James Monroe, Early American Diplomat
Despite their status as colonial subjects of the King, some 18th century
Americans already had a great deal of experience negotiating with ministers
at the highest levels of the British Government.
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin secretly negotiated with the British in 1774 to prevent the outbreak of war. Although he was unsuccessful, he gained valuable diplomatic skills. When war became inevitable, a nucleus of Americans, including Franklin, was ready to assume the tremendously important task of representing the breakaway nation in the courts of Europe.
Given the overwhelming strategic and military advantages of Great Britain,
the United States could gain independence only if it attracted the support
of Britain’s enemies, France and Spain.
Silas Deane
American commissioners during the Revolutionary period were authorized to
appoint commercial agents to supply the American war effort, but the
committees of the Continental Congress also appointed some commercial agents
directly. The resulting confusion caused Franklin to complain,
“Commercial agents . . . and the captains are continually writing
for my opinion or orders or leave to do this or that, by which much time
is lost to them and much of mine is taken up to little purpose from my
ignorance.”
In October 1776, Franklin sailed to France to lead the diplomatic effort. His
patient diplomacy combined with the American victory at the
In June 1781, Congress named a Peace Commission, including Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay to negotiate an end to the war. The commissioners reached agreement with the British on November 30, 1782.
While negotiations in Paris were underway, legislators in the United States
created a new government—the Articles of Confederation.
Robert R. Livingston, First Secretary for Foreign Affairs
Robert Livingston’s 19 months in office were filled with frustration since
the weak and inefficient Articles of Confederation diffused foreign policy
making authority. After Livingston complained, Congress further restricted
his authority to act. Livingston’s successor, John Jay, another New Yorker,
was appointed Secretary for Foreign Affairs on
John Jay, Envoy to Spain and Second Secretary for Foreign Affairs
under the Articles of Confederation
“They may make war, but are not empowered to raise men or money to
carry it on. They may make peace, but are without power to see the terms
of it imposed. . . . They may make alliances, but [are] without ability
to comply with the stipulations on their part. They may enter into
treaties of commerce, but [are] without power to enforce them at home or
abroad.”
While “ministers” handled the country’s official business, other officials, known as “consuls” handled business matters for Americans overseas. Although a 1778 treaty with France provided for the appointment of consular officials, no American consuls began their service until 1781.
Empress of China had just
returned from a successful trading voyage to the Far East, as consul at the
China’s western trading port,
Canton.
The new Constitution of 1789 was designed to redress the shortcomings of
the Articles of Confederation, and it allotted significantly more
responsibility for foreign affairs to the Federal Government. Article II,
Section 2 of the Constitution gave the President the power to make treaties
with the “advice and consent” of the Senate.
The Constitution of the United States
The Constitution did not give predominance in foreign affairs to the
Executive Branch, although early Presidents worked to establish the
precedent. “…the
President is the only channel of communication between this country and
foreign nations, and it is from him alone that foreign nations or their
agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation.”
First Secretary of State under the Constitution, Thomas
Jefferson
But the President could not manage foreign policy alone. On
Despite significant constraints on the Department of State in terms of budget and manpower, the United States achieved a remarkable number of triumphs in foreign affairs during the early years of the republic. During the 1790s, the Jay Treaty (1794) and the Pinckney Treaty (1795) regularized relations with England and Spain.
As Secretary of State, Jefferson abhorred the intrigues and ostentation of
European courts, but as an experienced American diplomat, he realized that
if the United States was to be taken seriously, the United States had to
adopt some European diplomatic practices.
President George Washington
Ministers concentrated on two important responsibilities: reporting on significant activities in their countries of residence and executing formal diplomatic instructions transmitted to them from the Department of State.
By 1792, 16 consulates had been created, most of them in Europe. Jefferson
saw the consulates as a valuable source of intelligence, and he sent a
circular letter to consuls asking them to report to him regularly
“such political and commercial intelligence as you may think
interesting to the United States.”
He mentioned particularly
news of American ships and also “information of all military
preparations and other indications of war, which may take place in your
ports.”
Consuls did not receive salaries or allowances for expenses, and they lived
off the fees they charged for their services. Because their income was so
uncertain, consuls often served for many years in the same location and paid
little attention to their official duties. One consul in “not a
single communication”
had been received from him in seven
years.
The precarious nature of U.S. consuls overseas was a concern to Jefferson. He
feared that the few Americans overseas who were eligible to serve as consuls
might be in debt or “…young, ephemeral characters in commerce without
substance or conduct.”
Even worse, if appointed, they
“…might disgrace the consular office, without protecting our
commerce.”
Congress amended the law requiring consuls and
vice-consuls to be American citizens and, when necessary, reputable foreign
citizens were appointed as vice-consuls.
Following the early practice of Benjamin Franklin,
representatives of the United States traditionally wore unpretentious
clothing and adopted simple manners, a departure from the ostentatious
practice at European courts. Americans considered this policy appropriate
for emissaries of a young republic that had repudiated monarchy. Thomas
Jefferson particularly was opposed to undue ceremony and rigid
protocol. Later, he refused to recognize formal social distinctions at
dinners held in the
Even if the new nation’s democratic ideology had not mandated republican
simplicity, the meager salaries paid to American ministers would have
produced the same effect. In 1817, President James Monroe, a
former Minister to France and a former Secretary of State, complained to a
congressional committee about the nation's failure to provide sufficient
salaries and allowances for members of the Diplomatic Service. Monroe
insisted that American diplomats had to gain access to the most important
social circles before they could do their jobs. “By taking the proper
[social] ground,” Monroe wrote, “He will become acquainted with all that
passes and from the highest and most authentic sources... Deprive him of
the necessary means to sustain this ground, separate him from the circle
to which he belongs and he is reduced to a cipher.”
Congress turned a deaf ear to these arguments, and ministers at important posts such as London or Paris were forced to spend their own private fortunes. As a result, only those with wealth could aspire to a diplomatic career. Lack of adequate funding also meant that little or no interchange took place between those serving in Washington and those overseas. The diplomatic service and the consular service remained strictly separate. Ultimately, these circumstances limited flexibility and interfered with the development of professionalism.
Jefferson's initial staff consisted of:
The Department's domestic budget for 1790, not counting the expenses of
employees overseas, was $7,961; a figure which included firewood and
stationery.
In 1807 the Department's staff included only a chief clerk, five other clerks, and some part-time help, along with a few retainers. The Secretary of State's salary had been raised to $5,000 per year. In 1818 a Presidential order authorized a staff that included a chief clerk, seven other clerks, and a few other minor employees. In 1820, expenditures for domestic operations reached $87,300; the cost of overseas operations totaled $253,400.
Despite the increase in expenditures, the Department of State and its foreign
missions were chronically overworked—and so was the Secretary of State.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams
“Business crowds upon me from day
to day requiring instantaneous attention,” he wrote to his wife Louisa.
“Unless everything is disposed of just as it occurs, it escapes from the
memory and runs into the account of arrears.”
Adams found that the Department’s record keeping—already somewhat
disorganized because of persistent staff shortages—became even more confused
as a result of the burning of
To streamline the bureaucratic process, as many as ten clerks, each of whom worked in a specific subject area, reported to the Chief Clerk. Their duties included writing consular and non-diplomatic correspondence, forwarding commissions and other documents to American or foreign ministers, preserving books and papers of the Congress, translating documents, and preparing passports, certificates, and exequaturs for foreign consuls. Other clerks copied and filed documents.
During the first 50 years of the nation, diplomats were guided by the idea
that the United States should observe political isolation from European
powers during peacetime and maintain strict neutrality during periods of
war. Years before, “A virgin state should preserve its virgin
character and not go suitoring for alliances, but wait with decent
dignity for the application of others.”
In his 1796 Farewell
Address, President “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is
to have with them as little political [as distinct from commercial]
connection as possible.”
Europe, he continued, had its own set
of interests, and those interests were very different from those of the
United States. Fortunately, the state of international relations tended to
confer freedom of action upon the nation. “Why forego the advantages
of so peculiar a situation? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that
of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rival-ship, interest, humor, or caprice?” Therefore,
concluded Washington, "it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we
are now at liberty to do it.”
Although the political views of “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations,
entangling alliances with none.”
The Department of State played a key role in America’s westward expansion. In
1803, the
As the United States spread across the continent, and American prestige and
influence grew, diplomats worked hard to keep the European nations out of
the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Secretary of State
The Monroe Doctrine “closed”
the Western Hemisphere to further colonization, announced that the United
States would refrain from interference in European affairs, and warned the
Europeans to stay out of the domestic affairs of any of the new American
Republics. As President Monroe’s message stated: “We could not view
any interposition for the purpose of oppressing [the nations of Latin
America], or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any
European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an
unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”
Although the young United States was still too weak to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, its presentation in 1823 was a clear indication that the United States saw itself as the most senior of the republics and the leader of the free nations of the Western Hemisphere.
Foreign affairs declined in importance toward the end of this period and throughout the 19th century while the nation focused on domestic expansion and internal trade. Despite the great prestige of the Secretary of State in the early days of the nation, Congress remained tight-fisted throughout the 19th century when allocating money for foreign affairs.
Early Map of U.S.
A rare set of international circumstances gave the
Napoleon surrenders his sword.
The United States was free to practice a liberal form of nationalism, one
that stressed a vague good will toward other nations rather than the pursuit
of an active foreign policy. “Wherever the standard of freedom has
been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and
her prayers be. But she does not go abroad in search of monsters to
destroy,” wrote
The republic would influence the world by offering an example rather than by
exercising force. That sentiment would govern American foreign policy for
nearly 100 years, until the outbreak of World War I.
For example, in response to the liberal revolutions of 1848 in Europe,
President “that form of government which it may deem most conducive
to the happiness and prosperity of its own citizens.”
It became
an imperative for the United States not to interfere in the government or
internal policy of other nations. Although Americans might
“sympathize with the unfortunate or the oppressed everywhere in
their fight for freedom, our principles forbid us from taking any part
in such foreign contests,”
Fillmore explained.
The shift toward domestic concerns and the practice of liberal nationalism slowed the growth of the Department of State throughout the 19th century. Secretaries of State after 1823 fought to preserve, not expand, the influence of the Department. In foreign affairs, Presidents sought the counsel of the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of War rather than that of the Secretary of State.
The low priority attached to foreign relations resulted in the open
denigration of diplomacy and its practitioners. Secretary of State Edward
Livingston himself summarized this widespread attitude, when he
wrote that Americans thought of their ministers as privileged characters
“selected to enjoy the pleasures of foreign travel at the expense
of the people; their places as sinecures; and their residence abroad as
a continued scene of luxurious enjoyment.”
Congress often
reflected a similar view of diplomats as lazy and under-employed. For
example, in 1844 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs proposed to make
diplomats work harder by assigning ministers to serve more than one country,
so that only one minister would be needed to serve Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.
In 1859 Representative “no area of the public service that is more
emphatically useless than the diplomatic service—none in the
world.”
The practice of the “spoils system,” the award of government appointments in
return for political support, reinforced the idea that the Department of
State and the Diplomatic and Consular Services were filled with unqualified
loafers. President “the duties of public officers are . . . so plain and simple that
men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance
. . . More is lost by the long continuance of men in office than is
generally to be gained by their experience.”
Attitudes like this
perpetuated both amateurism in government and a disdain for public service.
The egalitarian celebration of the common man worked against efforts to
improve the quality and status of those who conducted foreign relations.
Some ministers still gained appointment because of their experience and
talent. For example, two distinguished historians headed diplomatic
missions: “Howya, Emperor? And how’s the madam?”
One of the few talented diplomats of the era who made a career in the
Diplomatic Service, Henry Wheaton, argued in vain for a professional service
that recognized merit and granted tenure to the deserving. Those with
necessary qualifications, linguistic skill, awareness of diplomatic forms,
and with appropriate experience, should, he thought, “be employed
where they can do most service, while incapable men should be turned out
without fear or partiality. Those who have served the country faithfully
and well ought to be encouraged and transferred from one court to
another, which is the only advancement that our system permits
of.”
The strains of office, including domestic political criticism, imposed great
burdens on most Secretaries of State. One of them, “The situation I have filled,” he wrote, “was . . .
more difficult, more thorny and more liable to misrepresentation and
calumny than any other in the world, as I verily believe.”
The difficulties of those who conducted the nation’s foreign relations led two of President Jackson's Secretaries of State, Louis McLane and John Forsyth, to undertake another full-scale reorganization of the Department from 1833 to 1836. They instituted a bureau system, under the direct supervision of the Chief Clerk, to permit the orderly conduct of business. The Diplomatic Bureau and the Consular Bureau were the most important of the six new bureaus.
Both bureaus were structured in the same way. In each, three clerks managed overseas correspondence. One clerk was responsible for England, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. Another dealt with the rest of Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa. A third communicated with the Americas. A third bureau, for translating and miscellaneous other duties, supported their work. Three other bureaus handled: a) domestic and administrative matters, including archives, laws, and commissions; b) domestic correspondence, Presidential pardons, remissions, and copyrights; and c) disbursing and superintending.
As early as 1846, Secretary of State James Buchanan
saw a flaw in the new system and asked Congress to create the position of
Assistant Secretary of State, to be filled by an eminent individual with
diplomatic expertise. Unfortunately, Congress chose not to authorize the new
position until 1853. A second Assistant Secretary position was permitted in
1866.
The number of overseas missions increased from 15 in 1830 to 33 in 1860. Most posts were located in Europe or Latin America, with only modest representation in East Asia and the Pacific. Ministers were sent to China in 1843 and Japan in 1859, and a resident commission was established in the Hawaiian Islands in 1843.
By 1860, 45 people held appointments in the Diplomatic Service, a remarkably small staff for 33 separate missions. Some ministers were forced to supplement their staffs by appointing “unpaid attachés,” usually young men of private means who performed some duties in return for an introduction into local society and opportunities for personal study and travel. Total overseas diplomatic expenditures rose from $294,000 in 1830 to $1.1 million in 1860.
Similar growth occurred in the Consular Service. The number of consulates exactly doubled from 141 in 1830 to 282 in 1860, and the number of consular agencies increased even more dramatically from 14 to 198 in the same period. Consular Service increases reflected the growing importance and volume of foreign trade.
While most diplomats were stationed in urban areas, consuls followed trade to
some of the roughest and most remote spots on earth. Their lives—however
short—were characterized by numerous hardships. The American consul at Genoa
during the 1840s, “An American consul is often a foreigner, almost always a
merchant, can’t live on his fees, nor even pay the necessary expenses of
his office; [he] is scolded or cursed by everybody that has anything to
do with him, and is expected to entertain his countrymen, not only with
hospitality but with a considerable degree of luxury.”
Despite its difficulties, Genoa was clearly a more desirable post than the
Brazilian port of Pernambuco (now called Recife). In 1858, Consul Walter
Stapp reported from Pernambuco that one of his predecessors had resigned
before taking up his office because he had received “such mournful
accounts of this place as to disgust him in advance of his arrival.”
Moreover, he continued, “four others have left their bones to bake in
these fearfully hot sands, without a slab of stone or a stick of wood to
point the stranger to their graves.”
Beset by difficult climates and low salaries, consuls rarely received much
assistance from the Government of the United States. In 1833, Secretary of
State Edward
Livingston noted that officials in the domestic service of the
nation were “surrounded with the means of obtaining information and
advice” but that “abroad, an officer is entrusted with the most
important function, out of the reach of control or advice, and is left
with, comparatively speaking, no written rules for his
guidance.”
Congress took no action to improve the lives of American representatives abroad until 1856, when it enacted legislation to reform the Diplomatic and Consular Services. The law concentrated on the most publicized problem—inadequate compensation. It prescribed salaries for ministers that ranged from $10,000 per year for most locations to $17,500 per year for London and Paris. While this was an adequate salary for the mid-19th century, that $17,500 salary cap for heads of mission remained in effect for the next 90 years. Consuls, too, were given regular salaries and the fees that they collected were sent to the Treasury. Written regulations were developed to improve the performance of the foreign services.
The Act of 1856 was a step forward, but it fell short of providing for truly
professional foreign services. For some in the Consular Service, the
transition was painful since consuls now had to rely solely on their
salaries, which were often insufficient for a comfortable lifestyle. The
novelist “contracting public and private
debts, which . . . probably exceed $200,000. It is perhaps some
consolation to know that this plunderer no longer graces the Government
abroad.”
Despite the ramshackle nature of the foreign affairs establishment, the
Department of State was still able to make significant contributions to the
nation during this period.
Image of a page from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
Of equal importance were successful negotiations that furthered American domination of the continent. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) was of key importance because it ended the Mexican War and annexed a tremendous amount of territory north and west of the Rio Grande to California. The purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 was also a significant triumph for diplomacy. Despite the generally amateurish nature of diplomacy at this time, no serious setbacks marred the nation's foreign affairs between 1823 and 1867.
One outstanding diplomat did serve the United States under
The American Civil War created excellent opportunities for European nations
to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, either by violating the Monroe Doctrine
or by extending aid to the rebellious South. In the initial stages of the
war, Secretary of State
Lincoln outmaneuvered Seward, but in the process gained his respect. In time,
the two developed a remarkably effective collaboration. Working through
Perhaps in part because of his successful leadership of the Department and
his strong pro-Union stance, Seward was also a target of the plot that led
to Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. Recuperating at home from a recent
carriage accident, Seward was helpless when a conspirator entered his home
just as Lincoln was being murdered. Seward managed to fend off the full
force of his attacker until his son Frederick, who was Assistant Secretary
of State at the time, rushed into the room to try to protect his father.
Secretary Seward was stabbed in the face and throat, and his son was wounded
more seriously. Both recovered, however, and continued to serve another four
years under Lincoln’s successor, President
Seward had two major postwar diplomatic achievements: the removal of French
troops from Mexico and the purchase of Alaska
from Russia. During the Civil War, French troops had moved into Mexico,
ostensibly to collect debts from the bankrupt Mexican Government. Supported
by these troops—and in violation of the Monroe
Doctrine—
Seward’s interest in buying Alaska derived from his geopolitical vision. Like many 19th century American political figures, he envisioned an expanding American empire increasingly involved in foreign commerce, including the China trade. Although some of his expansionist initiatives were unsuccessful, Seward appropriated the Midway Islands and, most important, in early 1867 negotiated with the Russian minister in Washington for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. Although the purchase was widely satirized as “Seward’s folly” or “Seward’s icebox,” the Secretary correctly gauged the widespread popular support for the treaty, which the Senate overwhelmingly approved.
The triumph of Union forces in 1865 finally ended the dispute over the relative merits of national authority and states’ rights. The nation emerged from the Civil War more powerful and secure than at any time in its history. Because of the balance of power in Europe, the United States would remain largely immune from international dangers for the next 50 years.
1900 U.S. Campaign Poster
After the Civil War, Americans took advantage of the stable international
balance of power to continue the dynamic process of westward expansion and
building a strong and powerful economy. There were few changes in nation’s
basic foreign policies; the overarching principles of isolation and
neutrality generally remained firmly entrenched.
Secretary of State Walter Gresham
“Every nation, and especially every
strong nation, must sometimes be conscious of an impulse to rush into
difficulties that do not concern it, except in a highly imaginary way,”
he noted.
The continuing national focus on domestic issues does much to explain why,
despite its numerous flaws, the conduct of foreign relations continued
unchanged. As late as 1894, an observer noted that the public was
“less familiar with the duties of our diplomatic and consular
agents than any other branch of the public service.”
In a sense,
this was logical, because diplomatic work was carried out overseas, where it
could not be observed.
For most of the period, diplomacy remained mired in the past. The biographer
of Secretary of State John Hay later
described the Department in 1898 when Hay became Secretary as “an
antiquated feeble organization, enslaved by precedents and routine
inherited from another century, remote from the public gaze and
indifferent to it. The typewriter was viewed as a necessary evil and the
telephone was an instrument of last resort.”
Xenophobic Americans regularly condemned their representatives abroad as
subversive, and some cast doubt upon the need for any contact whatsoever
with the Old World and its representatives.
President Ulysses S. Grant
“…this diplomatic
service is working our ruin by creating a desire for foreign customs and
foreign follies. The disease is imported by our returning diplomats and
by the foreign ambassadors sent here by monarchs and despots to corrupt
and destroy our American ideals.”
The Senator's solution was to
quarantine entering diplomats “as we quarantine foreign rags through fear of
cholera.”
Another familiar pattern transcended the Civil War—meddlesome political
interference with the Department of State and a tendency to see its overseas
posts as rewards for loyalty not talent. In 1869, for example, President
“or when the influence of the head of the Department in the
administration of its affairs, or the formation of its policy, is
overshadowed by others, a sensible or sensitive man will appreciate that
the time for his retirement has arrived.”
Because the consular service expanded so rapidly during this period, incoming
presidential administrations found ample overseas rewards for their friends
and supporters. Even artists and writers, such as
Despite strenuous efforts to correct them, abuses in the Consular Service
persisted into the late 19th century. In 1872, “ingenuity displayed by consular officers, since the Act of 1856
particularly, in defrauding the Government and grasping gains from
various outside sources besides.”
Despite the atmosphere of corruption surrounding diplomacy, some members of
the foreign services developed special competence and achieved distinguished
careers. Prominent among them was
Despite the general lethargy characterizing foreign policy during this period, several Secretaries of State were proactive. James G. Blaine of Maine, for example, had long been interested in the development of more cordial relations and the expansion of trade with the American republics. In 1889, he inaugurated the modern Pan American movement with the convocation of an inter-American conference in Washington.
Perhaps the most notable development was the elevation of the Monroe Doctrine
into an unquestioned article of faith in American foreign policy. In 1895,
Secretary of State Richard Olney asserted that as a result of the Monroe Doctrine,
“To-day the United States is practically sovereign on this
continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines
its interposition.” Why was this so? Because, Olney stated, in addition
to all other grounds, “its infinite resources combined with its isolated
position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable
as against any or all other powers.”
The limited importance assigned to foreign relations after the Civil War was reflected in the modest growth of the Department of State and the foreign services. In 1880, the Department had only 80 employees compared with 42 in 1860, and the total actually dropped to 76 in 1890. In the period 1860-1890, the number of diplomatic missions increased by only eight to 41, while the number of consulates grew from 282 to 323. Diplomats numbered 45 in 1860 and 63 in 1890. The Consular Service expanded much more rapidly, employing 1,042 people in 1890 compared with 236 in 1860. Expenditures on domestic and foreign operations rose from $1.3 million in 1860 to only $1.8 million in 1890.
In the early 1870s, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish reorganized the Department, expanding the existing “bureau” system, in place since the 1830s. To cope with the growth in overseas missions and consulates, Fish established two diplomatic bureaus and two consular bureaus with geographic responsibilities. The First Diplomatic Bureau and the First Consular Bureau, dealt with the major European nations, China, and Japan. The second pair of bureaus managed communications with the rest of the world—Latin America, the Mediterranean region, Russia, Hawaii, Japan, and Liberia. Several other bureaus were created or underwent name changes—the Law Bureau, Bureaus of Accounts, Bureau of Indexes and Archives, the Statistical Bureau, Bureau of Pardons and Commissions, the Passport Bureau, and the Domestic Records Bureau. Congress also passed legislation in 1874 that authorized a Third Assistant Secretary as well as a private secretary to the Secretary of State. There would be no further reorganization until 1909.
In 1875 the Department of State moved into an imposing new home—the State, War, and Navy Building located at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., adjacent to the White House.
From the earliest days of the Republic, a U.S. envoy overseas was known as “minister” since an “ambassador” traditionally was the representative of a king. But in 1893, the United States bowed to the now-common diplomatic practice and upgraded its envoys to the most important foreign nations to the rank of ambassador. Embassies were established in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy after those nations conferred ambassadorial rank on their representatives in Washington. The elevation of ministers to ambassadors and legations to embassies was a gradual process and continued until the late 1960s when all U.S. chiefs of mission finally held the rank of ambassador.
The global equilibrium, which had allowed the United States to grow and
prosper in virtual isolation since 1815 was gone forever as the result of a
short but shattering war. In 1898, U.S. domestic support for the
independence of
This assumption of colonial responsibilities reflected not only the temporary enthusiasms of 1898 but also marked a profound change in the diplomatic posture of the United States. The foreign policies of the early 19th century had less relevance at the dawn of the 20th century because the nation had changed. The United States had almost all the attributes of a great power—it stood ahead or nearly ahead of almost all other countries in terms of population, geographic size and location on two oceans, economic resources, and military potential.
Foreign policy had to change to meet these new circumstances. President
Another contemporary observer, “Whether we like it or not,” he wrote, “it is
plain that the country is now entering into a period in its history in
which it will necessarily be brought into far closer and more complex
relations with all the other great Powers of the world,” an outcome that
would leave established foreign policy outmoded. “We shall now and
henceforth be looked upon as having cast aside our traditional attitude
of isolation.”
U.S. policy toward Latin American policy involved a significant revision of the Monroe Doctrine. Throughout the 19th century, American diplomats used the Monroe Doctrine to warn the European powers against further colonization in the Western Hemisphere. It did not imply the right of the United States to intervene in the internal affairs of the other American republics.
In 1904, President “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general
loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as
elsewhere, require intervention by some civilized nation.”
Moreover, he continued, “in the western hemisphere the adherence of
the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States,
however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence,
to the exercise of an international police power.”
At the same time, the acquisition of the Philippines triggered the
development of a new American policy for East Asia. As American businessmen
eyed the vast potential of the Chinese market, European incursions in
These major changes in policy and the subsequent increase in U.S. international political commitments resulted in a newly invigorated Department of State. The Department was thoroughly reorganized to meet its new responsibilities and important steps were taken toward the development of professional, democratic foreign services.
In 1898, the Department employed 82 people; by 1910 the number had risen to 234. The Diplomatic Service grew modestly from 93 people in 1900 to 121 in 1910. But expansion required a considerable increase in the annual budget. The expenditures of the Department at home and overseas increased from $3.4 million in 1900 to $4.9 million in 1910. The Consular Service also experienced a significant addition to its workload. Reflecting the boom in overseas trade from $1.8 billion to $3 billion, annual fees collected almost tripled in less than 20 years.
Increased responsibility necessitated a thorough reorganization of the
Department in 1909. One reformer, Assistant Secretary of State
The bureau system was expanded to organize diplomacy by distinct geographic region—Western Europe, the Near East, the Far East, and Latin America—a move that fostered improved overseas communication. Several other bureaus and divisions were created to handle other new areas of responsibility, notably a Bureau of Trade Relations and a Division of Information. Talented diplomats were brought back to Washington to staff the new geographic bureaus, adding much-needed field experience.
Although the expansion and reorganization of the Department were significant
factors, the most distinctive feature of the early 20th century was a strong
movement toward fully professionalized and democratic foreign services.
America’s new position in the world forced the nation to recognize that
amateurism in the conduct of foreign policy could be costly. One critic
wrote, “As we would not put a ship into the hands of a commander
ignorant of navigation, an army under the control of a general without
military training, a suit at law into the hands of a counsel who never
opened a law book . . . so we should not put the foreign affairs of our
government into the hands of men without knowledge of the various
subjects which go to make up the diplomatic science.”
President Theodore Roosevelt
“The trouble
with our ambassadors in stations of real importance,” he told a friend,
"is that they totally fail to give us real help and real information,
and seem to think that the life work of an ambassador is a kind of
glorified pink tea party.”
The domestic spirit of “progressivism” and an emphasis on good government
fueled the demand for change in the Diplomatic and Consular Services. A
truly professional foreign service meant that the practices of the past
would have to end. The spoils system would have to be replaced by
competitive examination and guaranteed tenure; the merit system would have
to be adopted as the basis for award of pay increases and promotions, and
pay and allowances would have to be adequate to the job. As President
Roosevelt told a friend in 1908, “I am anxious to have it understood
that it is not necessary to be a multimillionaire in order to reach the
highest positions in the American diplomatic services.” Or, as
Representative Frank O. Lowden of Illinois expressed it, “It ought to be
possible for the lowest man in the foreign service to feel that it is
within his power, if his service justifies it, to reach the highest
post.”
President Grover Cleveland
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and
President William Howard Taft
American missions overseas were also subject to reform. It became clear that
there was a need to establish and maintain embassy and legation buildings
appropriate to the nation’s new status in international affairs and
business. As one reformer argued, “All men, rich and poor, cultivated
or uncultivated, are impressed by appearances. Foreigners necessarily
judge us by what they see of us in their own country. We pride ourselves
on being the richest people on earth and declare loudly that nothing is
too good for us. And yet we are content to cheapen ourselves among the
nations of the earth by the shabby showing we make among them in respect
to our embassies. We feel ashamed at appearing poverty-stricken in the
eyes of the inhabitants of other countries and of placing ourselves
commercially below third or even fourth rate powers.”
Similarly, a former attaché promoted the enhancement of U.S. facilities
abroad so that “traveling Americans will no longer be mortified at
the sight of the United States embassy or legation being located on a
single floor in an apartment house or office building with a tin shield
over the door far inferior in appearance to that of many a butcher or
baker in the vicinity.”
In response to the rising complaints,
Congress took a step forward when it passed the Lowden Act (1911), the first
legislation to provide for the purchase of buildings to house overseas
missions.
The Spanish-American War of 1898 revealed the first cracks in the international balance of power that had governed global relations since 1815. The United States entered the 20th century as an emerging superpower—and adopted new foreign policies and professional diplomatic practices to suit its role. The revitalized Department of State had little time to prepare for the unprecedented challenges that the United States would face during the first European war in 100 years.
President Woodrow Wilson announcing the U.S. Declaration of War
against Germany before Congress
The First World War greatly affected the international position of the United States because it shattered the general global stability that had cocooned the nation for almost 100 years. Political isolation, however appropriate during the 19th century, no longer served the national interest, and the country was pulled into foreign entanglements unthinkable just a few years earlier.
When war broke out in
During the period of American neutrality (1914-1917), attitudes toward international affairs born in the wake of the Spanish-American War blossomed. As its global interests expanded, United States found itself in conflict with another rising power—Germany. Ironically, American interests were frequently aligned with those of an old enemy, Great Britain. The war exacerbated the trend, and a tense diplomatic conflict with Germany over the legality of unrestricted submarine warfare against neutral shipping simply accelerated a political process that had begun some years earlier.
The entry of the United States into the First World War in April 1917 as an
“associate”—not ally—of the Allies, was more than just a response to
submarine warfare; it also reflected the vision of President Woodrow Wilson.
President Woodrow Wilson
The President's plan for the future, outlined in the “Fourteen Points” (January 1918) and augmented by later pronouncements, envisioned restoration of a stable, equitable, and enduring international balance through a new collective security organization, the League of Nations, based on a consensus of the great powers. Due in large part to Wilson's vision, the United States had changed course from isolation toward engagement.
The fundamental shift in foreign policy that accompanied World War I posed great challenges for the Department of State as it assumed duties never anticipated in earlier years. Both the Diplomatic and Consular Services expanded their reporting functions to provide much needed information and augmented their diplomatic and consular efforts. During the years of neutrality, American missions located in belligerent countries often acted as caretakers for the interests of countries on the other side of the conflict. The U.S. Embassy in Berlin, for example, represented British, Japanese, and Italian interests in Germany until the United States abandoned neutrality.
The burgeoning responsibilities of the foreign services led to an increase in personnel and expenditures. Many temporary employees were assigned to duties at home and overseas, and resignations and retirements were minimized in an attempt to retain experienced officers. Congress authorized a significant number of new permanent positions, including 27 in the Diplomatic Service, for a total of 97. The domestic complement grew from 234 employees in 1910 to 708 one decade later. Expenditures jumped from $4.9 million in 1910 to $13.6 million in 1920.
For the first time since the very earliest years of the nation, the American people were interested in foreign affairs. As a result, the Department attracted considerable attention and even praise, a welcome change from the general apathy or distrust that characterized the heyday of isolation. The rise of the “new diplomacy,” a term used to describe statecraft responsive to the desires of popular majorities, brought international politics and its practitioners fully into the consciousness of people who had never before been concerned with foreign relations.
Despite its expanded operational responsibilities and its increased respectability, the Department of State lost much of its influence on the formulation of major foreign policy decisions. Almost all the significant decisions of the conflict—to pursue strict neutrality in 1914, to intervene on behalf of the Allies in 1917, to champion the League of Nations in 1918, and to negotiate a peace treaty on American terms in 1919—emanated from the White House without decisive contributions from the Secretary of State and his subordinates.
Several factors contributed to the displacement of the Department of State as the principal source of advice about the most crucial questions of war and peace. One key factor was that none of President Wilson’s Secretaries of State had a close and confidential relationship with him. Wilson relied primarily on others for advice, notably an intimate friend, Edward M. House of Texas. A less obvious but equally significant factor was that the Department was poorly organized to meet the requirements of wartime. It tended to act slowly, and it lacked expertise in dealing with military issues. Moreover, the exigencies of the national emergency dictated the participation of many agencies in decisions about foreign relations, notably the War Department, the Navy Department, and the Treasury, as well as temporary organizations such as the War Industries Board. The Department of State was not prepared to take a leading role in coordinating these activities. Finally, modern communications rendered the President less dependent on the Department for accurate information than past presidents had been.
The experience of modern warfare demonstrated that the Department of State would have to undergo major changes. As early as 1915, in response to the wartime pressures on the Diplomatic and Consular Services, Congress passed the Stone-Flood Act, which permitted the appointment of certain diplomatic and consular officers to functional positions rather than to specific posts in the field. Prior to this, consular officers who wanted to transfer to the Diplomatic Service had to take the examinations, and oral examiners who might want to keep diplomacy the preserve of men from the “right schools” or “right families” could reject the candidates, despite their experience. In addition to assignment after examination or presidential appointment, the 1915 law permitted reassignment by administrative transfer.
But even after the war, the public believed that the modernization of
American diplomatic practice was still far from complete. In January 1920,
Secretary of State Robert Lansing, writing to a sympathetic Congressman, John Jacob
Rogers of Massachusetts, described the problem: “The machinery of
government provided for dealing with our foreign relations is in need of
complete repair and reorganization. As adequate as it may have been when
the old order prevailed and the affairs of the world were free from the
present perplexities it has ceased to be responsive to present
needs.”
Three categories of reform were required to enable the
Department to function effectively under the changed conditions of the
postwar period:
After the war ended, Congress completed the pre-war movement toward a fully professional and democratic Foreign Service. Representative Rogers, who led the congressional campaign, stated his objective in 1923: “Let us strive for a foreign service which will be flexible and democratic; which will attract and retain the best men we have; which will offer reasonable pay, reasonable prospects for promotion, [and] reasonable provision against want when old age comes to a faithful servant.” Hugh Gibson, a respected diplomat interested in reform, supported Rogers, arguing that improvements in the Diplomatic and Consular Services would attract the most qualified candidates so that “we can choose our men by the only good method—that is, by keen competition.” He hoped for creation of “a real diplomatic career, which is open to any American citizen who has the necessary qualifications.”
In 1924, the Rogers Act fundamentally reformed the foreign services by establishing a career organization based on competitive examination and merit promotion. The Diplomatic and Consular Services were unified into one organization performing both functions. Members of the new “Foreign Service of the United States of America” would be commissioned in a given class at a set salary rather than commissioned for service at a specific overseas mission or post. Salaries would range from $3,000 for the lowest level (Class 9) to $9,000 for Class 1 officers. Officers would be placed in positions for three years with the presumption of regular rotation to other assignments. The Rogers Act granted regular home leave and set up a retirement system. It also allowed for representational expenses, although these allowances were not authorized until 1931. A special reinstatement provision permitted career officers who became chiefs of mission to remain in the Foreign Service after completing their tours of duty. Earlier they had been required to resign without assurance of a future presidential appointment to other responsible duties, which led at times to the discarding of the most experienced and competent officers at the height of their abilities.
Several other measures also furthered reform. In 1925, the Foreign Service School was founded to provide specialized training in languages and other necessary skills. The following year, Congress passed the Foreign Service Buildings Act; among other things, it established a fund of $2-million per year—gradually increasing in later years—for the construction, purchase, and maintenance of missions and consulates overseas. The U.S. Government also took responsibility for the purchase or rental of office space and living quarters, further reducing a need for private wealth as a prerequisite to a diplomatic career.
Despite these improvements, certain flaws in the Rogers Act became apparent,
especially inequities in the promotion of those serving in consular
assignments. Congress moved to correct the problems in the Moses-Linthicum
Act (1931), which reorganized the Board of Foreign Service Personnel to
ensure impartial promotion practices. Other sections of the law improved
salaries, authorized representation and post allowances and paid annual
leave and sick leave, set up an improved retirement system, and conferred
career status on clerks in the Foreign Service. Reflecting on these reforms,
Assistant Secretary of State
Unfortunately many of these gains proved temporary. During the Great Depression, economies in government led to the suspension of promotions, a 15 per cent reduction in salaries, abolition of representational and living allowances, elimination of paid home leaves, and suspension of recruiting for four years. The result was a 10 percent reduction in the size of the Foreign Service between July 1932 and December 1934.
In 1924, the Secretary of State—who had final responsibility for policy and administration—had relatively few senior officials to help him. The Under Secretary provided support on policies of special importance. Three Assistant Secretaries handled economic and financial questions, international law, and general administration. The Chief Clerk supervised both the Department's clerks and its physical property, while the Director of the Consular Service also served as budget officer. The Solicitor handled legal business, and the Economic Adviser made recommendations concerning international trade and finance. Various other bureaucratic entities, such as the Division of Passport Control and the Bureau of Accounts, provided additional support. Five geographic bureaus maintained communications between Washington and missions abroad.
When problems grew acute or new responsibilities arose, limited modifications were made to the 1909 bureaucratic structure. For example, a Division of Publications was established in 1921 to centralize work on informational projects such as the documentary series Foreign Relations of the United States. In 1929, a Division of International Conferences and Protocol was formed to cope with the very substantial increase in multilateral negotiations. Two new divisions were created in 1938—a Division of International Communications and a Division of Cultural Relations.
But in real terms, growth in the Department of State stagnated. Between 1920 and 1930, the domestic work force increased by only six to 714, the Foreign Service grew from 514 to 633, and annual expenditures rose from $13.6 million to $14 million.
But the changes weren’t enough. The failure to fully modernize the Department
of State reflected the country’s lack of commitment to an energetic foreign
policy after the Senate repudiated the Treaty of Versailles.
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes
During the 1920s, the United States strongly resisted binding international
commitments and focused instead on preventing the outbreak of war. Secretary
of State Charles Evans Hughes played a key role in the Washington Naval
Disarmament Conference (1921-22), and Secretary of State Frank
Kellogg was instrumental in the creation of the Paris Peace Pact (1928), a
multilateral agreement outlawing offensive warfare.
Secretary of State Frank Kellogg
As a result, the Department of State returned to the passivity of the 19th century, and accepted a secondary role from 1919-1939. One historian has described the generally backward state of the organization when Secretary Cordell Hull assumed control. He wrote: “In 1933 the Department was small, placid, comfortably adjusted to the lethargic diplomacy of the preceding decade, and suffused with habits of thought that reached back to a still earlier day.” Overseas missions were in a comparable state, he noted. “The Foreign Service—genteel, slow-moving, and complacent—also cherished its ties with the past.”
But the neglectful attitude toward foreign relations characteristic of the interwar years, changed rapidly after the start of the Second World War. The undeniable menace of the Axis—Nazi Germany and its partners Italy and Japan—forced the United States to pursue an interventionist policy. Despite an official stance of neutrality, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the sale of destroyers to Great Britain in return for leases on some Western Atlantic bases and eventually provided wholesale economic assistance to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease Act of 1941.
As the Nazis began the systematic persecution of Jews first in Germany and then later in occupied Europe, the United States faced a major crisis in refugee policy. Even though the nation admitted more refugees from Nazi tyranny than any other country, the United States had the capacity to admit many more. But the American public was still isolationist and anti-Semitic—and preoccupied with domestic economic problems. Since Americans were apathetic toward the plight of the refugees, there was little chance of persuading Congress to increase the existing national origins quotas. Although President Roosevelt was sympathetic, he did not use his office to implement changes in U.S. refugee policy.
The Department of State, mirroring the public mood, also failed to lead on the issue, and anti-Semitism influenced policy at a key level. An historian of the refugee crisis has concluded, “The Department of State compiled a dismal record. It discouraged or actively opposed virtually all efforts for a more generous American policy . . . It obstructed the emergency visa program for political refugees. And it tolerated consuls whose anti-alien, anti-Semitic, and politically conservative attitudes influenced their decisions in visa cases.”
Secretary of State Cordell Hull
The Department’s staff grew at an unprecedented rate. In 1940, the Department had 1,128 domestic employees, with total expenditures of $24 million. By 1945, the staff had more than tripled (3,767 employees) with a budget of about $50 million. Recruiting for the career Foreign Service was suspended during the war, but a Foreign Service Auxiliary was created to provide additional manpower. By January 1946, the Auxiliary included 976 people.
Vice President Henry A. Wallace
Although Secretary Cordell Hull was usually informed of important decisions, he
rarely participated in the major wartime conferences at which the leaders of
the alliance forged the victory of 1945. His inability to gain the
President's full confidence kept the Department from a paramount role in
many major decisions. It is not surprising that Secretary Hull commented
bitterly toward the end of his service: “When I accepted this office,
I knew that I would be misrepresented, lied about, let down, and that
there would be humiliations that no man in private life could accept and
keep his self-respect. But I made up my mind in advance that I would
accept all these things and just do my job.”
Secretary Hull proved influential only in one area—preparation of plans for a postwar international organization. In 1942, Hull established an Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy to avoid the partisan fighting that characterized the period after World War I. In 1944, representatives of 44 nations met at Bretton Woods to agree on plans for post-war economic policy, to stabilize currency, and to establish a World Bank. Later that year at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, world leaders hammered out a draft charter for a new international organization—the United Nations.
In 1943, Under Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. immediately began a major reorganization of the Department of State because of the embarrassments that stemmed directly from wartime experience. As one journalist summarized the situation: “Notwithstanding the personal prestige of the Secretary of State Hull, the organization he heads has only to be mentioned in almost any circle, American or foreign, to arouse either doubt, despair, or derision.” Stettinius’ reorganization marked the birth of the modern Department of State. His reforms ensured that the Department would participate effectively in shaping the nation’s foreign relations in the postwar period.
Stettinius concentrated on key deficiencies of the Department, particularly the poor division of responsibility for important functions, inadequate means of obtaining and disseminating information, and ineffective long-range planning. In December 1944, shortly after Stettinius succeeded Hull as Secretary of State, he issued Department Order 1301, which concentrated similar functions in the same office and related offices under a senior official, either the Under Secretary or one of six Assistant Secretaries.
To coordinate the work of the Department, ensure follow-through, and conduct long-range planning, Order 1301 created several new entities. A Staff Committee including the Secretary and his principal subordinates became the chief managerial group in the Department. A Coordinating Committee was formed to investigate policy options and control inter-office projects. A Joint Secretariat monitored Department activity to ensure that decisions were handled efficiently. Finally a Policy Committee and a Committee on Postwar Problems were created to focus on long-range planning.
Secretary Stettinius also streamlined functions overlapping the jurisdictions of the traditional geographic bureaus. New bureaus were set up to deal with trade relations, cultural diplomacy, and public information. Another important functional organization came into being in September 1945—the Interim Research and Intelligence Service, which is the forerunner of the present-day Bureau of Intelligence and Research. These innovations minimized fragmentation of jurisdiction that so frequently immobilized the Department in a crisis when quick decisions were required.
The Department of State that emerged from World War II better prepared to play a leading role in the foreign policy process and to participate fully in the difficult tasks ahead. In July 1945, Secretary James F. Byrnes recognized the extent of the postwar challenge. “The supreme task of statesmanship in the world over is to help them understand that they can have peace and freedom only if they tolerate and respect the rights of others to opinions, feelings, and way of life which they do not and cannot share.”
The Department of State reached the zenith of its power and influence in the period immediately after World War II under the guidance of three strong and influential Secretaries of State: George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and John Foster Dulles. The “Cold War” brought major changes to U.S. policy abroad, while McCarthyism targeted the Department at home.
President Harry S. Truman
At the end of the war, the Soviet Union was a closed society under the iron grip of Joseph Stalin.
Few in the West had experience with the communist state and even fewer
understood what motivated the Soviets. One man who had first hand knowledge
was a Foreign Service officer, George F. Kennan. In 1946, while he was
Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow, Kennan sent an 8,000-word telegram to the
Department—the now-famous “long telegram”—on the aggressive nature of
Stalin’s foreign policy. Kennan, writing as “Mr. X,” published an outline of
his philosophy in the prestigious journal Foreign
Affairs in 1947. His conclusion was that “the main element of any
United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term
patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
Containment provided a
conceptual framework for a series of successful initiatives undertaken from
1947 to 1950 to blunt Soviet expansion.
The first step was the “Truman Doctrine” of March 1947, which reflected the combativeness of President Harry Truman. Truman wanted to “scare the hell” out of Congress. Arguing that Greece and Turkey could fall victim to subversion without support from friendly nations, Truman asked Congress to authorize $400-million in emergency assistance. To justify this course, he said: “I believe we must assist free peoples to work out their destinies in their own way.” The key to preventing the overthrow of free nations was to attack the conditions of “misery and want” that nurtured totalitarianism.
Soon this general principle was applied to Western Europe as a whole. In June 1947, Secretary George C. Marshall proposed the extension of massive economic assistance to the devastated nations of Europe, saying that the policy of the United States was not directed “against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the existence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”
What the Secretary of State left unsaid was that while the U.S. plan would be open to the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe, it emphasized the free market economy as the best path to economic reconstruction—and the best defense against communism in Western Europe. Congress responded to Marshall’s proposal by authorizing the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan. An investment of about $13 billion in Europe during the next few years resulted in the extraordinarily rapid and durable reconstruction of a democratic Western Europe.
It was also inevitable that the policy of containment would develop a
political-military dimension. In June 1948, Senator “progressive development of regional and other
collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense in
accordance with the purposes, principles, and provisions of the [United
Nations] Charter.”
President Truman had already applied the principles of containment to Latin America. The Rio Pact, signed in September 1947, provided that “an armed attack by any State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack.” Collective security was invoked again in the North Atlantic Treaty. Signed in Washington in April 1949, it created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Rio Pact and the NATO Alliance formally marked the end of George Washington’s policy of no entangling alliances. Economic assistance and collective defense agreements became the bulwark of Western containment policy.
After 1945, most Secretaries of State were chosen because they possessed broad foreign policy experience and the management skills deemed essential to effective performance. Secretaries traveled extensively to negotiate and coordinate with their foreign counterparts and chiefs of state, but they also had to spend a large amount of time on administration. Although the burdens of office increased exponentially, Secretaries also gained prestige, as a consequence of the high priority now accorded to foreign relations.
During this period, the Department absorbed several wartime organizations dealing with international economic affairs into its permanent bureaucratic structure. In August 1946, the Department created a new Under Secretary for Economic Affairs to manage the complex economic component of U.S. foreign policy. Working with the existing Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs, the Under Secretary supervised international economic activities and established effective relations with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
A change in foreign policy required a change in the Foreign Service as well. Congress passed the Foreign Service Act of 1946, which was intended to “improve, strengthen, and expand the Foreign Service . . . and to consolidate and revise the laws relating to its administration.” A new Director General and a Foreign Service Board were created to improve administration, while a new Board of Examiners maintained the principle of competitive entrance. The law also provided for improvements in assignments policy, promotion procedures, allowances and benefits, home leave, and the retirement system. In recognition of the growing importance of specialized experience, the act also created the Foreign Service Reserve for lawyers, doctors, economists, and intelligence analysts. Finally, the Foreign Service School became the Foreign Service Institute and offered advanced training for Department personnel in subjects of critical importance in the rapidly changing world.
In April 1947, the Department of State moved to new quarters, the wartime home of the War Department, now available after the completion of the Pentagon. The new headquarters of the Department of State was located in northwest Washington, D.C., in an area known as Foggy Bottom.
The new challenges and responsibilities of the Cold War convinced many in Congress that Truman’s foreign policy establishment needed reform because it relied heavily on a few key White House aides. In July 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which would have a profound effect on the Department of State. Proponents of reform wanted to coordinate foreign, defense, and domestic policy by establishing the National Security Council (NSC) under the chairmanship of the President and composed of only six permanent members: the Secretaries of State, Defense, Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the Chairman of the National Resources Board. The President could designate the heads of other executive departments, such as the Director of the new Central Intelligence Agency, to attend if needed.
Under the terms of the legislation, the NSC would consist of a small staff headed by an Executive Secretary appointed by the President. There was no legislative provision for the post of “national security adviser,” and the small NSC staff had no role in the formulation or implementation of policy.
Truman did not take well to the idea that his foreign policy advisers would be mandated by Congressional legislation, and he rarely attended the initial meetings of the National Security Council. The Secretary of State was named as the ranking member in his absence, and the Department of State controlled the NSC and its operations. The State Department’s Policy Planning Staff wrote most of the NSC’s papers, which after discussion by the Council and approval by Truman, were then disseminated to the bureaucracy in summary form as NSC actions.
Under Truman, the NSC did not displace the Secretary of State as the President's senior adviser on international questions; it simply required all agencies to contribute to the decision-making process. With the proliferation of new issues and new U.S. agencies active overseas, the State Department could not on its own control everything. The NSC was the mechanism through which the Department of State could exert consistent influence on national security policy. Used properly, it had the potential to deploy the vast array of American power—diplomatic, political, economic, psychological, and military—to reach common goals. This was an objective that the Department had failed to achieve during the troubled years between 1914 and 1945.
But the Department of State could only realize its full potential in the new institutional context if the Secretary of State gained the confidence of the President. Both Secretary Marshall and Secretary Acheson did, and Truman tended to bypass the slower-moving National Security Council. Truman was always anxious to complete action on important questions, and he wanted to make his decision as soon as he had a sound basis to do so. Secretary Acheson, noted one biographer, “could always provide an adequate basis, or its appearance, before any rival body . . . In the race with time, which was the key to influence over the President, Acheson was unbeatable.”
The events of 1949 made foreign policy the nation’s top priority. NATO became a working alliance, the United States provided military assistance to Europe, the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb, and the Mao Zedong’s communist party took control of mainland China. The Department of State ordered a complete review of American strategic and military policy, and, in April 1950, the Department sent a paper calling for a broad-based and reinvigorated containment policy toward the Soviet Union, directly to the President. The paper later became known as NSC-68. After the outbreak of fighting on the Korean peninsula, NSC-68 was accepted throughout the government as the foundation of American foreign policy.
When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, the United States sponsored a "police action"—a war in all but name—under the auspices of the United Nations. The Department of State coordinated U.S. strategic decisions with the other 16 countries contributing troops to the fighting. In addition, the Department worked closely with the government of Syngman Rhee, encouraging him to implement reform so that the UN claim of defending democracy in Korea would be accurate.
The Korean War was difficult to fight and unpopular domestically. In late 1951, the two sides bogged down on the 38th parallel, and the conflict seemed reminiscent of trench warfare in World War I. The American public tired of a war without victory, especially when negotiation stalled as well. The stalemate eroded Truman’s public support and helped to elect the Republican presidential candidate, popular military hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as the next President.
As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the war, President Eisenhower had a well-earned reputation for staff work and organization. He was determined to make the Department of State a part of the NSC’s structured system of integrated policy review, and the NSC enjoyed a renaissance during his Administration. Discussion papers were prepared by the NSC’s own Planning Board—not the Department of State, and the Planning Board ironed out interdepartmental differences before a policy paper went to the NSC. The full Council, with Eisenhower almost always in attendance, debated the policy options and made decisions, which were then sent as recommendations to the President in the form of NSC actions. Another subcommittee, the Operations Coordinating Board, made sure that the bureaucracy carried out the recommendations approved by the President.
Dulles drew a sharp line between the policy review process and day-to-day operations, which he felt were the exclusive province of the Department of State. Dulles also believed that some issues, such as covert operations, were too sensitive to be discussed by the full NSC. Because of his close ties to the President and his even closer relationship with his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles was second in importance only to the President at any NSC meeting. President Eisenhower often dominated the discussions, but Dulles remained his most influential foreign policy adviser.
Dulles was a staunch anti-communist. For this Secretary of State there was no
grey area—nations were either part of the “Free World” or part of the Soviet
bloc; he had little time for neutralism or non-alignment. Secretary Dulles
also had a tendency to speak dramatically. In a 1954 speech, he said that
the United States would meet Soviet provocations not necessarily where they
occurred but where the United States chose, based on its “deterrent of
massive retaliatory power.” In a 1956 Life magazine
interview, Dulles described how he had passed the word to the Chinese and
the North Koreans that unless the communist powers signed the Korean
armistice, the United States would unleash its atomic arsenal. Dulles
claimed that by moving to the brink of atomic war, he ended the Korean War
and avoided a larger conflict. From that point on, Dulles was associated
with the concepts of “massive
retaliation” and “brinksmanship,” a supposedly reckless
combination of atomic saber rattling and eyeball-to-eyeball standoffs. In
reality, the so-called atomic threat to China was less definitive than
Dulles had claimed, and the Eisenhower Administration policy of “massive
retaliation” was far more cautiously based on mutual atomic deterrence.
During the Eisenhower years, the United States consolidated the policy of
containment, although some critics have argued that the administration
extended it too far. The United States ratified a series of bilateral and
multilateral treaties designed to encircle the Soviet Union and its allies,
including the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Among these arrangements
were the Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO); the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO); and bilateral defense or security treaties with Japan,
While the Department struggled with McCarthyism, it also sought to modernize
its personnel practices. Postwar growth produced what one historian
described as “inertia, inflexibility, and loss of efficiency in the
use of personnel.”
Stanton Griffis, a businessman who served as
ambassador to several countries, later satirized the confused situation.
Overseas missions, he noted, constituted "a fantastic network of men,
women, and typewriters, who report [on] political, economic, labor, and
agricultural conditions.”
These reports then went to Washington,
where they were immediately filed away. Then “the home team, having properly
disposed of the information from the field, proceeds to write its own
endless reports to go forward to the same ultimate fate in the embassies
throughout the world.”
The post-1945 personnel problems of the Department of State attracted the attention of a commission created to investigate all aspects of government organization after World War II, which was headed by former President Herbert Hoover. In 1949, the commission called for reforms to eliminate one important source of difficulty—the negative distinctions between Foreign Service officers and Civil Service employees who staffed the Department's headquarters in Washington. In 1954, Secretary of State Dulles asked Henry M. Wriston, the president of Brown University, to undertake a study of the Department's personnel practices. Dulles drew attention to a number of concerns, among them poor morale because of managerial shortcomings, low intake into the Foreign Service, and inequities that stemmed from variations in the treatment of different categories of employees. After examining these matters, Wriston called for the integration of many Civil Service employees into the Foreign Service, a process that took several years and was known as “Wristonization.” By the end of 1957, the Foreign Service had more than doubled in size to 3,436 officers. By August 1959, 1,523 Foreign Service officers were assigned to positions in the Department in an effort to improve communications between Washington and the overseas missions and to fulfill the legal requirement that Foreign Service officers spend a portion of their careers in the United States.
John Foster Dulles resigned in April 1959 because of ill health and died of
cancer soon afterward. Secretary of State Christian
A. Herter, who served mostly from a wheelchair because of his
severe arthritis, replaced him. With the death of Dulles and the approaching
end of Eisenhower’s second term, U.S. foreign policy initiatives became less
significant. The Department more often found itself responding to crises or
explaining foreign policy failures. Negotiations with the Soviet Union on a
test ban treaty collapsed, the shoot down of a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet
Union allowed Soviet leader
In early January 1961, the Department of State moved into its new headquarters, which it continues to occupy today. Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower had laid the cornerstone of the new building in September 1957; using the same trowel that George Washington had used to lay the cornerstone of the Capitol. The new building was an extension of the Department’s quarters in the old War Department building and was about four times as large. The architects designed the building on a vertical/pyramid plan, placing different offices of bureaus on multiple floors connected by elevators. The higher the job, the higher the floor. Assistant secretaries were on the sixth floor; the Secretary and his immediate staff occupied the seventh floor—the top working level of the building. The eighth floor was reserved for diplomatic reception rooms.
The new building was in the stark modern architectural style of the 1950s. What it lacked in aesthetics, it attempted to compensate for in efficiency and use of space. The Department had two large conference rooms and a number of smaller rooms available for meetings. Most of the 7,000 employees of the Department, previously housed in the old State building and 29 separate annexes, moved into new offices.
When
President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier L. Brezhnev during a
1973 Meeting
President John F. Kennedy
Kennedy’s policy led to a concerted diplomatic effort to win new friends among the “non-aligned” nations of the world. But it was a policy that also drew the United States into frequent, intense clashes with the Soviet Union—and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Kennedy’s close advisers believed that Eisenhower’s foreign policy establishment was stultified, slow moving, overly reliant on brinksmanship and massive retaliation, and complacent. Their fear was that after eight years, the State Department would be unable to implement their new international vision. The new President was determined to control foreign policy through a young and energetic White House and NSC staffers who would make their own informal contacts within the foreign affairs bureaucracy. Furthermore, Kennedy thought that Eisenhower and Secretaries Dulles and Herter had all but ceded the newly emerging states in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the communists.
The execution of Kennedy’s foreign policy did not quite live up to the stirring rhetoric of his inaugural speech, in which he said: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” In fact, his foreign policy was marred by a string of failures.
First, Kennedy gave the green light to an Eisenhower-initiated invasion of
the Bay of
Pigs in Cuba in 1961. Based on faulty intelligence, the military
action, which was carried out by Cuban exiles without crucial air support
was a fiasco. Then in June 1961 at the Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier
Kennedy’s overall record was a mixed bag of success and failure. At the President’s urging, Congress established the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in 1961 as a separate entity under Department of State auspices. The Administration built on Eisenhower’s extensive negotiations with the Soviet Union, but the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed by Kennedy only outlawed atmospheric but not underground nuclear testing. In Vietnam, the Kennedy Administration approved the overthrow of President Diem, believing that any successor government would have to be an improvement over Diem’s. They were wrong. Finally, U.S. initiatives in Western Europe, such as support for British entry into the European Economic Community and European defense integration, also were unsuccessful.
In October 1962, the Kennedy Administration faced its most serious foreign
policy crisis.
President Kennedy with his cabinet during the Cuban Missile
Crisis
After extensive consultation with his foreign policy and military advisers,
Kennedy blockaded Cuba on October 22, 1962. The two sides stood on the brink
of nuclear war, but Khrushchev capitulated six days later and the missiles
were dismantled. In return, Kennedy disbanded its own missile sites in
The new administration hoped to infuse a new energy into the Department of State, but Kennedy made some appointments that he came to regret. For example, Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles, an old-line New Deal liberal, was not well suited to run the Department of State, as his job required. Bowles was a thinker and a grand conceptualizer, but he was not an administrator. In late November 1961, Kennedy replaced Bowles with Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs George Ball, who was the principal Europeanist in the Kennedy team at State. Walt W. Rostow transferred from the White House to be Counselor and head of the Policy Planning Staff, while Rusk’s friend George McGhee replaced Ball, and Ambassador-at-Large W. Averell Harriman became Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. The reshuffle was meant to improve both the Department’s administration and its policy role.
The Department did improve its performance somewhat in Kennedy’s eyes over time. Secretary Rusk was a key adviser during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, and other Department officials, including Llewellyn E. Thompson, played a key role as an adviser on the Soviet Union and as a drafter of letters to Khrushchev. But as a general trend during the Kennedy years, the National Security Council increased in prominence at the expense of the Department of State, and McGeorge Bundy's role as National Security Adviser grew proportionately. Although he sought to be neutral on policy matters, laying out the bureaucratic and policy options for the President, increasingly he and his active NSC staff began to shape the agenda and orchestrate the dialogue of policy debate.
Early in his administration, Kennedy clarified the role he expected ambassadors to play. In May 1961, Kennedy sent all ambassadors and department heads a letter reminding them that ambassadors were in charge of all U.S. activities in their respective countries and were responsible for all members of the mission, no matter which agency originally sent them. Kennedy was acknowledging a new reality—most major U.S. Government agencies now had overseas staff reporting to someone other than the Department of State. The President expected that those representatives would still report to their home offices in Washington, but he required them to obtain the chief of mission’s concurrence for all important cables and policy recommendations. Kennedy's letter, which also laid out appeal procedures in case of serious disagreement, was an effort to end inter-agency maneuvering and rivalry at U.S. embassies.
During these years, the Department shook off the staid pace of the Eisenhower era as its mission expanded beyond the realm of national security policy and the management of Cold War crises. Foreign Service officers performed duties that far transcended the traditional tasks of representation, negotiation, and reporting. Knowledge of scientific, economic, cultural, and social issues became essential, as many more officers were assigned to the newly emerging nations of Africa and Asia.
At the Kennedy Administration’s urging, Congress established a separate Agency for International Development (AID) in November 1961 under the ultimate authority of the Secretary of State. Walt Rostow, a former academic economist, was the leading proponent of economic development for the “Third World,” and his take-off theory of development permeated the Department and AID. Many Foreign Service officers and their Civil Service colleagues set out to change the world and bring economic development to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Lyndon B. Johnson became President after Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.
Although his foreign policy team initially remained the same, there were subtle changes. As Vice President, Johnson had been kept out of the foreign policy decision-making process by the Kennedy team. Secretary Rusk and the Department of State had often suffered similar treatment during the Kennedy years. Shared humiliation and a sense of frustration made the new President sympathetic to Rusk and the Department of State. From that point on, Rusk was a strong and influential Secretary of State. He repaid Johnson’s trust and support by loyally defending the President’s increasingly unpopular Vietnam policy to Congressional critics, the American public, and world opinion.
Privately, Johnson agonized over the consequences of the U.S. escalation in
Vietnam and raged at the incompetence of the succession of military juntas
that tried to govern that country and carry on a war against Viet Cong
guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars. Publicly, he was determined not to
lose the war. As a result, in 1968 there were 500,000 American troops in
Johnson was also concerned about Latin American policy, which was another of
his special interests. He chose Eisenhower official
During the Johnson years, complaints persisted about the Department’s management of foreign policy. In a 1966 quest for greater efficiency, the Department created “country directors” in the geographic bureaus to support chiefs of mission and their embassies. These directors formulated and communicated policy guidance and mobilized operational and administrative support for an embassy’s “country team.”
Also in 1966, Johnson made the Secretary of State formally responsible for overall direction, coordination, and supervision of interdepartmental activities overseas and created the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), chaired by the Under Secretary of State, to do just that. Several Interdepartmental Regional Groups were created to support the work of the SIG, chaired by Assistant Secretaries of State. On paper at least, the Department of State was in charge of the NSC policy process. In reality, the system did not work as planned and did not survive beyond the Johnson Administration. At least for Vietnam and a few other high-profile issues, Johnson still relied on Rusk, the Secretary of Defense, and his National Security Adviser, meeting through the mechanism of the “Tuesday lunch,” an extremely restricted version of the National Security Council.
Johnson was also a firm believer in civil rights, and his commitment directly affected the Department of State. Lyndon Johnson pushed the Department of State hard to recruit more African-Americans and women, and he made a conscious effort to increase their presence in the upper levels of the Department and its related foreign policy agencies. The Department, reflecting American racial attitudes, offered no meaningful opportunity to African-Americans for most of its existence.
While prominent African-Americans, such as the famous abolitionist, Frederick
Douglass, had represented the United States overseas during the 19th
century, in reality the only posts open to African-American men were in
black nations. Change came no more quickly in the 20th century. The first
African-American to enter the Foreign Service was “You’re not only
discriminating against us in the Service, but you’re exporting
discrimination abroad.”
Johnson’s greatest success in this
campaign was to convince prominent African-American journalist
The President was also concerned about the status of women because their role
at the Department of State had been a limited one. The Department did not
employ any women in full-time positions until 1874, and for some time
thereafter they were deemed qualified only for clerical duties. In 1905, for
example, Assistant Secretary “The greatest obstacle to the employment of women as diplomatic
agents is their well known inability to keep a secret.”
The
first woman to enter the Foreign Service did not do so until 1922, and the
first woman ambassador was not appointed until 1933.
President Johnson realized that women had not been given a fair chance in the Department of State and the Foreign Service. Although the number of women in senior positions in the Department increased 33 percent in the 1960s, women still held just 2.5 percent of senior slots. It was not until 1971, when Foreign Service officer Alison Palmer won her gender discrimination case, that the Department finally addressed long-standing problems.
The election of President Richard M. Nixon in 1968 led to important changes for the Department of State. Foreign policy had been Nixon’s specialty in Congress and as Vice President under Eisenhower. As President, he fully intended to control foreign policy and make the major decisions himself. He created an activist NSC staff under Harvard Professor Henry A. Kissinger, whom he named as his National Security Adviser. Kissinger and the NSC staff acted as a buffer between the President and his cabinet departments and agencies, analyzing their recommendations and making sure that the President’s interests were protected. Kissinger’s NSC staff analyzed all foreign policy memoranda, which were then approved by Kissinger himself before they went to the President.
Not surprisingly, President Nixon chose a Secretary of State whom he thought would not challenge him and his NSC staff. Secretary of State William P. Rogers was a former Attorney General under Eisenhower, a lawyer known for administrative and organizational skills, but not for his breadth of foreign policy expertise. The President and Kissinger reserved for themselves the big policy issues: Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and strategic arms limitation. They set up special communications channels on these issues unknown to the rest of the bureaucracy, withheld information, and excluded Rogers and other official NSC members from key meetings. Part of the problem was the President’s aversion to large gatherings and his reclusive personality. Kissinger’s penchant for secrecy and his natural rivalry with Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird were other contributing factors.
President Nixon pursued two important policies that both culminated in 1972. In February he visited Beijing, setting in motion normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China. In May, he traveled to the Soviet Union and signed agreements that contained the results of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks (SALT I), and new negotiations were begun to extend further arms control and disarmament measures.
These developments marked the beginning of a period of “détente” in line with a general tendency among Americans to favor a lower profile in world affairs after the Vietnam War, which finally ended in 1975 with the last withdrawal of U.S. personnel. While improvements in relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China signaled a possible thaw in the Cold War, they did not lead to general improvement in the international climate. The international economy experienced considerable instability, leading to a significant modification of the international financial system in place since the end of World War II.
During the Nixon Administration, international scientific, technological, and
environmental issues grew in prominence. In October 1973, Congress passed
legislation creating the Bureau of Oceans and International Environments and
Scientific Affairs (OES), to handle environmental issues, weather, oceans,
Antarctic affairs, atmosphere, fisheries, wildlife conservation, health, and
population matters. The Department had difficulty filling the new Assistant
Secretary position until January 1975, when the former Atomic Energy
Commissioner,
Although Secretary Rogers still had broad responsibility for foreign policy, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and international organizations, the Department of State resented its exclusion from key policy decisions, and the Secretary continually fought to make his views known.
During 1973, the Watergate scandal proved a major distraction to the nation and overshadowed any achievements President Nixon gained in foreign affairs. When the President focused on foreign policy, he was accused of trying to distract public attention from charges of abuse of power and avoiding the impeachment process. Disappointed by the Watergate scandal and tired of fighting bureaucratic battles, Secretary Rogers resigned on September 3, 1973. President Nixon named Kissinger as Secretary of State—in addition to his role as National Security Adviser. With one man doing both jobs, the problems that Rogers faced disappeared, but Kissinger at times found himself in an awkward position when, as National Security Adviser, he had to make judgments on the Department of State’s position.
Many of Kissinger’s NSC staff moved to important positions in the Department, creating an inner circle within the agency. In 1973, Winston Lord became Director of the Policy Planning Staff, and Helmut Sonnenfeldt became Counselor. In 1975, Lawrence Eagleburger was confirmed as Under Secretary of State for Management, and Harold Saunders took over as the Director of Intelligence and Research.
Kissinger was a very demanding Secretary of State; he was hard on his staff and hard on himself. He worked a brutal number of hours seven days a week, and he expected his aides to do the same. In the course of his tenure as Secretary of State, he flew 565,000 miles, making 213 visits to foreign countries. He once visited 17 countries in 18 days, and after the October 1973 war, Kissinger spent 33 consecutive days in the Middle East negotiating disengagement between Israel and Syria. Despite his self-admitted “merciless driving” of his staff, morale improved at the Department during his tenure as Secretary. Foreign Service officers and Civil Servants appreciated his conceptual abilities as a strategist. They were also relieved that under his stewardship the Department of State was once again at the center of the foreign policy process. As Kissinger tackled all the complexities that faced a Secretary of State, he came to rely more and more upon the Department’s permanent staff.
Because of growing Congressional and public disapproval of the fact that Kissinger was wearing two hats, he resigned as National Security Adviser in late 1975. Nixon’s successor, President Gerald R. Ford, named Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, Kissinger’s deputy at the NSC, as National Security Adviser.
The election of Democrat Jimmy Carter as President in 1976 brought a new emphasis, based on Carter’s personal ideology, to U.S. foreign policy. Carter believed that the nation’s foreign policy should reflect its highest moral principles—a definite break with the policy and practices of the Nixon Administration. In 1977, Carter said, “For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is sometimes best quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence.”
Carter refused to continue the past practice of overlooking the human rights abuses of our own allies, and was particularly tough on South Korea, Iran, Argentina, South Africa, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). He also ended more than 30 years of U.S. political and military support to one of Latin America’s most abusive leaders—President Somoza of Nicaragua.
Carter clearly defined the foundation of his foreign policy: “Our policy is based on an historical vision of America’s role. Our policy is derived from a larger view of global change. Our policy is rooted in our moral values, which never change. Our policy is reinforced by our material wealth and by our military power. Our policy is designed to serve mankind.”
Initially, the diplomatic initiatives of President Carter and Secretary Vance were quite successful. In 1978, the Administration completed the process begun during the Nixon Administration and normalized relations with mainland China. President Carter himself facilitated the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, which paved the way for new progress in the Middle East and an end to the long-running hostilities between the two sides. Carter and Vance also persuaded the Senate to consent to a treaty promising to return the Panama Canal to Panamanian control by 1999. In 1979, President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a follow-on nuclear arms control agreement, known as SALT II.
Carter’s new emphasis on human rights led to a Congressional requirement for the annual submission by the Department of State of “a full and complete report” on human rights practices around the world. The first volume of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices covered the year 1976 and was released in 1977. In less than 300 pages, the report analyzed the situation in 82 countries. In contrast, 195 individual reports were included in the volume for the year 2000, covering virtually every country in the world, and the overall report was about 6,000 pages long.
President Jimmy Carter’s new emphasis in foreign policy brought a new approach to policymaking to the Department of State. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was a soft-spoken man with extensive experience in international law and previous service as Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Johnson.
He believed strongly in teamwork and focused on making the Department function smoothly and efficiently. Initially, Vance was aided by President Carter’s determination to cut down the size and influence of the NSC, which Carter believed had become too powerful under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Under Vance, the organization charts actually followed the lines of authority. A high proportion of Vance’s assistant secretaries, especially those in the geographic bureaus, were Foreign Service officers. Vance believed in delegation, and he encouraged ambassadors to play a role in policy formulation. He promoted affirmative action and during his tenure, minority Foreign Service officers increased from six to 11 percent and women from 10 to 14 percent of the service. African-American Ambassadors were no longer a rarity—President Carter appointed 14 during his four years in office.
Under Vance, the Department of State expanded the role of
ambassadors-at-large as government-wide coordinators. Ambassador-at-Large
Representing the United States abroad has been a dangerous job since the
beginning of the Republic, but that was never truer than during the Carter
Administration. In the wake of a successful revolution by Islamic
fundamentalists against the pro-American Shah of Iran, the United States
became an object of virulent criticism and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was a
visible target. On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the embassy and
detained more than 50 Americans, ranging from the Chargé d’Affaires to the
most junior members of the staff, as hostages. The Iranians held the
American diplomats hostage for 444 days. While the courage of the American
hostages in
The Administration’s vitality was sapped, and the
In light of these challenges to global stability, President Carter
significantly altered his view of both the Soviet Union and the advice of
his own advisers. Carter initially favored Secretary Vance’s
policy of negotiation, but by 1980 was more receptive to National Security
Adviser
In 1980, Congress passed the landmark Foreign Service Act, the first new legislation on the service since 1946, designed to address problems both at home and overseas. The act was the culmination of reform initiated by Vance and Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher and implemented by Under Secretary of State for Management Benjamin Read.
The act created a Senior Foreign Service (SFS) to address a real problem—there were too many senior officers and not enough senior posts. Now, the number of senior personnel would be related to the number of available jobs. Those who did not pass the close scrutiny and rigorous standards for the SFS would be assured a 20-year career and a pension. Foreign Service pay was raised and overseas allowances and spousal rights were liberalized. The Foreign Service Reserve System ended with the acknowledgement that it that had not worked as planned, and specialists who had been part of the “Wristonization” experiment of the 1950s were transferred back into the Civil Service. The act created a Foreign Service of 6,850 people and a domestic work force of 3,800 Civil Servants, for a total of about 10,650 employees.
The Foreign Service Act encouraged qualities in the Foreign Service that were
essential to the modern practice of diplomacy. Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs
Republican Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 presidential election. Although Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher had completed negotiations under Algerian auspices to free the American hostages in Tehran, President Carter and Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie, suffered to their last day in office. On January 20, 1981, the hostages were finally freed—but only after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as president.
The Carter Administration, which had begun with such high hopes, ended its term locked in a cold freeze with the Soviet Union, including escalating confrontations in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The good work it had accomplished during its early years faded in popular memory.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
President Reagan entered office in January 1981, determined to contain, if not “roll back,” Soviet expansionism in global trouble spots such as Afghanistan and Angola. The United States and its European allies found themselves in frequent disagreement over the western response to Soviet moves against the burgeoning Solidarity movement in Poland and European participation in the Soviet natural gas pipeline from Western Europe to Siberia. The Reagan Administration adopted a two-pronged approach to authoritarian governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Central Intelligence Agency provided military assistance for “freedom fighters” to combat left-wing regimes, while the Department of State provided diplomatic incentives for right-wing regimes to allow free elections.
The new President acknowledged his own lack of experience in international affairs, and nominated a recognized authority in the field, General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., as Secretary of State. Although Haig was a military man, he was politically adept and played a key role in domestic as well as foreign policy under President Nixon. A former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. European Command, Haig was also well versed in current military strategy on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
During the transition, Reagan assured Haig that his administration would speak with one voice on foreign policy—but the reality was sometimes different. Haig described his role as the “vicar” for the “formulation, conduct, and articulation of foreign policy.” But because Haig had no prior personal relationship with the President and White House advisers strictly controlled access to the Oval Office, there was little policy coordination and the government spoke with several voices on foreign policy. Both sides were suspicious of the other and refused to send Reagan a draft directive defining National Security Council responsibilities. As a result, during its first year the Administration lacked the traditional foreign affairs machinery necessary to coordinate long-term planning. Foreign policy decision-making was chaotic.
As Secretary, Haig did exercise control over the decision-making process within the Department of State. Deputy Secretary of State William P. Clark, although lacking deep experience in foreign affairs, was a personal friend of the President whom Haig expected to act as an “interpreter” between the Department of State and the White House. Haig selected Walter J. Stoessel, Jr. as Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the highest post in the Department reserved by tradition for career Foreign Service officers. Within a year, Clark moved to the White House as National Security Adviser and Stoessel was promoted, becoming the first Foreign Service officer to serve as Deputy Secretary of State.
Four of the five Assistant Secretaries for the geographic bureaus were also career appointees, including Stoessel’s eventual replacement, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs. But only one of Haig’s five appointees, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen, remained on the job for eight years.
In addition to Robert C. McFarlane, who became Counselor of the Department, Haig tapped several outside experts in national security affairs, including Paul D. Wolfowitz for Director of the Policy Planning Staff and Richard R. Burt for Director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs. Wolfowitz, Burt, and McFarlane functioned as the Secretary’s “brain trust” to generate ideas outside the normal Foreign Service and Civil Service channels.
The Reagan Administration also came to Washington determined to combat communism—especially in Latin America. Reagan and his advisers focused in particular on El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Haig decided to make El Salvador a "test case" of his foreign policy. Conflicts between the White House and the State Department and with the Congress, however, frustrated the Administration’s bold plans. While Haig sought a significant increase in military assistance to El Salvador, Congress made certification of progress on human rights a quid pro quo. The two branches of government clashed regularly over assistance and certification.
Administration officials also disagreed on China policy. For over a decade, the White House had managed most high-level contacts between Washington and Beijing. Under Haig, the Department of State assumed primary responsibility for the formulation and implementation of the Administration's China policy. Haig wanted to transform the informal alliance with China into a “strategic association” to block Soviet “hegemony” in Asia, but the President insisted on loyalty to Taiwan. The Administration debate on Taiwan, especially over the sale of military aircraft, resulted in a crisis in relations with China, which was only alleviated in August 1982, when, after months of arduous negotiations, the United States and China issued a joint communiqué on Taiwan in which the United States agreed to limit arms sales and China agreed to seek a “peaceful solution.”
In the critical Middle East region, the White House, preoccupied with its domestic agenda, largely deferred to the Department of State and its Foreign Service experts. The Department continued negotiations to implement the Camp David Peace Accords, a task complicated by the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat in October 1981, and the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Philip C. Habib, the President’s special envoy, conducted Kissinger-like shuttle diplomacy to reach a ceasefire agreement.
After Secretary Haig resigned in late June 1982, citing a recent shift from the "careful course" of the Administration’s foreign policy, Reagan turned to George P. Shultz, who would serve as Secretary of State for 6-1/2 years—the longest tenure since Dean Rusk in the 1960s. An economist by training, Shultz had held three cabinet-level posts during the Nixon Administration and brought to the job of Secretary of State long experience in government and economic diplomacy. Despite his frequent clashes with Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger over major issues of foreign policy, Shultz forged an effective partnership with President Reagan by the end of the President's first term. Shultz deferred to Reagan on major foreign policy decisions, while Reagan delegated to Shultz the details of diplomacy.
Shultz relied primarily on the Foreign Service to formulate and implement the Reagan’s foreign policy. However, he believed that the Deputy Secretary of State should be a political appointee, as familiar with senior officials in the White House as with those in the Department. He first selected Kenneth W. Dam, a law professor, to serve as his alter ego; in June 1985, Shultz recruited John C. Whitehead, an investment banker, to fill the post. Many of the principal officers appointed by Haig remained to serve under the new Secretary. Eagleburger, for example, stayed as Under Secretary for Political Affairs until May 1984, when another career appointee, Michael H. Armacost, replaced him. By the summer of 1985, Shultz had personally selected most of the senior officials in the Department, emphasizing professional over political credentials in the process.
In his farewell address to the Department, Shultz commented that the decision to surround himself with Foreign Service officers had been “one of the smartest things I’ve done.” The Foreign Service responded in kind by giving Shultz its “complete support,” making him one of the most popular Secretaries since Dean Acheson.
From 1982 to 1989, Shultz was the driving force behind the Administration’s effort to promote peace between Israel and its neighbors. In response to the escalating violence in the region, Reagan sent a Marine contingent to protect the Palestinian refugee camps and support the Lebanese Government. After a year of sustained diplomatic effort, the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 U.S. servicemen, the most serious foreign policy reversal of Reagan’s first term.
Reagan’s decision to give the National Security Council staff operational responsibility in the Middle East led to the most serious setback of his second term, the Iran-Contra affair, when Administration officials devised a complicated covert plan to raise money for the anti-government “contra” forces in Nicaragua through the sale of missiles to Iran. The resulting controversy allowed the Department of State to resume control of Middle East policy. By December 1987, Shultz had assembled a strong team of professionals when the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, challenged Israeli authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. After six months of shuttle diplomacy, Shultz had established a diplomatic dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization in December 1988, laying the groundwork for further negotiations during the next administration.
Shultz believed that the Department’s most important task was the conduct of its Soviet and European diplomacy. By the summer of 1982, relations were strained not only between Washington and Moscow but also between Washington and key capitals in Western Europe. In response to the imposition of martial law in Poland the previous December, the Reagan administration had prohibited U.S. companies as well as their European subsidiaries or licensees from involvement in the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Siberia to West Germany. European leaders vigorously protested sanctions that damaged their interests in the pipeline but not U.S. interests in grain sales to the Soviet Union. Shultz finally resolved this “poisonous problem” in December 1982. The Americans agreed to abandon sanctions against the pipeline, and the Europeans agreed to adopt stricter controls on strategic trade with the Soviets.
A more controversial issue was the NATO Ministers’ 1979 “dual track” decision: if the Soviets refused to remove their SS-20 medium range ballistic missiles within four years, then the Allies would deploy a countervailing force of cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. When negotiations on these intermediate nuclear forces (INF) stalled, 1983 became a year of the protest. Shultz and other Western leaders worked hard to maintain allied unity amidst popular anti-nuclear demonstrations in Europe and United States. In spite of Western protests and Soviet propaganda, the allies began deployment of the missiles as scheduled in November 1983.
As the missiles were installed, Shultz thought the time was right “to resume a dialogue with the Soviets if we could.” But Secretary Shultz was out of sync with the President and his hard-line advisers. In March 1983, the President announced the Strategic Defense Initiative and called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”—without consulting the Secretary of State beforehand.
The policy struggle in Washington further intensified when a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, emerged in March 1985. In order to restructure the Soviet economy and reform domestic society, Gorbachev needed to reduce military spending at home and political tensions abroad. His goal was a fundamental change in the relationship between the superpowers and his method was arms control agreements. Shultz encouraged Reagan to develop a personal relationship with Gorbachev. Reagan and Gorbachev held four summit meetings between November 1985 and May 1988 in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow.
Their personal relationship produced its most practical result in December 1987, when the two leaders signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The treaty, which eliminated an entire class of missiles in Europe, was a milestone in the history of the Cold War. Although Gorbachev took the initiative, Reagan was well prepared to adopt a policy of negotiations. Shultz and the Department of State played a key role in this diplomatic approach.
The Department of State has at times been more adept at the formulation of policy than the management of its resources. The Reagan Administration was no exception. The Under Secretary for Management was described at the time as responsible for “keeping the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy in paper clips and the embassies stocked with gin and hors-d'oeuvres.” This attitude was further reflected in the fact that Richard T. Kennedy, who held the position during Haig’s tenure, also served as the U.S. Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The American Foreign Service Association complained that Kennedy was therefore unable to devote enough attention to the Department’s budget and personnel. Secretary Shultz assigned a higher priority to management and chose Ronald I. Spiers, the first and only career appointee to serve as Under Secretary for Management. Spiers held the job for five years—longer than anyone else before him.
The Department of State faced additional challenges in managing its budget and personnel. “Reaganomics”—the effort to cut government expenditures and revenues despite a dramatic increase in defense spending—left little money to improve the state of the nation's diplomatic machinery. During the Reagan Administration, the Department of Commerce was the only cabinet-level agency to receive a smaller portion of the budget than the State Department. From 1981 to 1988, spending for State Department operations and programs decreased as a percentage not only of the federal budget but also of the gross domestic product. The financial situation deteriorated in particular when Congress passed the so-called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in 1985, which mandated spending cuts to reduce the federal budget deficit. Under Gramm-Rudman, the Department endured what one high-level official called “its worst budget crisis in modern times.” Shultz pleaded for budgetary relief every year and some cuts were restored, but the Department’s infrastructure and employee morale were damaged by the forced economies.
The process of appointment of principal officers in the Department of State and ambassadors became increasingly politicized during the Reagan Administration, with some appointments causing controversy. Reagan was forced to withdraw the nomination of Ernest Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs when a majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concluded that he was not an advocate for human rights and rejected his nomination.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980 stipulated that the President should “normally” appoint Foreign Service officers, not political supporters, as ambassadors. Nonetheless, during his first term Reagan proposed nearly as many political as Foreign Service ambassadors. The American Foreign Service Association charged in 1981 that this record made “a mockery of the careful selection and long and varied experience which professional career officers bring to senior assignments within the service.” Although Shultz reversed the trend, the number of non-career ambassadors was higher under Reagan than under any President since Herbert Hoover. Although Reagan made some distinguished appointments from outside the Foreign Service—such as Arthur Burns in Bonn—his critics pointed to ambassadors of lesser distinction. Spiers publicly complained in 1987 that such appointments demonstrated “a lack of respect” that would “have a corrosive effect on the career service.”
The Department also began the implementation of the Foreign Service Act of 1980. Although the creation of a Senior Foreign Service was designed to advance some officers to the highest ranks, the “up-or-out” promotion system forced many—including those with valuable language and area expertise—into early retirement. The Department offered “limited career extensions” for those retirees whose experience merited retention but not promotion. The “up-or-out” system, however, left too many officers down and out, resulting in a serious threat to morale. In 1988, Congress temporarily suspended the system pending a thorough review of its impact on the service.
Throughout the decade, the Foreign Service also faced the public perception that it had become the last refuge of an elitist group of white men. In accordance with the 1980 act, the Department tried to make the service more “representative of the American people” by recruiting, hiring, and promoting women and minorities. From 1980 to 1990, the percentage of women in the Foreign Service doubled to nearly 25 percent, although the percentage of minorities rose by only one-quarter to 12.5 percent. In spite of “substantial progress,” Spiers conceded in 1985 that the lack of equal opportunity was still a serious problem, as reflected by the low number of women and minorities serving in the Senior Foreign Service. Despite the new emphasis on diversity, allegations of discrimination persisted. The Department continued to fight two lawsuits--one filed by women in 1976 and the other by African-Americans in 1986--that claimed a systematic denial of promotion and career opportunity.
During the 1980s, the Department of State spent more time and money than ever before on the security of its posts and personnel. From 1980 to 1989, more U.S. civilians died overseas in the line of duty than during the entire 19th century. The Department did not address security matters fully until after two devastating terrorist attacks on U.S. installations: In April 1983, a truck loaded with explosives blew up outside the embassy in Beirut, killing 63 employees, including 17 U.S. diplomatic and military personnel; and in September 1985, another explosion at the Embassy killed an additional 12 Foreign Service nationals. After a thorough study of the terrorist threat against U.S. diplomatic installations, the Department, with Congressional approval, began a $1-billion program for more than 60 construction projects worldwide.
U.S. installations abroad also remained a primary target for espionage, particularly by the Soviet Union. Twice in one year, the Department learned that the Soviet intelligence agency had seriously compromised security at the embassy in Moscow. In January 1985, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that one of its security guards at the Embassy had passed classified information to a Russian woman. In August of the same year, the Department ceased construction on the new embassy building, when an inspection revealed that Soviet intelligence agents had embedded countless listening devices in the concrete. After a comprehensive review of the project and years of debate in Congress, the Clinton Administration finally adopted many of the recommendations of the inspection report. By then, the unfinished embassy had become the most expensive construction project in U.S. diplomatic history.
During most of the Cold War, the Secretary of State and the National Security
Adviser competed for influence over the President’s foreign policy.
Presidential candidate
Bush brought his own considerable foreign policy experience to the presidency. In addition to his eight years as Vice President, he had served as Ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. envoy to the People’s Republic of China, and as Director of the CIA. Bush was at the helm of a smooth-functioning national security team comprised of Secretary Baker, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin L. Powell. Although intense policy differences occurred, a collegial approach to foreign policy-making was the norm, especially in the “breakfast group” of Baker, Cheney, and Scowcroft, which met weekly to iron out problems that could not be resolved through the bureaucratic channels of interdepartmental meetings or the deputies committee system.
With the end of the Cold War, the Bush foreign policy team faced such radical and rapid global changes that the Department of State seemed capable only of reacting to events. The collapse of first the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union itself, the reunification of Germany, the end of apartheid in South Africa, pro-democracy demonstrations in China’s Tiananmen Square, the international coalition formed to combat Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the Middle East stretched the ability of the U.S. foreign policy establishment—from the President to the Department of State—to stay in front of events and formulate policy.
Despite Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, the fate of Soviet reforms remained unknown. During his first summit meeting, when Bush asked what the Soviet Union would look like in several years, Gorbachev quipped, “Even Jesus Christ couldn’t answer that question!” Lacking both clairvoyance and an internal Soviet monitoring system, the Department of State struggled to keep abreast of the rapid changes within the disintegrating Soviet empire. Initially, the Department lagged behind the NSC in pushing the President to move U.S.-Soviet relations beyond confrontation to a period of engagement. Secretary of State Baker argued that until the division of Europe ended, the Administration had to be cautious about prematurely declaring an end to the Cold War.
Secretary Baker relied heavily on a trio of close advisers. He named Dennis Ross, a specialist on Soviet and Middle Eastern affairs, as Director of the Policy Planning staff. Ross operated as virtually a one-man command staff, proposing positions on critical issues that Baker often adopted wholesale. Equally influential was Robert Zoellick, dubbed the Secretary’s “second brain” by journalists. Appointed Counselor of the Department, Zoellick served as Baker’s “gatekeeper” for policy papers and personnel access. He also became the chief sub cabinet official on German reunification. To ensure that the Department’s views were presented to the public as Baker wanted, he appointed former Treasury staff aide Margaret deB. Tutwiler as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman. Baker’s key aides built a valuable working partnership with their counterparts at the NSC, forging an alliance that oversaw German reunification and provided critical support for democratic change in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe.
Bush’s own active involvement and direct communications with foreign leaders surprised many career officers at the Department, and not everyone was comfortable with informal lines of communication. Vernon Walters, the U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, reportedly resigned in part due to frustration after continuously hearing second-hand reports from the West German Foreign Ministry of agreements reached independently by Bush and Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Initially, Department of State officials and Bush’s foreign policy team were reluctant to speak publicly about German “reunification” due to fear that hard-liners in both the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Soviet Union would stymie reform. Although changes in the GDR leadership and encouraging speeches by Gorbachev about nonintervention in Eastern Europe boded well for reunification, the world was taken by surprise when, during the night of November 9, 1989, crowds of Germans began dismantling the Berlin Wall—a barrier that for almost 30 years had symbolized the Cold War division of Europe. By October 1990, Germany was reunified, triggering the swift collapse of the other East European regimes.
Thirteen months later, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved. President Bush and his chief foreign policy advisers were more pro-active toward Russia and the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Communist monolith than while it was teetering. In a series of summits during the next year with the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Bush pledged $4.5-billion to support economic reform in Russia, as well as additional credit guarantees and technical assistance.
The two former Cold War adversaries lifted restrictions on the numbers and movement of diplomatic, consular, and official personnel. They also agreed to continue the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty negotiations (START), begun before the collapse of the Soviet Union, which set a goal of reducing their strategic nuclear arsenals from approximately 12,000 warheads to 3,000-3,500 warheads by 2003. In January 1993, three weeks before leaving office, Bush traveled to Moscow to sign the START II Treaty that codified those nuclear reductions.
Rapid change in Europe was mirrored by equally complex problems in China,
South Asia, and the Korean peninsula. In the
In an effort to improve U.S. relations with China, Bush sent Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft on a secret trip to China in July 1989. When word of their visit became public several months later, the President was criticized for pursuing “constructive engagement” with the Chinese Communist government so soon after the Tiananmen Square killings and his announcement of a U.S. ban on all high-level talks between the two countries.
Unlike the serious human rights abuses in China, the changes taking place in South Africa signaled a peaceful end to the practice of apartheid. Secretary Baker described U.S. policy as a “classic carrot-and-stick strategy,” in which the Department of State issued threats of continued sanctions as well as invitations to the United States to both black and white South African leaders as incentives to end apartheid. The Department’s African Bureau took the lead. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen met privately with South African President F.W. de Klerk to inquire whether he was prepared to end apartheid.
By late 1989, de Klerk had desegregated many public places, released numerous African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid political prisoners, and discussed black-white power sharing. A few months later, de Klerk released Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years of incarceration. Mandela proved to be a potent symbol of national healing, respected by most blacks and whites in South Africa. Recognizing that the government was on a course toward a nonracial, multiparty democracy, the ANC soon ended its policy of armed struggle against the South African Government.
The Department of State’s African Bureau also played a critical role in bringing about the end of the proxy war in Angola between the pro-Soviet and pro-U.S. factions. In the spring of 1991, Cohen conducted negotiations with the Soviets that ended more than 20 years of support for guerrilla warfare between contending groups, although peace remained elusive in that war-ravaged country.
Of all the policy successes during this era, the Department of State and President Bush are most clearly associated with the successful effort to roll back the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
When Saddam Hussein invaded his small, oil-rich neighbor in the summer of
1990, the Department faced its first full-scale post-Cold War international
crisis. Bush’s foreign policy team forged an unprecedented international
coalition consisting of the NATO allies and the Middle Eastern countries of
During the Gulf crisis, Secretary of State Baker relied heavily on two men—John Bolton, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, who played a significant role in coordinating relations with the United Nations, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert Kimmitt, who was Baker’s day-to-day crisis manager. One innovation that greatly facilitated decision-making during the Gulf War was the use of teleconferences, which saved many hours of travel time. Instead, Baker and others could communicate and display charts through cameras and television screens.
After the success in Kuwait, President Bush paid special tribute to the Foreign Service officers who labor in relative obscurity until they are caught up in a dangerous conflict or become the victims of international terrorism. President Bush made a special visit to the Department of State to honor 33 employees for their service at our embassies in Baghdad and Kuwait, which included finding food and supplies for trapped Americans in those countries and helping children to safe havens after fighting erupted. Acknowledging the peril most Americans never see, Bush said, “I know that often your jobs are not comfortable or safe.”
Iraq was not the only trouble spot in the Middle East during Bush’s four years in office. The perennial tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors continued to test the expertise of the many U.S. ambassadors and area experts. Baker’s personal involvement, reflected in numerous trips to the region, helped bring about the first face-to-face talks between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors in Madrid, beginning in October 1991. Secretary Baker’s “shuttle diplomacy” rivaled Henry Kissinger’s in 1974. From the beginning of Baker’s tenure until August 23, 1992, when he resigned to become White House Chief of Staff, he made 217 trips abroad.
Lawrence Eagleburger, who succeeded Baker, became the first Foreign Service officer to serve as Secretary of State. During a 27-year government career, Eagleburger had been a staffer for Kissinger’s National Security Council, and held numerous senior positions at the Department of State, including Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Deputy Under Secretary for Management, and Assistant Secretary for European Affairs. Eagleburger's appointment reflected Bush’s deep respect for the Foreign Service. Bush compiled an impressive record of nominating career officers to ambassadorships (72 percent), one of the best records for all Presidents in the post-1945 era.
As the 1990s began, the Cold War was finally over and the United States was the sole remaining superpower. But hopes for a safer, more peaceful world would be dashed as regional conflicts and global problems challenged the American foreign policy establishment to chart a new course for the United States.