1443 



increasingly the successful generalists will be officers who have acquired 

 wider scope after having mastered a specialty." ^''^ 



EFFORTS TO INCREASE TECHNICAL INTEREST IN STATE 



During the years 1965-1967 a variety of efforts were made to 

 increase the level of attention to science and technology in the 

 Foreign Service. The emphasis, of course, was on the importance 

 of technological development for foreign policy. A series of courses 

 in science and science policy were initiated by the Foreign Service 

 Institute, with the assistance of SCI. A program to exchange State 

 personnel for training purposes with personnel from the Department 

 of Commerce, the Atomic Energy Commission, NSF, and NASA was 

 initiated in 1966. A series of "Secretary's Science Luncheons" were 

 held during these years, and in 1966 a series of four "Secretary's 

 Science Briefings" were scheduled. '** 



This range of expedients had a variety of purposes. It was intended 

 to increase the visibility and perceived importance of science and 

 technology for the Foreign Service. There were educational benefits 

 in that a few technologies with significant impacts on U.S. foreign 

 relations were exposed to diplomatic scrutiny. Exchanges of personnel 

 would improve State's relations with the technical agencies as well as 

 improving State's understanding of the international problems of these 

 agencies. It was also possible that an increased awareness of the 

 scientific and technical content of modem diplomacy would percolate 

 throughout the diplomatic corps. However, a more systematic edu- 

 cational effort toward some of these purposes had a mixed success. 

 This was the attempt to introduce a scientific and technological 

 content into the curriculum of the Foreign Service Institute (FSl). 



ORIGINS AND PURPOSES OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE 



Authorization for FSI was provided in the Foreign Service Act 

 of 1946 to furnish "training and instruction to officers and employees 

 of the Service and of the Department and to other officers and em- 

 ployees of the Government for whom training and instruction in the 

 field of foreign relations is necessary, and in order to promote and 

 foster programs of study incidental to such training. . . . " isi 



The Foreign Service Institute is explicitly to provide inhouse 

 training to State Department personnel to enable them to carry out 

 their duties. Thus, training is provided in 46 languages, in orientation 

 for new employees, consular training, upgrading courses for executive, 

 administrative, and clerical personnel, and preparatory training for 

 Foreign Service families going overseas. Attention is also given to 

 communication skills. A senior seminar in foreign policy runs from 



1" Lannon Walker, "Toward A Modern Personnel System," Foreign Service Journal 46 (August 1969), 

 p. 48. 

 «» Of the "science luncheons," Professor Dean Rusk of tha School of Law, University of Georgia, recalls: 



During my period as Secretary of State, I held a number of luncheons for 15 or so senior officers 

 of the Department of State at which one or another top scientist would talk to us about the "cutting 

 edges" of his own science, where he and his colleagues were going, and what problems we could 

 expect in terms of our foreign relations. I found these meetings of very great interest. 



(Rusk to Huddle, March 18, 1975.) 



181 United States Code, Title 22, sec. 1041 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971), pre- 

 pared by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives. 



