DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS. Since the 1770s, U.S. diplomatic missions to foreign countries have grown in number, size, and complexity. Important U.S. diplomatic traditions evolved during the American Revolution. The founders experimented with a variety of foreign policy institutions, including the Committee of Correspondence (established in 1775 and later known as the Committee of Secret Correspondence), the Committee for Foreign Affairs (1777), and the Department of Foreign Affairs (1781). Under these arrangements, Congress assigned diplomats, as individuals and as commissioners, to negotiate with foreign governments. John Jay, secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1784 to 1790, enacted procedures for appointing and recalling diplomats and founded a policymaking process. Once the Constitution was ratified, Congress established the Department of State, under presidential control, to conduct foreign affairs.

U.S. diplomatic missions exhibited several weaknesses through the early nineteenth century. Little coordination occurred between diplomats, who developed political relations with other governments, and consuls, who served the legal and commercial needs of U.S. citizens abroad. Congress perpetually underfunded both types of missions. Most presidents appointed ministers (the highest ranking diplomats) on the basis of nepotism or cronyism rather than merit. Until 1855, most U.S. consuls were foreigners employed by the U.S. government in their native lands. In lieu of receiving salaries, they were authorized to retain the fees they collected for the services they rendered to U.S. citizens.

The number of U.S. diplomatic missions grew modestly before the Civil War. There were six (all in Europe) in 1789 and fifteen (including seven in newly independent countries of Latin America) in 1830. By 1861, thirty-four missions had been established, mostly in Europe and Latin America but also in Hawaii, Japan, China, Turkey, and Egypt. The number of consulates increased from 52 in 1800 to 140 by 1830.

From the 1850s through World War II, diplomatic missions were extensively reformed. In 1855, Congress required that consuls must be American citizens who would earn regular salaries and deposit collected fees in the U.S. Treasury. In 1893, Congress authorized the appointment of envoys at the rank of ambassador in order to bolster the prestige of U.S. missions. President Grover Cleveland established examinations as the means of selecting consular officials, and President Theodore Roosevelt extended basic civil service principles to the consular corps.

The Rogers Act of 1924 overhauled U.S. diplomatic missions. The law combined the diplomatic and consular corps into a single Foreign Service, required entry by competitive examination, established a hierarchy of ranks with promotion based on merit, mandated periodic rotations of personnel from overseas posts to Washington, D.C., and insulated career diplomats from the political whims of presidents. It also increased salaries and benefits so that service became a career option for non-elites. As a result, morale and professionalism soared. By the 1930s, diplomatic missions typically included a chief of mission presiding over a staff organized in political, economic, and consular sections. Missions identified their principal duties as representing the president, negotiating disputes, observing the position of the host government, and recommending policy to Washington.

Diplomatic missions grew in size and reach as the United States broadened its international responsibilities in the twentieth century. The United States had missions in forty-eight countries by 1913 and sixty countries by 1940. The number of consulates increased from 282 in 1860 to 304 in 1910 (although this number declined after the Rogers Act combined the consular and diplomatic corps). In 1893, the United States appointed its first ambassador (to London). Eleven ambassadors served by 1911 and forty-one by 1945. The increasing number of ambassadors reflected America's growing power and its desire to improve relations with certain states.

The growth in U.S. diplomatic missions accelerated after World War II. Between 1945 and 1985, the United States established 125 new missions, most of them embassies. The government even recognized Vatican City (population 1,000) and three other countries with fewer than 50,000 citizens. To meet the growing demand for Foreign Service officers, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration approved "lateral entry," by which talented individuals joined the Foreign Service at ranks above entry level. The Foreign Service tripled in size in between 1955 and 1970, and several embassies grew to more than 1,000 staff members. In 1999, the government had missions to 189 countries and to more than a dozen international organizations.

As they increased in size and number, U.S. foreign missions also grew more complex. Most embassies were headed by ambassadors, who were advised by a counselor and assisted by first, second, and (in some cases) third secretaries who managed Foreign Service officers assigned to political, economic, administrative, and consular affairs. Embassies were also staffed by officers of State Department agencies such as the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Agency for International Development, and United States Information Agency. Foreign Service officers were tasked with such challenges as narcotics control, counter-terrorism, and environmental protection. In many countries, networks of consulates were maintained to deal with commercial and legal issues affecting American citizens.

Embassy staffs also included officers serving agencies other than the State Department. Congress first authorized army and navy attachés in the 1880s, and in following decades the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Interior, and Labor dispatched attachés to overseas missions. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency also assigned personnel, usually undercover, to embassies around the world.

Despite the burgeoning size and reach of missions, the influence of the State Department over foreign policy declined in the late twentieth century. Military officers exerted a strong voice in foreign policymaking during World War II and the Cold War, as the line between policy and strategy blurred and as the Pentagon grew in prestige. After 1947, the National Security Council emerged as a central feature in the foreign policy establishment. Cold War diplomacy was conducted by presidents at summit meetings, by secretaries of state on extensive personal ventures abroad, and through multilateral conferences. As the twentieth century closed, the State Department and the Foreign Service struggled to identify their exact positions in the complex process of making U.S. foreign policy.

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS

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