Dollars for Diplomacy

At times the capacity of politicians for reassuring talk and disturbing action reaches astounding proportions. Six years ago, Dwight Eisenhower took office amid promises of bringing the "best brains in the country" into his Administration. The sources of these paragons turned out to be Wall Street and the corporation boardrooms, and their performance in office has by and large proven uninspired.

Nowhere has this failure of quality in public office been more grievous or more consistent than in the crucial field of diplomatic relations. Eisenhower, while professing a desire for more career appointments and disclaiming political criteria, has repeatedly placed wealthy Republican businessmen in key embassies throughout the world.

This questionable technique has resulted in such aberrations as l'affaire Gluck, when a New York dress manufacturer, recently appointed Ambassador to Ceylon, was unable to tell a Senate committee the name of the Ceylonese premier. Last week, while telling a press conference of his desire to see more career diplomats in senior positions, the President was pushing the nomination of the 35-year-old former owner of the solidly Republican New York Herald Tribune as Ambassador to Israel.

While the President repeatedly denies, moreover, that political affiliation is a factor in determining his Administration's appointments, he does little in practice to confirm this position. Last year, he allowed Meade Alcorn to blackball Henry Labouisse--the State Department's choice for deputy director of the International Cooperation Agency--on the ground that Labouisse registered as a Democrat in 1940. Again this month, when the Department recommended Labouisse for the directorship he was passed over in favor of James Riddleberger, happily a qualified diplomat but in addition apparently politically sound.

Eisenhower is not alone to blame for the unfortunate state of some of the important Western European ambassadorships. The tremendous expenses necessary for the maintenance and conduct of the embassies in, for instance, London and Paris, effectively preclude the selection of anyone not independently wealthy. Thus, both Eisenhower and his Democratic predecessors have had to rely upon prosperous individuals who are ready to sacrifice a good deal of their time and wealth for diplomatic work.

This modern form of noblesse oblige, however gratifying, is scarcely conducive to effective international negotiation or to the development of a career foreign service. For when the top ambassadorial positions are by necessity reserved for large contributors to party campaign funds who are anxious to dabble in public service, initiative can hardly be said to exist in the lower echelons of the State Department hierarchy

The amount of money necessary to allow career diplomats to occupy the so-called expensive embassies has been estimated at $5 million a year, a miniscule proportion of a present-day American budget. President Eisenhower's indifference to this very real problem reflects an unwarranted satisfaction with a policy that allows men without diplomatic experience and--in some cases--familiarity with the country and language, to serve as Ambassadors to Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain--to name just a few.

Ambassadorships currently remain as one of the last forms of meaningful political patronage. $5 million a year seems small enough a price to pay to make embassies rewards, not for the wealthy party faithful, but for experienced and qualified diplomats.