The Policy Planning Council of the Department of State owes its existence to a military man. In May 1947, General of the Army George C. Marshall—as Secretary of State—created what was then called the Policy Planning Staff. Christian Herter, in commenting on this action after his own tenure as Secretary of State, remarked: “Had the Policy Planning Staff not been created by General Marshall it would certainly have had to be invented by one of his successors.” General Marshall’s idea was to set up a long-range planning staff as an advisory group to co-ordinate State Department thinking on major foreign policy problems. He visualized a staff that would not “be deluged with small stuff.” Rather, its “highly qualified thinkers” should address themselves to the broad spectrum of national policy and be “strong in character and intelligence.”
The Staff would have no operational responsibilities nor would it issue directives or instructions to the operational units of the State Department or to missions in the field. Close contact, however, was to be maintained between the Policy Planning Staff and those operational units. The major purpose of the staff was “to assure the development within the Department of long-range policy which would serve as a framework for program planning and a guide for current policy decisions and operations.”
The Policy Planning Staff was the first permanent organization set up in the Department to devote full time to policy planning. When it first went into operation it was referred to as a “brain trust,” the State Department’s “cerebral Staff,” or “Marshall’s General Staff.”
The number of members of the Council has varied from five at the beginning to a high of 18 today. Although the average period of assignment to the Council has been two or three years, some members have stayed much longer. For example, the present Deputy Chairman has been with the Council for ten years. The normal rotation of personnel is in line with the concept that the knowledge and experience of the Council members represents a capital asset which should be replenished periodically by new members bringing with them new ideas and fresh thinking and, in the case of the Council’s Foreign Service officer members, more recent field experience.
To obtain diversity of thinking and approach, the membership is composed not only of career Foreign Service officers but also individuals from the academic world, from other government agencies or private life, civil service officers and, more recently, military officers. In addition to the Chairman, the present staff consists of four Foreign Service officers, seven Foreign Service Reserve officers, five civil servants, and two military men. In terms of educational background, there are two Rhodes scholars, seven Ph.D.s and ten M.S.s. Eight were formerly college professors; five are economists; and two are lawyers. Seven, including two former newsmen, are authors. The members have ranged in age from the thirties to seventy, with a current median age of 45.
Members of the Council are selected by the Chairman solely on the basis of their previously demonstrated competence in their various fields. The two military officers are similarly selected from candidates nominated by all four military services.
At any one time the activities of the Council will be determined in large measure by the capabilities and interests of its people. Even more importantly, the character of the Council is determined by the Chairman’s conception of the mission. Finally, most important of all, the Council’s operations will be determined by the Chairman’s relationship with the Secretary of State and the desires of the Secretary. Thus, the functioning of the Council can best be appreciated by a brief review of its history under successive chiefs.
The first director of the Policy Planning Staff was George Kennan, a career Foreign Service officer, later Ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Yugoslavia, and now with Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. The first problem given to Kennan by Secretary Marshall was that of European recovery, In this instance, the initiative came not from Kennan or his staff, but from Secretary Marshall himself.
In returning from the Moscow Conference in 1947, the general concept had formed in Marshall’s mind of a large plan to restore Europe through united European action with which the United States would co-operate. The Secretary shared these perceptions with Kennan and gave him instructions to prepare a memorandum of broad recommendations, avoiding trivia.
After discussions with the other members of the Planning Staff, Kennan drafted his memorandum of recommendations. Thus, although he took advantage of the collective views of the Planning Staff, the final recommendations were very much Kennan’s personal work.
At the same time, Secretary Marshall was also receiving similar proposals from others such as William Clayton and Dean Acheson. As a matter of fact, the European Recovery Program was actually foreshadowed by Dean Acheson’s speech in Cleveland, Mississippi, in April 1947. Originally, President Harry S. Truman was to have made this speech. Thus, the European Recovery Program might have been dubbed the Truman Plan or the Acheson Plan, instead of the Marshall Plan—which it immediately became after Marshall’s speech at the Harvard University commencement in June 1947.
In this connection it is interesting to note Dean Acheson’s observation that “speech writing is often where policy is made, regardless of where it is supposed to be made.” In recognition of this fact, successive speech writers for the Secretary of State have made it a practice to work closely with the Policy Planning Council.
From the Marshall Plan, the Policy Planning Staff during Kennan’s tenure went on to such other major problems as German reunification, inter-relationships among European nations, and finally the concept of a Japanese Peace Treaty. The broad rationale for such a treaty was suggested by Kennan and his staff, after he had visited and had long talks in Japan with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
In all of these problems Kennan considered that his work was finished once he had forwarded his recommendations to the Secretary, at which point he would withdraw and proceed to the consideration of other problems. Thus, during his tenure the Policy Planning Staff was not involved in the execution of policy to the same degree as in later periods.
In 1950, Kennan was succeeded by Paul Nitze—who was later to become Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs before becoming the present Secretary of the Navy.
The Policy Planning Staff reached its peak strength of 18 under Nitze. It was a congenial and tightly knit group which met virtually every day. Normally, these meetings took place immediately after Nitze had attended Secretary of State Acheson’s daily staff meeting.
Nitze and his staff worked not only with the Secretary but directly with the Regional Bureaus of the Department of State.
Nitze was also one of the State Department representatives in the regular meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and represented the State Department in various Allied policy meetings. Along with the Counselor of the Department he normally attended meetings of the National Security Council senior staff (which later became the NSC Planning Board) and the meetings of the National Security Council itself. Since that time the NSC Planning Board has been abolished with many of its functions, particularly those concerned with inter-agency co-ordination of foreign policy, now assigned to the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council, who is now also the Counselor of the Department.
Major problems during Nitze’s tenure involved the questions of over-all U.S. military and economic strength. He played a major role in the development of the National Security Council paper known as NSC-68, which provided the framework for the buildup in military strength after the Korean War. Of course, during this period of 1950-1953, the many issues related to the Korean War took priority attention. Other major policy problems included German rearmament, German reunification, the Iranian oil dispute, the implications of thermonuclear weapons, problems of air defense, and periodic foreign exchange crises.
Many of these problems, obviously involved immediate operational questions. In these cases, Nitze made it a practice of speaking to the long-term implications of the issues.
In 1953, Nitze was succeeded by Robert Bowie, now Director of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.
Bowie functioned as a close personal staff officer and adviser to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his work was focused, in large measure, on the Secretary. He generally saw the Secretary several times a day, and he travelled with Dulles on almost every trip.
Bowie continued to represent the Department on the NSC Planning Board and played an active part along with many others in drafting basic national security policy. During his tenure he interested himself in such issues as development of a more flexible military posture, creation of the Development Loan Fund, whose establishment in 1957 was in large part the result of Bowie’s initiative, establishment of an arms control and disarmament office, and preparation of comprehensive U.S. proposals for disarmament. Other problems that were attacked during those days were Far Eastern policy, NATO, European integration, and the continuing problems of Germany.
In September of 1957, Bowie was succeeded by Gerard Smith, later Ambassador and Special Assistant to the Secretary. As a personal choice of Secretary Dulles, Smith worked very much as Bowie had, directly with the Secretary. After Mr. Dulles’ death, the Department became more decentralized, and, accordingly, the Planning Staff dealt much more directly with the bureaus.
Smith interested himself greatly in the development of a more flexible military strategy. The “Hot Line” idea was pioneered by Smith, although more than three years elapsed before it came into being after the Cuban missile crisis. The initial 1960 U.S. program of aid to Latin America, which was the forerunner of the Alliance for Progress, was also conceived by Smith.
Other major problems which the Planning Staff worked on during this period included disarmament, Middle Eastern policy, the offshore islands, a new sea-level Panama canal, various German problems, Berlin contingency planning, NATO strategy and the Multilateral Force.
When George McGhee succeeded Smith in 1961, the position of Counselor was merged with that of head of the Policy Planning Council. McGhee’s method of operation continued in essentially the same vein—- working directly with the Regional Bureaus as well as with Secretary Dean Rusk. During his tenure, major problems included the issues of policy toward the uncommitted nations, NATO, and Berlin and Germany.
In 1962, when McGhee left to become U.S. Ambassador to Germany he was succeeded by the present Counselor of the Department and Chairman of the Policy Planning Council, Walt W. Rostow.
Rostow also wears a “third hat” as U.S. Representative to CIAP (Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress). He replaced Teodoro Moscoso in this assignment in May 1964, and holds the rank of Ambassador in this capacity.
The missions of the Policy Planning Council today are essentially the same as in the past:
• Formulating and developing, for the consideration and approval of appropriate officials of the Department of State, longterm programs for the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives.
• Anticipating problems which the Department of State may encounter in the discharge of its mission.
• Undertaking studies and preparing reports on broad politico-military problems.
• Examining problems and developments affecting U.S. foreign policy in order to evaluate the adequacy of current policy and make advisory recommendations on such policy.
• Co-ordinating planning activities within the Department of State and that interagency planning involving the foreign policy of the United States.
Two of these functional responsibilities are of special interest to military planners and operators: The politico-military function and the inter-agency planning function.
Roughly one-third of the Council’s members are concerned with politico-military matters as their primary responsibility. And all of the other members find that their functional responsibilities also involve politico- military problems from time to time.
As stated earlier, the Council does not have operational responsibility for politico-military problems. Contacts between the State and Defense Departments exist at all levels in Washington and overseas and cover a wide range of problems from fundamental national security questions to routine clearances for aircraft overflights and ship visits. To provide a central point for co-ordinating these various activities carried on by the geographical bureaus, a Politico-Military Affairs Staff was established in early 1961 under the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Also in early 1961, the State Department established an Operations Center to improve the Department’s capabilities for dealing with politico-military crises. In addition, most of the regional bureaus have established politico-military offices for handling these affairs in this regard.
The inter-agency planning function of the U.S. Government was for many years carried out by the old National Security Planning Board and the Operations Co-ordinating Board. When these two boards were disestablished in the early days of the Kennedy Administration, their functions had to be reassigned. This responsibility was given to the Secretary of State who in turn delegated a major share of it to the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council.
One of Rostow’s major responses to this responsibility for foreign policy co-ordination has been a series of National Policy Papers on individual countries. This program probably represents the most formalized of the various planning techniques used by the Council. These policy papers represent agreed-upon national policies of the U.S. government toward particular countries; they set out courses of action to be pursued over a period of time by all of the responsible governmental agencies; and they provide a basis for tightened procedures of inter-agency co-ordination in Washington and in the field.
Another of the major mechanisms for implementing the inter-agency planning function is the Inter-Agency Planning Group; its members represent those agencies previously represented on the NSC Planning Group better known as the Tuesday Luncheon Group (which now meets on Thursday). Its functioning is revealed by its nick name. In contrast to the old NSC Planning Group, it is very informal. It is not a decision-making group nor even a group for the formal coordination of inter-agency positions. It neither makes recommendations to the NSC nor forwards papers to the NSC for consideration. It does, however, provide a most useful and important forum for the exchange of views and thinking among Washington planners, early in the policy planning stage, before agency positions have crystalized.
The Policy Planning Council today, as it has been since its inception, is an advisory body—advisory to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary. It endeavors to assess problems from the global point of view. It is expected to deal both with long-range problems and with current problems from a long- range standpoint.
The Chairman of the Council attends the Secretary’s staff meeting; on occasions he goes to international meetings; he sometimes acts as a U.S. spokesman in international forums. The members of the Council attend staff meetings of the various bureaus. Generally, and particularly, in developing policy papers there is close co-operation with the Regional Bureaus.
Meetings of the Council are held regularly once a week on Friday, and additionally as needed. These meetings are often attended by other officers from the Department who are concerned with the problems before the Council. Ambassadors and senior Foreign Service officers on leave or home on consultation meet with the Council, or Council members, to give their views on matters under consideration.
Periodically, a Secretary’s policy meeting is scheduled. At these meetings the Secretary takes time to sit with the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council and various key members of the Department to discuss major international problems. For these meetings a member or members of the Council prepare a background paper and then participate in the discussion. These meetings are intended to achieve a free exchange of ideas and thinking on how to meet the challenges ahead.
In performing its functions today, the Policy Planning Council uses a mixture of the techniques which have been found useful in the past—with special emphasis on the more informal rather than formal techniques. As adviser to the Secretary and Under Secretary, the Chairman frequently presents recommendations directly to them. They may represent his own personal views or they may represent his distillation of the views of the Council or some of its members. He works closely with the Regional Bureaus or other responsible operational activities in, or even outside, the Department. Members tend to prefer anonymity of effort since their purpose is not to take credit for new ideas.
In this connection, one of the most useful functions of the Council is to serve as a catalyst for ideas, as a “broker” for problems and possible solutions, helping to open up lines of communications which otherwise might be clogged. To accomplish this purpose the Council seeks to stay abreast of current operational problems. As Chairman Rostow expresses it: “The great forces which shape the long-run course of diplomatic events are embedded in particular decisions, addressed to immediate, short-run circumstances, just as, in economics, long-run factors affecting technology, the level of industrial capacity, etc. are embedded in day-to-day investment decisions.”
The members of the Council, then, seek to bypass the usual debate about long-term issues versus current operations. Rather, they seek to bring to a consideration of current problems a long-range perspective, to illuminate current problems by insisting on the relevance of the less-obvious but critical long-term issues.
In bringing long-range considerations to bear on current issues, the Council docs not attempt to predict the future. It docs, however, try to project alternative possibilities so that the possible consequences of current decisions and options can be explored as fully as possible. In this connection the Council puts great emphasis on contingency planning—especially in the politico-military field. The object is not to draw up a large library of plans from which an appropriate detailed document can be withdrawn when a particular contingency arises. Even military planners are wont to say that the first thing to be done in an emergency situation is to pull out all your plans and throw them away. Politico-military planning, which is an infinitely more difficult problem, could hope to be no more successful in developing readymade actions prior to crisis situations. Effective politico-military planning, however can hope to bring critical considerations to the surface and by prior analyses help to prepare and orient the decision-makers for decisions to be made in crisis situations.
Any discussion of how the Council functions can easily lead to misconceptions of the true nature of its operations. By far the greatest part of the activities of the members of the Council do not involve their acting in the Council as a collective unit. In this respect, the Council for many purposes simply serves as a convenient home for a number of individuals charged with specific responsibilities for policy planning.
Solutions to major unsolved foreign policy problems require truly creative acts—acts which cannot be accomplished by committees or by a bureaucracy. Thus, the basic structure of national security planning, as Rostow describes it, has consisted in the first instance, in a series of planning enterprises centered on individual men. Rostow has sought to cultivate in these planners a spirit of personal enterprise and responsibility and a recognition that the “buck” has stopped with them. This concept of individual enterprise and responsibility is pursued even in the most formalized planning ventures such as the National Policy Paper series.
As part of the planner’s responsibility, he must, of course, consult with many others in the government who are concerned with his problem. Even then, the planner’s paper is, of course, not national policy. It is a recommendation which must pass through bureaucratic ordeal by fire. No matter how sound the recommendation, it can only survive this ordeal if the planner has the personal initiative, enterprise, and perseverance to “surface” it at the proper decision-making level. Although the policy planner must fight hard for his concepts, in the end he must be reconciled to see his views flow anonymously into the current of governmental action.
This selfless philosophy on the part of individual members is the cornerstone of the Council’s strength today as it has been since the beginning. But it is a strength that was not easily attained, nor can it be maintained without constant rededication.
The crucible in which an idea is melted down to determine its intrinsic worth as an element of U.S. policy can be very hot indeed. But the exceptional idea—and the often very ordinary man who conceived it—will not be shriveled by the trial by fire that both the military and bureaucratic systems inflict in their quest for perfection.
To participate in the work of the Council, then, can be an exhilarating experience for the military man who follows the path and the precepts of George C. Marshall. For the Council’s work is an almost daily vindication of the dedicated military officer’s unuttered creed. It is not, he knows, the man that is important, nor is it the idea, nor the military service or branch of government, nor the government itself. It is only the Republic and its perpetuation that really matter.