1442 



specialty have the greatest possibilitj' of achievmg high rank at a 

 relatively young age." Functional specialists may be promoted but 

 "they must wait longer." ^" 



One solution to the specialist-generalist issue in the Foreign Service 

 was offered in a 1960 study by the Brookings Institution."^ It proposed 

 a more flexible, mixed strategy in recognition that the generalist was 

 the "backbone" of the Service while specialists were needed in var3dng 

 numbers for different fields of concentration. The plan had six 

 elements : 



(1) There should be continuing review of present and future requirements, 

 and of methods to meet those needs. 



(2) Foreign Service examinations should be designed so that potential gener- 

 alists will not be penalized, but with an opportunity for a limited number of 

 specialists to be selected each year through similar but somewhat differently 

 organized examinations. If the Foreign Service is to staff a wide range of opera- 

 tional and specialized program posts in the future, it cannot hope to select talented 

 young blood to fill these positions by a single examination. 



(3) Specialists should be developed within the Foreign Service wherever 

 possible, and inservice training should be provided to retool and maintain ex- 

 pertise during a specialist's career. 



(4) Personnel assigned to specialist positions should be given longer tours of 

 dutv where this seems necessary and feasible. 



(5) Opportunities for service at the rank of Career Minister should be available 

 in many special fields with no prejudice against promotion of specialists to this 

 rank. 



(6) Lateral entry into the Foreign Service or appointments in the Foreign 

 Service Reserve should be made as necessary, but should not be regarded as the 

 major means of acquiring specialists. Requirements for such lateral entry should 

 be "flexible and realistic, free of unnecessary limitations. 



The point of the foregoing is that entrants to the Foreign Service 

 tend to be selected for nontechnical qualifications, and rewarded for 

 avoiding specialization. Expertise in scientific and technological 

 subjects does not appear to be perceived as beneficial, and these 

 subjects do not appear to have attracted interest. 



One call for an increased injection of specialized expertise into the 

 U.S. diplomatic apparatus has come from the Foreign Service com- 

 munity itself. In ^n "Open Letter to the Director General of the 

 Foreign Service," in 1969, Lannon Walker, chairman of the board of 

 the American Foreign Service Association called attention to the 

 increasing complexity of the diplomatic process resulting from tech- 

 nology. He noted that the solution had been to summon experts and 

 create new agencies, which had resulted in fragmentation of knowl- 

 edge and responsibility. Said Walker: 



As the United States has moved from consultation on major problems of 

 traditional diplomacy to a foreign policy which now includes internal financial 

 policies, military technology, the ocean beds, and the movement of agricultural 

 commodities through novel mechanism — and will soon include supersonic 

 "booms," the multinational corporation, and growing uses of atomic energy — our 

 response has been to call in the experts, and to create new agencies to meet new 

 problems. The result has been a fragmentation of knowledge and responsibility 

 which has clogged our own governmental processes and confused our friends 

 abroad. 



His solution was to preserve within the Foreign Service a strong cadre 

 of generalists. However, he said: "The association believes that 



I" John E. Harr, The Development of Careers in the Foreign Service, Foreign Affairs Personnel Study No. 3 

 (New York: Carn^ie Endowment for International Peace, 1965), pp. 71-73. 



'™ H. Field Haviland, Jr., The Formulation and Administration of United States Foreign Policy, a report 

 on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1960), 

 p. 131. 



