Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502180026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JESSE HELMS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I will now say publicly what I have said privately to the secretary: His significant proposal must not be sacrificed on the altar of bureaucratic self-preservation. It is my intent to support Secretary Christopher against the bureaucrats who feel threatened by his long-overdue reorganization of Foggy Bottom.
The secretary's proposal sent an unmistakable signal that the Clinton administration would be serious about streamlining the existing creaky, inefficient and outrageously costly foreign-policy apparatus. It is essential to turn the vice president around, lest the Clinton administration make the perilous error of shelving the most thoughtful reorganization of U.S. foreign-affairs institutions since World War II.
When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly takes up the State Department authorization bill, I will put on the table my own version of Secretary Christopher's proposal. I will propose - as the secretary did - the elimination of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Agency for International Development, United States Information Agency and the merger of their non-proliferation, assistance, exchange and broadcasting functions into a single, coordinated - and coherent - foreign-policy department.
My plan will consolidate five foreign services (State, AID, USIA, the Foreign Commercial Service and Foreign Agricultural Service) into one unified service. It will create a new International Development Foundation, consolidating the functions of four now-separate development agencies.
It will create a new unified agency for trade, export promotion, investment and development, consolidating the functions of three existing agencies.
It will strengthen our ambassadors in the field, and restore the concept of ``country teams,'' ensuring they will have the necessary political support from Washington.
It will provide significant savings for the taxpayers.
Most important, all of this will result in a unified, coordinated and orderly entity based on coherent strategic principles: (1) that assistance programs have been streamlined and harnessed to advance American policy objectives and security interests; (2) that export and trade promotion will be among the highest foreign-policy priorities of the United States; and (3) that development assistance will be at long last privatized.
This proposal will not gut the effectiveness of the American foreign-policy apparatus - it will strengthen and enhance it. As Secretary Christopher recently put it, ``the current structure of the foreign-affairs agencies developed in a world much different from today's. It must change to meet the demands of the next century.''
The secretary is exactly right. For instance, take the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. A relic of the Cold War, ACDA was created in the context of a U.S.-Soviet arms race that has been declared by all sides to have ended. But ACDA lives on. It shouldn't. Some of its activities should be modernized and maintained (e.g., the nonproliferation objectives). But the bureaucracy? It should be dismantled and its functions integrated into the central foreign-policy department - the only way to ensure that proliferation is given adequate weight in our foreign policy.
Similarly, the Agency for International Development was intended to be a temporary entity. Instead, it became not only an entrenched bureaucracy but one that has proliferated uncontrollably. Thirty years ago, precisely three government agencies dealt with foreign aid. Today, there are more than 30.
Clearly all of these assistance programs, in all of these agencies, are not functioning as part of a coherent, coordinated approach, maximizing the benefit of every dollar spent. This mishmash must be brought under the authority of a single foreign-affairs department. Assistance programs must be placed in the hands of policy-makers - not AID bureaucrats - who will be charged with the responsibility of ensuring that they support U.S. foreign-policy objectives.
Spending U.S. taxpayer dollars on foreign aid must never again be an end in itself. It must be transformed into a means of supporting specific American national interests. Where programs do not effectively service U.S. foreign-policy goals, they should be eliminated.
The same is true regarding the United States Information Agency. Those who assert we must keep USIA independent contend that it is to ensure that exchange and broadcasting programs remain untainted by policy-makers. They unwittingly make a strong case for privatization. Exchange and broadcasting programs paid for by U.S. taxpayers should reflect American policy and should be incorporated into the State Department. Programs not serving American policy objectives should be left to the private sector.
This proposal has been discussed with both the House and Senate leadership, including most chairmen of committees and subcommittees of jurisdiction. Their responses clearly indicate to me that Congress is prepared to support a thorough reorganization of our nation's foreign-policy institutions.
If Congress is indeed ready, the only question is the administration - and we will shortly determine where it stands. I intend to introduce this proposal in the Senate, and of course it is my strong hope that the administration will choose to be a partner, not an antagonist, in formulating this legislation.
Secretary Christopher is right - it is time to close down some of these agencies and create a single, unified department to conduct U.S. foreign policy. He deserves the support of the president and vice president. They should reconsider the decision to kill the secretary's significant proposal in this regard, and join in our effort to re-invent our foreign-policy apparatus.
Jesse Helms, a Republican senator from North Carolina, is chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations
- The Washington Post
by CNB