THE STATE DEPARTMENT CRISIS
Villard, Oswald Garrison
The State Department Crisis By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD THE APPOINTMENT of Edward R. Stettinius to the State Department in place of Sumner Welles puts an excellent business man and the successful...
...Probably the Department needs two men of different types, one a real authority on international law, and the other a great executive, a negotiator, capable of meeting the foreign secretaries of other countries, notably Russia, on equal terms and conspicuously fit by reason of long experience...
...The difficulty in supplying a proper substitute for him lies, of course, in Mr...
...The great plums of the profession are still being held for political favors, or wealthy men because the United States Government will not pay large enough salaries to ambassadors and ministers to enable men without private means to rise to those positions...
...That it needed a business executive of this type, in view of the concentration within the Department of so many foreign economic matters of vast importance, is altogether likely, for these problems are naturally beyond the ken of a great majority of the career diplomats who are trained for other duties...
...The White House At Fault How great the discouragement is in the service when the President selects admirals to be ambassadors, or takes a Joseph Davies for the Russian mission chiefly because of the wealth of his wife, those who know the service alone can understand...
...Hull never knew any international law and he has been too weak, too easy going in his relations with his chief, permitting Mr...
...Nonetheless, Mr...
...There is much criticism of its career men, but they have never been given a square deal...
...Roosevelt's inability to appoint men of first-rate quality to high office lest they rival him...
...Hull's popularity with Congress, and particularly his influence with the Southern Democratic leaders, accounts for the fact that when the clash came between him and Mr...
...Welles went...
...All of these are reasons why he should give place now to a man of different type...
...Until this situation is remedied we cannot hope for a really efficient organization...
...does not follow that they are of the .Roosevelt yes-man type, and some of them are outraged by the State Department's deliberate violations of international law...
...Roosevelt to do things with his Department and to override him in a way no strong executive would have tolerated...
...The State Department Crisis By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD THE APPOINTMENT of Edward R. Stettinius to the State Department in place of Sumner Welles puts an excellent business man and the successful administrator of Lend-Lease into Mr...
...What it needs is, frankly, a complete reorganization and a new head...
...In other words, it all goes back to the White House...
...While Mr...
...But Mr...
...A Square Deal Lacking As for the authority on international law, there are several such in the country who could fill the place, but it...
...Welles, he remained and Mr...
...Hull's merits he has had 10 years in the office, he is 71 years old, and he is not in good health...
...Hull has been the best liked and most respected of all the members of the Roosevelt Cabinet, he has shone to a degree less because of his own merits than by contrast with some of the obvious misfits in what was once the respected Cabinet of the United States, but is now a group of yes-men, ignorant of much that is really going on...
...Meanwhile the State Department is being abused as never before, so that its members feel humiliated...
...That every permanent diplomatic service is open to abuse and should be safeguarded against dry-rot arid ultra-conservatism, and not allowed to become a fashionable fraternity, is perfectly true, as true in this country as in England where the abuses have been shocking and are now being remedied by Anthony Eden...
...But the State Department can never hope to be a really efficient organization until it is respected by whoever is President of the United States...
...These career men are appointed in order to get rid of politics in the diplomatic service—politics that for generations made our diplomatic and consular service the butt of foreign ridicule and contempt...
...Aside from these far-reaching reforms what is called for now is primarily the appointment of a genuine executive, interested not merely in the reduction of our tariffs through reciprocal trade agreements— which is Mr...
...Whatever may have been Mr...
...Hull's chief hobby—but in the creation of a competent machine imbued with the spirit of cooperation and loyalty, which can only come if the men in the machine are happy in their work, have confidence in their leaders, and are given the opportunity to do good work and have it recognized...
...But our career men have been discouraged because politics have not been wholly eliminated, and the higher offices are still being given away by the President as gifts in return for campaign contributions or other political favors...
...New Secretary Needed Mr...
...Even worse is the fact that the President makes all the appointments'instead of holding the Secretary of State responsible...
...Stettinius' appointment is only one of the several steps urgently demanded if the State Department is to be rendered efficient and is to regain some of its lost prestige...
...Hull's organization...
...A man of this type is undoubtedly Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, who has been doing such useful work ever since his return from Japan in making speeches throughout the country and telling the public just what the war with Japan means...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 43
