FOREIGN SERVICE
STRATTON, OWEN
Foreign Service THE ADMINISTRATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, by James L. McCamy. Knopf. 364 pp. $5. Reviewed by Owen Stratton IN The Administration of American Foreign Affairs Prof. McCamy...
...McCamy is constructively critical of the work and organization of the Department of State and the Foreign Service...
...The first of these is a tendency to advocate textbook "principles" of public administration on a superficial level and without making clear what is meant...
...For a nation that has administered vast enterprises successfully, including some in government, this accomplishment should be easy, provided the need is recognized and the spirit is willing...
...The importance of intelligence, in the informational rather than the intellectual sense, is discussed with discernment...
...In addition to its eminently sound conclusion, the book has other merits...
...Whatever the cause, the book is repetitious and disjointed: the reader occasionally finds himself so wearied with passages of doubtful relevance and points made over and over again that resentment blunts his receptivity to the many wise and important things that Prof...
...drift, finally, into the psychology and practice of the garrison state in which the older vigilant national faith in liberty for individuals cannot survive...
...Consequently he discusses much that is not clearly relevant to what seems to be his main purpose...
...drift into habits of thinking in cliches rather than basing our decisions upon accurate analysis of evidence, drift into the expenditure of our resources for the maintenance of the status quo among nations so that nothing is left over for the improvement of man's lot, and no new proposals are heard in foreign affairs...
...The first step toward stopping drift, and toward the establishment of direction in addition to safety, is to organize and conduct the administration of foreign affairs so that foresight, full information, unity, and responsibility will be the typical order...
...Perhaps the author's difficulty comes from an attempt to simplify matters that are inherently complicated: If so, the intention is laudable, but the result is not very informative...
...McCamy defines foreign affairs so broadly that he is left with no precise criterion of what ought to be put in the book and what ought to be left out...
...McCamy has to say...
...There is, for instance, an illuminating discussion—based on biographical data—of the men who staff the State Department and the Foreign Service...
...Possibly because of this experience, Prof...
...As he says in the final and most forceful paragraph of the book: "Drift is the great threat of ineptness: drift into programs that cannot succeed in the long run...
...A second and more serious defect is that Prof...
...and he sensibly insists that the determination of foreign policy and the conduct of diplomacy are not mysterious rites, but involve essentially the same problems that are faced in other areas of government...
...It is regrettable that a book so good in so many respects should be marred by two major faults...
...He is interested chiefly in procedure and organization rather than substance, in the administration rather than the content of foreign policy...
...and there is a truly excellent chapter on the role of the public and Congress in foreign affairs...
...McCamy describes the way in which American foreign policy is determined and carried into effect...
...During some years of service in the Board of Economic Warfare and elsewhere among World War II foreign affairs agencies, the author had an unusual opportunity to observe the operation of our foreign affairs organization...
...Some of this material, as in the chapter on the work of emergency agencies abroad during World War II, looks as though it might have been written at different times and for different purposes (perhaps as articles or notes) and then included in the book without extensive excision and rewriting that are always necessary in such circumstances...
Vol. 14 • November 1950 • No. 11
