. He certainly has done a fine job maintain¬ ing some signs of life in that Embassy, in spite of Pon¬ derosa. But maybe the new people don’t know that yet.
I suppose you heard about the new advisory board on Ambassadorial appointments. Quite an interesting list of names—at least, 12 out of the 20 are, because I either
knew something about them or could look them up in Who’s Who. One of the remaining eight is almost in Who’s Who. That is to say, he is not in the Book himself, but his father who is a distinguished Congressman is. That leaves seven to guess about. Five of them are women, that much seems clear. Probably they are some of our worthy female fellow-citizens who have been too oppressed until lately to make it to Who’s Who. Can’t blame them for that.
What about the twelve who are in Who’s Who, you ask? One is actually a retired FSIO who has the title of Ambassador. Good, says me. One was Secretary of State, a much-respected man. Good again. Two others have each held a number of high public offices including Ambassadorships; one is worth about a quarter of a bil¬ lion dollars and the other perhaps a little less. I’m not sure that’s so good. Frankly, I have never felt that de¬ mocrats need pay homage to rich men just because they’re Democrats.
That leaves eight. From their entries I think they must
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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 3
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be good people. One is a big-city Mayor and has a Spanish surname; another is a woman civil-rights leader, and she has a Spanish name too. Two are distinguished scholars, one of them black. Another’s entry describes him as an eminent scholar, but it looks like some of his eminence came from working for a Vice President one time and a Presidential candidate another. Another is a woman who is described as an educator but is also a State politician. And so on. What’s sad is that except for one of the scholars, none of them seems to have had much to do with foreign affairs. And they couldn’t even find room on this board for a really top retired diplomatist like George Kennan or Marty Hillenbrand or Charles Yost.
Some of our colleagues here are a little distressed about the makeup of this board. One friend got so in¬ censed that he wrote his Congressman to suggest that if we were going to pick Ambassadors that way then we ought to get the National League of Mayors to pick Marine generals and the Mexican-American Veterans Organization to license cardiologists. But I must say I don’t think writing letters like that is fair to the new President. You know, he came to the Department not long ago and emphasized to us that he was going to do away with the practice of sending political hacks out as Ambassadors. I believe him. And he and the Secretary have already made it clear that they want to rely more on the Foreign Service than most Administrations have in the past.
The question for me is why, if the President feels this way, he feels the need for an Ambassadorial board full of people who can’t even have much idea of what an Am¬ bassador does.
To be sure, we don’t know yet what the President will do with this board’s recommendations. The rumor is that in the end we might see a slightly larger percentage of our Embassies headed by career officers. That would show that the President meant what he said during his election campaign. But the disregard for foreign-affairs compe¬ tence that was shown in choosing this board makes me suspect that the Administration’s concept of a good Am¬ bassadorial candidate is simply that of a distinguished citizen, from no particular line of endeavor. They just don’t seem to realize that diplomacy is a profession. I know that AFSA has tried to point out that every other major country treats its diplomats as professionals and uses them—and usually only them—as its Ambassadors. But apparently no one listens. Maybe the voice of domes¬ tic politics is too loud.
There is one other aspect, though. All the deadwood around us is not political appointees. Some of it is career Foreign Service officers. Let’s be frank; there are a number of senior officers in the Service that no one would entrust an Embassy to, even if they do competent work as office directors or consuls general. In many cases, I think, these are people who could have ended up as Ambassadorial timber if they’d been given more chal¬ lenging assignments to develop them in their earlier years. But that doesn’t do the President and the Secre¬ tary any good now; they have to work with what they’ve got. Fortunately, we do have enough first-rate senior of¬ ficers in the Service to head all the Embassies there are—and then some. I know you are as anxious as I to see how many of them get used.
Flope you don’t mind if I refrain from signing this; you know who it’s from. Let’s keep in touch.
Sincerely, XYZ 4 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
COMMUNICATION
Congressional committees THOMAS D. BOYATT
Some years ago while poring over AFSA files I came across a 1961 letter from junior Board Member Martin
Herz to the then AFSA Chairman Ambassador “Chip” Bolen. Martin argued that AFSA would not prosper if the leadership only functioned to impose senior estab¬ lishment views on the membership; that AFSA should become the aggressive advocate of the interests of all the people of the Foreign Service; and that if AFSA did not assume the advocacy role, another organization soon would. A full decade later executive orders, employee- management relations, and AFGE confirmed Martin’s
Tom Boyatt, DCM in Santiago and former President of AFSA, wrote “To Support and Defend the Constitution” in the November Journal, which elicited Ambassador Herz's response in February.
insights. So it is with trepidation that I take exception to some of the views of such a prescient friend.
First, let me dispense with a rather ubiquitous straw- man. Ambassador Herz states that the solution [to executive-legislative tensions] cannot lie “in every career officer volunteering information about his particular pol¬ icy or tactical preferences to members of the Congress who will fight the particular battle—against the Executive—that he would favor.” And further “if all those who lost out in the (policy) process were free to go to the Congress or the press to complain” about high- level decisions “we would have utter confusion.” A number of other senior officers make the same point
Continued on page 25
MOVING? Tell Us Where and When
We’ll Lend the Money To Make the Going Easy
The real task of policy-makers and political leaders is
to correctly assess the intensity of interests . . . before
a crisis erupts, not after.
National Interest and Foreign Policy DONALD E. NUECHTERLEIN
National interest has been used by diplomats, military plan¬
ners and scholars for several cen¬ turies to describe what they believe to be the goals of nation-states in international relations. Unfortu¬ nately, the leading authorities on this subject have seldom agreed on a definition of national interest or on its applicability to foreign policy decision-making. The result is that we currently have many political leaders, diplomats, military ex¬ perts, and scholars talking about what is in the United States’ na¬ tional interest without ever defining their terms, or spelling out the criteria they use in arriving at their conclusions.
An example is the term “vital interest.” Presidents, Secretaries of Defense and State, Senators and some journalists assert that the United States must defend its vital interests around the world. But what are they? And who decides what is vital and what is not? Most informed Americans probably agree that protection of the NATO countries is a vital interest of the United States because the Senate ratified a treaty pledging us to de¬ fend them. But what about other important international issues not covered by a defense treaty, for example: the imminent collapse of the South Vietnamese Government in the spring of 1965, the Arab oil embargo against the United States in 1973, the threat to Zaire in 1977? And what about a SALT II agree¬ ment with the USSR: is it a vital interest for the United States to
Donald Nuechterlein is Professor of Inter¬ national Affairs at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of United States National Inter¬ ests in a Changing World (1973), Thailand and the Struggle for Southeast Asia (1965), and Iceland, Reluctant Ally (1961).
6 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
reach agreement on nuclear arms with the Soviet Union? If so, what are the criteria on which that judg¬ ment is based?
The concept of national interest can be an effective tool in the for¬ mulation of foreign policy if it provides a meaningful framework for defining the various elements which go into the process of foreign policy planning. Providing a defini¬ tion is only the beginning: The na¬ tional interest is the perceived needs and desires of one sovereign state in relation to other sovereign states comprising the external environment (from an article by the author entitled “National Interests and Foreign Policy: A Conceptual Framework for Analysis and Decision-Making,” British Journal of hit. Studies, October 1976). The key word is “perceived,” because in any political environment the perception of state needs held by decision-makers is the basis for pol¬ icy formulation. Put another way, the determination of whether a vital national interest is at stake results from a political process, one in which the conflicting perceptions of policy-makers are debated and ultimately resolved. In the United States, the debate usually takes place in the Executive Depart¬ ments and Agencies, then in the National Security Council, and then the President makes his deci¬ sion on what is vital. Increasingly, however, the President’s is not the last word: the Senate now insists on being heard, particularly if there is a risk of armed conflict.
The first step in utilizing national interest as a planning tool is to focus on four basic national inter¬ ests which all major powers possess and then identify which one, or ones, are affected by a specific international issue. These are:
1. Defense of homeland, which involves the protection of the ter¬ ritory and citizens of a country as well as its political system.
2. Economic well-being, which has to do with enhancing a coun¬ try’s ability to trade, invest and ob¬ tain raw materials abroad.
3. World order, which concerns the degree of security a country feels in its dealings with other states, including the world balance of power.
4. Ideological, which reflects the values and aspirations of a nation in relation to other societies. Examples of international issues falling into these categories are: a SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union (Defense interest); the price of OPEC oil (Economic interest); the Soviet-backed Cuban intervention in Angola (World Order interest); President Carter’s strong emphasis on human rights in his dealings with the Soviet Union (Ideological interest).
However, identifying these basic national interests is only half the process of deciding how important the stake or threat really is; the next step is to correctly assess the degree or intensity of interest a government believes to be at stake in a specific international issue. Here it is useful to think in terms of four levels of intensity:
1. Survival—when there is an immediate danger of massive de¬ struction, or the imminent breakup of the homeland.
2. Vital—when there is a serious threat to the political and/or eco¬ nomic well-being of the country and where the issues are so crucial that it might not be possible to re¬ solve them without resort to war¬ fare.
3. Major—when potential dan¬ gers to basic interests are real but a compromise settlement can proba-
bly be worked out with an adver¬ sary.
4. Peripheral—where private interests operating abroad are im¬ portant enough for the government to make official representations. The crucial question for top policy-makers to decide is: when is an issue so crucial that there is a point beyond which it should not be negotiated further, even if eco¬ nomic and/or military warfare may result? If a policy-maker believes that unlimited negotiations will not prove seriously detrimental to the basic interests of his country, the issue involved is probably a major interest for him; on the other hand, if he believes that further negotia¬ tions will prove dangerous to those interests and he is willing to run the risk of open hostilities, the interest is vital to him.
Two recent episodes illustrate this point: In 1973-74, the United States decided to bow to the Arab oil boycott because the alternative to negotiations, on both the price of oil and on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied Arab territories, was perceived to be not worth the risk. Thus, Americans are cur¬ rently paying a far higher price for imported oil, and Washington has been working more closely with the Arab states than before 1973. The second example is a SALT II agreement with the USSR: the Ford Administration seemed to be¬ lieve that reaching a new agree¬ ment with the Soviets by October 1977, in order to avoid a new arms race, was a vital interest for the United States. The Carter Admin¬ istration apparently thinks the issue of SALT is less vital, particularly if it means giving up the cruise mis¬ sile to reach agreement.
Occasionally, nations engage in bluff as a way to influence the deci¬ sions of other countries: for exam¬ ple, government leaders may de¬ cide that the level of interest in a specific issue is only major, but that it may be good tactics to let an opposing government think it is a vital interest. The problem is that if the bluff is called, the first country has the alternative of admitting the bluff and backing down, or escalat¬ ing the interest to the vital level and running greater risks than originally intended. President Kennedy en¬ gaged in bluff with the Russians over Laos in 1961 and was embar¬ rassed before the world when his
warnings were not heeded. Khrushchev probably engaged in bluff during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and was humiliated because Kennedy refused to permit the missiles to remain in Cuba.
The value of using this national interest framework in determining foreign policy options becomes more apparent when the interests of several countries involved in in¬ ternational disputes are compared. For this purpose a matrix may be employed which includes the eight variables defined above. For example, if we use a matrix to de¬ scribe the interests of the major contenders involved in the Suez Crisis of 1956 (Britain, France, Egypt, United States, Soviet Union), the interest breakout would Look something like this:
Although scholars and diplomats may disagree about some of the placements of countries on this matrix, it is nevertheless now clear that two major miscalculations were made during the months lead¬ ing up to the crisis: 1) the Eisenhower Administration under¬ estimated the intensity of Britain’s interest, both on economic and on ideological grounds; and 2) the Eden Government grossly under¬ estimated the intensity of the American interest on world order and on ideological grounds. Britain had a vital economic and an ideological interest at stake in pre¬ venting Nasser from nationalizing the Suez Canal and in humiliating Britain before the world. The United States, on the other hand, had an equally important interest in upholding the UN'principle of not using force to settle international disputes, about which Eisenhower and Dulles felt strongly. Further¬ more, the US did not wish to give the Russians a pretext for using
force to alter the situation in Berlin, or in Turkey, or elsewhere—a world order interest for the United States. It might be added that the Soviet Union probably was sur¬ prised by the willingness of the United States to challenge its allies on this issue, and it may well have concluded there was no risk in put¬ ting down the Hungarian Revolt which had started at approximately the same time.
The matrix may also be used to assess the interests of the major contenders in the Vietnam conflict from 1965 to 1968. The Kennedy Administration had wrestled with the Vietnam issue already in 1961 and came to the reluctant conclu¬ sion that if South Vietnam could not handle the Hanoi-supported in¬ surgency on its own, the United
States should introduce combat forces there rather than let the South fall under communist domi¬ nation (vital interest). President Johnson had the agonizing task early in 1965 of either reaffirming the earlier decision, or deciding that Vietnam was simply not worth a large-scale war and negotiating with Hanoi for the best arrange¬ ment possible (major interest). Johnson chose to introduce Ameri¬ can ground forces in the expecta¬ tion that the limited use of Ameri¬ can power would persuade Hanoi that it could not obtain its objec¬ tives in the South and that this in turn would lead to a negotiated set¬ tlement on terms favorable to the United States. In a sense, Johnson tried to bluff Hanoi into believing that South Vietnam was a vital US interest for which it would fight in¬ definitely, when in fact it was prob¬ ably only a major interest for which the United States would fight only if the costs were moderate.
The matrix for Vietnam looks FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 7
ISSUE: SUEZ CRISIS—1956
Basic interest involved Intensity of interest Survival Vital Major Peripheral
Defense of Homeland Egypt Britain US France USSR
Economic well-being Britain France Egypt
USSR US
World order US Egypt
Britain France USSR
Ideological Egypt Britain US
France USSR
like this (including as major partici¬ pants the United States, North Vietnam, Soviet Union, and the Peoples Republic of China): The conclusions to be drawn from this assessment of interests in¬ volved in Vietnam during the
1965-68 period are: 1) North Viet¬ nam was fighting for what it be¬ lieved to be the survival of its homeland (defense interest), while the United States was trying to preserve a crumbling world order interest in Southeast Asia; 2) North Vietnam probably viewed the preservation of its communist ideology as a survival interest, whereas the United States’ ideo¬ logical interest was its prestige as a major power in Asia; 3) both China and the Soviet Union had sufficient interests at stake to risk providing Hanoi with the materials and encouragement it needed to con¬ tinue a war of attrition against the United States. The greatest mis¬ calculation of the Johnson Admin¬ istration, which eventually caused it to deescalate the war in March of 1968 and seek a negotiated settle¬ ment with Hanoi, was in under¬ estimating the tenacity of North Vietnam toward continuing the war despite the awesome aerial pun¬ ishment inflicted on it by the United States. A few voices in the US government warned in 1964-65 that Hanoi would never give up the struggle in the South, but they were ignored in the National Security Council. After leaving office, Sec¬ retary Rusk admitted in an NBC interview that his one big error in the Vietnam episode was miscal¬ culating Hanoi’s determination to pursue its objectives in the South regardless of cost. A clear lesson of Vietnam must be, therefore: If the national leadership in a democratic 8 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
political system is not certain whether an interest is really vital—one which will be supported by the people if war becomes a reality—then it is perilous to try to bluff an enemy into thinking it is serious.
Although foresight is more dif¬ ficult in these matters, the real task of policy-makers and political lead¬ ers is to correctly assess the inten¬ sity of interests, both for their country and for the antagonists, be¬ fore a crisis erupts, not after. In ef¬ fect, the policy-maker must decide in a given situation whether he wishes to recommend “going to the mat” (vital interest) or “going to the table” (major interest). A clear perception of the values and prob¬ able costs involved in pursuing either course, is essential to good policy-making; yet, too often, po¬ tential costs are not given sufficient weight and miscalculations result. But the effort must be made.
In looking forward a few years and anticipating the crucial issues the United States may be faced with in international relations, some obvious ones have already been mentioned: SALT, the price of OPEC oil, the future of southern Africa. But one which is not as well appreciated today is the possibility of a breakup of the Canadian Fed¬ eration on our northern border. This results from the fact that a new government came to power in Quebec province in November 1976 dedicated to the separation of Quebec from Canada during the next two or three years. Although public opinion polls in Quebec show that a majority of Quebecers do not favor independence at this time, Premier Rene Levesque seems determined to use the French language issue, and any
other divisive problems, to exacer¬ bate relations with Ottawa and then schedule a referendum when he feels the political climate in Quebec is-favorable. Canadian newspapers are filled with commentaries re¬ garding the threat to federation posed by Levesque’s coming to power in Quebec, and on the impli¬ cations for the remainder of Canada if Quebec does finally de¬ clare its independence.
For the Canadian government, the threat of Quebec secession may well be a survival interest, if this leads to the breakup of the federa¬ tion into several parts. This is an ideological interest of Canada—the holding of the country together— just as the United States faced a similar issue 116 years ago. Cana¬ da’s economic stability might also be endangered by Quebec’s separa¬ tion, and Canada’s role in the world (world order) could also be impaired. There probably would be no serious threat to Canada’s de¬ fense interests in the event of se¬ cession, however.
For the United States, an as¬ sessment of its interests vis-a-vis Canada will be a painful process because Americans have lived comfortably with the fact of an un¬ defended 3,000 mile border for so long that it comes as a jolt for us to learn that our Canadian neighbors may be on the verge of a divorce. Will things be the same if we have to deal with two governments in¬ stead of one on our northern bor¬ der? What if Quebec separation leads to further fragmentation of Canada, for example, the Maritime Provinces seeking independence, or British Columbia and/or Alberta going their own way? What would be the impact on US defense if the NORAD arrangement has to be renegotiated with several new North American governments? Would Quebec be a member of NATO, or go the way of Sweden? And what about the extremely close economic ties the United States has with Canada, by far its most important trading partner? In a word, is the potential breakup of Canada a vital interest of the United States, one which we should strongly seek to prevent? Or, is it only a major interest, one which we can live with regardless of the outcome? Using the national
Continued on page 27
ISSUE: SOUTH VIETNAM 1965-1968
Basic interest involved Intensity of interest
Defense of Homeland Survival N. Vietnam
Vital Major China
Peripheral US USSR
Economic well-being N. Vietnam China US USSR
World order US N. Vietnam China
USSR Ideological N. Vietnam US USSR
China
“Those who would treat politics and morality
apart will never understand the one or the other.’’ — John Viscount Morley
STATUS REPORT:
Eurocommunism, A Year Later SEAN KELLY
It was just a year ago that the phenomenon known as Euro¬
communism burst forth on the political scene—thus adding a new word to the ideological glossary, while at the same time provoking new fears of the Mediterranean be¬ coming a Soviet lake.
What has happened since? What became of the Eurocommunist Tro¬ jan Horse? Where, for that matter, have all the Eurocommunists gone?
Our search begins with an at¬ tempt at definition. Professors James E. Dougherty and Diane K. Pfaltzgraff in their new book (Eurocommunism and the Atlantic Alliance, Institute for Foreign Pol¬ icy Analysis, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts) admit that the term Eurocommunism does not lend it¬ self to precise defining.
With some caution, they say: “It describes what is supposedly an important new political phenome¬ non on the European scene— communist parties which' are al¬ legedly breaking with their past by declaring their independence from Moscow and affirming their con¬ version to Western parliamentary democracy.”
They then add—again, with caution—that: “The political con¬ texts of the communist parties of
Sean Kelly, FSIO, is a Voice of America correspondent who is spending a year as a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University.
Italy and France contain nationally unique elements that make the dif¬ ferences as important as the similarities. Even though the com¬ munist parties may pursue certain common long-range objectives, they must tailor their strategies and tactics to local conditions.”
Professor William Griffith of MIT is much more forthright. He was recently quoted in the Chris¬ tian Science Monitor as calling Eurocommunism a “reformist ver¬ sion of radical Marxism which em¬ phasizes, in contrast to Leninism, the peaceful, parliamentary transi¬ tion to socialism led by a broad co¬ alition of leftist forces and thereaf¬ ter allegiance to civil liberties, a multiparty system, and peacelul ro¬ tation of parties in office.”
'Two events—both of them oc¬ curring just a year ago—helped to push Eurocommunism into the forefront of public attention. The first of these was the Italian par¬ liamentary election of June, 1976. The Italian communists, while not achieving an outright majority, did secure more than 34 percent of the vote—thus scoring a significant gain over their record in the 1972 elections (in which they received 27 percent of the vote).
When the electoral dust had set¬ tled in Rome, it became clear that the Italian Communist Party—now paramount among the Eurocom¬ munists—would have a role, as yet undefined, in running the Italian
Government. More about that, lat¬ er.
As important as the Italian elec¬ tions were, a meeting of European communist parties later that month in East Berlin really put Eurocom¬ munism in the headlines. Flora Lewis, who was there, summarized the outcome in the New York Times: “Whatever the future holds, the present has broken'from the past and world communism is not quite the same, just as it stopped being quite the same when the Russians and Chinese broke, even though their underlying impulses were more national than ideological. East Berlin was a mile¬ stone. It may one day develop into a turning point of such political and even strategic importance that the impact will be felt far beyond Europe.”
Opinions vary as to the actual significance of the meeting in East Berlin. But most Western ob¬ servers at the conference agreed that the Eurocommunists came away from East Berlin with greatly increased political autonomy. While the conference’s final docu¬ ment paid tribute to “the great ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin,” it also stated that the communist parties of Europe would work to¬ gether “strictly adhering to the principles of equality and sovereign independence of each party, nonin¬ terference in internal affairs and re¬ spect for their free choice of differ¬ ent roads in the struggle for social change of a progressive nature and FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 9
for socialism.” The “different roads” to
socialism theme had been reflected in several of the delegates’ speeches. President Tito had said: “Different roads of struggle for socialism and new forms of coop¬ eration on the part of the revolu¬ tionary and the broadest demo¬ cratic forces, based on the princi¬ ples of independence, equality, au¬ tonomy, and noninterference, are winning growing affirmation in the communist movement today.”
Italy’s communist leader, Enrico Berlinguer, also spoke of “seeking new roads towards socialism in the countries of Western Europe.” But then he asked: “Which roads and what socialism?”
Writing in the New Republic (November 13, 1976, “The Stalled Momentum of Eurocommunism”), Tad Szulc points out that “It is possible to argue that the Berlin conference and ‘Eurocommunism’ are a gigantic fraud being perpet¬ rated by Western European com¬ munists on Moscow’s orders to achieve domination in a changed political context. There are, to be sure, many contradictions in the positions of these ‘independent’ parties—such as the fact that many of them, including the Italian party, generally support Soviet foreign policy—and there may be valid reasons for continued Western skepticism over this new face of European communism.”
“But common sense,” Szulc then adds, “tends to militate against such extreme interpreta¬ tions. Berlin and everything else that has been happening with European communism are a pro¬ duct of communist evolution in Western Europe over the last de¬ cade or so, an evolution punctuated by dramatic events such as the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia which young communists find unaccept¬ able.”
Western European communist resentment over Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia was eloquently summed up recently by Lucio Lombardo Radice, a prominent member of the Italian Communist Party’s Central Committee. He told an interviewer: “I’m not de¬ fending the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. It is well remem¬ bered that the armed occupation of Czechoslovakia was immediately and strongly condemned by us, and 10 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
that this attitude of the Italian Communist Party is firmly main¬ tained. The invasion of Czecho¬ slovakia was completely wrong and politically counter-productive. It has solved nothing, as we can well see today. The Russians traded a short-term gain for a long-term lia¬ bility.”
Neil Mclnnes, a Paris-based journalist, has taken a thorough look at the apparent distinctions between Eurocommunism and Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy of the past. His recently-published book (Eurocommunism, SAGE Publica¬ tions, Inc., Beverly Hills, Califor¬ nia) takes the communist parties of Italy, France and Spain and ex¬ plores their policy statements on such fundamental issues as dictatorship of the proletariat, civil liberties, parliamentary institu¬ tions, NATO, and European integ¬ ration.
On NATO, for instance, he finds that “if the communist parties were still what they were founded to be, namely instruments of Soviet foreign policy, they would adopt similar, even identical, lines on de¬ fense and their country’s relation to NATO. In reality, there is no sub¬ ject on which they take more dis¬ tinctive attitudes. The strategic situation and national tradition in which they find themselves have been stronger influences than the Soviet connection.”
Clearly, Mclnnes detects a change—if not in ideology, then at least in approach. Comparing to¬ day’s Eurocommunists with their predecessors in the Communist In¬ ternational, Mclnnes finds that they have “abandoned the dicta¬ torship of the proletariat, made numerous compromises with the social-democrat and bourgeois par¬ ties, relaxed their defense of the Soviet Union, and defied interna¬ tional authority in the communist movement—but they still seek to maintain the discipline, the tactical suppleness, and the centralization of the original Leninist party.”
Walter Laqueur writes (Com¬ mentary, August 1976, “Euro¬ communism and its Friends”): “That there are ideological differ¬ ences between the European com¬ munists and the Russians is by now well-known. The Russians regard the dictatorship of the proletariat as the ‘supreme form of democracy,’ while the Italians and the French,
much to the chagrin of Moscow, have dropped the concept. The Russians stress proletarian inter¬ nationalism—meaning obedience to Moscow—whereas the French at'their recent party Congress pro¬ claimed socialisme aux couleurs de la France, the Italians propagate ‘critical solidarity,’ and the Spanish have declared that the old-style in¬ ternationalism is dead altogether and that they alone will be respon¬ sible for the ‘Spanish march to socialism.’ ”
For Henry Kissinger, “. . .the key issue is not how ‘independent’ the European Communists would be, but how Communist.” Speak¬ ing to a Washington, D.C. confer¬ ence on Eurocommunism in June, the former Secretary of State questioned the sincerity of what he called “declarations of indepen¬ dence which coincide so precisely with electoral self-interest.” Then he added: “What the leaders of the Western Communist Parties are saying today about their affection for the processes of democracy is not significantly different from what East European Communist leaders declared wth equal em¬ phasis in the 1940’s—before they seized the total power which they have never relinquished since.”
In Italy, Western Europe’s largest communist party has—over the past year—been governing through a policy of benevolent abstention. This arrangement with the ruling Christian Democrats makes it possible for the Italian Communist Party to have an active role in government—without any formal assumption of responsibil¬ ity. It is a subtle form of indirect participation that seems to work— at least for the time being. Its con¬ tinued success is based on the need of the Christian Democrats to be assured of Communist abstention in order to maintain a working par¬ liamentary majority. This allows the Italian communists an effective prior veto on important legislation, although it denies them a govern¬ ment ministry.
In a new book (Italy in Crisis, SAGE Publications, Inc., Beverly Hills, California), Michael A. Le- deen says that “Even though the Italian Communist Party is not rep¬ resented in the cabinet, it plays a. major role in Italian policy on both national and regional levels. The current government of Premier
Giulio Andreotti depends on com¬ munist abstention for its existence, and no major program can be ap¬ proved by Parliament without communist approval. Italian Communist Party members head parliamentary commissions in the national government, and several local and regional governments as well.”
Professor Guiseppe Di Palma of the University of California has just published a detailed study of how Italian political parties func¬ tion in Parliament (Surviving With¬ out Governing, Giuseppe Di Palma, University of California Press) which shows how an ar¬ rangement such as the present sys¬ tem can exist, and even survive, in modern Italian politics.
Such a silent partnership carries with it some obvious frustrations, as well as risks—not the least of which is the likelihood of a major split within the Italian Communist Party, on the question of doing further business with the Christian Democrats. Furthermore, some Italian Communists would clearly prefer to run the government. ‘‘At this point,” writes Luigi Barzini, ‘‘they could theoretically take power any time they choose. They have 34.4 percent of the votes, they condition the central government (if is kept alive by them and does nothing without their consent), they control the administrations of all big cities, many small ones, and key regions. Through the trade unions, they more or less deter¬ mine the course of the economy. Finally, they influence radio and television, the biggest newspapers, the movies, the universities, and publishing houses.”
In a recent letter to the New York Times, Barzini—who wrote The Italians, and who served in the Italian Parliament for 14 years— says that there are many reasons for the current hesitancy of the Ita¬ lian Communist Party. In his view, most of the reasons stem from cau¬ tion, and a desire to expand the party’s influence without risking the chaos that he is convinced would inevitably follow a com¬ munist takeover.
In short, Italy’s Eurocom¬ munists now seem bent on biding their time, building their party, and continuing their present parliamen¬ tary alliance with the Christian Democrats. This could, of course,
change very quickly, and may have already begun to do so.
With France, the situation is much different. Unlike its Italian neighbor, the French Communist Party is overshadowed by the French Socialist Party. But the two have formed a ‘‘Union of the Left” which intends to challenge next year’s parliamentary elections, and may just possibly win a majority of the seats. In recent French munici¬ pal elections, the coalition of Socialists and Communists swept more than fifty-two percent of the vote—a significant increase over the 1974 record.
Writing in the April 1977 issue of Foreign Affairs, French Socialist Party National Secretary Michel Rocard gives credit to the Com¬ munists for much of what he calls the popular renaissance of the French Left. He notes that the French Communist Party is “more and more bound to a French defini¬ tion of socialism and which is, as a consequence, like other European Communist parties, following a road that diverges from that of Moscow.”
“The French Left,” says Rocard, “is at the gates of power.”
For the Spanish Communist Party, those gates seem a long way off. The Party’s most significant accomplishment over the past year has been to get itself declared legitimate. Franco banned it 38 years ago, and systematically hunted down and prosecuted its leaders—driving many of them into exile. In June, Spain held its first democratic elections in 41 years. The Communists, after only two months of official legality as a polit¬ ical party, pulled less than ten per¬ cent of the popylar vote. Nobody really expected them to do much more. The extent to which they can build on these modest beginnings will determine the degree to which they become a serious factor in Spanish politics.
Earlier this year, the leaders of the Italian, French, and Spanish communist parties met in Madrid and agreed on a common definition of Eurocommunism—one they said they could accept as applying to their own parties. According to James M. Markham of the New York Times, being Eurocom¬ munists meant “that they had the right to adapt communist tenets to the conditions of their own coun¬
tries and to retain independence on the international plane.”
What has been the US attitude to all of this?
There has been a perceptible shift over the past year. The Ford administration made no secret of its opposition to communist political gains in Italy and France. Ford said bluntly (during the San Fran¬ cisco presidential debate of Oc¬ tober 6, 1976) that a communist government in NATO would de¬ stroy the integrity and the strength of the alliance. The position of his Secretary of State, while possibly less public, was no less severe.
Thus it came as something of a surprise on April 6, 1977 when the State Department announced: “We believe that the position of a communist party in a particular country is a matter to be decided by the people and government of the country con¬ cerned. We do not propose to involve ourselves in the processes by which they reach their decisions on it.”
The State Department spokes¬ man added that all of this did not mean that the US attitude was one of indifference. He cited the impor¬ tance that the United States places on its working relationships with Western European countries, and suggested that these relationships could become impaired if com¬ munist parties were to “dominate” the governments of the countries concerned.
Whatever that means precisely, it does seem far removed—on the surface, at least—from the prac¬ tices of the not-so-distant past. In¬ stead of threats, bribes and de- stabilization, the US almost seems prepared to embrace a policy of nonintervention, even with the Eurocommunists.
How long this lasts may well de¬ pend on the extent to which the Soviets adopt the same attitude. So far, their reaction to Eurocom¬ munism has been clouded. Brezhnev obviously made signifi¬ cant concessions at East Berlin, a year ago. But the official Moscow view is that there is no Eurocom¬ munism, as such, simply a conden¬ sation of existing party relation¬ ships. Not all that much, say the Soviets, has really changed.
As for the Eurocommunists themselves, they have not done too badly over the past year. If they have momentarily dropped out of the headlines, the chances are good that they will be back. FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 1 1
The doors of Japan opened, and the
Japanese brought an array of gifts for
America’s birthday.
In early 1876, less than 25 years after Commodore Perry had
opened their backward and reluc¬ tant nation to the world, a large de¬ legation of Japanese, well-orga¬ nized, well-financed and well- tailored, arrived in Philadelphia to wish us a happy birthday. The situ¬ ation was rather like a huge party where the exuberant, slightly in¬ secure host had rounded up the whole neighborhood and was sur¬ prised to find once the celebration got under way that an obscure guest had become one of the main attractions and some people were even saying his presents were the most beautiful and unusual of all. As nine million visitors, mainly Americans, poured through the Centennial grounds in Philadel¬ phia’s Fairmont Park in the sum¬ mer of 1876, they experienced the outside world with an immediacy their limited number of books and magazines had never given them and, while England, Sweden and Imperial Russia provided pleasure but no great surprise, exotic places like China, Turkey and Japan probably fixed themselves in the national consciousness for the first time.
The visitors noted that China and Japan, which they had hitherto lumped together in one Oriental grab bag, were really quite different and they expressed their favorable
Dallas Finn, a Foreign Service wife, lived in Japan from 1947 to 1954. She has also done contract writing and research work on Japan for the Department of State. She is deeply interested in the Meiji period and US cultural relations at that time and is working on a book on the subject.
This article is excerpted, with permission, from the Fall, 1976, NINETEENTH CEN¬ TURY, published by The Victorian Society in America.
12 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
sJX'PXlSf at the Centennial - 1876 DALLAS FINN
reaction to the Japanese by paying them a high compliment. The Japanese, the American frequently said, were the Yankees of the Far East. Husbands deplored the time and money their wives spent in the Japanese Bazaar picking up bric- a-brac but they later displayed it proudly in their parlors back home. Esthetes, carpenters, pottery man¬ ufacturers, gardeners, architects and just ordinary people flocked to the Japanese exhibit in the Main Hall and to the two strange Japanese buildings, the first to be built in America. For the Ameri¬ cans these Oriental treats were simply fun at the Fair but for the Japanese their debut in Philadel¬ phia was a serious matter and it was no accident that they put on a good show.
While American newspapers generally described the Japanese at the Centennial as cheerful and im¬ perturbable, their leaders back home could hardly have been characterized that way. It was less than ten years since a strong com¬ bination of local powers had set up a central government and revived the emperor. The structure looked sounder than it was. Defeated do¬ mains envied the successful ones like Satsuma and Choshu who were in control and even inside the vic¬ torious domains there were prima donnas who had no patience with newfangled Tokyo notions about a modern state and dealings with foreigners. These heavies thrashed across the national political stage, still equipped with samurai top- knots and double swords, foment¬ ing local revolts, foreign adven¬ tures and trouble for cautious, pro¬ gressive leaders like Toshimichi Okubo, one of the most influential
men in Japan, head of the Home Ministry and, titularly, leader of the Japanese Commission to the Centennial.
Okubo, who presumably cele¬ brated 1876 himself by outlawing the samurais’ swords, could hardly take off six months for a fair but he took the American Minister’s invi¬ tation seriously and saw to it, as only the top man on a Japanese ladder can, that Japanese prepara¬ tion for the Centennial was thorough and enthusiastic. Like the other oligarchs around the Em¬ peror Meiji, Okubo, who had vis¬ ited Washington, London, Peking and Paris, and even talked to Bis¬ marck took a realistic view of Ja¬ pan’s position in the world. Obvi¬ ously, his nation could not with¬ stand the great powers without a strong army and navy, foreign trade and a modem society. The most bitter symbol of Japan’s sec¬ ond class status was its diplomatic inferiority. Every major nation had insisted that Japan sign a treaty of friendship and commerce with the proviso that its resident nationals should not be subject to presumably barbaric Japanese law. Any opportunity that came along to show the world that Japan was a modern civilized nation was good but an opportunity to do so in the United States was golden and the Japanese seized it.
Thanks to the popularity of in¬ ternational exhibitions, which had spread across Europe like a happy contagion following London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, the Japanese had already had a lit¬ tle experience with foreign fairs. In 1862, six years before the Meiji Restoration, a few Japanese ceram¬ ics appeared at the London Inter-
Engraving of the Japanese Dwelling at the Centennial in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia
national Exposition and in 1867 to the confusion of the director of the second Paris Exposition both the Shogunate and Satsuma, the province about to defeat it, set up exhibits. Who, he demanded, are the real Japanese? By 1873 when the Vienna Exhibition opened this confusion had been cleared up and the new Japanese government sent a small, carefully chosen collection of ceramics, lacquer and handi¬ crafts. Evidently both the public and the judges liked the Japanese things for they sold well and won several prizes. With these dress re¬ hearsals behind them the Japanese waited patiently to be called to Philadelphia.
It was much easier for a tightly organized oligarchy to accept our invitation than it was for the Americans to extend it or, for that matter, put on a national celebra¬ tion in the first place. After Con¬ gress had approved the idea of a Philadelphia Centennial in 1871 it took two more years until its pros¬ pects were bright enough for President Grant to issue a procla¬ mation “cordially commending” participation to the nation and the world. But Secretary of State Hamilton Fish quickly pointed out to our envoys abroad that the president had only “commended” the fair to foreign nations. He hadn’t really invited them. The
House immediately voted to invite them but the Senate hung back.
Meanwhile in Japan the newly arrived American Minister, John A. Bingham, a Republican from Ohio like Alfred Goshom, the Fair’s Director-General, and an admirer of the Japanese, was hear¬ tily recommending participation and passing along Goshorn’s in¬ structions for foreign exhibitors. Disdaining diplomatic cool, he boldly sent the Foreign Minister a formal invitation in April 1874. As if totally surprised, Foreign Minis¬ ter Terashima replied he would take great satisfaction in making known among Japan’s subjects that there was to be an international exhibition in Philadelphia. Before the year was put Congress had agreed to invite foreign nations and Kiyonari Yoshida, the Japanese Minister in Washington, had ac¬ cepted. It was not until July 1875 that Fish, unzealous to the end, asked Bingham what plans the Japanese might have for the Cen¬ tennial.
Plenty would have been a good answer. The government had de¬ cided to spend $600,000 on their ef¬ fort, the largest sum put up by any of the 30 participating nations, and to appoint a 25-man commission, another record number. In place of Okubo, who pleaded a “Corean” crisis to Bingham, young Lt. Gen- I
eral Tsugumichi Saigo would head the commission in Philadelphia. Why Saigo was selected is not clear but, coming from a distinguished Satsuma military family, he was close to Okubo and in planning Ja¬ pan’s new conscript army he had already visited Europe and the United States. As one of the first Japanese to cross the continent by rail in 1870, he was probably con¬ sidered an American expert. In any case, he looked like a good choice with his medals and military bear¬ ing and a splendid beard to match the one worn by the president of the American Centennial, General Joseph R. Hawley.
Such official zeal would have been pointless in the case of England or Germany but in a na¬ tion almost without manufacturing, banking or international trade all initiative had to come from the government. Okubo created a spe¬ cial Centennial Office inside his Home Ministry and put it under the newly created Board of Com¬ merce, Trade and Agriculture, so eager was he for the American exhibit to contribute to his aims for a strong manufacturing and trading Japan. The problem was how to as¬ semble an exhibit that would con¬ vince the world that Japan was not only highly civilized but had some¬ thing to sell worth buying. Ceramics and native handicrafts were clearly the answer so the Vienna exhibit experts were sent around the country to select pot¬ tery and porcelain, manufacturers were given generous subsidies to turn out china and bronzes that would appeal to foreigners, and foreign advisers were added to the staff to cope with English, foreign taste and how to behave abroad.
Sensibly, Okubo picked an Englishman, Fritz Cunliffe Owen, a German, Gottfried Wagener, and an American, Dr. David Murray, men already in Japanese govern¬ ment service. Owen, in the long tradition of art-loving Britons, as¬ sembled a fine collection of ancient ceramics which would not only demonstrate Japan’s high state of culture in Philadelphia but ulti¬ mately go to a museum in London. Wagener, of course, had been more useful in Vienna but he was ex¬ tremely knowledgeable about new ceramic techniques not to mention foreign taste. Dr. Murray from Rutgers had the important role of FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 13
demonstrating that if the Japanese were already quite civilized in their own way they were becoming even more so as they adopted universal education in the western pattern.
Back in Philadelphia the Japanese were showing they were prompt and dependable. They had already opened an office at Penn Square 4 by April 1875 and, in July, a special envoy, Akeo Sekizawa, arrived from Tokyo to take charge of the office and a lively corre¬ spondence with Yoshida in Wash¬ ington, Saigo in Tokyo and Goshom around the comer. Yoshida and Sekizawa kept rec¬ ords worthy of modern bureaucrats on wages, costs (high) and how to get ahead. Their main objectives were to make sure they could ar¬ range their exhibit according to their own ideas, get permission to sell the items afterward and, persis¬ tently, get more space. Goshom increased their area from the origi¬ nal 7,290 square feet to 11,520 and in June he added 2,488 more. The Japanese were grateful but hoped for more. Sekizawa worried that the Japanese Dwelling would need an acre instead of a half and he hinted to Goshom that the neighborhood of the British build¬ ings would be most suitable. In view of what was piling up in Ja¬ pan, Sekizawa’s anxieties were well justified.
Close to 7,000 packages were waiting at the special collection site in Tokyo by October 10, 1875, the government’s official deadline. There too were the timbers and tiles of the two Japanese houses designed by Iheye Matsuo of To¬ kyo. Clearly these exotic objects and structures could not be shipped off without their makers and exhibitors, but the cost of freight and passage from Yokohama to Philadelphia was staggering. Amer¬ ican business and our man in To¬ kyo came to the rescue. The Pacific Mail Steamship Co. promised to carry Japan’s Centennial cargo at half rate and Leland Stanford de¬ clared ihat because of his “high appreciation’’ of Japan’s efforts the Central Pacific would charge no¬ thing. Bingham persuaded the Pacific Mail to reduce the fares for the Japanese commissioners. On November 19 the material for the houses and the workmen sailed from Yokohama. On January 12 the government invited Bingham 14 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
and the diplomatic corps to a pre¬ view of the Japanese items that convinced our envoy they would “command the attention and excite the admiration” of his countrymen. In February Bingham reported the Emperor Meiji and his whole cabinet were “manifesting great interest” in the Centennial and at last on February 22 General Saigo with a retinue of 18 sailed on the City of Peking to join the 30 Japanese already in Philadelphia.
Whether consciously or not, the Japanese performance in Philadel¬ phia was good theater and good copy and the curtain raiser was put¬ ting up the Japanese Dwelling in Fairmont Park. Unlike Japanese officials, the carpenters wore cos¬ tumes, their traditional dark blue work coats with their company’s name in large white characters on the back. They smoked tobacco in curious thin pipes. They all lived together in a hut in the Park and took long baths. They worked as adroitly as dancers, cutting lengths of wood so expertly that they didn’t need to measure them. Crowds gathered. People stole their strange tools. A guard fence had to be erected, the New York World re¬ ported, to protect the rowkres. Spectators followed the deadpan performance mystified as the house took shape without a foundation or nails, was fitted together like a puzzle and finally roofed with fluted green tiles. The New York Daily Tribune pronounced it the best piece of carpenter and joiner work at the Fair. On the 13th of April, General Saigo moved in. To the great disappointment of the public the Japanese commissioners never opened their house to vis¬ itors.
Japan did not figure prominently in the pomp and confusion of the Centennial’s opening day, May 10. Discreet in Western dress General Saigo, Minister Yoshida and his wife sat with the other official guests on the vast platform in front of Memorial Hall. When Conduc¬ tor Theodore Thomas opened the ceremonies by playing a dozen na¬ tional anthems, he did not include Japan’s though it had just recently commissioned one in western style. The foreign star was, of course, the Emperor of Brazil, the highest ranking emissary, the symbolic representative of the nations of the world at Philadelphia. After an
hour and a half of marches, can¬ tatas, hymns, speeches, prayers and presentations, President Grant declared the Centennial open. Don Pedro of Brazil rose, waved his hat and, as Old Glory unfurled over the Main Building, the singers burst into the Hallelujah Chorus while a 100-gun salute went off on George’s Hill overlooking the Fair. Then, presumably, General Saigo rushed off with the other foreign commission heads to take his stand in front of his country’s exhibit in the Main Hall before the President and his party passed to inspect it.
Standing under the 16-petal chrysanthemum banners, two Japanese flags and a big gold- lettered sign that read “Empire of Japan,” Saigo may not have con¬ sidered his role so modest. Never before had his nation appeared in such an important international ceremony. But American aware¬ ness of Saigo was slight. Recently the New York Times had hailed him as a great man but it had prob¬ ably confused him with his more famous brother, Takamori. The New York Evening Post certainly had by calling him the Garibaldi of Japan. Only the Burlington, Iowa, Housekeeper noticed Tsugumichi Saigo in his hour of triumph, though its reporter did not take a geopolitical approach. General Saigo is “decidedly handsome,” she wrote, and tall, “though, of course, his complexion and fea¬ tures show his nationality some¬ what.” He had such expressive eyes, she concluded, that if only he could speak English he would be irresistible.
In the next few days the newspa¬ pers more than made up for their vagueness about Japanese per¬ sonalities in their generally enthusiastic endorsement of the Japanese exhibit. It would have been hard to pass it without some reaction. Making the most of the 17,000 square feet they had finally wangled, the Japanese had set their exhibit on two diagonal platforms and the visitor’s eyes and feet were led up into it by a very busy Victo¬ rian carpet where dark squares al¬ ternated with light ones in a floral pattern. At either side of the entrance stood a pair of 5 foot bronze vases such as had never been seen in the West before — or in Japan either. At the base of each bronze snakes writhed amid bronze
rocks and swampy vegetation while overhead birds of prey roosted on a platform from which rose the main body of the vase supported on four bronze elephant trunks. Above another band, also inhabited by snakes, each vase had a square bal¬ cony and above that a main section showing a scene. The vase to the right was completely encircled at this point by a large dragon while the one on the left showed a war¬ rior under a tree. Garlands of pine trees formed two handles at the scene level of each vase and both creations were topped off by a broad rim scalloped with bronze petals.
Further on in glass cases were at least seven more large, assertive bronzes. Visitors mentioned par¬ ticularly a vase surmounted by an eagle with flights of birds forming its handles, a dragon lurking at its base and, in the middle, a scene showing a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting pair of mice. The judges gave it a prize. Often the center sections of the vases were worked in silver and gold inlay forming waves, waterfalls or rays of the sun. Alongside the super¬ bronzes was arrayed a menagerie of bronze cranes and tortoises, hens and roosters, monkeys and rabbits. The technical skill of an emerging nation was bursting out in bronze, and the marvelously wrought eagles done by Japanese artists then in their 30s were not tributes to our national bird but symbols of their triumphant new Meiji era.
Once past the bronzes, the vis¬ itor was confronted by a display of ceramics arranged on a circular stand like an enormous wedding cake rising in six successive stages 12 feet toward the roof. At each level were elaborately patterned, brightly colored, often gold-flecked vases representing the main Japanese kilns. At the pinnacle stood an enormous cloisonne jar. The psychological counterparts of the dragon bronzes, however, were the 10 foot high Arita vases flank¬ ing another entrance. Not surpris¬ ingly, they featured gold dragons with bulging white eyes set in relief against a blue and white ground along with raised decorations of flowers, birds and scenery. Flere too the subject was charged with tension for the dragons were locked in combat with lions and eagles.
Satsuma ware too came on strong and large in the form of five foot vases by a potter called Nakashima who had decorated his prize pieces with medallions of peacocks framed in the ever- popular herpetic theme of scales in green and gold, flowers-and scroll work and bases of gray rocks and white turtles. Technical-minded observers never ceased to marvel at the two by four foot blue and white table tops from Nagoya. As
“But there has never been a single Japanese
taste and the Centennial visitors must have found
something besides bronze dragons and
china snakes to make them praise so often
the delicacy and quiet beauty of the Japanese
objects.’’
if to show that their virtuosity ran in both directions, the Japanese also displayed tiny, eggshell thin tea cups with delicate pictures of classic poets painted in red and gold. In this mountain of crockery were modern masterpieces, vulgar pseudo-western work and fine an¬ cient ceramics. The Americans gave up trying to count the pieces and the ordinary visitor looked forward to June when he could buy cheaper versions outside at the Bazaar.
If the bronzes and chinaware had drawn the visitor into the exhibit, the Japanese had prepared another attraction for him in the heart of their area. Beyond the lacquerware and the charming screen everyone had seen in the popular magazines, the one with the grasshoppers parading as men, was the message. Here hung photographs the Japanese had taken themselves of their public buildings, lighthouses, bridges and new university. Maps showed well-surveyed harbors and coastlines and the national school districts. The cases below con¬ tained Japanese-English dictionar¬ ies, government bonds and postage
stamps, the Code Napoleon and Buckle’s History of Civilization painstakingly translated and printed in Japan, English texts of government laws and copies of three newspapers: Yomiuri, Mainichi and Nichinichi. Dr. Mur¬ ray himself enjoyed guiding the press around these sober evidences of Japan’s progress, pointing out that Japan’s new education system included girls and was about to em¬ brace kindergartens, that radical innovation much publicized at the Fair. A few patient journalists even managed to read the compositions by Japanese school children in flawless English. Predictably, the reporters concluded that the Japanese certainly were keen on modern education and seemed to have high moral and intellectual standards. At the very back, among the slates and textbooks most visitors must have avoided, was a student’s wooden bench and desk. How ludicrously ordinary, wrote one American, not realizing how far the Japanese thought they had come by getting up off the floor and going to school.
No one could be bored at the Japanese Bazaar that stood conve¬ niently just north of the Main Building and across from a public comfort station. Inside the bamboo fence was the first Japanese garden in America with pines, camellias and nandinas, stone lanterns, a suggestion of a stream, a lotus pool and numerous pots of what the Americans called “small, con¬ torted trees,” at their first sight of bonsai. The Bazaar itself was a summer structure, a kind of open pavilion with only the tile roof to protect the shelves of merchandise once the wooden shutters had been opened in the morning. Here Americans met Japanese face to face at last and not only the young Japanese students helping during their summer vacations from Yale or Rutgers but ordinary merchants and even their wives and daughters, the most novel sight of all. The Boston Commercial Bulle¬ tin reported male visitors were charmed with these ladies with “almond eyes, delicate olive skins and piquant and naive expres¬ sions.”
But it was the goods—ivories, fans, lacquers, toys, crockery, bamboo—spread out on the closely
Continued on page 28 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 15
“Happy the man, who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can’t prevent.” — Matthew Green
Students of international affairs may debate endlessly the qual¬
ities that best equip a diplomat to practice his art. Among Foreign Service officers whose careers have been spent in exotic regions of the world, the highest accolade is privately bestowed on one humble but essential attribute: a strong stomach. It is hard to resolve an international crisis or even a minor embassy skirmish when you have experienced the blitzkrieg of intes¬ tinal bacteria.
The “gut issues” are a hidden fact of life for many Foreign Ser¬ vice families who, in a sense, have inherited the worst of two worlds. Not only are they subject to the disease pattern of the western world—chronic and degenerative illnesses like cardiovascular dis¬ ease and cancer—but they are ex¬ posed to the older pattern of conta¬ gious diseases which persist in the less developed countries.
What this overlay of another health pattern means to diplomats in terms of risk no one really knows. According to Dr. Martin Wolfe, Chief of the Medical Divi¬ sion’s Office of Tropical Disease and Parasitology, the State De¬ partment hopes to eventually estab¬ lish “risk profiles” for various re¬ gions of the world, but the pre¬ requisite epidemiological studies are hard to make because of the dearth of reliable data on a rela¬ tively small band of people scat¬ tered throughout the world who re¬ sort to a variety of doctors, treatments, and medications.
What are the maleficent parasites that monopolize attention that could otherwise be devoted to learning the language, meeting the people, and generally enjoying the country? What are the strategies, rational and magical, that people have used to combat contagious in¬ testinal disease? And what does its persistence mean in terms of the quality of life?
Not an Irish Jig
Most of the diseases that prey upon the stomach are caused by parasites. E. coli, for example, are 16 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
SARA RAU
Sara Rau holds a B.A. in English Literature and has a Phi Beta Kappa key from the University of Missouri. With her FSO hus¬ band and four sons she has spent most of the past 17 years overseas. She is now em¬ ployed as social studies project editor by Educational Challenges, Inc., doing de¬ velopmental work on children’s textbooks. Copyright ® Sara Rau, 1977.
a prolific species of parasitical bac¬ teria that are probably responsible for most of the common afflictions of the traveler. Amebas—simple, one-celled animals—cause a wide spectrum of complaints, from a vir¬ tually symptomless level of infesta¬ tion to severe amebiasis (antiqui¬ ty’s “bloody flux”). Although the lexicon of parasitology is unknown to most laymen, the diplomat soon learns that Shigella is not an Irish jig, but the villain in some cases of bacillary dysentery; that Giardia, far from evoking memories of a New York mayor, are parasites that can cause an infection second only to amebiasis in severity; and that Salmonella accompany raw eggs almost as frequently as smoked salmon is served with bagels.
Because parasites are the cul¬ prits, intestinal infections can be
called environmentally caused af¬ flictions. In countries where water carriage and sewage disposal sys¬ tems and the general level of sanita¬ tion allow widespread contamina¬ tion, you will probably attract some of these creatures sooner or later. Although it is possible to build up an immunity no one, including the doctors, knows exactly how or why and thus a mystique has grown up around the subject. Where science falters, myth and superstition fill the gap.
An Ounce and a Gram of Prevention
Inhabitants of those parts of the developing world where staying well becomes an all-encompassing strategy tend to practice preventive medicine defined in terms of their respective national life-styles. The British adopt a stoic attitude to¬ ward the problem; a stiff upper lip, bolstered by sufficient quantities of ice-cubeless scotch or gin is their recipe for the immunity which, they contend, eludes their more cautious American cousins.
The French focus on the liver as the cause of most stomach ail¬ ments. They also advocate red wine with meals, possibly for its
antiseptic qualities. The Greeks favor prophylactic dosages of garlic and the Turks consume yogurt. Persians and Afghans have an ar¬ cane system of “hot” and “cold” foods that either complement or clash with each other. Americans rely on pills, chemicals, and good organization.
The Rise and Fall of Enterovioform
Twenty years ago at the outset of a novice’s diplomatic odyssey, he was told officially to “grin and bear it.” But at some point, an embassy nurse or an Old Hand would slip the information, sub rosa, that a tablet or two of Enterovioform taken before an evening out would steal the march on most unpleasant after-effects. Several years—and hundreds of pills—later, medical science confirmed what had been suspected all along: by masking the symptoms of amebic or parasitic in¬ festation, Enterovioform gives bac¬ teria the chance to entrench them¬ selves more deeply. Additionally, tests linking the use of Enterovio¬ form to a severe neurological dis¬ ease caused the Federal Drug Ad¬ ministration to remove it from the market in the United States. Al¬ though it remains on the shelves of pharmacies in other countries, no pne should be tempted to use it; most doctors believe it is not only risky but generally ineffective as prophylaxis or cure.
A major innovation of the ’60s was gamma globulin inoculations to prevent or weaken attacks of infec¬ tious hepatitis. Even for those doubters who felt initially that shots were little better than the body’s natural immune mechan¬ ism, the shock of a few hepatitis- linked deaths and the memory of many slow recoveries made a strong case for a gamma globulin shot every four to six months while living abroad.
Two schools of thought about cleaning fresh fruit and vegetables have developed within the Foreign Service: the Tide approach and the iodine tablet method (English and European diplomats favor perman¬ ganate, but it is not popular with Americans). Tide’s suds, unless carefully rinsed away, can cause the same symptoms their use was designed to prevent, and iodine compounds when crushed in water
resemble weak tea, hardly an ap¬ petizing bath for the evening salad, but the State Department medical division assures its clients that this chemical is a powerful killer of Giardia lambia and amebic cysts.
The Coca Cola Empire
Water purification is another hotly debated technique. Few Foreign Service types have gone to the length of one American profes¬ sor, on sabbatical leave in Istanbul, who brought his own home water filter system with him. Diplomats prefer to use judicious amounts of Clorox or Halazone, tote water from deep wells, or boil it in gar¬ gantuan vats for ten to twenty min¬ utes. If all else fails, there is always tea . . . or Coca Cola. Ubiquitous, lukewarm Coca Cola.
Forbidden Fruits
Foods to avoid? Foreign Service tradition warns against watermel¬ ons, which may have been injected with contaminated water to in¬ crease their weight; strawberries, which are impossible to clean with¬ out reducing them to pulp; and let¬ tuce, which naturally absorbs and retains contaminated matter. Oys¬ ters and mussels are eschewed by those who fear hepatitis, and in some areas meat is always well cooked because of the threat of flukes, trichinosis, and tapeworm infestation.
Raw eggs, dietary pariahs be¬ cause they sometimes carry Sal¬ monella, are easily avoided until you arrive in parts of the world where ready-made mayonnaise is unavailable or until you decide to create a holiday eggnog. One hal¬ lowed Foreign Service ploy is to taste the concoction prepared with raw eggs at least six hours before the guests arrive. If the taster sur¬ vives unscathed until dinner time, the dish is served with aplomb (and only an occasional qualm).
Cooks and Lost Weekends
Americans usually require phys¬ ical examinations for their domes¬ tic help. This procedure looks good on paper, but is less ideal in prac¬ tice. In a country where parasitic diseases are endemic, most ser¬ vants will be carriers, although they may have no symptoms. After a vigorous program of medication,
a cook’s laboratory specimen may check out negative so long as he remains on the premises. As soon as he spends a weekend at home, chances are he will return to work with the same infection as before. Instead of embarking on extensive treatment programs, many Ameri¬ cans eventually opt for a more pragmatic approach: teaching cooks to wash their hands fre¬ quently and making sure these or¬ ders are followed.
The dilemma which sooner or later faces diplomats as they search for protection against disease is how far they are prepared to sac¬ rifice cross-cultural friendships and representational duties on the altar of dietary precaution. How many dinner parties can you refuse and retain the good will of the local populace? How many times can you reject the food which your host offers without offending him? In the Middle East, for example, hos¬ pitality is a basic theme of social organization and the obligations of the guest play a delicate counter¬ point to the responsibilities of the host. After making every effort to establish a safe kitchen at home, any Foreign Service officer worth the paper his presidential appoint¬ ment is written on will toss away caution if it compromises either his effectiveness as a diplomat or his spontaneity as a responsive human being. Otherwise, he might as well have stayed within the boundaries of the United States and made his peace with air pollution and Red Dye Number Two.
Scientific Cures and Home Remedies
Cures for stomach complaints follow as a response to the acute episode—that unforgettable nadir of chills, fever, nausea, diarrhea, muscle pain, headache, weakness, and general malaise. Any surviving notion of glamour surrounding dip¬ lomatic life disappears the night you decide to sleep on the bathroom rug because you are too weak to return to your bed.
It is consoling to realize that nowadays few Americans, at home or abroad, die of intestinal disease. Doctors know that dehydration is the single most dangerous eventual¬ ity, and when the body reaches this critical stage, the balance of fluids can usually be restored with intra- FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 17
venous feeding. Nevertheless, the very young and the very old are still “at risk,” and even a healthy adult can die from hepatitis, espe¬ cially if it is complicated by a pre¬ vious liver disease.
Along with restoring fluids, treatment for amebiasis and Giar- dia usually includes immediate medication with an antibiotic such as Tetracycline, Atabrine, or Flagyl, followed by doses of Diodoquin for several weeks. Al¬ though these drugs are safer and more effective than earlier com¬ pounds, they are not without side effects and some risk. Nausea, diz¬ ziness, depression, and headache are only a few of the symptoms that may lead you to conclude that the cure is worse than the disease. Even more troublesome are the ex¬ periments on animals that have linked massive doses of some of these compounds to lung cancer and leukemia. However, conclu¬ sions based on animal studies do not always apply to the human species and until the ideal panacea is discovered doctors and patients must make an informed choice based on how they view the risk- benefit ratio. In other words, the theoretical dangers from the drugs must be weighed against their dem¬ onstrated benefits. Doctors esti¬ mate that with medication over 90 percent of all intestinal infections can now be cured—a radical im¬ provement over the days when parasites were a lifelong scourge.
After the acute stage of the dis¬ ease passes, victims may indulge their taste for home remedies, as many and various as the people who have discovered and used them: Coke and soda crackers, peppermint tea, chicken broth, rice water and peaches, carob root, yogurt, and a thousand other nos¬ trums. Yogurt, by the way, re¬ places the necessary flora the stomach needs for good digestion, but because it is a milk product it may also serve as a fertile breeding ground for more hostile bacteria.
Functional Maintenance
One way of living with the chronic symptoms of intestinal dis¬ ease is by recognizing the principle of “functional maintenance.” Dis¬ cussed enthusiastically in recent gerontological studies, “functional maintenance” means that you are 18 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
as healthy as you act. Whether you are an arthritic octogenerian or an attache with stomach cramps, so long as you are able to work, you are “well.” And so long as you think of yourself as “well,” you will be able to work. Once you weaken and establish mentally that you are “sick,” you will become the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Another phenomenon, noted frequently by State Department
“Diplomats are wary of advocacy roles in
foreign environments. Sovereignty is an
important principle in dealing with other countries and to overstep national
boundaries ... is to court accusations of
imperialism.”
doctors, is the persistence of symptoms long after any evidence of parasitical infestation. They theorize that after an acute infec¬ tion has triggered a physical re¬ sponse in the intestines, the symptoms the body has learned so well sometimes continue as a reac¬ tion to stress. Thus, a diplomat— possibly overworked, unappre¬ ciated, and subject to the pressures of living in an alien environment— finds a socially acceptable excuse for his psychosomatic symptoms: those elusive little critters he knows he supports.
The Larger Problem
Beyond the immediate need to prevent, cure, and cope with stomach complaints lies the larger problem which should command the attention of Foreign Service families. Why does infectious dis¬ ease still account for most of the mortality and morbidity in the Southern hemisphere of the world?
Ivan Ilyich in his book Medical Nemesis identifies the cause of the problem as the improper use of scarce resources. He points out that the usual pattern for underde¬ veloped countries (and their pa¬
trons) is to sink the lion’s share of money and manpower into sophis¬ ticated medical centers, education of doctors and technicians, installa¬ tion of the complicated machinery of technology, and the importation of foreign experts to set up health and population-planning programs, when the root of most physical misery lies in the open sewers run¬ ning past the vegetable stalls in the bazaar or in a tainted water supply.
Ilyich contends that under the prevailing system, the social and economic elite of poor countries are given improved health and the advantages of smaller families, but that the masses continue to breed and die as they always have. He believes that for a fraction of what is being spent to bring the trappings of modern health care to the world, an investment in improved water and sewage systems could turn around the infectious disease pat¬ tern of the underdeveloped coun¬ tries.
Diplomatic Advocacy?
There are at least two major ob¬ jections to proselytizing for Ilyich’s theory. First, he ignores the com¬ plexity of individual situations. For example, is it advisable, knowing the effects of DDT, to use it in massive quantities to eradicate flies? Moreover, is it possible to change centuries-old behavior and thought patterns that stand in the path of environmental improve¬ ment?
Second, diplomats are wary of advocacy roles in foreign environ¬ ments. Sovereignty is an important principle in dealing with other countries and to overstep national boundaries and actively seek solu¬ tions to problems other govern¬ ments do not even recognize is to court accusations of imperialism.
Still, if those few members of western society who have experi¬ enced at first hand the assaults made on the quality of life by infec¬ tious intestinal disease were to go about their daily tasks with an inner vision of a better way to allocate resources for the improved health and happiness of mankind, surely from time to time the seed for re¬ form might be planted.
In the meantime, chin up! Stiff upper lip! Down the hatch with another lukewarm Coca Cola!
the
at puerto velanle ROBERT E. WILSON
There had always been an American Consulate at Puerto Velarde, even before the independence of the
Latin American republic whose principal port it was. Situated on the coast, far from the capital and. the Em¬ bassy, its consular district covered almost half of the country. The Consulado, the building which housed both the office and the principal officers’ residence, was a local landmark.
To be sure, it had long ceased to be a very active post. Consular invoices covering shipments of bananas, coffee and rum once provided an impressive revenue which far exceeded the modest cost of maintaining the office. Ser¬ vices to American ships and seamen, and the issuance of visas, had also been brisk.
The staff normally included a Consul, a Vice Consul, four local clerks—two men and two women, and a messenger-chauffeur.
The abolition of the consular invoice requirement in the ’50s sharply curtailed the activity of the post, which was accordingly reduced in rank to a one-officer post, in charge of a Vice Consul with the assistance of the local staff. Activity dropped still further with the decline of passenger vessels in the port, which meant that most travelers went to the capital to travel by plane, and would get their visas from the Embassy. Agents and captains of freight vessels began to find the consular routine more of a nuisance than a service. The “raison d’etre” for the Consulate no longer existed, so as an'economy measure the remaining functions were transferred to the Embassy and the post was ordered closed.
The last Vice Consul in charge, who had not been there very long, was transferred to another country. The files were shipped to the Embassy, the supplies mostly sold locally, the lease on the Consulado terminated, and the local staff discharged.’
The senior clerk, Don Alberto Reyes, who was 58, was given an early retirement and put on a reduced an¬ nuity. The two women secretaries, Maria and Margarita Gonzalez, sisters in their late 30s, received refunds of their retirement deductions and went to work as bilingual clerks for a local customs despatch agent. Ernesto Men-
Robert Wilson joined the Foreign Service in 1936 and served in Mazat- lan, Buenos Aires, Bah'ia Blanca, Rosario, La Paz, San Salvador, Seville, Calcutta and Rotterdam. Following his retirement in 1961 he accepted a position as Lecturer with Security of Employment at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where he is now serving as Vice Chairman of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He has published a number of articles in scholarly and professional journals.
dez, 35, the administrative clerk, went to the capital and got a job for an airline. Carlos, the 40-year-old messenger-chauffeur, used his retirement refund to buy the Consulate’s used automobile, which he then operated as a taxi.
The closing of the Consulate was a blow to the busi¬ ness community and left a hiatus in the social and com¬ munity life of the Puerto. To many local merchants, shippers, professional people and “politicos,” it sig¬ nalized the decline in the importance of their city and accentuated the traditional rivalry between the coastal area and the interior, the Puerto and the national capital. Portenos resented the concentration of authority and power in the capital, with the corresponding neglect and impoverishment of the coast.
Puerto Velarde’s small but sophisticated elite society consisted mainly of persons engaged in shipping and trade, together with some growers, professional people, manufacturers, and a few Americans and other foreign business representatives, and above all, the consular corps. However minor they may have been in their own countries’ diplomatic hierarchy, the Consuls—even an occasional Consul General!—and Vice Consuls sta¬ tioned at the Puerto were the darlings of the local high society. No party would be a success without at least one foreign consul and his wife. Their presence in the com¬ munity symbolized the importance of the city on both the national and international scene. Not even the members of the diplomatic corps at the capital, far off in the inter¬ ior, enjoyed the high social position of the consular corps at the Puerto.
The high points of the year’s social whirl were the independence days of the Latin American countries maintaining consulates; the Queen’s birthday, when H.B.M.’s Consul received the local authorities, col¬ leagues and friends; le 14 juillet, Bastille Day, when the French did likewise; and above all, the Fourth of July.
For as long as anyone could remember, everybody who was anybody in the Puerto society would be invited to the American Independence Day reception, always held on the lawn outside the Consulado.
For weeks before the event the two secretaries, Maria and Margarita, were busy preparing invitation lists for the Consul’s approval, writing and mailing invitations marked RSVP, receiving acceptances—there were few regrets. Ernesto ordered the provisions, hired waiters, extra maids and musicians, and paid the bills, usually managing to keep expenses within the representation al¬ lowance, for this was the principal event of the year. Carlos helped with purchases and deliveries and was in charge of decorations and special lighting effects. Don Alberto, the senior clerk, was too elevated in rank to enter directly into the logistics, but always gave his avun¬ cular advice on matters of protocol and precedence of local government officials.
When the day of the party would come, the entire local staff, except Don Alberto, would pitch in and help the Consul’s wife and servants with the hors d’oeuvres and punch. Carlos was busy with last minute preparations and with hanging the flags and bunting.
When guests arrived they were greeted by the (Vice) Consul and wife and by Don Alberto. If the incumbent principal officer happened to be a recent arrival, Don Alberto would introduce the guests and make appropriate explanations of their importance. Occasionally a promi¬ nent local American, such as Mr. William Philips, would
FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 19
be asked to take a place in the receiving line, especially when the Consul was new.
Maria and Margarita would move among the guests, seeing to it that everyone had enough to eat and drink, exchanging pleasantries with all, either in English or Spanish. Ernesto and his wife did likewise. Elisa Mendez and both Margarita and Maria took turns pouring tea and coffee, as did Mrs. Philips.
Carlos was the busiest of all. Unlike the other staff members, he was neither a guest nor a co-host. His role was that of a servant, but a very special servant, for unlike the maids and waiters who worked for the Consul in a private capacity, his was a position of special distinc¬ tion: he was a servant of the United States Government. He, above all others, was in his greatest glory at the Fourth of July parties. It was he who hung the flags, and it was he who opened the gate for the Mayor, the Gover¬ nor, the gentlemen and ladies of society, the President of the Banco del Puerto, and the captains of visiting ships.
The word about closing the Consulate came in Sep¬ tember, and the doors closed for the last time, without ceremony, at the end of November. By January the Con- sulado stood vacant. It was a dull social season. It was not that the last Vice Consuls had been particularly popu¬ lar. They were, in fact, rather dull. He didn’t play golf; she didn’t play bridge. It was just the United States Gov¬ ernment had given Puerto Velarde the ultimate slight—it had been put on the “No Consul” list.
Perhaps it was a further indication of the decline of the Puerto that the building, the Consulado, was still vacant months after the office closed officially. The Banco del Puerto, which administered the property for its absentee owners, despaired of finding new tenants for the over¬ sized building which seemed so admirably suited to its former purpose but so unsuited to any other.
Retirement was not easy for Don Alberto. Too old to get another job, too young to do nothing, he became a rather pathetic figure, hanging around the banks and shipping offices where he used to go so often on behalf of the Consulate. He spent much time at the Circulo del Puerto, a business men’s club which had made him an honorary member years before because of his position with the Consulate. But the other club members re¬ mained somewhat aloof from him. Although Alberto had his annuity to meet the necessities of life, his income was greatly reduced, he had to lower his living standards, dressed carelessly and began to look seedy.
Maria and Margarita Gonzalez had no financial prob¬ lems, but were not as comfortable in their new jobs as they had been in the Consulate. They felt that their social status in the community had suffered a distinct setback.
Ernesto Mendez’s wife Elisa, who belonged to a re¬ spected Puerto Velarde family, had not yet gone to the capital to join her husband. She was loathe to leave her friends and family and to take her children out of their school. She was hoping Ernesto would be able to get a good job at the Banco del Puerto so that she wouldn’t have to move away.
It was the chauffeur Carlos who first conceived the idea. Every time he drove his taxi past the Consulado he asked himself “Why did they do that to us?”
One day in May Carlos was cruising near the Circulo del Puerto just as Don Alberto came out and started walking slowly—almost shuffling—along the sidewalk. “Can I take you somewhere, Don. Alberto?” asked Car¬ los, bringing his car to a halt. 20 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
“Come now, Carlos,” responded Don Alberto laconi¬ cally, “You know perfectly well I don’t have any place to go, and if I did I couldn’t afford to pay your high fares.”
“Be my guest, for old time’s sake,” said Carlos. “Let’s go for a ride.” Don Alberto got into the front seat, and Carlos drove slowly toward the Consulado, standing stark and vacant, its garden overgrown with weeds, look¬ ing almost like a haunted house.
“It will be kind of sad on the Fourth of July this year, won’t it?” commented Carlos.
“Don Alberto,” Carlos persisted, “What if you and Margarita and Maria and the Mendezes and I ?”
Later that afternoon Don Alberto, riding in Carlos’s car, called at the office of Mr. William Philips, an Ameri¬ can manufacturer’s representative with some years’ resi¬ dence in the Puerto, a frequent guest at the Consulado in past years.
“Mr. Philips,” said Don Alberto, “Have you been giving any thought to the Fourth of July celebration for this year, now that the Consulate has been closed?”
Philips admitted he had not, but said he’d probably invite a few people around to his house.
“Well, I’ve been talking to the Gonzalez girls and Mrs. Mendez,” went on Don Alberto, “and since the old Consulado property is still vacant we’d like to cooperate in carrying on the tradition and to organize the party again this year on the Consulado lawn. We’ll do all the work—with Carlos’s assistance,” he added, looking to¬ ward the car, “providing you and some of the other Americans will help out with the expenses.”
The following morning Don Alberto called on the Manager of the Banco del Puerto, who said that if the Consulado was still unrented by the 4th, and if Mr. Philips was indeed willing to join in the sponsorship, the Bank would permit the party to be held on the lawn as usual.
Maria and Margarita moved into action with the guest list and invitations:
The members of the American community and the former employees of the American Consulate in Puerto Velarde take pleasure in inviting you to the Bicentennial Celebration of the Independence of the United States of America to be held on the lawn of the Consulado from seven to nine p.m. Sunday July the Fourth, 1976.
R.S.V.P.
The acceptances started coming in promptly. There were few “regrets.” On the contrary, people who had never before been on the invitation list called to ask for invitations. They had friends in the USA, they said, or had lived there and wanted to keep in touch. They of¬ fered to bring sandwiches and other refreshments.
When the great day came, the Consulado grounds were festively adorned with lanterns and flags. It was the most successful Fourth of July party ever. It seemed that the whole community had resolved to help carry on the tradi¬ tion. Civic pride was at stake. The United States Gov¬ ernment could close the Consulate, and indeed it did, but it could not stop the celebration of the Fourth at the Consulado!
No Consul’s wife had ever been a more gracious hos¬ tess than were Margarita and Maria Gonzalez and Elisa Mendez. Ernesto Mendez, who had come back from the capital for this occasion, stood in the reception line with
Continued on page 30
P3J BCEDKSHELF
Three From the Deep Freeze SECRETS, SPIES AND SCHOLARS, by Ray S. Cline. Acropolis Books, $10.00. THE NIGHT WATCH, by David Atlee Phillips. Atheneum, $9.95. SECRET INTELLIGENCE IN THE 20TH
CENTURY, by Constantine Fitzgibbon. Stein & Day, $12.95.
Old spies never die—they just write away.
Allen Dulles started it all, with an ably written exposition by a craftsman of intelligence. More re¬ cently, however, Agee and Mar- chetti have told all—and perhaps more than—they knew, riding the wave of recent revelations about the CIA in Congress and the press. Books by both authors lacked ob¬ jectivity; their motivation in writing the exposes was'suspect.
Now come the surrebuttals— exhausting if not exhaustive in the case of the “I and Penrod” tour of OSS and CIA on which the reader is taken in Secrets, Spies and Scholars. Dr. Cline did indeed have a long career in the Agency, and its wartime predecessor, OSS. He describes in detail the organiza¬ tion and development of the present day CIA—complete with an even dozen organizational charts. Toward the end, as Dr. Cline himself approaches the apex of the organization, he finds it ap¬ propriate to insert names in the chart, along with the designations.
Does, indeed, Dr. Cline’s career represent in this era, as he suggests at one point, a “microcosmic re¬ flection of the whole of CIA?” Es¬ sentially an analyst on the DDI side of the Agency, he was “inte¬ grated” into DDP (operations) as Chief of Station in Taiwan after ac¬ companying Allen Dulles on a very successful world trip in 1956. Al¬ though he ultimately advanced to the senior position of head of DDI, Dr. Cline assures his readers on the one hand of his close working relationships with DDP, and on the other hand of his complete lack of knowledge of “anything about this assassination planning.”
It seems unlikely Dr. Cline’s heavy tome will attract wide read¬ ership in the foreign affairs com¬ munity. An unlikely reader will be Henry Kissinger, described by Dr.
Cline as “one who came to use the apparatus and intelligence commu¬ nity as his private staff rather than as supporting staff for the President.” Even though perhaps neither surprised nor offended by the foregoing comment, “the haughty Foreign Service officers in the regional bureaus of the State Department,” may join the former Secretary in bypassing this book. There will, however, be a market for Dr. Cline’s book. It will be re¬ quired reading for the KGB. It is recommended reading for insom¬ niacs.
Night Watch tells a similar story in a less tedious and tendentious manner. Psychological warrior Phillips is a facile writer, who probably would have found a more satisfying and stimulating career in the Information rather than In¬ telligence Agency. When “the image of CIA people was tar¬ nished” and one of Phillips’s chil¬ dren repudiated his profession, a “storm broke” which changed Phillips’s life and he felt compelled “to abandon what had been an ex¬ citing and . . . honorable career.” Phillips then proceeds to write in an entertaining manner of his ser¬ vice in Cuba, Mexico, Beirut and the Dominican Republic and finally Chief of WH Division (which the “witting” will know corresponds to States’ ARA). At times, how¬ ever, Phillips provides an embar¬ rassing, and unnecessary, number of details about his personal life which contribute little to the book but may have provided a form of therapy for the author. A likable person who distributed lollipops to his staff when his division went without security violations for a re¬ cord period of time, he had kind words for nearly all his former col¬ leagues, with the exception of de¬ fectors Agee and Marchetti and his hard driving (but exceedingly able) colleague who preceded him as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division.
Dedicated professionals, particu¬ larly those who served through the McCarthy era, may find it difficult to understand abandoning a career because the image of an Agency becomes “tarnished.” Others, who often labored so painfully to pro¬ tect the “cover” of their in¬ telligence colleagues at post, will hardly be moved to repeat those ef¬ forts now that authors Cline apd
Phillips have chosen to reveal in such detail many of the station ac¬ tivities that their non “witting” col¬ leagues were enjoined to protect by repeating absurdly fabricated cover stories.
Secrets and Night Watch may make a contribution. There is al¬ ways a chance that one of the bright young humanists on the White House Staff might leaf through these books. He might then note some of the intelligence jargon that creeps in, such as Dr. Cline’s comment that “the sur¬ vivability of these agents (parachuted into China) was lim¬ ited.” It is even conceivable that the young humanist might suggest that zero base budgetry be applied to intelligence operations at Foreign Service Posts.
Politics is not predictable, and the future may lie along another route. We may yet see an in¬ telligence section of the Embassy, headed by a Counselor for In¬ telligence. To obtain Dr. Cline’s concurrence to such a proposal, however, the senior position would probably have to be upgraded to Minister-Counselor.
Constantine Fitzgibbon provides a more detached and objective sur¬ vey of intelligence operations. His extensive intelligence experience prior to and during World War II included code breaking operations in the “Ultra” project at Bletchley and service, as a British subject, with American forces. Author of 20-odd books of fiction and non¬ fiction, he writes with a flair, a deep knowledge of history, and a detachment bom of professional dissociation with the intelligence work in the three decades following World War II. He draws on his ex¬ tensive knowledge of both Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union to bring out little known incidents such as Alexander Helphand’s role in serving as a conduit for German money to Trotsky in Russia. Strongly anti-communist, his rea¬ soning and argumentation is presented in a style reminiscent of Bill Buckley (on whose program Fitzgibbon has appeared). In one or two instances, however, he re¬ veals traces of paranoia as when he characterizes Eleanor Roosevelt as “quasi-Communist.”
Fitzgibbon’s book provides a welcome relief to the inept de¬ fenses of the intelligence function FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 21
made by Cline and Phillips. He urges America to exercise restraint in revealing its intelligence secrets and suggests enactment of legisla¬ tion along the lines of the British Official Secrets Act. He then writes “the almost incredible clum¬ siness which permitted the Soviet government nearly to install nu¬ clear weapons on Cuban soil, the folly of American policy in the Middle East in 1956, the American defeat in Southeast Asia, all these show how deplorably inadequate the CIA must have been as a centre of evaluation.” Support for that view has come from a former President, for whatever that may be worth, in a recent television interview.
There are some antiquated spirits who feel that the public interest—yes, even the national interest, if that phrase may still be used without being charged with chauvinism—is not always best served by “telling all,” despite the emotional catharsis it may provide the authors.
The Agency, under its new Navy director, might try to develop a “Silent Service,” free of the need for self justification and self glorifi¬ cation.
Spy stories never die. Let’s hope they fade away.
—KARL SOMMERLATTE
For the F.S. Parent
BRINGING UP CHILDREN OVERSEAS: A
Guide for Families, by Sidney Werkman, M.D. Basic Books, $9.95
Sidney Werkman wrote this book, of course, for people living overseas or about to do so. Yet its core applies to almost everyone with children—excellent advice, thoughtful ideas, questions with very wise answers concerning chil¬ dren from the time of conception until they’re grown; about cultures, customs, dress, caretakers (Don’t leave children with them too much); about keeping emotionally close to children and managing the necessary separations which go along with Foreign Service Life, “The Art of Transition.”
There are so many things I like about this book! Dr. Werkman is down-to-earth. He doesn’t beat around the bush. The book is free of jargon: easier to read than most elementary school report cards 22 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
filled with child-developmentese. It has vignettes about real people, not long and labored “case studies.”
After dealing with everything imaginable which Foreign Service parents ought to be told (and are told by quotes from families “who have been through it all”) Dr. Werkman has chapters at the end where themes which have run through the book now come to¬ gether. Three of my favorites?
“Send those who want to go, prepare them for going, and pay attention to them when they are overseas.” “Unaccompanied (without family) overseas tours are never uncompli¬ cated. They are either the cause or the symptom of family difficulties.” “It is not so much whether to go with your family or not, but how the fam¬ ily decides that makes the difference in the success of an overseas tour. You always have to ask if your wife and children had a chance to make their input into the decision.” The book is a true compendium.
Webster would indeed say that it “gathers together and presents in brief form. ... all the facts, princi¬ ples, or other details essential to a general or comprehensive knowl¬ edge of the subject. . .”
— CLARK SLADE
(The reviewer is a clinical social worker in the Department of State Medical Division.)
... in the D.C. Area
SUMMER PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN In the Washington, D.C. Area, by Martha Beshers and Margery Passett. MMK Associates, 5441 33rd Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20015, $3.75 plus 25c postage & handling.
The second edition of this very useful guide to summer activities in the Greater Washington Area is now available. It contains informa¬ tion about Day Camps, Athletic Programs, Arts Programs, Special Education Programs and Public Programs. It also suggests places to call for the type of information, such as: “Where can my child go swimming?”, that is so desperately sought after by returning Foreign Service families.
This publication is an attractive, informative paperback that should be most useful for Foreign Service parents who are trying to ease the problem of “re-entry” for their children.
—PAT SQUIRE
Not For Export
THE AMERICAN TOUCH IN MIC¬
RONESIA, by David Nevin. W. W. Nor¬ ton, $9.95.
The American touch which Nevin describes is the Midas touch; and, as it did to Midas, the touch has left the Micronesians un¬ able to sustain life. Nevin’s book, the outgrowth of a Ford Foundation-sponsored background report on Micronesian education, describes, in frequently absurd vignettes, the educational system which American money has im¬ posed on Micronesia. In spite of Navy-sponsored anthropological research on the islands, the culture of the inhabitants was totally ig¬ nored in the US effort to turn a trust territory into a trusting de¬ pendent.
The bizarre images of rusting military hardware and crumbling barracks amid palm-fringed la¬ goons strongly affected Kennedy’s new frontiersmen. This resulted in an infusion of money into Micro¬ nesian education which seemed to be a useful and politically practical way both to help the Micronesians and to sway Micronesian opinion toward eventual alliance with the US.
Nevin describes how the imposi¬ tion of an American culturally based model of an educational sys¬ tem on Micronesia has been a dis¬ mal failure. Building up details and descriptions from his visits and in¬ terviews, he explores the absurdity of transferring American style in¬ stitutions to other cultures. Nevin does not attempt to offer solutions to the Micronesian problems. He gives suggestions; but these, too, are in the form of accumulated de¬ tails.
Micronesia has been treated like a colonial possession. The US, however, has denied colonial inten¬ tions and, consequently, has de¬ veloped no colonial policy. Ameri¬ can dollars coupled with this lack of policy have made Micronesians ill-prepared to deal with the modern world, yet unable to sup¬ port themselves in their old ways.
For those who deal with foreign cultures, Nevin’s book offers a re¬ minder that American patterns, like fine wines, may not travel well.
—KAREN LEPPERT FOSTER
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Unusual Novel from Turkey THEY BURN THE THISTLES, by Yashar Kemal. Translated by Margaret E. Platon. Morrow, $10.95.
T. E. Lawrence, Robin Hood and a legendary Turkish hero, Koroglu, are echoed in the compli¬ cated character of Memed, the out¬ law, the philosopher, the lover, the fighter, around whom They Burn the Thistles is centered.
Read as a novel of suspense, the book holds its tension to the last page. A vivid impressionistic por¬ trait of the Taurus Mountains and the coastal plain below them, it also provides a realistic record of the bitter fate of Turkey’s small farm¬ ing communities during the chaotic period after World War I.
Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) had just forced the Sultan from his throne'and now, up in Ankara, he was beginning to set up a republi¬ can government, but he had not yet been able to establish control over the entire country.
Yashar Kemal tells us how in the remote area of the Chukurova Plain, venal petty officials, who had prospered under the Sultan’s rule, realizing a new wind was ris¬ ing in the country, were seizing their last chance to grab land from the defenceless farmers. A ruthless “Agha,” Ali Safa Bey and his counterpart, Hamza Bey, are vic¬ timizing a group of small villages who are powerless to oppose them.
The desperate villagers have only one defender, Memed, but they believe bullets can’t kill him, that he can outwit any enemy, and their faith is justified; Memed per¬ forms the miracle and the villagers are again in possession of their pre¬ cious land.
In April, the New York Times reported that Yashar Kemal was being considered for the Nobel prize for literature. They Burn the Thistles is good evidence that Kemal is worthy of that honor.
—REBECCA LATIMER
“Change vs. Continuity’’ INDONESIA’S ELITE, by Donald K. Emmerson. Cornell Univ. Press, $17.50
Donald K. Emmerson, As¬ sociate Professor of Political Sci¬ ence at the University of Wiscon¬ sin, offers an innovative approach to historical analysis in his “In¬ donesia’s Elite, Political Culture and Cultural Politics.” Professor Emmerson is a graduate of Prince¬ ton and Yale Universities who
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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 2 3
spent three years in Indonesia lec¬ turing at a number of universities and research institutions. He is the editor and co-author of “Students and Politics in Developing Coun¬ tries”. The author’s present work offers the reader an analysis of re¬ cent sociological and political change in Indonesia through the eyes of “40 informers.”
Emmerson’s “40 informers” are randomly chosen bureaucrats and legislators in Djakarta. These have been selected from a master list of 651 names. The author’s study is the product of hundreds of hours of interviews with “the chosen forty.” His work is a meaningful analysis of Indonesia’s elite under the stress of rapid, sometimes vio¬ lent political, social and cultural change. The struggles of peoples throughout history to accommo¬ date to changes in their environ¬ ment without losing a sense of iden¬ tity and community have always fascinated historians and sociol¬ ogists. Emmerson’s book is unique in exploring that struggle as it af¬ fects the lives of individuals hold¬ ing high office in political insti¬
tutions in Indonesia. But, it is in the lives of Purwoko,
a cosmopolitan, urbane, Dutch school-educated abangan bureau¬ crat and Usman, a parochial, Satri, native-Islamic school-educated politician that the study is brought into sharp focus. The recent, turbu¬ lent history of Indonesia is seen through the eyes of each man. They are neighbors and country¬ men, often fighting for the same causes, yet viewing the world through a vastly different prism. Author Emmerson leaves us with a profound philosophical dilemma. Which man more successfully re¬ solved the dilemma of changing yet staying the same? Or the social paradox of facilitating change by preserving continuity? He tries to resolve the riddle he has posed. One man would go to his death knowing precisely who he was while the other, for better or worse, had already embraced uncertainty.
—JAMES D. MCHALE
Biography of the “Tiger” GEORGES CLEMENCEAU: A Political Biography, by David Robin Watson.
McKay,$14.95. For the better part of his 88-year
life, Georges Clemenceau, the “Tiger” of French politics, was never far from the center of the political stage. At 21 he was a stu¬ dent revolutionary; from 1865 to 1869 he lived in the United States as a French correspondent on the Civil War and Reconstruction; thereafter as politician and editor he played a central role in the major crises of the Third Republic. As Premier during the last years of the First World War, he presided over the Versailles peace negotiations.
Politics was only one aspect of this turbulent duelist and many- faceted man. His interests ranged from medicine and science to horsemanship and hunting. The political side is uppermost in this succinct, well-written biography, but the author, who teaches at the University of Dundee, has wisely refused to divorce the career from the man. The result is the first biog¬ raphy of Clemenceau in English that concentrates on his political career.
—CHARLES MAECHLING, JR.
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Jidda, 1-3 July, Kandara Palace Hotel Riyadh, 4-5 July, Intercontinental Hotel Dhahran, 7-10 July, Al Gosaibi Hotel Dubai, 12-13 July, Intercontinental Hotel Tehran, 15-19 July, Intercontinental Hotel
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FAR EAST Japan: Tokyo, 2-3 July, Imperial Hotel
Osaka, 9-10 July, Royal Hotel Hong Kong Kowloon, 16-18 July, Peninsula Hotel Thailand Bangkok, 20-24 July, Erawan Hotel Singapore Singapore, 26-27 July, Shangri La Hotel
Please telephone Miss Saeko Taniguchi at hotel for appointment
For school brochure write: Henry C. Wick, Judson School, Box 1569,'Scottsdale, Arizona 85252.
The Kyrulian Ambassador’s wife ignored me until I started reading the Journal. She still ig¬ nores me, but / can think of how happy Margaret
Sullivan’s article made my wife.
24 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES from page 5 when discussing executive-legislative relations. But these arguments contend against conduct I did not argue for in my article in the November 1976 FSJ. Who said anything about “volunteering information” or “going to the Hill?” The question is what happens when “the Hill” requests, orders, summons or subpoenas a career officer to appear and testify. The apparition of hundreds of FSO-5s, 4s, and 3s tugging the coatsleeves of “their” members of the Committee on Foreign Relations (CFR) or the House International Relations Committee (HIRC) to shoot down the State Department’s 6th and 7th floors is phony. What is real is that the CFR and HIRC are composed of serious, capable and determined elected of¬ ficials; they are staffed by street smart ex-FSOs (not all have become Assistant Secretaries and above) and other former Executive Branch insiders. If the Legislative Branch wants information today, its instruments know where to go and how to get it. That is the reality. Lectur¬ ing against “volunteering information” and “going to the Hill” simply misses the problem entirely.
Second, Martin cites several examples of Congres¬ sional bullying: Senator Dodd and the Katanga lobby, Congressman Hardy on Angola, the officer who “lost Cuba,” and, of course, Senator McCarthy. Although these cases go back 15-25 years, the admonition is clear, “It could happen again.” I say it won’t happen again for the following reasons.
Most importantly, as noted above, the members of the CFR and HIRC are serious and capable people and their
staffs are large and professional. The “who lost Cuba” games are just no longer played. Herz states that the Committee and press treated me “with kid gloves,” presumably because I was not accused of having “lost Cyprus.” At the time I did not believe I was being treated so very gently. The questioning in open and executive sessions was tough and pointed. The Commit¬ tee wanted to find out what happened regarding Cyprus and why, matters within their mandate. They did. Nobody—neither Kissinger nor Boyatt was “hounded.” Even Martin admits the balance between executive con¬ fidentiality and legislative need to know was maintained. It was no accident. It was because the procedure was professional.
Moreover, Congressional bullies from McCarthy to Wayne Hays, from the Katanga lobby to the Korea lobby, have met harsh fates, a fact not lost upon today’s members. Without being mystical, let’s just say democ¬ racy has a way of catching them up.
Finally, the Congress itself has passed grievance legis¬ lation affording great protection to Foreign Service careerists. As long as Grievance Boards and the Courts are independent—and they are—the Ted Kaghans will not be “hounded out of the Service.”
Third, Ambassador Herz misunderstands completely the point I tried to convey by quoting the “savvy Wash¬ ington reporter” who “responded to Secretary Kissing¬ er’s assertion that the bureaucracy must be ‘protected’ from Congress by asking in print, ‘Why? So they (the career professionals) can go on making mistakes at the expense of the American people?’ ” I did not find that
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reassuring. It was meant to be a horrifying example of how very good reporters can be taken in. By invoking the lofty principle of “protecting the bureaucracy” cabinet and subcabinet officials can, and do, bury their own mis¬ takes in secrecy while subtly hinting that it was the “pro¬ tected bureaucracy” which made the mistake. We career professionals should not be naive in these matters. Three times in my 20 years I have observed high-level officials (not all Secretaries of State) cover their mistakes and suggest the mistakes were made by the “bureaucracy.” They simply invoked secrecy to “protect the bureauc¬ racy.” In the case in point—whether intended or not, whether fair or unfair—that is precisely how the “savvy Washington correspondent,” having taken the bait, was playing it. If we in the “bureaucracy” are to be blamed when there are problems and mistakes (and there always will be) then I for one would rather have such blame result from a reasonably open record, rather than from being “protected.”
Finally, there is a larger and more important issue than any of the above: To what extent should the policy pro¬ cess itself be open to the American Congress and people. To state the issue sharply, is the foreign policy-making process a form of Eleusinian mystery of which the Executive Branch policy makers, career diplomats, and a few favored news people are the priesthood? Those who argue for open debate within the Department and NSC, but the presentation of a monolithic facade of decision and justification to the Congress and the people take this approach. It is a defensible position at one end of a con¬ tinuum. On the other hand, can the extinct and much
lamented foreign policy consensus among the American people and their representatives be rebuilt without an openness that involves them in the process of debating and analyzing the options and issues? Then what about “legitimate” needs for Executive Branch confidentiality?
President Carter is taking these issues head on for the very good reason (as he stated at his March 2nd press conference) that “the strength of the Presidency itself derives from the support of the people ...” not to men¬ tion a foreign policy consensus. The President took pub¬ lic note of the “concern” in news rooms and embassies about his open approach to foreign policy-making, but pointed out, “It is good for us, even in very complex matters ... to let members of Congress and the people of this country know what is going on [in foreign affairs], and some of the options to be pursued, some of the con¬ sequences of success, some of the consequences of fail¬ ure.” He sounded the same theme when speaking to the people of Clinton, Massachusetts. “The American peo¬ ple,” President Carter said, “have enough intelligence and enough judgment to be told what is going on.”
The President is not afraid to tell the Congress and the people what they already know; that Presidents, Sec¬ retaries and FSOs can and will make mistakes. Only by informing our real constituency, the American Congress and people, within rational limits of the foreign policy debate can a new consensus be rebuilt. Moreover, such openness creates a situation in which career profession¬ als need not fear their own fallibility or Congressional bullies. We need only do our best, which is very good indeed, and abide the judgments thereon.
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■ Educational Counseling Center ■ Language and Writer’s Groups ■ Monthly Meetings ■ Newsletter ■ Book Fair ■ Welcome Home ■ Scholarships ■ Teenage Activities ■ Community Service ■ Career Workshops
Women serving in the Foreign Service as FSOs, FSIOs, FSRs, FSSOs and FSSs and Foreign Service wives whose husbands are serving in these clas¬ sifications are eligible for membership in the AAFSW. The annual dues are $10 which includes a subscription to the Newsletter. Send dues to Mem¬ bership Chairman at addres.s above.
26 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
NATIONAL INTEREST AND FOREIGN POLICY
from page 8 interests matrix, the breakout of interests on this issue might look like this (with Canada and the United States comprising the major interested countries):
The implications of this estimate of US and Canadian interests in¬ volved in the Quebec issue are: 1) although separation is a vital, verg¬ ing on a survival, question for Canada, it is only a major interest of the United States, i.e. it is an issue that will cause a good deal of discomfort for Washington—on
political, economic and perhaps ideological grounds—but one which should be manageable, re¬ gardless of the outcome of Cana¬ da’s constitutional struggle. If the US interest is determined to be major by the Carter Administra¬ tion, then the policy implications
for the US are to keep options open and let Canadian events run their course, accepting whatever out¬ come Quebec and Ottawa eventu¬ ally work out. If the US interest were determined to be vital, how¬ ever, the United States should be prepared to give considerable sup¬ port to Ottawa to blunt the
separatist appeal of the current Quebec Government and make clear that an independent Quebec might not have as easy a relation¬ ship with Washington as the Ot¬ tawa Government now has. How¬ ever, the latter course would be highly risky and is not warranted by what is currently perceived to be a major US interest in events on our northern border.
Foreign policy making will con¬ tinue to be an art, not a science. However, it is imperative that policy-makers have a more sys¬ tematic methodology for determin¬ ing the nature and level of interests at stake before international issues become crises, and before policy tools are adopted to deal with them. The national interest frame¬ work described here is not a fool¬ proof way of avoiding mistakes in foreign policy in the future, but it should reduce the probability of miscalculations; and certainly, its use would force policy-makers to be far more prudent about using the term “vital interest” than is the case today.
ISSUE: QUEBEC INTERDEPENDENCE
Basic interests involved
Defense of Homeland Survival
Intensity of interest Vital Major Peripheral
Canada US
Economic Canada US World order Canada US Ideological Canada US
FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 11
JAPAN AT THE CENTENNIAL 1876 from page 15
packed counters that attracted the American women. It was a pretty sight on a fine summer day, wrote the New York Evening Mail, to see the busy swarm of female shoppers clustered beneath the overhanging tile roofs of the Bazaar. As the New York Tribune observed, as soon as the stock ran out the Japanese quickly replaced it and seemed to have enough for all summer. In contrast to most foreigners, the Japanese even ap¬ pealed to the American sense of cleanliness and good plumbing. For as soon as the closing bell sounded each evening at six, the dealers closed the shutters and rushed out to wash their hands in the fountain. “They always look clean and neat,” wrote one American, and “wear white shoes.”
The Japanese had their detrac¬ tors too like the New York World which called their exhibit backward and unsatisfactory and the Prov¬
idence Morning Star which hooted at the notion that a few rocks, all those tiny plants and a bamboo fence that wouldn’t deter an “enterprising goat” made a suc¬ cessful garden. More widespread was the criticism that the Japanese were excessively commercial and their government oversupportive. Even the objects in the Japanese exhibit were tagged for sale, an un¬ usual practice, and many of them were marked “sold” at very high prices as early as June. In an era when a careful visitor might spend a month at the Fair for $125, Japanese screens cost from $100 to $500. One old gold lacquer cabinet, the pride of the collection, cost $5,000, but a new one might even cost $1,000. The famous pair of tall Arita vases was $2,500, about the same price as the colossal bronze pairs. A small bronze vase brought $200, a shallow porcelain bowl covered with birds and flowers, $300, cloisonne vases $30 a pair, but you could pick up a tea service for six for $15. Still, as the experts pointed out, the quality even at the Bazaar was high, in sharp contrast
to most Fair merchandise, and, anyway, the New York Mail con¬ tended, these “avaricious Asia¬ tics” may be overcharging our gul¬ lible girls but to get high prices from willing buyers is no crime.
Who can say 100 years later why the Americans were so attracted to the Japanese exhibit? Did the mas¬ sive bronzes, huge vases and ceramic slabs appeal to our 19th century fascination with bigness and technical success? Did we enjoy seeing a revolutionary new nation surpass the Europeans in its own peculiar way? It is hard to un¬ derstand how Americans could have admired Japanese things we find today so overwrought, so op¬ posed to our notions of the quiet, understated taste of Japan. The simple explanation would be that Meiji taste like our grandfathers’ was elaborate or the Japanese were deliberately exploiting the Victo¬ rian tendency to excess. But there has never been a single Japanese taste and the Centennial visitors must have found something besides bronze dragons and china snakes to make them praise so often the deli-
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cacy and quiet beauty of the Japanese objects.
In its diversity and novelty the Japanese exhibit seemed to fill an American esthetic need. Re¬ peatedly thoughtful Americans praised the genuinely Japanese ar¬ ticles and feared inroads of western taste and uniformity. At the mo¬ ment we were overtaking the world industrially, judges and shoppers alike turned with nostalgic respect to patiently handmade objects. Japanese illustrations of fables and animal stories surely appealed to our 19th century love of narrative in art just as the literalness of the plants, flowers and insects charmed us. Unlike the French, who were already admiring the fresh approach of the woodblock artists, Americans found one seri¬ ous fault—the Japanese did not un¬ derstand perspective or the correct proportions of.the human figure, though, thank goodness, they avoided nudity. The New York Herald’s correspondent summed up a very common American reac¬ tion to Japan that would have de¬ lighted the Meiji leaders. How can
an American, he asked, any longer call a nation that outdoes the French in bronzes and silks, and surpasses the world in carpentry, cabinet making and ceramics “semi-civilized?”
Fairs are notoriously evanes¬ cent. After the Centennial closed on November 10 the houses were left to decay in the Park while the articles from the Japanese exhibit passed into the hands of museums, schools and private collectors and ultimately into attics, basements and discard, so that today few can be located at all. What had the Japanese gained from their great ef¬ fort and expense? Politically, very little. Within a year Okubo was dis¬ tracted from international affairs by a serious revolt led by Commis¬ sioner Saigo’s famous older brother and within two years Okubo was assassinated by anti-western ex¬ tremists. Dr. Murray had been back home 20 years, Bingham ten years retired to Cadiz, Ohio, and the loyal younger Saigo an aging marquis, before the unequal treaties were revised.
On the practical side, however,
the Japanese did well. They sold almost everything they had brought and carried home 142 awards. They had learned first-hand what to sell and how to sell it. They took back quantities of useful information about western technology. One commissioner, Yoshio Tanaka, even made a compendious scrap¬ book of Centennial ads and re¬ ceipts ranging from pumpkin pie mix and sewing machines to oscil¬ lating pumps and textile machin¬ ery, along with his own used cigarette wrappers and wine labels. Within a year Tiffany had begun to carry fine Japanese wares and the first Japanese exporting firm, Morimura Brothers, opened in New York. But Japan’s greatest gain was the intangible one of open¬ ing American eyes to a new nation and another esthetic. As Ameri¬ cans began to build Japanese gar¬ dens and teahouses and fill their al¬ ready overcrowded parlors with Japanese fans and ivories and china it was clear that we may have opened Japan in 1853 but the Japanese had brought it home to us in 1876. “
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THE FOURTH AT PUERTO VELARDE from page 20 Don Alberto Reyes and Mr. Philips. He was observed engaging in serious conversation with the Presidente del Banco del Puerto, for he had high hopes of getting a job there so that he could return to the Puerto to live.
Carlos, who had decorated the lawn so lavishly, was especially proud of an enormous ’76 Bennington flag which he had borrowed from the ship’s captain and draped over the closed door of the Consulado.
Thanks to generous contributions from invited and un¬ invited guests food was more abundant than ever before. As to drinks, scarcely anyone missed the usual duty-free Scotch highballs of former years. Instead there were gal¬ lons of punch, liberally laced with local rum.
At the peak of the evening, Mr. Philips offered some toasts and made appropriate remarks on the Bicenten¬ nial, also praising the initiative of the former consular staff in organizing the celebration. The Mayor of Puerto Velarde, veteran of many Fourth of July receptions, took the floor and spoke with Latin eloquence about the long¬ standing commercial and cultural ties linking the city and port with the United States, ever since 1796 when the first American Consul was designated to protect the interests of Yankee vessels transporting rum to New England. The United States, recalled the Mayor, was the first country to recognize his country’s independence from Spain in 1815. One hundred and eighty years of friendly relations and flourishing trade had left deep roots and lasting ties which would not be wiped out by an ill- advised and bureaucratic decision to close a consulate.
The United States may have forgotten Puerto Velarde, he said, but Puerto Velarde had not forgotten the United States and shared with it in celebrating its bicentennial.
The Mayor continued with a proposal for the creation of an association of friends of the United States, and suggested the name Asociacion Portena de Amigos de Norte America (APANA). The proposal met with im¬ mediate acclaim. Mr. Philips’s name was suggested as President, but he modestly declined, suggesting that the honor should go to a Porteno. He nominated Don Al¬ berto Reyes, who accepted. Mr. Philips agreed to serve on the Board of Directors, together with the Mayor, the Presidente del Banco del Puerto, and the Presidente del Circulo del Puerto. The Gonzalez girls agreed to serve as Co-Secretaries and Ernesto Mendez as Treasurer.
The new organization went into action soon after the Fourth. Funds were raised to lease the Consulado build¬ ing as a club house, which was also to provide space for a bilingual library and for English classes. Both the Minis¬ try of Education and the USIS representative in the capi¬ tal made available some funds to get started and donated books for the library. APANA was to have a long and productive life and to assume a role of prominence in local cultural and social life far exceeding that of its pre¬ decessor, the Consulate, sponsoring a series of lectures and concerts, providing scholarships for students to study in the United States and for Americans to study at the Universidad del Puerto.
Year after year, the outstanding social event would continue to be the ever popular Fourth of July Party on the lawn of the Consulado.
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LETTERS TO |
Letter to the Secretary of State
You and the President are to be congratulated on the caliber of the ambassadors that you have nominated. It is vital that Ameri¬ can representatives around the world be equipped to deal with the complex problems that confront us, and your choices promise that.
But equipment is not only what an ambassador carries in his own person, it includes the tools he is given for the job.
The size of the so-called “repre¬ sentation allowance” has long been a handicap to American diplomats, yet it is a tool of the trade. It is my hope that as new ambassadors are installed, you will review the adequacy of their representation budgets. If you do not find them adequate, I urge you either to rec¬ ommend an upward revision of the allowance or to alter instructions to relieve ambassadors of a part of their representational respon¬ sibilities. The financial burden of the job ought not to fall upon fami¬ lies any more than it should dictate the selection of the nominee in the first place.
With best wishes, CHARLES MCC. MATHIAS, JR.
United States Senator Washington
From Yemen to Maine
As ex-Sana’a residents, we were pleased to see the April Jour¬ nal cover done by our very talented and good friend, Mrs. Paula Peer. While perhaps assignment to the Yemen Arab Republic represents one of the real hardships in the foreign service, we enjoyed our two and one-half years there and the cover brought back fond me¬ mories of our life and friends there.
We believe it would be interest¬ ing to the readership of the Journal to have a brief paragraph concern¬ ing the cover. For example, in this instance, the old fort on top of the hill in the background was built during the Ottoman Turks’ occupa¬ tion of Sana’a and the arch over the wadi in the foreground was com¬ pletely filled with water during the heavy rains of August, 1975 in spite of the generally arid nature of the Yemen.
The Peers, we might note, have now been retired for one year in Blue Hill, Maine (certainly a far cry from the Yemen!) and Paula is busy with her painting and planned shows while Rene adjusts to the cultural shock of retirement.
CLYDE S. ADAMS
CENTO Ankara
A True Career Service
I am in complete agreement with your Editorial, “Committee on Presidential Appointments,” in the March issue of the Journal. I was, at one time in my career, Chief of FP (Division of Foreign Service Personnel, for the benefit of those whose experience with the Foreign Service does not go back that far) and have a vivid memory of the difficulty of planning careers for Foreign Service officers when the White House and members of the Congress upset the best laid of these plans by insisting on ap¬ pointments, either from within or (most frequently) from outside the Service. While FP (to my mind, un¬ fortunately) no longer exists, I can imagine the near impossibility of running a truly career service with something like the Presidential Advisory Board calling the shots without the necessary background, experience, and knowledge of the work to be done and of the person¬ nel concerned.
GARRET G. ACKERSON, JR.
FSO, retired Geneva
Do US Wines Travel?
I agree with Robert J. Misch (Entente Cordiale-Amer- ican Wine and Foreign Cuisine in the September 1976 issue) that wines made in the USA are “com¬ ing of age— and in some cases— have already reached adulthood.” But the last paragraph of his helpful article only rhetorically is correct when he infers they are normally available abroad to serve with “foreign dishes.”
Rather, based on repeated at¬ tempts while serving— and now liv¬ ing abroad—I would say that the wide range of types and wineries he writes about are simply not avail¬ able “around the world.” Can someone in Helsinki, which he cited, now tell us whether “the local Finnish gentry are drinking
some mighty fine bottles with their elk lips soup and bear steaks.”
What one could easily find in Washington at, say, Old Pearson’s or the Calvert Wine Shop are not even to be glimpsed on the lists of the usual foreign purveyors to the average F.S. shopper—Osterman & Peterson, Saccone & Speed, Al¬ berti, etc. At best, I once found a listing of Christian Brothers. Do they carry a better selection now? When, on another occasion, I did inquire directly of a San Francisco agent of a well-known California brand, I was told that the minimum shipment could only be more cases than we could consume during the entire assignment at this particular post.
In fact, is it not so that virtually all American wines are wisely con¬ sumed within our borders? I would therefore venture the conclusion that if American wines are to be served by F.S. personnel abroad there will have to be some kind of special arrangement to make them normally if not easily available without too much hassle or ex¬ pense.
Has the Association—or Mr. Misch—ever looked into this sup¬ ply angle?
JULIAN P. FROMER
Port Louis, Maurituis
On “Terrorism and Diplomacy”
I take strong exception to David G. Nes’s strange thesis that AFSA, as the duly-elected repre¬ sentative of the Foreign Service employees in AID and State, has no competence or business in being involved in the ultimate welfare question, the danger of violent death for its members at the hands of political assassins.
One can properly argue about what should be done, but it seems strange in America to say that the duly-elected representative of our community has no business dealing with life and death matters.
FRANK MCNEIL
Madrid
The JOURNAL welcoms the expression of its readers’ opinions in the form of letters to the editor. All letters are subject ot condensa¬ tion if necessary. Unsigned communica¬ tions will not be considered for publication. Send to: Letters to the Editor, Foreign Ser¬ vice JOURNAL, 2101 E. Street, N.W., Wash¬ ington, D.C. 20037.
FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 3 1
AFSA NEWS _ THE STATE OF THE ASSOCIATION This portion of the JOURNAL is the re¬
sponsibility of the Governing Board of AFSA and is intended to report on employee-management issues, condi¬ tions of employment and the policy and administration of AFSA, including its Board, Committees, and Chapters.
Members wishing to send letters on employment, working conditions or AFSA affairs should get them to AFSA by the 10th of the month preceding de¬ sired publication. AFSA News Commit¬ tee, Room 3644, N.S.
CONTENTS Treasurer’s Report 33 Hatch Act &
Retirement Legislation 35 Foreign Service People 36
ANNUAL MEETING OF AFSA’s WASHINGTON MEMBERSHIP
The annual meeting of the AFSA Washington Membership was held on June 6 in the Loy Henderson Conference Room in the Depart¬ ment of State.
Article XI of the AFSA Bylaws states that “The Board, on or about June 1 each year, shall present an account of its manage¬ ment of the Association’s affairs and its financial program for the succeeding fiscal year in the Foreign Service Journal and at a meeting of the Washington Mem¬ bership and at such other locations as practicable.” The Governing Board defined “the Washington Membership” to include Members, active and retired, resident in Washington D.C., Maryland, Vir¬ ginia, and West Virginia. Notices of the meeting, with a draft agenda, were mailed to such Members in May.
Reports by the Officers and Committees on their activities dur¬ ing the past year were provided to members attending the meeting. Texts of those reports will appear in the August issue of the Journal. Oral reports delivered to the meet¬ ing by President Woodring on the “state of the Association” and by the Treasurer follow: 32 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
The purpose of this annual meet¬ ing of the Washington Mem¬ bership, as indicated in Article XI of the AFSA Bylaws, is for the Governing Board to “present an account of its management of the Association’s affairs and its finan¬ cial program for the succeeding fis¬ cal year.” Reports by AFSA’s of¬ ficers, committees, and other ac¬ tivities have been prepared and re¬ produced. You should have re¬ ceived a copy as you entered to¬ day. These reports will also be pub¬ lished in the Foreign Service Jour¬ nal. Each report is the responsibil¬ ity of the officer, committee, or ac¬ tivity concerned, with the excep¬ tion of the budget presentation which has been approved by the Governing Board as required by the Bylaws. In my remarks on the “State of the Association” I will concentrate on the past six months since my appointment as President and highlight Association activities which are covered in more detail in the individual reports.
One of the duties of the AFSA President is to call meetings of the Governing Board. I have called regular Governing Board meetings every Tuesday at noon in the Levin Library on the second floor of the AFSA headquarters building ex¬ cept when special circumstances dictated otherwise. We have also met on shorter notice when neces¬ sary to deal with urgent issues.
One of my principal tasks has been to establish communication with the new leadership of the offi¬ cial foreign affairs community. I led an AFSA delegation last De¬ cember 15th to meet with Tony Lake of the then Carter-Mondale Transition Team; and on February 23rd, with Secretary of State Vance; and on April 8th, with AID Administrator Gilligan. We have met more frequently with other senior Management officials. These meetings were devoted to the substantive issues which, in the Governing Board’s view, merited high level Management attention.
As principal representative of the Association and its Coor¬
dinator of Congressional relations, I have attempted to restore AFSA’s relationships with rele¬ vant committees and members of the Congress. I and my colleagues have testified on various Presiden¬ tial appointments, on the FY-1978 State-USIA Authorization Bill, and presented testimony on various bills on Federal employee-man¬ agement relations. We have now established a Congressional Liaison Committee to give greater coherence and purpose to our ac¬ tivities directed toward the Hill.
We have also been conscious of the need to develop the capability to go to court if necessary to defend and advance the interests of the Association and the Foreign Ser¬ vice. Contributions to the AFSA Legal Defense Fund have sup¬ ported a suit to establish the tax- deductibility of home leave ex¬ penses, and the defense of the As¬ sociation against a lawsuit in con¬ nection with the recent recall ac¬ tion. The Governing Board has ap¬ proved the constitution and articles of incorporation of the Fund and has appointed a five-member Council which will determine and carry forward its policy.
Our Presidential Appointments Committee has done much useful work in raising the consciousness of the press, the public, the Con¬ gress, and even Management, re¬ garding the importance of the career merit principles in the pro¬ cess of appointment of Ambas¬ sadors. We have raised questions about the composition and perfor¬ mance of the new Presidential Ad¬ visory Board on Ambassadorial Appointments, and we have tes¬ tified for qualified career and non¬ career nominees and against cer¬ tain non-career nominees whose qualifications have not been estab¬ lished.
Last December we established the Organization and Management Committee to carry forth AFSA’s traditional interest in the effective performance of the mission of the foreign affairs agencies and the Foreign Service. While the Man-
agement of the foreign affairs agen¬ cies has not been particularly forthcoming in discussing with us its views and plans for reorganiza¬ tion of foreign relations, we have established useful contacts with the Office of Management and Budget and with the relevant congressional committees, to assure that our views are considered before any reorganization plan takes effect.
More recently we have estab¬ lished a Foreign Service Compen¬ sation Committee to study the problems of pay and of linkage with other federal pay systems. We be¬ lieve that slightly increasing the pay of junior FSOs and FSIOs, while eliminating their right to payment for overtime, is not the right approach to this complex problem, and we will do what is necessary and appropriate to as¬ sure that there is a comprehensive study of the issue, resulting in posi¬ tive recommendations.
On January 18, I had the honor of presiding over the ninth AFSA Awards Ceremony at which the Herter and Rivkin Awards for creativity including dissent, and the new Leonard Marks Award for creativity in communications, were awarded. Secretary Kissinger, in his final official public function in the Department, was the principal speaker. In a format change which I hope will become a part of the tradition of this occasion, the ceremony was moved to the Dean Acheson Auditorium (formerly the West Auditorium) to enable greater membership attendance; in fact some 400 people attended.
Now I would like to highlight briefly some of the Association’s other current activities:
• The State Standing Commit¬ tee continues to oppose the abuse of schedule C type political ap¬ pointments in the Department and the Foreign Service; and is seeking agreement with Management on interim procedures for skill code changes to improve career pros¬ pects for secretaries, com¬ municators and others;
• The AID Standing Committee successfully negotiated an agree¬ ment on the conversion or termina¬ tion of FSR Limited Appointees— to date some 181 of 209 people in¬ volved have been converted to career status;
• Though AFSA does not rep¬ resent the USIA Foreign Service,
our USIA Standing Committee has developed a consensus of USIA professionals, subsequently ap¬ proved by the Governing Board, on the reorganization of public di¬ plomacy;
• The Members Interest Com¬ mittee as a result of successful negotiation has obtained the im¬ plementation of a predeparture lodging allowance in Washington for personnel going overseas; suc¬ cessfully negotiated a professional weight allowance; has met with ap¬ propriate officials of the Treasury Department on and continues to follow closely the question of taxa¬ tion of overseas allowances, and has presented State and AID Man¬ agement with various employee benefit proposals;
• The Committee on Extraordi¬ nary Dangers continues to pursue our policy that there must be a comprehensive review of the gov¬ ernment’s anti-terrorism policy, measures must be taken to stop microwave radiation in Moscow completely, and the study of effects on personnel must be completed.
While I have concentrated on ac¬ tivities which have taken place within the past six months, it is im¬ portant to emphasize that through¬ out the year, away from publicity and the public eye, our dedicated staff and volunteer Board and Committees as well as our Keyper- sons and overseas Chapters have been working on the broad range of problems described in the written reports.
I believe that AFSA has come through a difficult period, and that its fortunes are improving. This as¬ sessment is reflected in recent in-
The timing is unfortunate for a meaningful treasurer’s report. We have no trouble reporting a projec¬ tion of anticipated income and ex¬ penses for the next fiscal year, but we cannot give a precise reading on how well our prior year estimates have held up until after June 30 each year. Too, our outside au¬ ditors begin their work in July and their reports are available usually in September. General Fund: This year has seen the Association in very tight finan¬ cial straits, requiring several acts of belt tightening during the year to
creases in membership. We are not complacent. The outgoing Govern¬ ing Board has made positive pro¬ gress, but we are leaving a few things for our successors:
• The Treasurer’s report will indicate the financial measures which we believe are necessary to maintain and improve the perfor¬ mance of AFSA’s function;
• There are still large number of active-duty Foreign Service people in State and AID who enjoy the benefits of our actions as exclusive employee representative, but haven’t joined AFSA to share the cost and the responsibility of de¬ termining AFSA policies;
• We need to regain exclusive representation in USIA;
• Foreign Service people are still not paid well enough for the work we do; and the elimination of the threat to tax our necessary al¬ lowances;
• There are still elements of second-class treatment for Foreign Service specialists and staff corps;
• There are still unqualified per¬ sons nominated by the President, and confirmed by the Senate, for ambassadorial positions; and
• There are still too many politi¬ cal appointees in the foreign affairs agencies.
I conclude my report on the State of the Association by saying that the state of affairs is good. With satisfaction at what has been accomplished, an awareness of what still needs to be done, and confidence that with the support of every member, the Board can and will continue to succeed. Thank you.—PATRICIA A. WOODRING,
President.
keep the General Fund solvent. This squeeze resulted from several factors: a precipitous decline in membership (to a low of 6080 in December 1976 from the July 1975 level of 7316); the need for in¬ creased staff to improve employ¬ ee-management activities; infla¬ tionary cost increases, and unan¬ ticipated Recall expenses.
It was possible to get through the year without commercial borrow¬ ing only because of strict control over expenditures, skipping an an¬ nual cost-of-living wage increase for Association employees, and the FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 3 3
TREASURER’S REPORT
voluntary reduction in salary of several staff members. (The As¬ sociation owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to these employees, re¬ tired members of the Foreign Ser¬ vice, who went above and beyond the call of duty to help preserve the regular operations of the Associa¬ tion during its leadership and finan¬ cial crisis.)
Although membership has in¬ creased by almost 600 over its De¬ cember 1976 low, the financial problem has not been eased. In fact, 600 more members, putting us back to the July 1975 level, will not satisfactorily resolve the issue. Dues have not been raised since 1971 while the cost of operations has increased sharply. In addition in 1973 the Association assumed the employee-management rela¬ tions function under Executive Order 11636, requiring three full time new staff people (an attorney, counselor and secretary), and more professional staff is still needed. In order to return staff salaries to the level existing prior to this year’s cut, to provide all employees with a COL increase commensurate with that received by active duty and re¬ tired members, to resume a full volume of communications with the membership, and to hire an additional labor relations expert, a dues increase will be required in FY 1978.
On May 24, 1977 the Governing Board voted to submit to the mem¬ bership a referendum on the Fi¬ nance Committee’s proposal for a new dues structure that would in¬ crease dues income by more than $75,000 when it becomes operative for an entire fiscal year. At the moment consultations are being held with employee interest groups to determine how members would prefer to have the new dues schedule designed. Due to the cur¬ rent election campaign, during which the Elections Committee has determined that such issues cannot be brought to the membership, the referendum will be sent to mem¬ bers on July 12, 1977.
During this FY the Foreign Ser¬ vice Club and the Foreign Service Journal have been covering their operating expenses, so that the General Fund has been used to support the Association’s employ¬ ee-management activities, and maintain the Association’s princi¬ pal capital asset—its building at 34 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
21st and E Streets, N.W. in Wash¬ ington, D.C.
Attached is a comparative analysis of FY 1977 operations of the General Fund with FY 1978 projections.
In summary, AFSA has been able to stay solvent during the past year only as a result of dramatic ac¬ tions by the staff, the Finance Committee and the Governing Board. To maintain its current pro¬ grams and take necessary new ini¬ tiatives an increase in income will be required in FY 1978 or capital assets will have to be disposed of or other dramatic action taken. Scholarship Fund: The Schol¬ arship Fund is composed of the many individual contributions of members during the past 16 years. It has grown from $89,000 in total assets in 1961 to $685,913 in 1977. Income from the capital invest¬ ments of the fund and contributions from the AAFSW were used in FY 1977 to provide a total of $50,650 for 66 scholarships awarded on the basis of need and 20 based on merit. In addition, the Scholarship Fund supported one-half the costs of the Education and Counseling Center, sponsored jointly by the AAFSW and AFSA. The FY 1977 budget for this activity was $37,028.
During the past year the Finance Committee approved new guide¬ lines for the Scholarship Fund manager, Davidge and Company, which enable it to react more
quickly to changes in market condi¬ tions. The Committee also ap¬ pointed the Treasurer, the Execu¬ tive Director, and Mr. Frank Wil¬ son, DACOR Chairman of Fi¬ nance Committee, to monitor the investment strategies of Davidge and Company.
The operating and support costs for the Scholarship Fund during FY 1976 were $22,475. (Data not available for FY 1977.) It also paid $14,000 of the $34,000 owed to the General Fund for prior years operating expenses. When the bal¬ ance of $20,000 is paid into the General Fund, the Scholarship Fund will operate only on a current cost basis. The AFSA Fund: The AFSA Fund was established for the Openness and Awards program. Its major contributors are the Herter, Rivkin and Harriman families. Its funds are used to provide the honoraria which accompany the annual awards for creative dissent and to cover the administrative and repre¬ sentational costs of the awards program. In order to reduce such costs this year and also to provide broader participation in the Awards Ceremony, the Governing Board changed the format to a pub¬ lic presentation in the East Au¬ ditorium (Secretary Kissinger made his last formal appearance in the Department at this year’s January 18 ceremony), followed by a small 8th Floor luncheon for the awardees and donor family mem¬ bers.
GENERAL FUND OPERATIONS American Foreign Service Association
FY77* FY78 (projected) (Cash July 1, 1976 (Cash July 1, 1977
INCOME —$33,988) —$25,256)
Dues $150,543 $148,640 Club 104,444 111,455 Journal 80,471 83,485 Reimbursements 57,628 42,120
$393,086 $385,700
DISBURSEMENTS General Operations 191,764 $197,729 Club 103,078 111,304 Journal 80,750 86,515** Mortgage (P/1) 26,226 25,775
$401,818 $421,323
(Cash 30, 1977 (Cash June 30, 1978 —$25,256) —$10,359 deficit***)
* June amounts estimated in preparation of this report. ** Includes cost of “AFSA News” section of Journal. *** This budget level has been approved by the Governing Board contingent on mem¬
bership approval of a dues increase which would more than cover the projected deficit based on the current dues schedule.
N.B. The Legal Defense Fund received contributions of $4,826.08 during FY 77. $1,277.50 of that was paid on Home Leave Tax Case and $3,100.00 was paid out for AFSA defense in the Hemenway vs. AFSA et al Case. $3,290.57 was outstanding on the latter as of June 2, 1977. The Fund had a balance on hand of $448.58 as of the same date.
HATCH ACT AND RETIREMENT LEGISLATION: AFSA WANTS YOUR ADVICE AFSA would like the opinion of
all interested members on two bills currently pending in Congress. Please let us know whether you think AFSA should (or should not) make its views known on the Hill with respect to these bills, and if we should, what you think AFSA’s position should be. Send your views to AFSA, Room 3644, N.S., or give us a call.
A. Hatch Act
The House has just passed H.R. 10, a bill to amend the Hatch Act (the law which restricts the political activity of federal employees). The bill has been introduced in the Sen¬ ate as S. 80, and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Gov¬ ernmental Affairs, which has not yet scheduled any action on it.
Under the terms of this bill, fed¬ eral employees are encouraged and permitted to engage in political ac¬ tivity. They may run for office, and are entitled to be granted leave without pay to campaign. Employ¬ ees may take an active part in man¬ agement of political campaigns. Use of official authority, influence, or coercion with respect to political activity is prohibited, as is solicita¬ tion of political contributions by superior officials, or solicitations bn government property. Political activity on official duty or in fed¬ eral buildings is prohibited. Vio¬ lators are subject to removal, sus¬ pension, or lesser penalties, al¬ though a violation of the prohibi¬ tion against use of official authority or influence for political purposes requires a minimum 30 days sus¬ pension without pay. The General Counsel of the Civil Service Com¬ mission is designated as the enforc¬ ing authority, and the Commis¬ sioners are the adjudicatory author¬ ity. Investigations of alleged viola¬ tions are limited to 90 days; judicial review of adverse decisions may be sought.
There are three aspects of this bill of particular interest to person¬ nel in the Foreign Service. First, it is currently the responsibility of the employing agency to investigate al¬ legations of prohibited activity of employees in the “excepted” ser¬ vice (i.e., the Foreign Service), subject to appeal to the Civil Ser¬ vice Commission if the agency de¬ cision orders removal. This bill ex¬ tends authority to the Civil Service
Commission for excepted service employees, for both investigation and adjudication.
Second, employees occupying positions which have been desig¬ nated as “restricted” remain under the prohibitions of the existing limi¬ tations on political activity. A “restricted” position, with respect to the Foreign Service, means a position for which “the duties and responsibilities of such position re¬ quire such employee, as a substan¬ tial part of his official activities, to engage in foreign intelligence or na¬ tional security activities.” If “the restrictions on political activity im¬ posed on such employee in such a position are justified in order to ensure the integrity of the Gov¬ ernment or the public’s confidence in the integrity of the Govern¬ ment,” then employees in those positions remain “Hatched.” Which positions are designated “restricted” is to be determined by regulations to be issued by the Civil Service Commission, after consul¬ tation with affected agencies. It therefore appears that a substantial number of Foreign Service person¬ nel would remain covered by the existing provisions of the Hatch Act.
The third area of particular inter¬ est is one of the sections on penal¬ ties. In addition to proceedings which may be taken civilly by au¬ thority of the Civil Service Com¬ mission, there is a more stringent provision which applies to “an em¬ ployee appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” For those employ¬ ees, if it appears that a violation of the prohibitions on use of official influence or information, solicita¬ tion, or political activities has been committed, the enforcing authority is required to refer the case to the Attorney General for consideration of prosecution, if appropriate, and to report the nature and details of the apparent violation to the President and the Congress. The House Committee report provides little discussion of this provision, and it does not reflect any aware¬ ness that Foreign Service officers and Foreign Service Information officers would all be covered under this provision.
B. Retirement Annuity
Representative Patricia Schroe-
der (D.-Colo) has introduced legis¬ lation which provides that a former spouse of a federal employee, if married to such employee for twenty years or more, would be entitled to a portion of such em¬ ployee’s annuity and to a portion of the annuity of any surviving spouse of such employee. The bill (H.R. 3951) has been referred to the House Post Office and Civil Ser¬ vice Committee. As of this writing, hearings have been scheduled be¬ fore the Subcommittee on Com¬ pensation and Employee Benefits of that committee.
A “former spouse” is defined as an unremarried former wife or hus¬ band of an employee who was mar¬ ried to the employee for not less than twenty years. Such a former spouse would be entitled to 50 per¬ cent of the employee’s annuity if married to the employee through¬ out the period of creditable service, or to a pro-rata share of the annuity based on the ratio of years married to creditable service, if married for less than the full period of credit¬ able service. The annuity termi¬ nates when the former spouse dies or remarries before becoming 60 years of age, the former spouse be¬ comes entitled to an annuity under Section 8341 (survivor annuities), or the employee dies. There is an analogous provision for entitlement to lump-sum credits. If both a former spouse and a surviving spouse, widow, or widower are entitled to an annuity, the former spouse’s annuity is computed on the same basis relative to the spouse-widow-widower annuity as it would be for the employee. The employee’s annuity, or the annuity of the spouse, widow, or widower, is reduced by the amount of the an¬ nuity or lump-sum credit payable to the former spouse.
If enacted, the amendments will apply with respect to employees who retire on or after the date of enactment of this legislation. The bill applies by its terms only to Civil Service retirement, but based upon Sec. 805 of P.L. 94-350 (Foreign Relations Authorization Act, FY 1977), which provided for conformity between the Civil Ser¬ vice and the Foreign Service Re¬ tirement and Disability Systems in those areas currently comparable, it would apparently apply to the Foreign Service as well. FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977 35
Marriage
Pizem-Baas. Helene Pizem was married to FSO Bryan H. Baas on June 2, in Dublin, Ireland. Mr. and Mrs. Baas are returning to Washington, where he will be assigned to IO/OIC.
Births
MacCailum. A daughter, Margaret Reiko, bom to FSO and Mrs. Robert A. MacCailum, on May 2, in Japan. Snow. A daughter, Janet Marie, bom to FSO and Mrs. Stephen Snow, on May 28, in Washington.
Deaths
Chalmers. Barbara Perry Chalmers, widow of Philip O. Chalmers, former Chief of Staff, Brazilian Division of the Department of State, died on June 4, in Takoma Park. From 1946 to 1966, she was employed by the American For¬ eign Service Association and served as Executive Secretary of AFS A for most of that period. She is survived by a brother, Russell Harding Perry, of
□O I SPECIAL SERVICES
In order to be of maximum assistance to AFSA members and Journal readers we are accepting these listings until the 15th of each month for publication in the issue dated the following month. The rate is 40$ per word, less 2% for payment in advance, minimum 10 words. Mail copy for adver¬ tisement and check to: Classified Ads, Foreign Service Journal, 2101 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037.
BOOKS
NANCY’S NOOK, owned by retired AID FSR, will give 20% discount on mail orders for fiction and non-fiction in print books. 10% for professional and textbooks. 45$ mailing and handling charges per book. Write Nancy Dammann, Box 368, Hyden, KY 41749.
BOOK SEARCH: If you are looking for an out-of- print book, perhaps I can find it. DEAN CHAM¬ BERLIN (retired FSIO), Freeport, Maine 04032.
BOOK CONSERVATION
HAND BOOK BINDING and paper restoration. Highest conservation standards. Call (202) 462-8505 or write: August Velletri, c/o FSJ, 2101 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037.
VACATIONS
DAYTRIPS IN EUROPE for adventurous travelers! Our unique travel guides show the way. For free information write Great Trips, Box 5199-FS, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10017.
BUSINESS CARDS
MOST GOVERNMENT SEALS in stock. Free Brochure (specify agency). P.0. Box 431, Vienna, Va. 22180. (703) 281-3219.
36 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, July, 1977
Belmont, Mass, and by a number of close relatives by marriage. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Heart Association or to the AFSA Scholarship Fund.
Cowles. Leon L. Cowles, FSO-retired, died on May 28, in Santa Barbara. Mr. Cowles entered the Foreign Service in 1938 and served at Ciudad Juarez, Bar¬ celona, Oslo, Madrid, Ankara and Mexico City before his retirement in 1966. Since his retirement he has been active in the United Nations Associa¬ tion. He is survived by his wife, Matilda, of 1502 Crestline Dr., Santa Barbara, his mother, Mrs. LeRoy Cowles, Salt Lake City, three brothers and a sister.
Lord. John H. Lord, FSO-retired, died on April 21, in Plymouth, Massachu¬ setts. He entered the Foreign Service in 1920 and served at Basel, Prague, Singapore, Funchal, London, Vienna, Rotterdam, Kingston, Antwerp, Val¬ encia and Manchester before his re¬ tirement in 1952.
Ramsey. James A. Ramsey, FSO- retired, died on May 2 in Vienna, Austria. Mr. Ramsey joined the State
REAL ESTATE
PLAN AHEAD. Beautiful Reston Townhouse avail¬ able 10/77. $400/mo. Particulars, T. J. Clear, 1312 Northgate Sq., Reston, VA 22090.
PERSONALS
LEARN 10 LANGUAGES A YEAR while striding for exercise. 200 Language Club, Box 1727, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90213.
FOR RENT
4-BEDR00M BRICK SPLIT LEVEL for rent in Falls Church beginning September 1. Perfect for kids. 2 rec rooms, near swim/tennis club, wooded lot; etc. $450/month. John Graham, 2414 Lancaster Ct., Falls Church, Va. 22043. Tel. 703/560-6256
RENTALS & PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
WE SPECIALIZE in residential rentals and prop¬ erty management in the Washington area. Whether you wish rent residential premises or list your house for prompt rental and/or depend¬ able property management, call Lee Cotterman, FSO retired, representing well known Better Homes Realty, 6045 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington. Telephone (703) 532-4550/534-4275.
FOR SALE
RETIRED USIS selling elegant Lenox gold-white dinnerware, 8-place, 98-piece. $300. Hodge, 762-9095.
TW0-BEDR00M, one-bath furnished apartment. Unit Tauro 2-D, Zodiac Apartments, llletas, Mal¬ lorca located 5 kms. from Palma. Central air & heat. Owner has escritura. $27,500. John F. Murtha, Embassy/AID, Santiago, Chile.
Department in 1949 and entered the Foreign Service in 1955. He served in Paris, Moscow and Mogadiscio before his retirement and was a member of the Journal Editorial Board. He is survived by a son, Richard, Apt. 901, 4400 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Mary¬ land.
Sprouse. Philip D. Sprouse, retired ambassador, died on April 28, in San Francisco. Ambassador Sprouse entered the Foreign Service in 1935 and served at Peking, Hankow, Chungking, Paris, Brussels and as Ambassador to Cambodia. He also served as senior Foreign Service Inspector and Direc¬ tor of the Office of Chinese Affairs. He was appointed Career Minister in 1959 and retired in 1964. Ambassador Sprouse is survived by a sister, Mrs. Armin Rappaport, 1079 Creston Road, Berkeley, California 94708. The family suggests that expressions of sympathy be in the form of a contribution to the donor’s favorite charity.
Stuart. Ruth Sherman Stuart, wife of FSIO-ret. John Stuart, Jr., died on May 7, in New York City. Mrs. Stuart accompanied her husband on assign¬ ments in Germany, Switzerland, the Niger, Morocco, India, Southeast Asia and at USUN. Mrs. Stuart served with delegations to ECOSOC, ILO, GATT and Law of the Sea in Geneva, or¬ ganized the first English teaching pro¬ gram in the Niger and worked for the Embassy and the Peace Corps in New Delhi. She is survived by her husband, 180 West End Ave., New York, and a brother, Capt. Ray C. Sherman, USA-ret. Memorial contributions may be made to the Heart Fund.
Wickel. James J. Wickel, FSR, died on May 15 in Tokyo. Mr. Wickel joined the State Department in 1957 and served as special assistant to the Am¬ bassador to Japan from 1967 to 1974. He had been the official interpreter dur¬ ing every high-level meeting between this country and Japan from the Eisenhower administration to the meet¬ ing between Prime Minister Fukuda and President Carter. At the time of his death he was serving as program ser¬ vice officer for USIA. He is survived by his wife, Fumi, and a daughter, Mrs. Ken Johnson, of Washington.
Contributions in memory of Helene A. Batjer, FSO, (FSJ, June, 1977) may be made to the Helene A. Batjer Memorial Fund, University of Nevada-Reno, c/o University of Nevada Alumni As¬ sociation, 102 Morrill Hall, Reno, Nevada 89557.
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