STATE'S Tangled Web 



As scientific and technical issues intrude into 



foreign policy, collaboration between the State Department and 



domestic agencies has become complex but unavoidable 



FiTZHUGH Green 



THE SECRET IS OUT: our State Department 

 does not single-handedly conduct U.S. for- 

 eign policy. The other foreign affairs agen- 

 cies have long shared in the task. But so 

 have an increasing number of federal departments that 

 are primarily responsible for agriculture, treasury, 

 labor, and the environment, among others. This 

 growing — and often tangled — web of involvement is 

 evident both in the number of interagency meetings 

 held in Washington and in the legions of people from 

 domestic agencies who either travel or are assigned 

 abroad. In fact, in some embassies, personnel from 

 other agencies outnumber those in the Foreign Ser- 

 vice. 



The infusion of domestic agencies into foreign poli- 

 cy can lead to pitfalls. The State Department often 

 loses ground in its daily battle to control foreign 

 policy. At last count some 46 agencies were running 

 international programs, and to at least one key U.S. 

 ambassador, every one of them seems to have its own 

 foreign policy agenda. This can — and often does — 

 create an impression of chaos. 



Furthermore, these domestic agencies may menace 

 and weaken an ambassador's ability to represent the 

 U.S. government as unified and consistent. One am- 

 bassador recalls his own horror story: An assistant 

 secretary of a U.S. agency normally concerned with 

 domestic matters visits the ambassador's capital city. 

 The ambassador introduces the assistant secretary to 

 Minister Fulano, the relevant official in the host coun- 

 try's government. Fulano soon appears in Washing- 

 ton and has lunch with the assistant secretary. A day 

 or two later the assistant secretary's agency calls a 

 press conference and announces a $50 million grant to 

 Fulano's government. The ambassador sums up his 

 all-too-familiar tale quietly, restraining his ire: 

 "There is no linkage between the decision to help this 

 government and our embassy. I am not consulted or 

 brought into the act at all. The host country notes 

 this, of course, and assumes 1 am not taken seriously 

 by my own administration. This does not exactly 

 build my influence as ambassador! " 



Fitzhugh Green is associate administrator of the Environ- 

 mental Protection Agency. During a long career as an 

 FSIO, his assignments included positions in Laos. Israel, 

 the Congo (now Zaire). Washington, and at the United 

 Nations. He also served a tour as deputy director for the Far 

 East. He recently completed a manuscript on US I A entitled 

 "Speak Up, America." 



Yet the ambassador concedes that the State Depart- 

 ment and its embassies cannot go it alone. They must 

 lean on the technical agencies, even those that are 

 rarely thought of as having international concerns. 

 Such connections are not merely useful, they are es- 

 sential — and they will remain a fact of life for those 

 who attempt to manage and implement U.S. foreign 

 policy. As science and technology intrude themselves 

 ever more deeply into international relations, our dip- 

 lomats must have experts at their elbow, whether 

 negotiating an arms treaty, a trade pact, or a multilat- 

 eral environmental convention or simply participat- 

 ing in an ecological conference. As State seeks techni- 

 cal help from other agencies, they in turn require a 

 hand from State with protocol and intercultural un- 

 derstanding so their own programs will run smooth- 



ly 



To handle these technical adjuncts to the United 

 States' international interests, our embassies have al- 

 ready added specialists to their staffs. The ambassador 

 still runs the country team, but must also employ a 

 growing array of attaches (many of whom — with bu- 

 reaucratic inflation — have risen to become counsel- 

 ors), who exercise authority over military, cultural, 

 agricultural, informational, commercial, and scienti- 

 fic affairs. Likewise in Washington, the State Depart- 

 ment also relies on such domestic agencies to provide 

 the expertise needed for coping with these new di- 

 mensions of foreign policy. State now has operating 

 partnerships with dozens of federal technical agencies, 

 among them the Environmental Protection Agency. 



The EPA provides one illustration of a domestic 

 technical agency that finds it must act internationally 

 to fulfill its mandate. A year ago the State-EPA con- 

 nection fell victim to the public travail surrounding 

 the agency as it was buffeted by criticism in the na- 

 twoal press and congressional committees. Since Wil- 

 liam D. Ruckelshaus returned as administrator, how- 

 ever, the agency is once more collaborating fruitfully 

 with the State Department in international efforts to 

 protect the global 



PRESIDENT NIXON ESTABLISHED EPA by ex- 

 ecutive order in 1970. In an Adam's rib- 

 type operation, 15 environmental programs 

 from federal agencies and departments were 

 scalpeled out and stitched together: the water pollu- 

 tion control section from the Department of the Inte- 

 riof , air pollution control, radiation protection, pesti- 



FoREiGN Service Journal 



