THE INDONESIAN ARABS

In: Civilisations: d'anthropologie et de sciences humaines, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 15-23

Abstract

An assessment of the effects of loyalty-security policy on State Dept structure and functions. (1) The present security system aims to protect the secrets of US foreign policy and to prevent its formation by those putting foreign interests above those of the US. Given the diffuse process of US policy formation, it is unlikely that the latter situation could arise. As for secrets, the great lines of foreign policy are predetermined by national interests and accessible to rational analysis. The major function of secrecy in foreign policy, largely unrecognized by present security regulations, is to protect the professional integrity of the Foreign Service and its affiliated agencies. If officials cannot rely upon their actions and expressions of opinion being made in confidence, they will be tempted to surrender their professional judgments to outside pressures, domestic and foreign. (2) Loyalty-security regulations project as an ideal State Dept employee an individual who rigourously conforms to conservatism in politics and pseudopuritanism in sexual behavior. Current application of the ideal renders virtually everybody a security risk. (3) Under present regulations, all men are forever suspect on grounds of security and subject to renewed investigations. This is institutionalized in the State Dept by the requirement that every official's personnel file be checked for security each time a change in status, like promotion or re-assignment, is contemplated. Emphasis upon the vital importance of investigation and supervision has been further institutionalized by the creation of a Bureau cf Security within the Dept and has led to a shift of effective control over operations from the Secretary, Undersecretary, and unit heads to the Bureau. The Bureau's powers are all-pervading insofar as the hiring, assignment, promotion, and firing of personnel are concerned. Its powers reflect the political power of those whose political philosphy its leading officials represent. 'To an extent which changes with the ebbs and tides of political fortune, it is ...['certain members of Congress and, more particularly, of the Senate'], and not the President or the Secretary of State, who determine the operations of the Dept of State and its affiliated agencies.' Diplomats are particularly suspect as traitors by these Congressmen, for they obviously deviate from the ideal type of the normal good American. 'Thus ... an enterprise which starts out to protect the integrity and secrecy of American foreign policy transforms itself ... in an undertaking to assure conformity and ends in an attempt to make the US safe from foreign policy as such.' (4) As a result of the security policy of the State Dept, its morale, professional competence, and capacity for teamwork have drastically declined. Applications for employment and employment itself have been deterred. 'Objective analytical reporting, the prime function of diplomacy, has fallen to a low ebb in our Foreign Service.' Departmental prestige has suffered abroad. S. L. Messinger.