Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters

60. Memorandum by the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)¹

Washington, January 25, 1963.

A Framework for Executive Operations in the State Department

This memorandum concerns itself with the organization of the operation of the Department of State at the level just under the Secretary and the Under Secretary. It proceeds from the premise that the two top men in the Department will necessarily be preoccupied with whatever are the most pressing and immediate diplomatic and political questions of each day—at the moment, for example, the Secretary is testifying on Cuba, and the Under Secretary is dealing with de Gaulle and Europe. Their Congressional, diplomatic, and expeditionary responsibilities make it certain that neither the Secretary nor the Under Secretary can be the day-to-day operating executive of the Department of State.

It is still clearer that neither of these two officers can take immediate responsibility for the Department’s task of ensuring leadership and coordination of interdepartmental responsibilities both in Washington and in the field.

These executive responsibilities should be centered in the offices now described as the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration, and the Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

The Under Secretary for Political Affairs, as third-ranking officer in the Department, should have the responsibility for ensuring that the Department’s business is getting done. This means that where problems are not being handled directly by the Secretary and Under Secretary, he should have senior responsibility himself. It means that when problems are or should be in the hands of his superiors, he should know about it and ensure that there are no loose ends. He should be available to make necessary policy decisions for Assistant Secretaries in all bureaus; he should be responsible for ensuring that all necessary machinery for interdepartmental coordination is established; he should be in the closest touch with the White House staff so as to ensure that the special interests and concerns of the President are being met; he should be responsible for meshing the administration of the Department with its operational needs. By the same token this officer should stay out of most external diplomatic efforts; he should avoid travel; he should not be responsible for Congressional testimony, wherever this can be avoided; he should, in short, be an operating executive officer for his two interchangeable senior commanders.

This is an enormous job, and the man who does it will need powerful help. In particular, he should have the direct support of the two Deputy Under Secretaries who now report directly to the Under Secretary. If this were done, the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration should be responsible not only for the administration of the Department, but for ensuring that the operational responsibilities of the Department are met. This would imply supervisory concern for interdepartmental committees and task forces, to ensure that they are properly organized and manned, and effective in meeting their responsibilities. It would imply immediate responsibility for the connection of administration with operational needs. It would imply a general responsibility, on the organizational and operational side, for executing the desires of the three top officers; in that sense this officer should be thought of as Deputy Under Secretary for Operations.

The Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs would be responsible, as he is now, for such political judgments, and their execution, as, were delegated to him by his superiors. Where the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration would be expected to take policy guidance on his operational responsibilities from the Political Under Secretary, the Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs must be an officer with a responsibility for substantial independent political judgment.

As an alternative, which in certain circumstances might be even more satisfactory, the responsibility for operations and executive follow-up might be assigned directly to an Under Secretary for Operations, who would then be the fourth ranking officer of the Department and who would add these responsibilities to those now held by the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration. In such an arrangement this new Under Secretary would need to understand very clearly the importance of the closest cooperation with the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, as that officer is described above; it would be important to rank him after the Political Under Secretary and to put their two offices next to each other if possible.

Finally, it should be noted that the Political Under Secretary would be expected to maintain the most intimate and immediate day-to-day contact with the Administrator of AID, since a very large proportion of his work would involve effective coordination with that agency.

1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Departments and Agencies Series, State Department, General, 1/25/63–1/31/63. Confidential. A covering memorandum from Bundy, also dated January 25, marked Personal and Private, is addressed to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor, and the President’s Special Assistant, Ralph A. Dungan. It reads as follows: “I attach a brief outline of the framework we discussed this morning. I have removed all names from the memorandum, but this paper is designed with the notion that the man I have described as the Political Under Secretary would be Averell Harriman, and his Deputy for Operations would be Bill Orrick. I think our framework makes good sense even without these individuals, and I am sure that in any discussions we may have with others—except the President—we do not want names mentioned at this stage. This is a first draft, and it is circulated in the hope that you may be willing to comment before the weekend so that I can polish it up for Monday.”

   A March 5 memorandum from Bundy to Harriman, also attached to Bundy’s covering memorandum, reads as follows: “The attached memorandum had the approval of the President, the Secretary and the Under Secretary a month ago, and as far as I know it still does. Of course, now its working out will depend more on you than on anyone else, however exalted, but in talking it over with quite a number of disinterested people, I found a good deal of support for this concept, and I send it along in the thought that it may be helpful in giving you the background of your job as others think about it. I would be delighted to have a chance to talk about this at any time, especially with respect to interdepartmental and White House coordination. The one thing that seems clear to me is that you will not be unemployed, whatever may have been the case with others.”