Former Government Official Says Public Mistrusts State Department

Charles H. Saltzman, former Under Secretary of State, speaking at a Littauer lecture yesterday, attributed a part of the State Department's problems to the fact that it has not had public and congressional confidence.

Enumerating current misconceptions of the Department, Saltzman mentioned the present security program. "It is certainly time," he admitted, "that mistakes were made in the early stages of the 1958 program, when everybody's record had to be rechecked. But these errors occurred under a new set of rules which were not fully understood."

Saltzman praised the Wriston committee's proposal for the integration of the foreign service with civil service employees as a solution to another of the former's immediate problems; that of creating a larger and more competent diplomatic corps. He predicted that if the plan is carried out the openings in the field would increase to 400 or 500 annually.