Excerpts from Address at a Meeting of the American foreign Service Association.

THE foreign Service, as all of you know, was formed, or at least the State Department was, on July 27, 1789, when George Washington signed the Act establishing the Department of foreign Affairs. This Act provided that the Secretary should conduct the business of the Department, and I quote: "... in such manner as the President of the United States shall from time to time order or instruct."

That is my mandate to involve myself in your business, and I want to say that I do not think that there is any responsibility placed upon the President of the United States, even including that of Commander in Chief, which is more pressing, which is more powerful, which is more singularly held in the Executive (as opposed to so many other powers in the Constitution, which are held between Congress and the Executive) than that which is involved in foreign policy.

I know that many foreign Service officers feel (like former Marines, who believe that the old days were the best days) that the days before World War II were the golden days of the foreign Service, that since then the foreign Service has fallen on hard times and that there is a good deal of uncertainty about what the future may bring.

I would like to differ with that view completely. In my opinion, today, as never before, is the golden period of the Foreign Service.

In the days before the War, we dealt with a few countries and a few leaders. I remember what Ambassador Dawes said, that the job was hard on the feet and easy on the brain. Theodore Roosevelt talked about those who resided in the foreign Service rather than working in it. We were an isolationist country, by tradition and by policy and by statute. And therefore those of you who lived in the foreign Service led a rather isolated life, dealing with comparatively few people, uninvolved in the affairs of this country or in many ways in the affairs of the country to which you may have been accredited.

That is all changed now. The power and influence of the United States are involved in the national life of dozens of countries that did not exist before 1945, many of which are so hard-pressed.

This is the great period of the foreign Service, much greater than any period that has gone before. And it will be so through this decade, and perhaps even more in the years to come, if we are able to maintain ourselves with success.

But it places the heaviest burdens upon all of you. Instead of becoming merely experts in diplomatic history, or in current clippings from the New York Times, now you have to involve yourselves in every element of foreign life--labor, the class struggle, cultural affairs, and all the rest--attempting to predict in what direction the forces will move. The Ambassador has to be the master of all these things, as well as knowing his own country. Now you have to know all about the United States, every facet of its life, all the great reforms of the thirties, the forties and the fifties, if you are going to represent the United States powerfully and with strength and with vigor. When you represent the United States today, it is not a question of being accredited to a few people whose tenure is certain, but instead, of making predictions about what will be important events, what will be the elements of power or the elements of struggle, and which way we should move. And this calls for the finest judgment.

In the foreign Service today you have a great chance and a great opportunity. And I hope that you recognize it, and realize that on your decisions hang the well-being and the future of this country.

There is a feeling, I think, in the foreign Service, that the State Department and the foreign Service are constantly under attack. Well, I would give two answers to that. In the first place, the questions with which you are dealing are so sophisticated and so technical that people who are not intimately involved week after week, month after month, reach judgments which are based upon emotion rather than knowledge of the real alternatives. They are bound to disagree and they are bound to focus their attacks upon the Department of State and upon the White House and upon the President of the United States. And in addition, party division in this country, where the parties are split almost evenly, and in spite of the long tradition of bi-partisanship, accentuates the criticisms to which the Department of State and the White House are subjected.

If change were easy, everybody would change. But if you did not have change, you would have revolution. I think that change is what we need in a changing world, and therefore when we embark on new policies, we drag along all the anchors of old opinions and old views. You just have to put up with it. Those who cannot stand the heat should get out of the kitchen. Every member of Congress who subjects you to abuse is being subjected himself, every 2 years, to the possibility that his career also will come to an end. He doesn't live a charmed life. You have to remember that the hot breath is on him also, and it is on the Senate and it is on the President, and it is on everyone who deals with great matters.

This is not an easy career, to be a foreign Service officer. It is not an easy life. The foreign Service and the White House are bound to be in the center of every great controversy involving the security of the United States, and there is nothing you can do about it. You have to recognize that ultimately you will be subjected, as an institution, to the criticisms of the uninformed, and to attacks which are in many cases malicious and in many cases self-serving. But either you have to be able to put up with it, or you have to pick a more secluded spot.

Personally, I think the place to be is in the kitchen, and I am sure the foreign Service officers of the United States feel the same way.

One of the other points which I know is of concern, is this question of career versus non-career.

The pressures which come upon a President, as you know, arc many. We try to do our best in picking the best man available. We have a higher percentage of ambassadorial posts occupied by career men, 68 percent, than at almost any time in this century, with the exception of a few months at the end of 1959.

My own feeling is that there is a place for the non-career Ambassador--not for political reasons, but when he happens to be the best man available. For example, Mr. Reischauer happens to have special skills in Japan; he has a knowledge of Japanese and of the history of the country, and he has a Japanese wife. I had only met Mr. Reischauer when he came to call on me to go to Japan. But his was a distinguished appointment, and to a country which has an intellectual tradition. My feeling is we should send career men, to the maximum extent possible, unless there happen to be special skills which a noncareer officer holds.

On the other hand, the career men themselves have to be of the best quality. You cannot expect any President or Secretary of State, merely to please the career officers, to send a career officer to a post if he is not the best. He should be the best. After 10 or 20 years in the Service, he should be the best, in language, in knowledge, in experience. He should be able to stand up to any competition. If we get the best we can get in the foreign Service at the beginning, every post will go to a foreign Service officer. I am sure that all a foreign Service officer asks is to be judged fairly, without bringing in extraneous circumstances, on this basis of judgment: who is the best man for that post at that time, given the situation in the United States and the situation in that country? That should be the standard.

Now in some cases it will be a noncareer appointment, but in many cases, in my judgment, we will end up with the best man available, and he will be a foreign Service officer.

Lastly, I want to say one word about the next year or so. We are in a very changing period. Our policies are changing, and should change, and we are very much dependent upon the Department of State for action, for speed, for judgment, and for ideas. I know the difficulty of attempting to clear policy and of coordinating it between the Department of State, the CIA, the Defense Department, the White House, the Export-Import Bank, the Treasury Department, the Department of Commerce, and the Congress. But nevertheless, it does seem to me that in the days that are coming, we want, first, action in the sense that we should bring these matters to a head and do it with speed if we can. And still more, we need a sense of responsibility and judgment in order to get the work out--not action for action's sake. We must not become so enmeshed in our bureaucracy that four or five over-burdened men make decisions which should come from the Department itself with some speed and action.

Another point, of course, is that we should have, at least at the White House, Department of State, and Secretary of State levels, evidence of dissent and controversy. We have had some new ideas in the last year in foreign policy; some new approaches have been made. We want them to come out of the State Department with more speed. What opportunities do we have to improve our policies abroad? How, for example can we make the Alliance for Progress more effective? We are waiting for you to come forward, because we want you to know that I regard the Office of the Presidency and the White House, and the Secretary of State and the Department, as part of one chain, not separate but united, and committed to the maintenance of an effective foreign policy for the United States of America.

Therefore, in the final analysis, it depends on you.

That is why I believe this is the best period to be a foreign Service officer. That is why I believe that the best talent that we have should come into the foreign Service, because you today--even more than any other branch of Government--are in the front line in every country of the world.