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The International Technical Consulting Committee on Radio Communication, commonly known as the C.C.I.R. from the initial letters of the French title, had its origin in the International Radio Convention signed at Washington in 1927. The conference which drafted that convention was closely divided upon the question of setting up the new committee. Those delegations which opposed the idea of creating any committee to meet between conferences succeeded in having the text of the article providing for the committee drafted so as to limit the powers of the committee far more than the proponents of the new body desired.

On July 1, 1924, there became effective an act for the reorganization and improvement of the Foreign Service of the United States, popularly known as the Rogers Act, which had been approved on May 24. That act combined the hitherto separate diplomatic and consular services into a single Foreign Service. Admission to the Foreign Service was for the most part to be upon competitive examination, and promotion was to be based upon merit. The act left to the executive the establishment of the system for ascertaining merit.Pursuant to the Rogers Act, an executive order of June 7, 1924, created a Foreign Service Personnel Board. The composition of the board was slightly changed by an executive order of February 25, 1928, under the terms of which the board was to be composed of three assistant secretaries of state to be designated by the Secretary of State, and three Foreign Service officers. The three Foreign Service officers, representing both the diplomatic and consular branches, were to constitute the executive committee of the board.Among other things, the Foreign Service Personnel Board was charged with the duty of submitting to the Secretary, when vacancies should arise in the Foreign Service, lists of officers whose records of efficiency entitled them to advancement in the service and who were therefore recommended for promotion. A departmental order directed the executive committee to take possession of all records relating to the personnel of the diplomatic and consular services and to keep the efficiency records of all Foreign Service officers.

The first telegraph had been in operation only a short time when a code was made available to the users of the new instrument. From that time to the present, codes for use in electrical communications have appeared in ever-increasing number. Two principal objects have been sought and achieved by their use: secrecy and economy. To the business man, the second of these objects is paramount; and code-makers have constantly endeavored to express an increasing amount of information in a given number of letters.