1840 



In this connection the author cites a 1973 study by a panel of the 

 United Nations Association : 



The United States Government [like American society as a whole] is increas- 

 ingly part of an interdependent world, but its organization and procedures still 

 reflect earlier, simpler times when nation states could on most matters safely 

 deal with each other at arms length and through career foreign services. In today's 

 world, international relations are of necessity pervasive, technical, continuous, 

 and intimately involved with domestic issues, and this requires new styles and new 

 systems of governmental organization and process, which rely far more than in 

 the past on a wide range of professional participation in policymaking. 



Compared to the resources lavished on management improvements in a single 

 large multinational corporation, those being devoted to the far more important 

 and difficult problems of improving the organization of the government in a 

 multinational setting are pitiful. (United Nations Association of the United 

 States of America, National Pohcy Panel, Foreign. Policy Decisionmaking: The 

 New Dimensions, New York, UNA-USA, May 1973, pp. 101-102.) 



Amon^ other things, the UNA panel report noted, "httle in FSO 

 diplomatic training prepares them for . . . diplomacy in multinational 

 forums." Yet ever since World War II a substantial and increasing 

 part of the diplomat's responsibiUties has concerned multilateral 

 matters. Harlan Cleveland comments in 1975 that: 



In the late '60s, when I had occasion to visit every US mission in NATO 

 Europe, I made a point of asking what proportion of the business on each 

 Ambassador's desk was strictly bilateral business, and what proportion was 

 essentially bilateral conversation about business done multilaterally. My estimate 

 at the time was that the multilateral content of bilateral diplomacy ranged 

 between 60-76%; now, half a decade later, the average is probably at the high 

 end of that range. Some idea of the pervasiveness of multilateral processes can 

 be derived from the sheer numbers of meetings held each year. The United States 

 Government was officially represented at 740 international conferences last year, 

 and several thousand private international meetings eiigaged the attention and 

 attendance of private American organizations. 5" 



Cleveland's analysis of the shortcomings of the State Department 

 and of the U.S. Government roughly parallels that of the present study. 

 Stating that "the organization of our Federal Government for the 

 management of international affairs is still based on . . . assumptions 

 which are quite inconsistent with the facts of international life," he 

 comments that the Government is unambiguously divided between 

 "domestic" and "foreign" affairs and that the management of "foreign 

 affairs" is heavily weighted toward the administration of bilateral 

 relations with other countries. "Because most of the talent is thinking 

 and working on bilateral relations, officials . . . have been mostly 

 unavailable to grapple effectively with the U.S. defense budget, CIA 

 operations, energy, population or food. . . . Planning for major 

 world conferences (Stockholm on environment, Bucharest on popula- 

 tion, Rome on food, the Special U.N. Assembly on a "New Intei*- 

 national Economic Order") tends to be late and ragged . . . there 

 is not nearly enough room in the foreign policy establishment for 

 strategic long-range planning, especially on the widening range of 

 "interdependence issues." "^ 



Science and Technology in the Department oj State examines 

 departmental weaknesses in detail and suggests a number of options 

 for improvement.^^^ Both Cleveland and Huddle offer suggestions 



«2' Harlan Cleveland, The Management of Multilateralism. A paper prepared for the Commission on the 

 Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy (the Murphy Commission), Princeton 

 N.J., Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies; February 3, 1975, 35 pp. (p. 7). 



'* Cleveland, The Management of Multilateralism , pp. 13-15. 



«w The whole study is an analysis of departmental problems and weaknesses in terms of contemporary 

 demands. For the options, see pp. 1491-1500. 



