THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: An Ambassador's Rebuttal
Crockett, Kennedy M.
THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: An Ambassador’s Rebuttal I by Kennedy M. Crockett In an article in the July issue of The Washington Monthly, William A. Bell, a former Foreign Service Officer,...
...At least in some measure, this results from factors which Mr...
...Bell is clearly unqualified to render any judgment, much less a generalized one, concerning this particular aspect of Foreign Service mores...
...The only reason we don’t have a perfect system is that we haven’t been able to devise onenot because there is complacency with the present one...
...For whatever it may be worth, in my own experience I derived a great deal more satisfaction out of being a principal officer at a remote and minuscule consular post when I was about Mr...
...they are not necessarily those of the State Department...
...Conflict, aggressiveness, and fighting follow the failure of diplomacy, and it is here that our second line of defense, the military establishment, takes over...
...I differ with Mr...
...in reality, the Foreign Service personnel system will reward the dissenting activist rather than punish him...
...Bell’s reservations...
...Bell’s maturity and the extent of his intellectual integrity...
...Bell in much of his analysis: he doesn’t really know his subject...
...The young Foreign Service Officer who leaves the Service because he feels there is a lack of challenge or a lack of long-range prospects for jobs of significant responsibility can’t be very profound or very perceptive-i.e., he just isn’t very smart, no matter how intelligent he may be...
...How well I remember thinking the same thing about the older officer during the early years of my Foreign Service experience, not too long after Mr.*Bell was born...
...I see no purpose to be gained by attempting a listing of these areas (and they are many) since any reasonably intelligent and informed observer can quickly make up his own list if he will but think on the proposition, even briefly...
...History does not record exactly what Ambassador Bennett said in his meeting with the Embassy’s Country Team (senior officers of all U.S...
...A college education is all but an indispensable prerequisite in the making of a Foreign Service Officer, and graduate studies help...
...He concludes that no matter how bad the older officer of the Foreign Service may be when measured against his generation, the caliber of recent recruits is poor and getting worse...
...Who are “the most promising” young officers...
...Unfortunately, only one way occurs to me, and distasteful as it is, I resort to it in the spirit of Mr...
...Bell’s analysis of the reasons why Foreign Service Officers so regularly prefer discretion to valor...
...And there is no area of Foreign Service endeavor that affords better opportunity for the young officer to develop these skills than in consular work...
...As a starter, I subscribe to Mr...
...Personally, I see no reason why the Foreign Service should collectively hang its head in shame because Professor Argyris judged the norms of personal interaction among most FSO’s to be characterized by withdrawal from interpersonal difficulties and conflict and withdrawal from aggressiveness and fighting...
...That he has chosen to do so is not only highly presumptuous but most significantly indicative of the degree of Mr...
...It is inconceivable to me that any thinking perKennedy M. Crockett, a career Foreign Service Officer, is currently the U.S...
...Professor Argyris falls short in his assessment by having failed to uncover and examine the core beneath the surface refinements...
...As I reread Mr...
...THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: An Ambassador’s Rebuttal I by Kennedy M. Crockett In an article in the July issue of The Washington Monthly, William A. Bell, a former Foreign Service Officer, charged that American diplomacy is characterized by timidity and that the Foreign Service tends to stifle dissent...
...Rather than tending to undue harshness or candid criticisms, Foreign Service personnel rating reports suffer from an almost universal tendency on the part of the rating officers to overstate the candidate’s positive qualities and to understate or skim over the deficiencies...
...agencies represented in the country) in discussing with them the options under consideration following the outbreak of civil war in the Dominican Republic in 1965...
...In fairness to Mr...
...Bell’s age than I did 20 years later in standing before Secretary Rusk on the Department’s eighth floor to take the oath of office as an ambassador...
...A balance must be struck between formal training and the acquisition of skills through apprenticeship...
...Bell’s version, it is unclear to me just how this example supports Mr...
...Just as we must avoid condemning the man courageous enough to express constructive dissent, so must we also avoid condemning the man courageous enough to agree that a highly distasteful course of action is the least unpalatable of various unacceptable alternatives...
...I’ve been the reviewing officer for hundreds of these reports, prepared by others, and have examined literally thousands of them in considering candidates for assignment to key responsibilities...
...He begins with a look at the personal circumstances of the older officers and notes that they joined the Foreign Service when the bulk of new officers came from gentlemanly schools and “nice” (his quotes) families...
...Intellectual courage is a quality which each and every Foreign Service Officer must possess if he is to be useful in the formulation and execution of foreign policy...
...Even so, in my own experience I know of no important, or even minor, policy decision within the Department of State that has not been subject to extensive cross-examination, if not outright challenge or dissent...
...He has accumulated a lot of State Department corridor lore which in turn is predicated on myths that our less successful Foreign Service Officers have peddled over the years to explain to themselves and others why they never made it...
...But I know of no instance where a young officer who really had it has been stunted in his ultimate growth through this unfortunate but by no means unusual experience in human relationships...
...We should continue to do everything we can to develop more, but we are deluding ourselves if we conclude that the solution can be found by giving the neophyte authority and responsibility when he lacks the experience and knowledge to exercise it wisely...
...And this is understandable...
...Bell’s article concerning personnel practices (“HighRise Outhouse”) produces a curious contradiction within the short space of three brief paragraphs...
...If Mr...
...Officers aren’t born with these qualities, and most do not develop them to the desired level of refinement through university studies or related activities...
...I’ll take them up more or less in the order in which Mr...
...Diplomats are supposed to be refined, cultured, intelligent, and resourceful gentlemen who slip it to the other fellow with such skill and deftness that he doesn’t know he’s had it or doesn’t realize it until it’s too late...
...Bell has not only had some kind words to say about it but has refrained from offering suggestions for improving it...
...It is unfortunately true (although many pundits and other outside “authorities” don’t like to recognize it) that most of the problems which the Department of State deals with are infinitely complex, intricate, and, all too frequently, just plain insoluble...
...Bell offers...
...At the same time, there is a grain of truth in the high-rise outhouse theory as Mr...
...Any Foreign Service Officer who wants to accept the challenge and who demonstrates reasonable capacity to rise to it, can be sure he’ll get a bigger one tomorrow, if not sooner...
...There are a few outstanding Foreign Service Officers, a somewhat greater number of very good FSO’s, a large bulk of average (“good”) FSO’s and, unfortunately, some who aren’t any good as FSO’s...
...But no Administration can effectively execute the policies it adopts if its officers are free to go forth to the grass roots and preach their disagreement...
...Bell offers in support of his general thesis bear examination and merit comment...
...However, I find no basis for Mr...
...Neither does any other organization...
...Bell correctly points out, such dissent is encouraged within the Department of State and the Foreign Service...
...Bell considers officers in these positions to be nothing less than traitors to their country in the furtherance of their career interests...
...Bell explains that close attention is given to screening out biased personnel reports and to seeing that the most demanding assignments are given to self-starters...
...Bell features in support of his indictment...
...Maybe he is saving those for his next article...
...It has been for me a discouraging battle over the years to sustain the thesis that all experience is useful to the senior Foreign Service Officer, the broader the better...
...Bell’s assessment of the considerations which motivate attitudes and actions of State Department Country Directors, Desk Officers, and Analysts of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, I cannot escape the conclusioh that Mr...
...What I draw from this example is simply that Mr...
...Given his very limited Foreign Service and State Department experience, all in nonsubstantive assignments far removed from the real action, Mr...
...Perhaps he is right, but the thesis cannot be supported by the evidence which Mr...
...It is at least slightly significant that even so candid and outspoken a critic as Mr...
...Dissent has merit when it is predicated on comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand and offered in support of viable alternatives...
...may be a prerequisite” in seeking a Foreign Service prepared to promote our national interest...
...Bell, or his source for this intelligence, failed to understand the differentiation which all officers of any Administration must make between personal or internal dissent and public or proclaimed disagreement with the policies of the Administration...
...The truly tough diplomat doesn’t bare his breast and beat it for the edification of the Yale Department of Administrative Science, or even for so outstanding a researcher as Professor Argyris...
...Bell’s principal thesis that Foreign Service Officers - as a group and at all levels of seniority-do not speak out as much as they might and, too frequently, not as much as they should...
...All of us who have been around a while know how tough it is to rate, in rank order, several hundred officers of the same grade, almost all of whom are good officers, doing a good job...
...Certainly not those who object to “pressure to conform...
...The same is true of any organization dealing with complex problems, where the jobs demand a willingness and capability to assume responsibility in situations where a wrong judgment will inevitably bring adverse consequences of significant dimensions...
...Like many other facets of the expertise which the truly accomplished Foreign Service Officer must possess or acquire, these qualities are developed through experience in dealing with people, not through formal training...
...Bell’s implied indictment of those officers who were on the spot and knew better than any others what was going on, for their failure to disagree with Ambassador Bennett’s alleged assessment...
...As an avowed, long-standing, and practicing nonconformist, I am the first to recognize that there are areas where Foreign Service Officers must accept service discipline or conform, if the railroad is to be kept operational...
...The detail here is the qualification of constructiveness, which I have included and Mr...
...Bell presented them in his article...
...Bell expounds it...
...We can be thankful that there will always be public servants who disagree with almost any given facet of Administration policy at any given time...
...There are no ifs, no ands, no buts - and certainly no mays - about it...
...Continuing, Mr...
...The views he expresses here are his own...
...Having come this far, I want to register my dissatisfaction with the Foreign Service personnel system, a dissatisfaction which is shared by all who are familiar with the system...
...Bell’s contention that the clammy atmosphere of the Foreign Service acts to skim off many, if not most, of the most promising young officers...
...This brings me to Mr...
...The sessions of the Open Forum Panel which Mr...
...b) if the White House makes all important foreign-policy decisions - which it does and always has-why would the young college graduate be prejudiced against the Department of State for its rationale for fighting the war in Southeast Asia...
...And who reached the conclusion that the young officer with a graduate degree should be automatically listed among the most promising...
...As a starter, Mr...
...In order of presentation: (a) true, there is no place in the Foreign Service for the young college graduate who expects to make money...
...Bell’s conclusion that “In the long run, the Department of State will be a creative institution only if it directs its recruitment effort toward men with proven leadership qualities...
...The well-rounded officer chalks up such an incident to experience, squares his shoulders, grits his teeth, and wades back into the fray determined not to let someone of inferior intellect get the best of him...
...Bell’s conclusion that “intellectual courage...
...A good supervisor is careful not to penalize his subordinates in their competitiveness for promotion as measured against their contemporaries...
...I’ll spend only as much time here as the merits of Mr...
...But the life expectancy of the average human precludes acquisition of all of the formal education that could be put to good use by the master craftsman in foreign affairs...
...Or on a more philosophical level, if the concerned young college graduate disagrees with State Department policy, where better can he work to change it than from the inside, not only now but in promoting sounder policies a decade or two hence...
...What follows here is a rebuttal, written by a practicing diplomat...
...There have unquestionably been too many instances where a not wholly competent superior has vented his frustration on a young and more promising subordinate...
...In these circumstances, criticisms must be weighed and measured most carefully in justice to all concerned...
...As Mr...
...son could believe otherwise...
...There are never enough officers with these highly prized qualities to meet the demand...
...Bell refers to recent college graduates “with proven leadership qualities...
...Bell’s terms and be excused for any failure to put it in proper context...
...After all, Foreign Service Officers are people, too, and, as such, possess the normal range of human failings to be found in any comparable group in industry, the academic community, or other government agencies...
...c) the White House makes all the important foreign policy decisions...
...Let’s approach the substance of Mr...
...It follows that the young officer who resists pressure to conform is not necessarily the most promising for the Foreign Service...
...He then concludes that the best of today’s generation of potential candidates for the Foreign Service have no interest in it because: (a) the pay isn’t competitive...
...How does one refute such a sweeping charge...
...Bell’s prescriptions warrant...
...In these circumstances, constructive dissent becomes a little difficult for the intelligent and mature officer who appreciates the dimensions and complexity of the issue and recognizes that he is less knowledgeable about all of the ramifications to be taken into account than the proponent of a given course of action...
...It isn’t changing policies that presents difficulties for the foreign-affairs practitioner: it’s the complexity of the problems which confront him...
...And I want to assure you, as one who was in the kitchen during the Dominican crisis, that the alternatives were highly unpalatable for us all...
...His judgments and decisions count for more than he could ever expect in political or economic work, at least at the level for which he could then qualify...
...Although I read Professor Chris Argyris’s report on the behavior of Foreign Service Officers at the time of its initial publication, I can’t recall a great deal about the particulars now...
...There is no merit to speaking out in dissent, per se...
...Successful practice of the art of diplomacy requires profound understanding of human nature and a highly developed capacity for exploiting human relationships...
...Bell selected are well chosen and universally accepted as completely valid by Foreign Service Officers who have successfully exercised command responsibility...
...There are many reasons why this is so...
...Bell endorses are great and we’re all for them, although we would all agree with Mr...
...Bell does, I can only attribute it to the fact that in his very brief Foreign Service career he did not have the occasion to participate directly in the substantive policy-formulation and decision-making process...
...He doesn’t say it in exactly this way, but it’s there in what he says...
...all I can offer in comment is a repetition of the commentary with which Mr...
...Bell’s exposition...
...Bell’s indictment...
...Good morale is a must, and the wise supervisor keeps this very much in mind as he rates his officers on their year’s efforts...
...It takes a greater percentage of one’s salary to meet the responsibilities of a Foreign Service Officer than is the case with comparably salaried civilians or civil service employees...
...As for long-range prospects for jobs of significant responsibility, the sky is the limit for the Foreign Service Officer who has what it takes...
...Obviously, no one...
...We think it should be better...
...If anyone can offer viable policy alternatives for dealing with them, 1 am confident that divorce from past policies can be arranged with dispatch...
...b) few college students are at ease with the Department’s rationale for fighting a cruel war in Southeast Asia...
...I learned long ago that a Foreign Service Officer is neither more nor less likely to make the grade in the long run because he did or did not make Phi Beta Kappa, or because he did or did not do graduate work...
...To put it another way, even assuming that the overall quality of Foreign Service Officers is as high as our selection system is designed to make it and as distinguished as many Foreign Service Officers would like to believe, the group breaks down relatively within itself just like any other group of artisans...
...I do remember, however, that many of his conclusions about Foreign Service Officers as a breed coincided with my own...
...Sometimes these things do hurt the young officer-for a period...
...For that matter, the master craftsman in foreign affairs will have experienced many occasions when he could have made good use of a professional degree in almost a limitless range of specializations, including economics, medicine, business administration, cost accounting, international law, banking, psychology, sociology, etc., etc., to name but a few of the most obvious...
...There are a lot of other intelligent people who share Mr...
...I find another curious contradiction in Mr...
...And last, but by no means least, we have Mr...
...There is satisfaction to be derived here too for the Foreign Service Officer who understands what he can accomplish as a principal officer...
...and (d) the young recruit can expect to do a good bit of consular work during his initial years in the Foreign Service...
...Bell’s conclusion that only the most thick-skinned officer can accept a lifetime of having his superiors scrutinize and evaluate his qualities and qualifications every year in the Foreign Service personnel rating reports...
...Bell explains that the usual milquetoast behavior of individual Foreign Service Officers results from a promotion system so constructed that superiors may defecate on subordinates who dissent...
...Additionally, a competent supervisor, particularly in the field, must get the most he can out of the human resources with which Washington provides him...
...But only a few words further along he acknowledges that this threat is only a paper tiger...
...The competition for advancement is progressively stiffer the nearer you get to the top...
...If anything, scholastic excellence and the acquisition of graduate degrees probably tend to handicap the neophyte Foreign Service Officer because he is tempted to look upon these accomplishments as insurance that he will succeed or because he subconsciously uses them as a crutch when the going gets rough...
...Bell’s reasoning...
...This gives me something of a hang-up, if I may borrow one of Mr...
...The more senior the officer being rated, the more likely he is to take on a supervisor whom he feels has done him an injustice in preparing his annual personnel rating report...
...Here, at an early stage in his career, he has the opportunity to deal with many people, often in circumstances of stress and always on matters of vital importance to his clients...
...He thus tends to give subordinates the benefit of the doubt, especially where the subordinate is obviously doing the best he can...
...But I believe there are other, more significant reasons why FSO’s don’t speak out as much as might be desired...
...d) there are serious misconceptions within the Foreign Service about the nature and utility of consular experience in the training of a Foreign Service Officer, which I want to deal with at more length...
...Further, he would be well advised to research his examples a little more thoroughly...
...Very often, the policy adopted or the “solution” found for dealing with a problem is not a solution at all, or even the “right” policy, simply because the options from which a choice must be made are restricted to a variety of unacceptable alternatives...
...Bell has not...
...Quite the contrary...
...I am the first to admit that my views on the utility of consular experience in the training of Foreign Service Officers are not shared by many of our senior Foreign Service Officers...
...we can use all the help we can get...
...Bell alleges, an officer of the Department of State told a’ group of young Foreign Service Officers in briefings preparatory to a campus recruiting drive that there is “no place in the Foreign Service for persons who do not support this (Vietnam) war,” then that officer was wrong...
...The Foreign Service does not have enough officers willing to accept real responsibility at the policy level or to independently undertake unpleasant initiatives...
...Who would argue against the thesis that constructive dissenting opinions should be encouraged as a matter of official policy...
...Further, it has been my experience that even the most brash and talented young officer develops a marked degree of caution when faced with accepting the consequences of command responsibility...
...But let me hasten to point out that this acknowledgement does not confirm the general conclusions which Professor Argyris and Mr...
...Quite to the contrary...
...One of the “new” criteria for promotion of junior men is, as he says, the officer’s ability to suggest or embark upon untested courses of action...
...What is the problem here...
...The section of Mr...
...It seems clear that Mr...
...In short, I have no more sympathy with the young officer who feels he has nothing to gain from consular experience than I would expect a doctor to have with a young medical school graduate who felt he had no need for internship...
...The railroad just will not run that way...
...I differ with Mr...
...A great deal of effort is devoted to improving it at any given period of time...
...Bell brings his article to a close-“While superficially surprising, the implications are ominous...
...The quotations from Dean Rusk (“the heart of the bureaucratic problem is the inclination to avoid responsibility”) and Averell Harriman (“good organizational machinery can never substitute for good people”) which Mr...
...Bell did not agree with United States policy in the Dominican crisis...
...The fact is that the really tough and effectively aggressive Foreign Service Officer is, to most people, a softspoken and agreeable personality-up to the point where it counts...
...Bell and Professor Argyris, there are Foreign Service Officers who opt for leniency in the preparation of personnel rating reports because they tend to withdraw from the interpersonal difficulties that can flow from giving a subordinate a rating which the subordinate may feel does not do him justice...
...It’s been a long session, and I’m relieved to have reached the “Prescriptions” section of Mr...
...Bell’s general thesis...
...If, as Mr...
...I do agree that we don’t have enough of this kind of Foreign Service Officer, but it is a mistake to conclude that we don’t have our share...
...But even if we accept Mr...
...If he is interested, qualified, and fortunate, he can aspire to assignment as principal officer at a consular post at an age and stage in his career when his prospects for assuming anything like comparable independence or responsibility in the Department or at an embassy are next to nil...
...I think it is precisely the same one which handicaps Mr...
...He alludes to numerous examples of initiatives being rewarded by promotion to the highest ranks...
...After all, even young and brilliant Foreign Service Officers are also people...
...Moving ahead in this same area, I couldn’t resist a wry smile on reading Mr...
...I hope so...
...After all, success in the art of diplomacy depends on tact and the ability to persuade and outwit...
...There are simply never enough good men to fill the jobs involving significant responsibility in the Foreign Service...
...Bell have drawn about the timorous nature of those officers who survive to seniority...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Bell’s conclusion that these sessions may not change policies overnight...
...c) the White House makes the final decisions in important foreign-policy matters, now as always, but the bulk of intelligence and opinion and advice taken into account in arriving at these decisions comes from or through the Foreign Service and the State Department, now as always...
...We do, and they are quietly and effectively fighting this country’s silent war not only in Washington but all around the globe, thanks in no small measure to the fact that they are satisfied with the knowledge of accomplishment and do not feel the need to have their egos fed through the beating of breasts or public knowledge and recognition of their successes...
...Some of the specifics which Mr...
...Ambassador to Nicaragua...
...Bell’s indictment...
...Junior Officers’ views are influenced accordingly, and this is complicated by a widely held belief that the way to get ahead in the Foreign Service is to stick with political or economic work and shun not only the consular field but also administration and even public affairs...
Vol. 1 • November 1969 • No. 10
