The People of the State Department and Foreign Service

Abstract

Who handles American foreign relations?The question has been answered and discussed in terms of the Executive and the Congress in several recent books. We shall attempt here to answer the question in terms of the people who occupy the higher, or policy-making, positions in the Department of State and Foreign Service. Biographical data is published for individuals in this group in the Biographic Register of the Department of State and its supplements.This type of “Who's Who” sketch is limited, of course, to the bare skeletons of men's lives and is worthless as a test of faith and gumption. One of the tragedies, indeed, in the public service since the loyalty program began in 1947 is the fact that loyalty and security risk cannot be proved by social analysis in a time when loyalty and safeness in matters of security are the great questions that overshadow other concerns in any consideration of public personnel. Of the main reasons for finding an employee a poor security risk—wrong political association, bad character, sexual deviation, excessive drinking, or talking too much—none can be measured by any objective standard. Guilt is a matter of degree, and the degree is a matter of opinion among security officers and others who are urged by their climate to be as suspicious as possible.