National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Case Study in the Mobilization of Public Support 9781400876129

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NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY A Case Study in the Mobilization of Public Support

BOOKS FROM THE CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University Gabriel A. Almond, The Appeals of Communism Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman, editors, The Politics of the Developing Areas Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture Robert J. C. Butow, Top and the Coming of the War Bernard C. Cohen, The Political Process and Foreign Policy: The Making of the Japanese Peace Settlement Charles De Visscher, Theory and Reality in Public International Law, translated by P. E. Corbett Frederick S. Dunn, Peace-Making and the Settlement uxth Japan Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War W. W. Kaufman, editor, Military Policy and National Security Klaus Knorr, The War Potential of Nations Klaus Knorr, NATO and American Security Klaus Knorr and Sidney Verba, editors, The International System: Theoretical Essays Lucian W. Pye, Guerrilla Communism in Malaya James N. Rosenau, National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Case Study in the Mobilization of Public Support Rolf Sannwald and Jacques Stohler, Economic Integration: Theoretical Assumptions and Consequences of European Integration, translated by Hermann F. Karremann Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense Sidney Verba, Small Groups and Political Behavior: A Study of Leadership Myron Weiner, Party Politics in India

National Leadership and Foreign Policy A CASE STUDY IN THE MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC SUPPORT BY

JAMES N. ROSENAU

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 1963

Copyright © 1963 by Princeton University Press A L L RIGHTS RESERVED

L. C. Card: 63-7160

Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

FOR NORAH

Preface Let the reader be forewarned: what he gets out of this book will depend on thoughts which he is bound to have—say, somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth chapter— about matters that have nothing to do with either national leadership or foreign policy. For these substantive topics are treated, in the pages that follow, in terms of quantified data provided by a relatively small sample of a large population. If the reader, like the author at the outset of the inquiry, has never had occasion to analyze aspects of the foreign-policymaking process quantitatively, he will no doubt wonder about the meaningfulness of such an approach, about the relevance of these particular data to such general topics, and, indeed, about reliable knowledge itself—what it is and how it is obtained. Clarification of my thoughts about reliability occurred during the process of coding and tabulating the responses of hundreds of national leaders. To cumulate and organize a mass of data is to be reminded of the variability and complexity of human behavior. The final product of quantitative analysis—tables of data systematically arrayed in columns and rows—suggests an orderliness and simplicity about human affairs that can be profoundly deceptive. But the experience of actually sorting data into columns and rows makes one sensitive to the fact that a variety of factors underlie the distributions which seem so simple in the neatly organized tables. More specifically, in handling the data I was impressed with the vast difference between tracing a single actor or unit through a particular period of time and accounting for many of them under varying conditions. The single actor or unit does A, B, or C, and what he does is thus unmistakable and can be interpreted accordingly. In the case of many actors, however, nothing is so clearcut. Some do A, others do B, still others do C, and probably a few will pursue a course between A and B or between B and C. Furthermore, within

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each of the groups some also engage in X while the remainder do Y, thereby making it difficult to estimate the conditions under which X and Y are related to A, B, or C. Eventually, in other words, one develops a fresh appreciation of the obvious fact that unequivocal patterns rarely occur and that they are suspect when they do—that the sources of behavior are varied and overlapping rather than uniform and distinct. Once this hard and basic lesson is learned, the researcher becomes humble before his data and acquiesces to the realization that he is destined to work with ambiguous differences which, at best, allow him to discern central tendencies. It is precisely at the point that one is faced with ambiguous differences that thoughts about reliability occur. How does one infuse order into such data? Does one attach meaning to all those differences which somehow seem reasonable? Or does one proceed more rigorously, establishing prior rules of evidence for differentiating substantive patterns from those which could have occurred by chance? Suppose, for example, that 55 per cent of the Republicans take action on a matter and that the equivalent figure for the Democrats is 58 per cent. Is this difference meaningful? Should it be described as reflecting "greater" activity on the part of Democrats or as indicative of "similar" tendencies on the part of both groups? Or suppose the two figures are 45 and 68 per cent. Is this disparity more meaningful than the one that involved only three percentage points? There are, of course, no right answers to these questions. Depending on their purposes, their training, and, no less importantly, their temperaments, different observers have different conceptions of the nature of reliable knowledge. What is a meaningful datum for one is suspect for another. What one researcher discerns as a pattern is merely random fluctuation to another. If communication is to prevail so that knowledge can cumulate, however, there is one absolute before which any researcher must bow, namely, the obligation to make explicit what kinds of knowledge he regards as reliable and what procedures he uses to uncover it. In this

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ix

way his readers can assess the validity and significance of his findings in terms of their own criteria of reliability. Since my answers to the foregoing questions are scattered throughout the ensuing chapters, it is perhaps useful to summarize here the premises on which they are based. I start with the conviction that the large questions of our time are in reality many small ones and that to cumulate reliable knowledge about important problems is to nail down and then piece together a number of lesser matters which, taken singly, often seem trivial. Hence, if I were forced to choose, I would rather uncover clearcut data whose bearing on practical questions may not be immediately obvious than policy-relevant findings which are vague and imprecise. In effect, then, I believe that big problems can only be solved in small steps, through the painstaking accumulation of dependable answers to limited questions. These convictions have been articulated in several ways. First, in order to nail down the findings, I have not omitted from the manuscript the detailed data analyses which preceded their derivation. The reader will find elaborate, perhaps even tedious, discussions of how the data might be varyingly interpreted. Second, and again at the risk of tedium, throughout I have sought to fulfill the obligation to be explicit by indicating the research techniques employed to obtain and classify data. Should the reader wish to reinterpret any datum or reject any finding, all the materials to do so are here—if not in the text itself, then in the appendices. Third, so as to lessen the risk of misconstruing the data, I decided to impose an independent check on myself by establishing prior rules of evidence. In part I did this by subjecting every quantitative difference to the rigors of tests for statistical significance. Throughout the book meaning has been attached only to those differences which had a probability (P) of occurring by chance only five times out of a hundred ( P < . 0 5 ) . Indeed, so as to avoid succumbing to the temptation to interpret findings that did not prove to be statistically significant, I have purposely omitted these data from the

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PREFACE

tables wherever possible. There is, of course, nothing magical about statistical tests of significance. They do not provide automatic explanations of why data are patterned in a particular way. Rather they are only impartial techniques of analysis— rules of evidence which are independent of the researcher and which thereby prevent him from seeing whatever he wants to see in patterns that might have occurred by chance. In addition to subjecting the data to statistical tests, in all but Chapter VIII I adopted the procedure of attaching meaning only to those statistically significant patterns that I had anticipated in advance. In this way I attempted to reduce to a minimum the possibility of deriving explanations from the small percentage of statistically significant dififerences which are expected to occur by chance (not to mention those that stem from coding or calculating errors) rather than from substantive processes. More importantly, such a procedure maximizes the degree of confidence that can be placed in the findings. Since data are rarely distributed in such a way as to permit only one interpretation, conclusions derived from a process of inspecting the data after they have been compiled are not nearly as reliable as findings which had been previously predicted on the basis of explicit reasoning. To be sure, these rules of evidence severely limited the number of findings that could be developed out of the data. Perhaps some interesting insights were lost by not inspecting all the unanticipated differences which were significant and by ignoring those which were not. I neither regret nor apologize for this loss, however. My purpose is that of contributing to the growth of a body of knowledge about world affairs which is enduring and does not become obsolete as the present fades into the past and the future slips into the present. In my judgment this goal is best achieved by adhering to strict rules of evidence, even if in doing so one foregoes the interesting insights which a more flexible approach might yield. There is, admittedly, an alternative, that of preliminary exploration which employs less reliable procedures in order to chart the way for subsequent inquiry.

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Xl

But somehow this road to enduring knowledge always seems to lead to a dead end. How rare is the student of foreign policy who subsequently subjects to rigorous testing the hypotheses derived from his exploratory work! Hence, whatever may be lost, I think it is a price worth paying in exchange for findings which have emerged unscathed from a processing based on relentless rules of evidence. Adherence to strict rules of evidence is not easy. If predicted patterns fail to materialize, or, even worse, if cross-tabulation fails to produce patterned data, one is inevitably tempted to "torture" the data by relaxing the rules or recategorizing the columns and rows into which they are sorted. For example, in the case of a distribution which is not statistically significant but which is patterned along predicted lines, one could ensure confirmation of the hypothesis by claiming that, after all, the findings were "almost" or "practically"—or, indeed, "almost practically"—significant. To the extent that I have resisted these temptations I am grateful to my wife Norah. Her commitment to rigorous research was not always compatible with the wifely role of being nice to husband. Yet, from the beginning she managed to be both an intellectual conscience and a supportive companion, not to mention a tireless coder, a skillful editor, and a sharp critic. Virtually every page reflects this many-faceted contribution, albeit she is not responsible for any errors which still remain. Collecting, organizing, and managing great amounts of data is costly and I am indebted to the Center of International Studies of Princeton University for assuming the burden. In particular, the support of the Center's Director, Klaus Knorr, made the task of gathering and analyzing the data much easier than it would otherwise have been. Handling quantified data is also time-consuming and in this respect Mrs. Peggy Skinner of the Center's staff provided invaluable help of various kinds. In addition, I am grateful to several of my former students at Douglass College for their

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able assistance in gathering and processing the data: Mrs. Elizabeth Mathis James spent many long hours at the sorting machine and the calculator; Mrs. Dorothy Cullen Schwartz went through Who's Who in America and similar materials in search of background information on nearly two thousand national leaders; and Mrs. Susan Barth Dines did research for a term paper which yielded data relevant to the findings presented here (see footnote 16 of Chapter III). This inquiry could hardly have been initiated, much less completed, without the cooperation of those who sponsored and organized the proceedings of February 25, 1958, which facilitated the gathering of so much data on national leaders. Mrs. Harriet S. Crowley of the Committee for International Economic Growth was especially helpful, both in responding to frequent requests for materials and in providing insights into what transpired before, during, and after the occasion that serves as the empirical focus of the book. Interviews with Mr. George Barnes, Mr. Eric Johnston, Mr. Andrew Rice, Mr. William C. Schmeisser, Jr., Mrs. Fay A. Steiner, and Mrs. Margaret G. Twyman also yielded useful background information about the assignment on which they worked so diligently. As for the substantive dimension of the inquiry, the advice and criticism of several colleagues was extremely valuable. In particular, I am grateful to Professor Bernard C. Cohen, who at the outset encouraged me to pursue the germ of an idea and who later offered an astute and detailed critique of an early draft of the manuscript. Discussions with Professors Gabriel A. Almond, Neil A. McDonald, Burton M. Sapin, and Sidney Verba also helped me to think through some of the theoretical and empirical problems raised by the inquiry. For the ultimate product of all this assistance and advice, however, I alone am responsible. The manner of processing and interpreting the data is entirely a consequence of my own conception of how research into public affairs should be

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carried out, and none of the foregoing necessarily shares this conception. Some of the ideas and a few of the data presented herein have been previously published in an abbreviated form, and I am grateful to several sources for permission to use and extend these materials: to the editor of the SA7S Review for permission to use ideas contained in my "Consensus, Leadership, and Foreign Policy," which appeared in the Winter 1962 issue of the Review; to the editor of The Journal of Politics for permission to use parts of my "ConsensusBuilding in the American National Community: Some Hypotheses and Some Supporting Data," which appeared in the November 1962 issue of the Journal; and to Random House for permission to reprint several paragraphs from Chapter 5 of my Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: An Operational Formulation. Lastly, it goes without saying that I am deeply appreciative of the time which those who comprise the surveyed population gave to the project. Their willingness to respond fully and frankly to an inquiring researcher is perhaps in itself a clue to the way in which national leaders view their responsibilities. JAMES N. ROSENAU

New Rrunswick, N. J. June 27, 1962

Contents PREFACE

vii

PART I: INTRODUCTION I. NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY: A DERIVED MODEL

3

The Identity of National Leaders · The Structure of National Leadership · The Role of National Leadership · The National Leadership Subculture · The Functioning of National Leadership II.

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN

POLICY:

A N EMPIRICAL WASTELAND III.

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN

42 POLICY:

A CASE HISTORY

51

The Selection of the Conferees · The Events of February 25th · Post-Conference Developments PART II: THE CONFEREES: A PROFILE OF 647 OPINION-MAKERS IV.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

Age · Sex · Race · Religion · Region • Education · Occupation · Associational associational Leadership · Unremunerated and Responsibilities · Governmental and Experience · Summary V.

OPINION-MAKING

OUTLETS AND CAPACITIES

93

· Party and NonActivities Political

132

Indicators of Formal Access to the Communications System · Indicators of Informal Access to the Channels of Communication · The Index of Opinion-Making Potential · Opinion-Making Potential: An Analysis of Differences · Interaction Among Opinion-Makers · Summary

xvi VI.

CONTENTS INVOLVEMENT IN FOKEIGN AFFAIRS

168

Measures of Involvement in Foreign Affairs · Measures of Familiarity with Foreign Affairs · Summary VII.

FOREIGN AID ATTITUDES AND CONCEPTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

204

Five Attitudes Toward Foreign Aid: An Analysis of Their Exponents and Their Sources · Conceptions of the American People · Summary PART III: THE CONFERENCE: BEHAVIORAL AND NONBEHAVIORAL REACTIONS

VIII.

PERCEPTIONS AND EVALUATIONS OF THE CONFERENCE

243

Reasons for Attending the Conference · The Participation Record · Perceptions of the Goals of the Conference · How the Conferees Perceived Each Other · Evaluations of the Organization and Structure of the Conference · Evaluation of the Conference as a Learning Experience · Evaluation of the Conference as a Stimulating Experience · The Index of Nonbehavioral Effect · Summary IX.

POST-CONFERENCE

AcTrvrrrEs:

OPINION-MAKERS

IN ACTION

300

Who Did What, When, and How · The Index of PostConference Activity · The Conference as a Source of Behavior · Perceptions of the Effectiveness of the Conference · Summary PART IV: SUMMARY AND SPECULATION X. CONSENSUS-BUILDING IN THE AMERICAN NATIONAL COMMUNITY

331

From Consensus to Policy: Some Missing Links · Refining the Leadership Model · Possible Foci for Further Research

CONTENTS

xvii

APPENDICES A. THE QUESTIONNAIRE

365

Design and Structure · The Quality and Quantity of the Response · The Representativeness of the Response • The Contents of the Questionnaire B. T H E OCCUPATION VARIABLE

385

C. DERIVATION OF THE INDEX SCORES

392

INDEX

401

PART 1 Introduction

The longer one frets with the puzzle of how democratic regimes manage to function, the more plausible it appears that a substantial part of the explanation is to be found in the motives that actuate the leadership echelon, in the values that it holds, in the rules of the political game to which it adheres, in the expectations which it entertains about its own status in society, and perhaps in some of the objective circumstances, both material and institutional, in which it functions. V. O. KEY, JB.

CHAPTER

I

National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Derived Model The contents and effectiveness of a foreign policy—or of any public policy for that matter—can be explained in terms of various types of actors and various forms of behavior. Foreign service officers who assess conditions abroad and initiate policy alternatives to cope with them, high government officials who advise one course of action rather than another, nongovernmental leadership groups who veto or support some of the alternatives, citizens comprising the mass public who limit the range of acceptable alternatives, top officers of the executive branch who finally decide which alternative to adopt, members of the legislative branch who modify the chosen alternative, officials in the field who implement the alternative which ultimately emerges from the policy-making process—all of these actors and groups contribute to the character and success of American foreign policy and each can serve as the focus of an explanatory analysis. To be sure, not all of these actors are equally influential. There is a vast discrepancy between the influence of the President who makes the final decision and that of the ordinary citizen who contributes vague feelings to a public mood that sets outer limits on the policy commitments which can be undertaken. Yet the nature of the policy is a function of the activities—or lack of activities—of each of these actors. Variations in the style or quality of the role played by any of them produce corresponding alterations in the contents and adequacy of the policy. Changing presidential attitudes produce much greater policy alterations than do changing moods on the part of the citizenry, but shifting public moods do have consequences for the formulation and conduct of foreign policy. United States action abroad, in short, is determined by a

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variety of actors, each of them providing a necessary, but in itself insufficient, condition for the operation of the policymaking process. Causation flows from a number of sources, the role played by each actor being causal to the extent that his actions can introduce variation into the form and substance of a foreign policy. Thus the observer has a wide range within which to engage in explanatory analysis of policy content and effectiveness. Depending on his interests, he can focus on any group of actors, or on any set of processes, and justifiably attribute influence to them. If he is interested in identifying those individuals or groups who exert the most influence over a particular policy—say, the foreign aid program—then he will doubtless concentrate on the activities of the President, his chief advisers, and key leaders of Congress. If he is interested in how some policy alternatives were developed and others ignored, then his attention will probably center on decision-making processes within the State Department and the Agency for International Development. If he becomes interested in the contents of the program and why it does not include Treasury Department authority to make long-term development loans abroad, then he will surely want to analyze the influence of Congressional appropriations committees and their reluctance to forego jurisdiction over the expenditure of any foreign aid funds. And, if he wants to determine why Congress does not override its appropriations committees and extend rather than modify the alternative selected by the President, then he will no doubt focus on public opinion processes and the citizenry's half-hearted enthusiasm for the foreign aid program. Of these many levels of causation, this study is concerned with one that lies somewhere between officialdom and the citizenry. Our interest is in the role which national leaders— especially nongovernmental leaders—play in shaping the contents and effectiveness of American foreign policy. Surprising as it may seem, this causal level has not been systematically explored. Although leadership studies of

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small towns and large metropolises abound, similar inquiries in which the nation is treated as the unit of analysis have rarely been undertaken. 1 It is possible, however, to extrapolate from the studies of local communities a crude model of the role which national leaders play in the national community. Foreign aid programs are an output of the national system in the same way that urban redevelopment programs are products of local systems, and thus presumably the functions performed by leadership groups at both levels are similar in many respects. The Identity of National

Leaders

Before deriving a model of the foreign policy role played by national leaders, however, we need to specify who they are and how they are to be differentiated from other types of leaders and from members of the mass public. It is not enough simply to assert that national leaders are those persons who wield influence in the national community. For, as noted, there are many levels of influence and in this sense every citizen can be regarded as influential. Furthermore, influence is extremely difficult to trace empirically. For someone to be influential another person must be influenced, and the relation between the action of the former and the reaction of the latter is rarely self-evident.2 In order to avoid the difficulties inherent in the influence concept, while at the same time drawing a precise line between the points at which leadership ends and foUowership begins, it seems advisable to fashion a definition out of the behavioral act which is a prerequisite to the wielding of influence within a complex community—namely, the act of communicating opinion3 on other than a face-to-face basis. 1 Some of the reasons for the relative lack of attention to leadership in the national community are outlined below in Chapter II. 2 A more elaborate discussion of the problems which necessarily accompany use of the influence concept will be found in my Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: An Operational Formulation (New York: Random House, 1961), Chapter 2. 8 "Opinion" is used throughout in the general sense of any type of

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Influence cannot occur if opinions have not previously been transmitted. Anyone who does not possess, either presently or potentially, opportunities to have his opinions transmitted to unknown citizens cannot be expected to exercise leadership in the community or to wield influence in government circles. To be sure, a person possessing such opportunities may not be heeded by those who are recipients of his communications, but the lack of a capacity for impersonal communication necessarily deprives him of influence beyond his face-toface acquaintances. At the very least, therefore, leaders and followers can be precisely differentiated in terms of their opinion-circulating behavior.4 So as to emphasize this behavioral conception, the term "opinion-maker" shall henceforth be used interchangeably with "leader" to designate those who play a leadership role in the foreign policy area.5 More precisely, hereafter opinionmakers are considered to be those members of the society who occupy positions which enable them to transmit, with some reguhrity, opinions about foreign policy issues to unknown persons." In order to facilitate analysis of leadership message—information, intention, attitude, perception, and judgment— that might be communicated. 4 Of course, some of the "followers" can be extremely influential in face-to-face situations. Through word-of-mouth they perpetuate the flow of opinions introduced into the communications system by the leadership and their importance in this respect has been amply demonstrated by empirical data, especially those presented in Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955). However, such persons—called "opinion leaders" by Katz and Lazarsfeld— are here regarded as followers on the grounds that their influence is not especially relevant to the structure and functioning of the national community. 5 Other reasons for the use of "opinion-maker"—instead of "elite" or other more conventional designations—are set forth in my Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, pp. 42-5. 6 A much more elaborate version of this definition, along with a discussion of precisely what is meant by its key phrases, is presented in ibid., pp. 45-50. Here it is sufficient to note that "regularity" has been included in the definition so as to eliminate from the ranks of the opinion-making public persons whose communication with unknown audiences is limited to discontinuous types of action, such as writing letters to newspapers. This is not to imply, however, that opinion-makers must

A DERIVED MODEL

7

in the national community, this basic definition is further refined by including a somewhat arbitrary, but not unreasonable, geographic dimension: state boundaries. National opinion-makers are defined as those whose positions enable them to transmit opinions regularly to unknown persons outside of the state in which they work or reside, whereas local leaders are those whose opinion-making capacities are confined to unknown audiences in their own city or state. This geographic distinction is more important than it may appear at first glance. It tends to differentiate those opinionmakers who are active on questions of foreign policy from those who exercise leadership in other areas. As we will see, leaders tend to specialize in "issue-areas" and few local opinion-makers occupy positions which enable them to circulate opinions on international affairs. Leaders who can and do transmit opinions on issues of foreign policy, on the other hand, are likely to possess opinion-making capacities which extend beyond the boundaries of one state. On the basis of these definitions, then, the ranks of national leadership are wide and diverse. Roughly speaking, they include top elected and appointed officials of the federal government; directors of large corporations; chiefs of international unions; publishers, reporters, and other contributors to communications media with widely dispersed audiences; administrators and scholars of large or prestigeful colleges and universities; high-ranking military officers; spokesmen for the various religious faiths; prominent scientists, entertainers, and writers; politicians affiliated with the Democratic and Republican National Committees; and elected and administrative heads of large trade associations, veterans' organizations, women's clubs, farm groups, world affairs councils, and innumerable other types of nationally continuously or frequently engage in the act of transmitting opinions. As long as periodicity marks their actions they may, like some authors, introduce ideas into the impersonal communications channels as infrequently as, say, every second or third year and still be regarded as opinion-makers.

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organized voluntary associations. An estimate of the total number of leaders in all these groups is not easy to make. Empirical data have not been assembled on the basis of the foregoing definition and, in addition, the ranks of the national opinion-making public will vary as different issues activate different segments of it. On a common sense basis, however, one might reasonably assume that the full range of foreign policy issues encompasses no more than several hundred thousand national opinion-makers and no fewer than fifty thousand. 7 Two aspects of the foregoing formulation require emphasis at the outset. One is that government officials have not been excluded from the ranks of national opinion-makers. Many leadership studies either make such an exclusion or, more frequently, are unclear on this point. There is a tendency to use vague terminology, such as "political stratum" or "political activists," to designate leadership groups, with the result that it is never clear whether the behavior of private citizens, or of public officials, or of both, is the subject of analysis.8 While there can be no question that officials have legal responsibilities and engage in decision-making activities which set them apart and often require separate analysis, here they have been lumped together with nongovernmental opinion-makers not only because of the all-embracing definition, but also—and mainly—because the ensuing model of the structure, role, and processes of national leadership is founded on a functional interdependence between its public and private segments. 7

This numerical assessment is not much different from the one which the Marquis Publishing Company uses to compile Who's Who in America. On the basis of their criteria, membership in the ranks of national leadership is, according to an enclosure they send to prospective biographees, "an opportunity offered to but fifteen in ten thousand." For a somewhat smaller estimate of the size of the opinion-making public, see Elmo Roper, "Foreword," in Katz and Lazarsfeld, op.cit., p. xvii. 8 For two recent and otherwise impressive monographs that are surprisingly obscure on this important point, see Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), and V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961).

A DERIVED MODEL

9

Secondly, it is useful to stress from the start that leaders in the communications field are not posited as having greater influence than other groups of nongovernmental opinionmakers. Their operation and control of the mass media does, to be sure, place them astride the key channels of the communications system. Yet occupancy of these highly strategic points does not necessarily accord them the disproportionate influence that is often assumed to be the case. Not only is there substantial evidence that the mass media tend to reinforce rather than change opinions,9 but also the values of the society and the norms of the communications profession require that operators of the mass media use their columns and programs to transmit the opinions of all other leadership groups, including those whose opinions they do not share. 10 The Structure of National

Leadership

Despite wide variability in the composition and functioning of national leadership, it does have stable, predictable elements. Most opinion-making capacities are attached to occupational roles rather than being derived from the talents of those who fill the roles. Moreover, these roles tend to circumscribe the kinds and number of issues on which their occupants can circulate opinions to unknown audiences. Hence to a large extent the locus—though not the quality or 9

For a concise summary of the impact of the mass media, see Joseph T. Klapper, The Effects of Mass Communication (Glencoe: The Free Press, I960), Part One. 10 The fact that the publicly expressed opinions of other opinionmakers are circulated by the mass media suggests the need for an expansion of the "two-step flow" concept in which opinions are viewed as first being transmitted by the mass media and then being passed on through word-of-mouth by opinion leaders in the general public. At the very least it ought to be expanded to account for a "four-step flow" in which the news and interpretation of an event are carried by, say, a newspaper (step 1), this is then read and adapted by opinion-makers, who assert (step 2) their opinions in speeches on the subject that are reported (step 3) by the press and thereupon picked up by opinion leaders who in turn pass (step 4) on the opinions through face-to-face communication.

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the intensity—of leadership behavior on an issue can be anticipated in advance of its activation. For each issue, in other words, one could plot a set of positions in the society out of which opinion-making activity is likely to emanate irrespective of the identity of the particular persons who occupy them. It is hardly surprising, for example, that an embargo on the importation of Cuban tobacco produced opinion-making activity on the part of the president of the Tampa [Florida] Cigar Manufacturers Association.11 The pattern of positions which are likely to generate opinionmaking on various issues is what shall be called the structure of national leadership. These structural elements become especially clear if one asks why relatively few Americans—less than one quarter of one per cent of the population by our calculations—are able to circulate opinions to geographically remote fellow citizens whom they do not know. Except for the small minority noted below, most opinion-makers are not endowed with special qualities which set them apart and allow them to disseminate ideas to unknown audiences. Neither a college degree nor high socio-economic status guarantees opinion-making capacities at either the national or the local level. Although the social background of many opinion-makers may be similar, the same traits also characterize an even larger number of persons who do not fall under our leadership definition. By a process of elimination, then, a search for the sources of opinion-making ability leads inescapably to the notion that such capacities ordinarily are attached to positions and are not inherent in people. Put in sociological terms, access to the impersonal channels of the communications system is acquired in either of two ways: by ascription or by achievement. Ascribed access to the communications system predominates and derives from the fact that most opinionmakers hold positions of prominence in organizations which are highly respected by the local or national community. " New York Times, February 5, 1962.

A DERIVED MODEL

11

Consequently, they are called upon to circulate their opinions to other than face-to-face acquaintances. Consider, for example, the president of a large university or the executive officer of a large corporation. They have access to unknown audiences regardless of whether they seek or utilize outlets for their opinions. Newspapers cover their public activities, groups request them to give speeches, radio and television producers ask them to appear on programs, and so on. Thus, although running a university and managing a corporation constitute the formal requirements of their occupational roles, these men are also obliged informally to respond to opportunities to introduce opinions into the communications system. It is the informal nature of these obligations which leads us to speak of opinion-making capacities as "attached" to an occupational role, rather than as inherent in the role.12 But it might be argued that a man cannot become president of a university or board chairman of a corporation unless he has special talents. Surely opinion-makers must be particularly gifted in order to occupy the leadership positions to which opinion-making capacities are attached. This may be so, but it does not negate the fact that most opinion-making capacities are ascribed. While talent and a record of achievement are undoubtedly essential to promotion to leadership positions in organizations that command respect, ordinarily it is the occupancy of the positions that provides access to the impersonal channels, rather than the skills or accomplishments which led to occupancy. The only exception to this ascriptive manner of becoming an opinion-maker concerns those who, like artists and scholars, are recognized and respected because of accomplishments attained through individual effort outside of an organizational framework. Whenever local or national prominence is acquired in this way, opinion-making capacities 12 It should be noted, however, that opinion-making capacities are formally prescribed aspects of a few specific types of occupational roles. Those who operate the mass media are the most obvious example of opinion-makers who must circulate opinions to unknown persons in order to perform their jobs.

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can be said to have been achieved rather than ascribed. This distinction can also be depicted in terms of the loss of access to the impersonal channels of communication. Opinionmakers who acquire their access through ascription will usually lose it by resigning from their occupational positions, whereas access acquired through personal achievement can­ not be lost in such an abrupt fashion. Prolonged inactivity might result in the loss of achieved opinion-making capaci­ ties, but no single action such as resignation or retirement can bring this about. Occupational access to the communications system can, of course, be subcategorized in a multitude of ways. Both ascribed and achieved prominence is highly specialized and in this sense there are as many types of leaders as there are pursuits in which men engage. For the purpose of outlining the leadership structure, however, this occupational variation can be handled by a generalized fourfold classification which covers every type of leader. These four main categories are governmental opinion-makers (officials of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches), associational opinionmakers (heads of voluntary associations), institutional opinion-makers (directors of societal institutions such as businessmen, educators, and ministers), and individual opinion-makers (those whose opinion-making capacities are 13 achieved rather than ascribed). If these four occupational types are further differentiated in terms of geographic (local and national opinion-makers) and issue (single- and multiissue opinion-makers) scope, the leadership structure of the nation can be simply, yet fruitfully, portrayed in a 4 χ 4 matrix. This is presented below, along with typical examples of the opinion-makers encompassed by each cell who might be active on foreign policy issues. 13 Certain occupations, of course, are not easily placed in any of these categories. For example, while lawyers and communications leaders are perhaps most appropriately classified as institutional opinion-makers, a case could be made for placing them in the last category. A lengthy dis­ cussion of such problems, as well as of the categories themselves, will be found in my Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, pp. 59-71.

A DERIVED MODEL

13

A TYPOLOGY OF SIXTEEN BASIC KINDS OF OPINION-MAKERS national multi-issue opinionmakers

national single-issue opinionmakers

local multi-issue opinionmakers

local single-issue opinionmakers

Governmental Opinionmakers

A United States Senator

The Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

A mayor of a city

The chief customs officer of a port city

Associational Opinionmakers

The national commander of the American Legion

The president of the Asia Foundation

The commander of a city's American Legion Post

The head of a county's refugee organization

Institutional Opinionmakers

The chairman of the board of the General Motors Corp.

The head of a missile manufacturing company

The president of a city's leading bank

A partner in a coffeeimporting firm

Individual Opinionmakers

A syndicated columnist

The nation's A prominent leading deauthor in mographer the community

A Professor of Asiatic Affairs at a nearby college

The examples presented in the typology permit us to elaborate on several previously noted features of the leadership structure. First, the somewhat forced examples used in the two "local" columns suggest the large degree to which opinion-making in foreign policy occurs at the national level. Sewage disposal, school budgets, urban redevelopment, highway systems—these are the preoccupations of local communities, and it is on these issues that local leaders are afforded opportunities to express themselves. Publishers or producers of local newspapers or radio programs would soon lose their audiences if they devoted more than peripheral attention in their columns and broadcasts to international matters. City

14

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

and state politicians would run the risk of losing votes as well as their audiences if in their public appearances they dwelt upon the virtues and drawbacks of the European Common Market or the foreign aid program. 14 Likewise, local units of voluntary associations are unlikely to sponsor speeches or panels on issues of foreign policy, and the few groups that are active in this area usually attempt to get "name" speakers from outside of their communities. Secondly, the more one speculates about other examples that might be placed in each cell of the matrix, the more it becomes clear that leadership in the foreign policy field is numerically dominated by single-issue opinion-makers. Foreign policy issues are increasingly comprised of highly technical dimensions, so that the opinions of the relevant specialists are likely to be sought on each issue—physicists on the issue of nuclear test resumption, economists and business leaders on trade relations with the European Common Market, educators on the problem of competing with the Soviet Union in the training of scientists, and so on. In short, every issue in the wide range which constitutes modern international life evokes the expertise of leaders in one or more specialized fields. Contrariwise, presumably every occupational field encompasses one or another matter that may be potentially related to an issue of foreign policy. Thus it can be seen that the opinion-making public, at both the national and local levels, is composed of a core of leaders who can regularly transmit opinions about many issues and a wide group of specialists whose opinion-making capacities are limited to matters encompassed by their expertise. Being 14 This is not to say, however, that local politicians make no contribution whatsoever to opinion-making in the foreign policy area. See, for example, the contributions made by New York City's Mayor Robert F. Wagner and Detroit's Mayor Louis J. Miriani in January 1957 and June 1959, when it was proposed that King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and Deputy Premier Frol R. Kozlov of the U.S.S.R. visit their respective cities as part of goodwill tours of the United States. For evidence that politicians at the state level can also contribute to the circulation of ideas about the world scene, see Glenn Brooks, When Governors Convene (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), Chap. 6.

A DERIVED MODEL

15

dependent on an ever-changing range of active issues, membership in the opinion-making public is not fixed. As the issues change, so do the number and kind of occupational experts who introduce opinions into the communications system. Studies of local communities provide firm support for this reasoning that numerically single-issue opinion-makers predominate in the national leadership structure. Impressive data have been uncovered which clearly show that different groups of leaders are activated by varying issues and that relatively few persons exercise leadership in more than one issue-area. Dahl, for example, found that in New Haven the "overlap among leaders and subleaders in three issue-areas"— urban redevelopment, education, and nominations—involved only 3 per cent of his sample and only 1.5 per cent who were leaders in all three areas.15 It must be emphasized that this formulation of the leadership structure has not been cast in an hierarchical framework. To be sure, structure suggests lines of authority and patterned decision-making. The idea of a "national leadership structure" may even convey the impression that the affairs of the opinion-making public and the role that it plays are guided, even administered, by a small group of top leaders— perhaps multi-issue opinion-makers who enjoy special prerogatives with respect to their fellow leaders and the mass public. Indeed, more than a few observers have persuasively argued that such an hierarchical structure does mark the nations leadership. C. Wright Mills, for example, portrays an "interlocking directorate" composed of a small number of government, business, and military leaders who occupy the "command posts" of the society and preside over its affairs.16 Similarly, in his semi-serious account of the "Establishment" in the United States, Richard Rovere suggests that in the foreign policy area the hierarchical structure of national 15

Op. cit., p. 175. C . Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), especially Chapter 1. le

16

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

leadership includes a presiding officer (John J. McCloy), an executive committee (the directors of the Council on Foreign Relations), a doctrine (the editorial positions of the New York Times), and forbidden opinions ("opposition to foreign aid is one of them"). 17 Likewise, using survey and interview techniques, Floyd Hunter compiled lists of several hundred persons who are "top leaders" in the national community.18 To repeat, however, here the structure of leadership is not posited as having an authority dimension, but rather is conceived to consist of a stable pattern of positions which afford their occupants opportunities to circulate opinions to unknown audiences. While some opinion-makers are undoubtedly more influential than others, the fact that their ranks change from issue to issue makes it seem unwise—if not impossible— to construct a hierarchical structure which is applicable to every foreign policy situation. If leadership specialization does not negate the "interlocking directorate" conception, certainly it renders the notion unmanageable in the sense that presumably there are as many directorates as there are foreign policy issues. Furthermore, as indicated below, the foreign policy role played by nongovernmental leaders is such that the relative influence different groups wield is not as crucial a variable as the degree of consensus among them. The performance of the national leadership role, in other words, is determined more by the extent of agreement which stretches horizontally across the ranks of opinion-makers than by hierarchical factors which may link them vertically. The Role of National

Leadership

With the identity of national leaders in mind, let us turn now to constructing a model of their role in the foreign policy-making process. Extrapolating from studies of leadership in local communities, it seems clear that the main 17 Richard H. Rovere, "Notes on the Establishment in America," The American Scholar, Vol. 30 (Autumn 1961), pp. 489-95. 1 S Floyd Hunter, Top Leadership, U.S.A. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1959), especially pp. 17-28 and 196-98.

A DERIVED MODEL

17

function of nongovernmental leaders at the national level is one of supporting or vetoing policy alternatives developed by their colleagues in the federal government. The former do not have the information, time, and other policy-making resources which the latter can employ to refine and translate initial ideas into workable and concrete alternatives. Nor do they have the formal authority to select a particular course of action. They can, however, react to alternatives proposed by policy-makers. Indeed, their responsibilities as leaders of segments of the mass public require them to judge government proposals—to "make" opinions—that are relevant to the area in which they exercise leadership. Nor are the responsibilities of national leadership fulfilled after alternatives have been evaluated. Nongovernmental opinion-makers are then obligated to pronounce their judgments—to articulate the interests of those in the mass public for whom they are leaders. In this way both their followers and their colleagues in government are informed as to whether a proposal is acceptable, or at least not objectionable. Because they are spokesmen for diverse segments of the public, in other words, national leaders have an informal authority which the ordinary citizen does not possess, which officialdom cannot ignore, and which thus enables them to prevent or permit the selection of alternatives that are formulated, modified, and proposed by government leaders. American policy toward Communist China in the 1950s and United States adoption of the Marshall Plan in 1947 illustrate, respectively, the preventive and permissive versions of this national leadership function. Like their counterparts at the local level, in short, national leaders serve as a key link between officialdom and the citizenry. They guide and mold mass opinion and they also reflect it, and in this dual capacity the flexibility, intensity, and depth of their opinions constitute the essential subsoil in which foreign policy alternatives must be rooted. As V. O. Key puts it, the ranks of national leadership—"the talkers, the persuaders, the speculators, the philosophers, the advocates,

18

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOBEIGN POLICY:

the opponents—mediate between the world of remote and complex events and the mass of the public."19 While the veto-support function of nongovernmental opinion-makers is the main focus of this inquiry, we need to differentiate it from another important role of national leadership—from what might be called the advisory function which some nongovernmental leaders perform when they respond to officialdom's requests for technical advice. As a dynamic technology renders world affairs more and more complex, government leaders have increasingly sought the expertise of private citizens in order to cope with the technical aspects of policy alternatives under consideration. The contribution of university scientists to decisions on nuclear testing is a good example of the advisory role played by nongovernmental leaders.20 It is, however, very different from the veto-support function. The difference is unmistakable in the typical case of the opinion-making public vetoing or supporting a policy alternative after it has been formulated and proposed. Less clear are the cases when national leaders are "consulted" and "informed" about governmental thinking on a problem during the development of a policy and prior to the selection of an alternative. Under these circumstances a certain amount of expertise may be supplied officials, but frequently this is incidental to the main purpose of contacting and informing nongovernmental leaders. Often the primary aim of bringing interested leadership groups into policy deliberations at a pre-decisional stage is that of ensuring support when an alternative is finally adopted. It is presumed that if these groups are kept abreast of the deliberations and any major objections they may register taken into account, then they will be more likely to approve of the final decision and thus provide it with a legitimacy which it might not otherwise have. In short, because the veto-support function 19

Op.cit., p. 261. For a stimulating discussion of the advantages and difficulties attendant upon the performance of this advisory function, see Henry A. Kissinger, "The Policymaker and the Intellectual," The Reporter, Vol. 20 (March 5, 1959), pp. 30-35. 20

A DERIVED MODEL

19

can, in effect, be performed at a pre-decision stage, there may be occasions when it appears indistinguishable from the advisory role of national leadership. Yet, the manner in which consultation between governmental and nongovernmental leaders occurs and the composition of the groups consulted should permit clear differentiation of the two roles.21 Closely related to the foregoing is still another function of nongovernmental leaders, which we shall call the issue-making function. While the task of developing, refining, and choosing policy alternatives is performed by government officials, other national opinion-makers can contribute to the process whereby policies do or do not become the center of public attention. If key groups of leaders do not, perhaps for a variety of reasons, become interested in a situation abroad and engage in opinion-making with respect to it, then the situation is not likely to take hold and acquire status as an "issue." To be sure, if the President or ranking members of Congress press the matter, it will receive a public airing. But it will not remain long in the limelight if concern about the situation is confined to officialdom.22 Contrariwise, foreign policy issues come into being and persist when situations abroad arouse opinion-makers and become the subject of a continuing dialogue between them. How many opinion-makers have to be activated to create and sustain an issue? Extrapolating from local community studies, it can be assumed that although an "issue can hardly be said to exist unless and until it commands the attention of 21 Under special circumstances, of course, the two roles may be performed simultaneously, thereby greatly complicating the task of distinguishing between them. An excellent account of one such situation will be found in Morton H. Halperin, "The Gaither Committee and the Policy Process," World Politics, Vol. XIII (April 1961), pp. 360-84. A more general analysis of the overlap between the advisory and veto-support functions will be found in Harlan Cleveland, "Inquiry Into Presidential Inquirers," New York Times Magazine, August 14, 1960, pp. 12, 92-93. 22 For a case study of a foreign policy problem which never became a full-fledged issue, see Bernard C. Cohen, The Political Process and Foreign Policy: The Making of the Japanese Peace Settlement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).

20

NATIONAL LEADEKSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

a significant segment" of the opinion-making public, "whenever a sizable minority of the legitimate elements" of the leadership structure "is determined to bring some question to the fore, the chances are high that the rest" of the leadership groups "will soon begin to pay attention."23 Once this happens, of course, the issue-making and veto-support functions merge into one. Irrespective of whether nongovernmental opinion-makers create an issue before or after officialdom becomes sensitive to the situation (and usually governmental sensitivity precedes issue-making), the more they concentrate attention on the situation, the more they engage in a process of vetoing or supporting alternative policies toward it. This fusing of the two functions also occurs whenever governmental responses to situations do not provoke debate among opinion-makers. In such instances—what might be called "unmade" issues—the lack of controversy among leadership segments constitutes, in effect, passive support for the decisions and actions of officials. The veto-support function performed by nongovernmental leadership has long been explicitly recognized by officialdom at the local level. Convening a conference of "distinguished citizens" from all walks of life for the purpose of discussing and advising on particular problems facing a community is a commonplace practice of city mayors and state governors. Indeed, this technique is frequently institutionalized through the establishment of "citizens committees" of prominent leaders upon whom officials can "rely" for guidance. Dahl reports, for example, that without the creation of such a group, the Citizens Action Commission, officials in New Haven would never have been able to carry through a vast urban redevelopment program. 24 One might almost say that nongovernmental leaders give a tricameral quality to the policy-making process, that they constitute a "third chamber" of the legislature in which executive agencies must win 23 21

DaM, op.cit., p. 92 (italics added). Ibid., p. 133.

A DERIVED MODEL

21

support, or at least avoid defeat, even though votes are never actually tabulated. 25 Nor have federal officials been unmindful of the role of nongovernmental leadership. Periodically, for example, President Eisenhower invited various national opinion-makers to "stag dinners" as a means of exchanging ideas on international and national problems. Similarly, President Kennedy has systematically played host at "luncheons" for publishers and editors from the various states in order to discuss with them matters of mutual concern.26 Furthermore, in recent years leadership conferences and committees have been used as a policy-making technique by federal officials with increasing frequency and in an ever-widening number of issue-areas. Like their counterparts at the local level, heads of federal agencies have reasoned that if a diverse and bipartisan group of leaders approve a proposed program, or if they do not object to it, opposition to the proposal will not easily coalesce and might even be nullified. In effect, by institutionalizing the veto-support function officials of the executive branch create their own legislature—"third chambers" which can rival, and thus pressure, the two houses of Congress.27 25 Or, if one wished to emphasize that leaders appointed to advisory boards and citizens' commissions constitute an extension of the work and scope of government, the institutionalization of their role might be viewed as the creation of an "external bureaucracy." This formulation has been impressively developed by Chadwick F. Alger, who refers "to these inhabitants of both the private and public worlds as external bureaucrats" because of the difficulty of classifying them "as either private citizens or government officials." See his "The External Bureaucracy in United States Foreign Affairs," Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 7 (June 1962), pp. 50-78. 26 For a full account of the purposes and procedures of these luncheons, see the Neu) York Times, October 22, 1961. 27 Nor is the executive branch the only creator of "third chambers." Some private organizations have also regularly convened diverse groups of nongovernmental leaders with a view to discussing public problems and recommending solutions to them. The semi-annual meetings of the American Assembly are perhaps the most notable and publicized "third chamber" of this sort, but similar conferences are sponsored as annual or periodic events by such organizations as the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the Council on Religion and International Affairs, and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organiza-

22

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

Abundant evidence could be marshalled to demonstrate the importance and institutionalization of the veto-support function at the national level. Indeed, its importance has been directly and publicly called to the attention of the Congress. In reporting to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Brookings Institution suggested that both the legislative and the executive branches should employ a variety of techniques to institutionalize the role of nongovernmental leaders. While not ignoring the need to inform the general public, the Brookings report stressed that a more systematic and energetic effort should be made to bring leaders of public opinion into closer touch with the officials and processes that shape U.S. foreign policy. These leaders are extremely important in informing and mobilizing the public and are most likely to make the best use of such an opportunity. Many devices could be used to implement this . . . alternative. More high-level briefings might be conducted by the executive departments for selected groups. Some agencies, such as the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, have devised programs for Reserve officers and private citizens in various cities which could serve as models for the foreign affairs field. More opportunities might be given to leading individuals to take part in the policy process as consultants, temporary staff members, delegates, or visitors abroad. Arrangements to provide information and other services for groups conducting programs in world affairs could be strengthened. The Congress could contribute by reinforcing its relations with special groups and the media that reach these tions. Indeed, even the U.S. Congress has conferred legitimate status upon "third chambers." In this case, however, the purpose is not that of implementing the veto-support function. Rather Congress tends to set up public advisory committees such as the International Development Advisory Board or the Advisory Committee on Educational Exchange in order to maintain a check over the work of the Executive (see Alger, op.cit., pp. 70-71).

A DERIVED MODEL

23

groups. Hearings could be held in various parts of the country, and Members of Congress might more frequently form bipartisan teams to explain aspects of foreign policy and sample attitudes. A few Members have already performed valuable services in this regard and have developed effective means of discussing the essence of policy with community audiences.28 That such techniques are in fact being employed with increasing frequency in different foreign policy areas is indicated by such recently established organizations as the National Advisory Council for the Peace Corps, the Citizens Committee for International Development, the Freedom From Hunger Foundation, the General Advisory Committee of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the United States Advisory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs.29 That such groups can play a supportive role at the national level is suggested by the activities in 1947 of the Committee for the Marshall Plan. Just as Dahl attributes acceptance of urban redevelopment in New Haven to the role of the Citizens Action Commission, so has the adoption of the Marshall Plan been described as partly a consequence of the activity sparked by "the remarkable array of bankers, lawyers, trade unionists, and editors" who comprised this committee.30 28

United States Foreign Policy: Compilation of Studies, Prepared under the Direction of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), p. 823. 29 Accounts of the establishment and membership of these committees will be found, respectively, in the New York Times of March 31, July 11, and November 23, 1961, and March 2 and April 6, 1962. For a more elaborate analysis of the structure, functioning, and role of committees such as these, see David S. Brown, The Public Advisory Board in Government: An Administrative Analysis of Several Boards with Particular Attention to the Public Advisory Boards of the Economic Cooperation Administration and the Mutual Security Program (Ph.D. Dissertation, Syracuse University, 1954), and Chadwick F. Alger, The Bole of Private Experts in the Conduct of American Foreign Affairs (Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1958). 80 Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1960), pp. 49-50.

24

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

Nor is the utility of such techniques confined to issues of foreign policy. An innovative instance of their application to domestic policy areas occurred in the fall of 1961, when five members of the President's Cabinet went "on the road" to explain their policies to and receive advice from groups of "state and municipal officials, special civic groups, and inter­ ested citizens." Convened for two days in each of ten cities, the events were called White House Regional Conferences and they focused on such topics as agricultural surplus, con­ servation policy, economic growth, community development, juvenile delinquency, education, recreation, metropolitan planning, fiscal and monetary policies, minimum wages, and physical fitness.31 Similarly, six months later President Ken­ nedy heeded the advice of his Advisory Committee on LaborManagement Policy and brought 250 business, labor, and academic leaders to Washington for two days of discussions at the White House Conference on National Economic Issues. 32 The large extent to which the role of nongovernmental leaders has been institutionalized at the national level is also evident in the fact that presidential orders have had to be issued governing the procedures and membership of certain types of advisory committees. Issued in February 1959 and revised and extended in February 1962, the orders have sought to avoid conflicts of interest on the part of committee members and to establish standards for the content, conduct, and records of committee meetings. In the revised order an "advisory committee" was defined as "any group formed or used by a Government agency for obtaining advice and recommendations, and not wholly composed of officers or 33 employees of the Government." Some observers are inclined to regard the institutionaliza­ tion of the veto-support function less as an aspect of the 31

Accounts of, and reactions to, these conferences are reported in the New York Times of October 5 and November 26, 19Θ1. 32 See the account of the proceedings in the New York Times of May 22 and 23, 1962. 8s New York Times, February 28, 1962.

A DERIVED MODEL

25

policy-making process and more as a formality to which deference must be paid. Even as he stresses the importance of the Citizens Action Commission in New Haven, for example, Dahl describes its formation and role as "democratic ritual." 34 But such a characterization is somewhat misleading. It implies that officials will necessarily obtain the policies they seek if they observe "third chamber" formalities. In fact, however, ritualistic creation of leadership committees does not automatically guarantee public acceptance of policy proposals. Nongovernmental leadership groups must be won over. If they are divided among themselves, then a consensus has to be fashioned. Or at least the recalcitrant groups must be persuaded not to exercise a veto. Thus, irrespective of whether the efforts to build consensuses within and among leadership groups are institutionalized or carried out informally, they must be viewed as important features of the policy-making process and not as appendages to it. Of course, in attempting to build consensuses officials seek to implement the support function of national leadership. It should be noted, however, that consensus within the opinionmaking public can also be negative and preventive. The veto function, in other words, can be performed when the opinion-making public is united as well as when it is divided. Widespread leadership opposition in the 1950's to the recognition of Red China stands out as an example of a consensus which prevented rather than facilitated government action.35 Stated differently, there are two forms of the veto function. Either the opinion-making public can be so divided that a few key leadership groups are able to prevent the selection of one alternative, or it can be so united in a negative direction as to prevent the adoption of an alternative. If United States 34

Op.cit., p. 130. A measure of this consensus is provided by the results of a nationwide survey which the Council on Foreign Relations made in 1954 of "800 businessmen, lawyers, educators, editors, and other community leaders of other occupations." Prevailing U.S. policies toward Communist China were approved by 78 per cent of the respondents. New York Times, April 15, 1954. 35

26

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

policy toward Communist China is an instance of the latter type of veto role, the former type is illustrated by the cancellation, after protests by a few key segments of the leadership structure, of a proposed visit to the United States in 1957 by Yugoslavia's President Tito.36 Having taken note of negative consensuses, henceforth the analysis will focus on the more numerous and complex situations in which the national leadership is either unified in support of the goals and actions of officialdom (positive consensus) or divided with respect to a policy (no consensus). Unless otherwise indicated, therefore, "consensus" is hereinafter used in the positive sense of widespread agreement within the ranks of nongovernmental leaders. Furthermore, whether a consensus takes the form of active support or passive permissiveness, it is conceived to exist whenever agreement exceeds, say, 75 per cent of the opinion-making public. 87 Regardless of the percentage of agreement that obtains with respect to any issue-area, however, the veto-support function of national leadership is clearly an extremely important one. For it follows from the foregoing discussion that American foreign policy will be more effective the greater the degree of consensus which prevails among national leaders. If the nation's business, labor, communication, religious, educational, agricultural, associational, and political leaders are united in their perceptions and judgments of events and trends abroad, then officialdom is free to formulate sound, creative, and consistent policies to cope with the international scene. Contrariwise, if the leadership structure is marked by dissension rather than consensus—by conflicting perspectives 86 See James Reston, "A Policy Boomerangs," New York Times, February 4, 1957. 87 This percentage is derived from the reasoning of Prothro and Grigg, who note that, "Logically, perfect consensus represents one extreme of an opinion continuum and perfect discord the other extreme. Any degree of agreement on a problem within a given universe that is less than 75% is accordingly closer to perfect discord than to perfect consensus." James W. Prothro and Charles Grigg, "Societal Coordination by the Educated Minority," PROD, Vol. Ill (January I960), p. 7.

A DERIVED MODEL

27

which foster different assessments and thereby lead to contradictory solutions and recommendations—then the American response to developments abroad is likely to be confused, vacillatory, and inadequate as officials move warily on the fissured subsoil of leadership opinion. The preceding paragraphs also suggest that the followership of the nation—the mass public—plays a negligible role in the policy-making process. If the foregoing formulation is correct, plainly the mobilization of public opinion in support of a foreign policy does not involve informing and activating the mass public so much as it requires the fashioning of a consensus within the leadership structure. 38 Such a conclusion can also be derived from the abundant empirical data which bears on the role played by the mass public. All the evidence indicates that a large majority of the citizenry is not particularly concerned about international affairs. Reviewing the survey data, one commentator notes that "only three out of ten voters are aware of the major problems in foreign affairs [and] that only twenty out of 100 voters can be considered reasonably well informed."39 It is hardly possible, in other words, to . . . . underestimate the public's power to ignore, to acquiesce, and to forget, especially when the proceedings seem incalculable or remote from private life. Unless the 88 This is not to imply, however, that the mass public is entirely homogeneous in its approach to foreign policy. Obviously a number of attitudinal and motivational distinctions would have to be made if it were a major focus of this inquiry. It has become commonplace, for example, to differentiate between the attentive and inattentive members of the mass public. However, since our concern is with the leadership stratum of the society, we have not attempted here to delineate the various segments of the mass public. For a recent effort to identify and differentiate these segments empirically, see Paul A. Smith, "Opinions, Publics, and World Affairs in the United States," The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. XIV (September 1961), pp. 698-714. 89 Lester Markel, "What We Don't Know Will Hurt Us," New York Times Magazine, April 9, 1961, p. 9. For a full and careful analysis of all the available data on the mass public and its orientations, consult Alfred O. Hero, Americans in World Affairs (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1959).

28

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

shooting starts a Lebanon may be remote, a Berlin seems incalculable, sputniks overhead become routine. But paychecks, grocery bills, children's schooling, sons at war are quite distinctly matters of real life.40 It follows that by exercising their "power to ignore, to acquiesce, and to forget," most citizens delegate, knowingly or otherwise, their voice in foreign affairs to those leaders— both in and out of government—who can effectively claim to speak for them. 41 To be sure, like his colleagues in government, the nongovernmental leader cannot afford to stray too far beyond the interests of his segment or "constituency" in the mass public. He must maintain support among at least the more attentive elements of the groups from which he derives his leadership. However, since the mass public is predominantly uninterested in international affairs, the nongovernmental opinion-maker enjoys wide latitude within which to exercise his leadership on such matters. Thus, except perhaps when mass passivity diminishes in extreme emergencies or when votes are cast in elections, the views of national leaders are public opinion insofar as foreign policy issues are concerned. As one astute observer has noted, "Who mobilizes elites, mobilizes the public."42 The National Leadership

Subculture

Obviously a host of variables determine the nature and degree of consensus that exists among national leaders in any issue-area at any moment in time. Some of these, of course, are situational variables, that is, changing aspects of the national and world scene which affect the degree of consensus. The existence of an overt and urgent crisis abroad, for example, is likely to be more conducive to consensus40

Neustadt, op.cit., pp. 97-98. A much more elaborate formulation of the mass public's role in foreign policy is presented in my Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, Chapter 4. 42 Gabriel A. Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950), p. 138. 41

A DERIVED MODEL

29

building than is a situation in which the external threat is of a covert, subtle, and long-range nature. Similarly, during an election year in the United States situational factors are introduced into the consensus-building process which do not otherwise prevail. Thus every new development or condition of public affairs is potentially a situational variable insofar as the coherence of national leadership is concerned. A second set of consensus determinants—those henceforth designated as background variables—involve the way in which different kinds of prior experience shape the attitude and behavior patterns whereby opinion-makers either contribute to or detract from consensuses. Presumably, for instance, their educational and professional training, their religion, their socio-economic status, their career patterns, their previous contacts with officialdom, their earlier experiences in practical politics, and their foreign travels—to cite but a few of the potentially relevant background variables—are characteristics they bring to their positions which importantly condition the manner in which they exercise leadership in the foreign policy area. The more nearly similar their educational experience, for example, the more likely opinionmakers are to have similar reactions to events abroad. Thus do background factors varyingly affect the extent to which consensus develops among diverse groups of national leaders. Another cluster of consensus determinants are those norms, expectations, perceptions, and motives which channel the behavioral responses whereby opinion-makers either subscribe to or dissent from leadership consensuses. Hereafter referred to as attitude variables, these predispositions are directed toward a wide range of phenomena, so wide in fact that it seems appropriate to differentiate between strategic and substantive attitudes. The former type encompasses those norms, perceptions, judgments, and calculations with which national leaders interpret the operations and outputs of the policy-making process. How and why the system works as it does, the place of Congress and the President in the process, whether policies do or should reflect mass opinion,

30

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

the influence of various leadership groups over the general public, their own role as circulators of opinions and creators of issues—these are typical of the kinds of strategic assessments which national leaders make and which alter the degree of consensus to the extent that they vary from issue to issue. Substantive attitudes, on the other hand, are those values, expectations, and interpretations with which opinionmakers respond to and order the world outside the policymaking process. Their interest in and knowledge about world affairs, their evaluations of particular policies, their readiness to accept new information and to adjust long-standing policy attitudes accordingly, their perceptions of Russia's motives and of all the issues and objects composing the international environment, their values as to the relative importance of different issues and the priorities which should be attached to international, national, and local considerations—these are but a few of the many substantive attitudes which can affect the nature and extent of consensus among national leaders. Of the many attitude variables that may serve as consensus determinants, perhaps the most significant—or at least one on which we shall subsequently place considerable emphasis —involves the unit to which opinion-makers attach their highest loyalties. More specifically, the attitudes of national leaders are conceived to be organized within the framework of either continental or segmental orientations. The former type are held by opinion-makers who cast their particular regional, party, or occupational interests within a larger, more national framework. They are not necessarily selfless and starry-eyed dreamers. They may, in fact, be hard-headed realists who exact a stiff price for their support of a consensus. But, whether tender- or tough-minded, they are willing to admit that the needs and wants of the public segments for whom they are spokesmen may have to be subordinated in solving the problems of American society. Hence continentally oriented leaders are capable of attitude change, of adjusting their views to changing conditions abroad, of responding to persuasive occupants of the White House or to other top

A DERIVED MODEL

31

officials. Although they may differ radically on particular questions, they have a common priority with respect to the units to which their loyalties are attached. AU business and labor leaders, for example, may be at loggerheads on what constitute proper management policies, but some businessmen and some labor officials nevertheless treat the corporation and the union as secondary units, thereby enabling the spokesmen for the primary unit—the President and other executive officials—to secure their support for various foreign policies. Segmentally oriented leaders, on the other hand, give highest priority to the subnational units which they head or represent. The larger problems of American society, both at home and abroad, are interpreted in the context of their particular regional or occupational interests. While they may talk in terms of a larger welfare, in fact they are not prepared to admit a discrepancy between it and their subnational concerns. Consequently, except in situations of acute and dramatic crisis abroad, their attitudes are rigidly set and they have virtually no susceptibility to presidential or governmental leadership. Besides situational, background, and attitude variables, leadership consensuses are, of course, also shaped by the ways in which opinion-makers actually play their roles—that is, by what shall henceforth be designated as behavioral variables. These include the frequency and extent of interaction between different types of opinion-makers, the degree to which they are active in circulating opinions in various issue-areas, the intensity and style of the actions directed at fellow opinion-makers as well as those undertaken with the mass public in mind, and the wide range of possible means whereby they introduce opinions into the channels of communication. It seems reasonable to presume, for example, that the greater the interaction among diverse types of leaders, the more they will comprehend each other's attitudes and thus the readier they will be to join together in support of a particular policy. To a considerable degree, of course, members of the

32

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

opinion-making and mass publics share the same background characteristics, attitudes, and behavior patterns. When the Russians erected the wall in Berlin, for example, the reactions of leaders and followers in American society were similar. As implied above, however, some of the norms, expectations, interpretations, and behavior patterns characteristic of opinionmakers do not prevail within the larger society. Studies of local communities indicate that the processes of participating in or avoiding the controversies which mark an issue-area foster a subculture that differentiates the leadership stratum from the citizenry. There are, in other words, attitudes, assumptions, and modes of thought—what might be called the rules of the leadership game 43 —that opinion-makers in a community commonly internalize and that they use to interpret and judge the meaning and motivation of the activity which takes place within their ranks. Among other things, for example, a leadership subculture can include "a capacity to recognize when it is futile to fight and more sensible to wait, a disposition to seek out areas of agreement and to maximize them, a tendency to sweep conflict under the rug, an unprincipled inclination to split the difference or compromise, and a comparatively broad understanding of the place of specific actions for the system as a whole both at the moment and in the stream of time."44 Obviously tendencies such as these can serve in crucial ways as sources of consensus or dissension among leadership groups, and thus it seems necessary to add subcultural variables to the list of situational, background, attitudinal, and behavioral factors that shape the way in which the leadership role is performed at any moment in time. The existence and relevance of a leadership subculture at the national level can be readily illustrated. Consider the activities of the President of the United States. If he supports a policy by personally presenting it to Congress, rather than by endorsing it in a prepared statement distributed at a press 43 44

Or what Dahl calls "political axioms" (op.cit., pp. 94-95). V. O. Key, op.cit, pp. 51-52.

A DERIVED MODEL

33

conference, this action would not signify very much to most Americans. For national leaders, however, the difference between the two forms is quite meaningful. Most members of the national community will share the inference that the personal presentation reflects greater presidential motivation than does the prepared statement and that therefore the President can be expected to follow up the former type of support more frequently and vigorously than the latter type. Multiply this presidential illustration by the number of possible actions in which leaders can engage, not to mention by the number of different leadership groups and the number of different issues which can occupy their attention, and it becomes clear that the shared expectations and norms with which national opinion-makers interpret each other constitute a vast and complex subculture. As previously implied, subculture variables can also be highly relevant to the process whereby a foreign policy acquires a particular status. When, as is usually the case, most groups of opinion-makers have similar perceptions of how all the other groups will behave with respect to various issueareas, widely shared assumptions emerge about the standing of a policy even if disagreement prevails with respect to its contents. Stated differently, issues come into existence and remain alive as long as they conform to a minimum set of shared criteria which opinion-makers use to estimate whether a situation abroad is sufficiently urgent or controversial to be publicly discussed. No single leader or group of leaders can force an issue into being through energetic reiteration unless it meets these subcultural criteria of acceptability. As a result of these criteria, for example, U.S. recognition of Communist China has long been recognized as a "settled" matter beyond public discussion, while at the other extreme foreign aid has acquired the status of an "unpopular" policy subject to recurring and heated debate. The status of individual leaders within the opinion-making public provides another illustration of the existence and relevance of subcultural variables. It will be recalled that the

34

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOBEIGN POLICY:

capacity of most leaders to circulate opinions to unknown audiences is attached to the positions they occupy in the leadership structure and that consequently various segments of the general public will assess their opinions in terms of the respect ascribed to their posts. The esteem in which an individual leader is held by his fellow opinion-makers, however, is not only the result of the prestige attached to his position. It also stems from the way in which he exercises his opinionmaking capacities and performs his leadership role. All opinion-makers share certain values as to what constitutes good, bad, and indifferent leadership performance and these subcultural values thus serve to differentiate the influence which leaders wield within their own ranks. To be sure, irrespective of skill and style, the president of Harvard University is likely to exert more influence over other opinionmakers than is, say, the president of a southwestern university. Yet, among educators heading equally prestigeful institutions some will be listened to more carefully than others because the nature of their past behavior has corresponded more closely to subcultural standards of skillful and competent leadership. There are, to cite a more concrete example, several former Secretaries of Defense, but former Secretary Robert A. Lovett is apparently held in particularly high regard by national leaders because the quality of his actions during and subsequent to his occupancy of the office was especially impressive.45 The rapid shift that occurred in the status of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy between 1954 and 1955 is another, more dramatic illustration of the operation of subcultural norms. During this period the Senate censured McCarthy for, in effect, engaging in behavior unbecoming to a national leader. While he continued to possess all the opinion-making capacities accorded to United States Senators 45

This subcultural evaluation of Mr. Lovett is, for example, a theme that recurs throughout the 1960-61 Senate inquiry into the policy-making process. Cf. the Hearings before the Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Organizing for National Security (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), Vol. 1, passim.

A DERIVED MODEL

35

after being censured, and while he remained influential among his followers in the general public, his voice subsequently commanded little respect among national leaders and, indeed, in the Senate itself a "conscious disorder and inattention" occurred in the chamber whenever he rose to speak.46 Often there is a tendency to cast the mores and behavior of leaders in an aura of mystery.*7 It must be emphasized, however, that this was not the intent of the foregoing discussion. Although unexpected developments and changing conditions can momentarily obscure the subculture of national leadership, there is nothing secretive about it. We have not been describing a mystical force which binds the opinionmaking public and which only those who enter its ranks can experience. Nor do we mean to imply the existence of an amorphous "climate" of opinion which pervades the atmosphere of Washington and somehow does things, such as making issues and breaking Senators. Rather, to repeat, the subculture consists of whatever shared norms, expectations, and interpretations national leaders employ as a basis for responding to each other. Some of these are explicit and others are implicit; some are fixed and enduring, while others change and fluctuate as situations unfold and relationships harden. All the facets of the subculture, however, can be discerned in or inferred from the behavior of national leaders, and it is in this concrete sense that they can be treated as variables in the consensus-building process. The Functioning of National Leadership Let us now complete our model of national leadership by adding the dynamic dimension of behavior through time. *e William S. White, Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), p. 133. 47 In his analysis of the subculture of the U.S. Senate, for example, White posits an "inner life" of the legislature which is "controlled by the Inner Club"—by "an organism without name or charter, without officers, without a list of membership, without a wholly conscious being at all." (Ibid., pp. 83-84.)

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NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

Having taken note of the structure, role, and subculture of the opinion-making public, we need to view this "third chamber" in action, to see how consensuses either form or fail to develop around particular foreign policies. In recent years three distinctly different conceptions of how the American national community functions have claimed attention. The most widely held view focuses on the President and assumes a one-to-one relationship between the degree of his leadership and the degree of agreement within the opinionmaking public: the more vigorous and skillful the consensusbuilding efforts of a President, the more will the nation's nongovernmental leaders replace their segmental orientations with continental ones and become unified in support of a policy. In effect, the presidential leadership school tends to view consensus-building less as a process and more as an attribute—as a capacity to mobilize public opinion which is possessed exclusively by the occupant of the White House and which can be employed in a variety of ways. James Reston, for example, argues that while it is hard "to underestimate America's current resistance to exhortations from the preachers, professors, columnists and editorial writers of the nation," this resistance can be overcome and mobilization of the public is possible: The President of the United States is the one man who can get the attention of the American people. If he says the nation is in trouble, they will listen to him. If he addresses himself to their doubts and questions, they will hear him out. If he presents programs and legislation to do what he thinks is necessary for the safety of the Republic and explains and keeps explaining why these are essential, he may very well prevail.48 Another adherent of this school is Walter Lippmann, who has observed that 48 James Reston, "Our History Suggests a Remedy," in John K. Jessup, et al., The National Purpose (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, I960), pp. 112-13.

A DERIVED MODEL

37

This is a most peculiarly Presidential country. The tone and example set by the President have a tremendous effect on the quality of life in America. The President is like the conductor of a big symphony orchestra—and a new conductor can often get different results with the same score and the same musicians.49 The difficulty with this kind of reasoning is that it is too simple. It tends to view attitudinal and political change as stemming from a single source and, in so doing, totally ignores the complex veto-support role played by national leaders. If policy-making were merely a matter of strong presidential leadership, then the foreign aid program, for example, would not be such a controversial and "unpopular" issue. AU three postwar presidents have emphatically supported the program, but it has nevertheless foundered on the rocks of public and legislative opinion. Presidential leadership is not, in other words, the only independent variable. It may be, and doubtless is, necessary to the creation and maintenance of widespread public support, but surely it is not a sufficient condition for the establishment of broadly based consensuses. Even the most vigorous of Presidents is bound to be a less than successful consensus-builder if the values of key leadership groups are sufficiently in conflict to lead some of them to resist his blandishments. Obviously mobilization of public support is not possible if, say, members of Congress or leaders of the business community and the labor movement do not agree on the meaning of the past and the shape of the future. The various segments of the mass public can be as responsive to their respective leaders as to the occupant of the White House, and thus presidential leadership depends on a followership which, being in part composed of a subleadership, is both more complex and more structured than the concept of "public support" implies. To extend Lippmann's analogy, orchestras are not 49

William Attwood, "A Visit With Walter Lippmann," Look, April 25, 1961, p. 105.

38

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOBEIGN POLICY:

automatically melodious in response to waves of a conductor's baton. Their members must be willing to play together and must interpret movements of the baton in the same way if harmonious music rather than incoherent noise is to fill the concert hall. Neither of the other two conceptions of how the national community functions denies the importance of the role played by the President. In addition, however, both approaches stress the role of a subleadership which performs the veto-support function. Indeed, they are differentiated by the emphasis which one puts on the tendency of nongovernmental opinionmakers to veto policy alternatives and which the other places on their readiness to respond to leadership in support of a particular course of action. The former conception, in other words, takes an essentially negative view of the prospects of building consensuses among diverse groups of national leaders. Functional autonomy and ideological heterogeneity are considered to be major characteristics of the opinionmaking public which prohibit, or at least greatly restrict, the formation of national consensuses. Even strenuous and skillful presidential activity is hypothesized to be incapable of coordinating diverse leadership segments which ordinarily function independently of each other and which "differ significantly among themselves with regard to both the means and ends of policy."50 Members of the opinion-making public, in short, are regarded as constituting a community in only the loosest sense of the term. Their orientations are segmental and not continental. They lack common values and a common framework for perceiving and interpreting events and trends abroad. Only in the case of extreme and self-evident international crises, such as the situation in Europe which occasioned the need for the Marshall Plan, can a modicum of agreement be fashioned among them. Otherwise national leaders cannot be expected to respond similarly, much less uniformly, to the same stimuli. Such a conception has been emphatically advanced by John W. Gardner, who notes that "our top 50

Almond, op.cit., p. 144.

A DERIVED MODEL

39

people in various fields may not even know each other" and that leadership is so widely dispersed, that it is broken down into so many fields, that it is not signalized by badges of rank—all of these things reduce the self-conscious sense of responsibility of individuals and groups who are actually exercising a powerful guiding hand in our national life. They lack a sense of their role as leaders, a sense of the obligations which they have incurred as a result of the eminence which they have achieved. They exercise the power but have no keen sense of exercising it. Or they may well recognize their leadership role with respect to their own special segment of the community but be unaware of their responsibility to the larger community. 51 The foregoing is in marked contrast to a more positive view which emphasizes a growing consensus-building potential on the grounds that national leaders are changing as the nation becomes increasingly complex and its parts increasingly interdependent. It is reasoned that leadership groups are therefore less and less able to function autonomously and that, indeed, they are compelled to interact frequently. This recurring interaction is hypothesized to foster continental orientations and the integration of perspectives, thereby dissipating the value differences which have divided the national leadership into so many diverse segments. In turn, these changes are presumed to encourage a sense of shared responsibility and a readiness to shoulder the burdens of cold war leadership. As a result of continuous contact and common experiences, in other words, the opinion-making public is regarded as acquiring an integrated structure and the dynamics of a thriving community. Thus it is assumed that leaders at the national level will respond similarly to external threats and, given an energetic and persuasive 51 John W. Gardner, Excellence (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), pp. 124-25.

40

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND FOREIGN POLICY:

President, that they are capable of being coordinated and mobilized. Reasoning along this line has been most clearly articulated by W. W. Rostow, who unqualifiedly contends that the various leadership groups are getting to know one another. One facet of the rapid evolution of an American continental community is that leaders in special segments of national life are being brought together to consider major foreign and domestic problems. Businessmen and professors, labor leaders and churchmen, farm organization executives and foundation officials gather now as a matter of course from every part of the country on one occasion or another. As a result, there now exists as never before the physical and human possibility of thrashing out rapidly a nationwide consensus among those outside the government who can play important roles in leading the community toward agreement and action in military and foreign affairs.52 Unfortunately this sharp difference between the negative and positive conceptions of national leadership in operation cannot be bridged on the basis of local community studies. The latter allow for the derivation of a conceptual model, but it would be foolhardy to assume that their findings on the backgrounds, attitudes, behavior patterns, and subculture of local leaders are applicable to national opinion-makers. In order to estimate the degree to which consensus-building is possible within the larger society, data descriptive of national leaders have to be examined and assessed. Indeed, if this derived model is to be tested and refined, a number of empirical gaps have to be filled in: Do national opinionmakers have common values or do they not? Are continental orientations more prevalent within the leadership structure than segmental ones? Or does the continental-segmental balance vary from one foreign policy issue to the next? Do 52 W. W. Rostow, The United States in the World Arena (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 513-14.

A DERIVED MODEL

41

national leaders come from similar backgrounds and have similar sources of information, or do they lack the bases for a common frame of reference? Do their paths cross frequently, or are only relatively few opinion-makers encompassed by the institutionalization of the veto-support function? Do they respond in similar ways to shared experiences or do they not? Is it, in short, possible to fashion a consensus among diverse groups of national leaders? Most importantly, is consensus possible with respect to the typical cold war crisis that is prolonged and serious but not acute and self-evident? An attempt to shed light on these questions—and then, in Chapter X, to refine the model accordingly—occupies the remainder of this monograph.

C H A P T E R II

National Leadership and Foreign Policy: An Empirical Wasteland Research in the public opinion field is marked by a curious and striking discrepancy: despite widespread recognition that the formulation and conduct of foreign policy is sustained primarily by the opinion-making activities of national leaders and is only peripherally influenced by the views of ordinary citizens, it is the latter and not the former who have occupied the empirical spotlight. Findings descriptive of the attitudes of the mass public on a variety of issues are voluminous.1 No less extensive are studies of how opinions circulate among the citizenry—of how newspapers are read, television absorbed, voluntary associations joined, opinions internalized, and information rerouted from mass media into face-to-face situations.2 In contrast to this powerful two-beamed spotlight that has played searchingly upon the attitudes and behavior patterns of the mass public, a flickering candle has barely illuminated the opinion-making public. Whereas opinionmakers are conceived as interacting in such a way as to set the tone of public debate and thereby to veto or support the policy choices of officials, the extent and manner of their 1

See, for example, Hadley Cantril (ed.) Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 1-1191. 2 The following sources are suggestive of some of the recent work done in these areas of communications research: Richard E. Chapin, Mass Communications, A Statistical Analysis (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957); Alfred O. Hero, Mass Media and World Affairs (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1959); Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955); M. Brewster Smith, Jerome S. Bruner, and Robert W. White, Opinions and Personality (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 195Θ); and Charles R. Wright and Herbert H. Hyman, "Voluntary Association Memberships of American Adults: Evidence from National Sample Surveys," American Sociological Review, Vol. 23 (June 1958), pp. 284-94. Perhaps the best and most up-to-date summary of the state of the field is V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961).

AN EMPIRICAL WASTELAND

43

interaction has not been systematically researched. Likewise, the relevance of their social backgrounds and prior experience has been stressed conceptually,3 but not analyzed empirically. Nor have their attitudes toward major foreign policy issues been the subject of close comparative analysis.4 Equally scarce are data on how various types of opinion-makers view their roles and the responsiveness of the mass public to their leadership efforts. Most importantly, comparative analyses of national leaders in action—studies of attitudinal and behavioral responses to common stimuli that might reveal their susceptibility to coordination and mobilization—are conspicuously missing from the literature on the opinion-making public. To be sure, the backgrounds, attitudes, and behavior of certain leadership groups have been subjected to empirical analysis. Lawyers, for example, have been extensively researched, as have lobbyists, businessmen, academics, Senators, and public relations specialists.5 But such studies are isolated and unrelated to each other. They do not ask the same questions of their data and are therefore neither comparative nor comparable. They were not carried out in an effort to add empirical flesh to a larger conceptual skeleton 3 See Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, and C. Easton Rothwell, The Comparative Study of Elites (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1952), and Donald R. Matthews, The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1954). 4 A noteworthy exception is Harold R. Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds: American Images of China and India (New York: John Day Co., 1958). 5 For examples of research in each of these areas, see, respectively, Albert P. Blaustein and Charles O. Porter, The American Lawyer: A Summary of the Legal Profession (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1954); Lester Milbrath, "The Political Party Activity of Washington Lobbyists," Journal of Politics, Vol. 20 (May 1958), pp. 339-52; Francis X. Sutton, Seymour E. Harris, Carl Kaysen, and James Tobin, The American Business Creed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956); Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens, Jr., The Academic Mind (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958); Donald R. Matthews, United States Senators and Their World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, I960); and Leila Sussman, "The Personnel and Ideology of Public Relations," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 12 (Winter 1948-49), pp. 697-708.

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and thus they do not have the effect of cumulating knowledge about the structure and functioning of the opinion-making public as a whole. 6 It is true, of course, that at the local community level the nature and

operation of

leadership structures have

been

analyzed and that these efforts have yielded valuable and cumulative data. We

do

know, for

example, about

the

coordination of leadership groups in "Middletown," 7 about the building

of

consensuses

in

Haven, 8

New

about

opinion

9

circulation in "Yankee City," about the shaping of policy in "Regional

City," 1 0 —to mention

but

a

few

of

the

many

inquiries into the structure and functioning of diverse leader­ ship groups. 1 1 But,

as

indicated

in

Chapter

I,

building

β A recent effort to compare and synthesize the various leadership studies amply illustrates the difficulties of cumulating knowledge in this area. Wendell Bell, Richard J. Hill, and Charles R. Wright set out "to review and organize" the available "literature dealing with public lead­ ership and citizen participation in public affairs and citizen participation in the United States," but the result, entitled Public Leadership (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1961), is almost exclusively a survey of social background variables and is totally lacking in attitudinal and behavioral data pertaining to the structure and functioning of public leadership. Indeed, in their concluding chapter the authors identify this area as one of the "research gaps" of the literature. Furthermore, their synthesis of the available social background data has limited utility be­ cause of the absence of a distinction between public leadership at the local and national levels. 7 Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown, A Study in American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1929), and Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown in Transition, a Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1937). 8 Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an Amer­ ican City. 9 W. Lloyd Warner and Paul S. Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Community (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941). 10 Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure, A Study of Decision Makers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953). 11 For summary treatments of some of the major studies and problems in this area, see William V. D'Antonio and Howard J. Ehrlich (eds.), Power and Democracy in America (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961); Morris Janowitz (ed.), Community Political Sys­ tems (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1961); Nelson W. Polsby, "Three Problems in the Analysis of Community Power," American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 (December 1959), pp. 796-803; and Maurice R. Stein,

AN EMPIRICAL WASTELAND

45

consensuses among local opinion-makers on the one hand and national leaders on the other may involve entirely different processes. Indeed, it will be recalled that these differences are likely to be especially significant in foreign policy issueareas. Certainly it would be unwarranted to assume that findings pertinent to local communities are equally valid for the nation. Direct examination of the structure and functioning of the national opinion-making public, in short, is required, and, to repeat, inquiries of this sort are virtually nonexistent. Those that have been undertaken are mainly theoretical 12 and the few available empirical investigations are unsystematic and impressionistic, if not polemical.13 None provide elaborate and organized data bearing upon the possibilities of coordinating autonomous groups of national leaders and building consensuses among them. 14 A combination of reasons probably accounts for the disproportionate empirical attention that has been paid to the mass public and to local leadership structures. One is that much of the work has been undertaken by sociologists and market researchers, whose interest in community-wide phenomena leads them, quite properly, to assume those aspects of the opinion-making process which occur prior to the transmission The Eclipse of Community, An Interpretation of American Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I 9 6 0 ) . 12 For example, see Robert A. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," American Political Science Review, Vol. L I I (June 1958), pp. 463-69; Arthur Kornhauser ( e d . ) , Problems of Power in American Democracy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1959); and Harold D. Lasswell, "Agenda for the Study of Political Elites," in Dwaine Marvick ( e d . ) , Political Decision-Makers: Recruitment and Performance ( N e w York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), pp. 264-87. 13 See, for instance, Osborn Elliott, Men at the Top (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959); Floyd Hunter, Top Leadership, U.S.A.; and C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite. 14 Unfortunately—for our purposes—the United States is not the focus of the one source that contains considerable data and cogent analysis directiy pertaining to a nation's leadership structure in the foreign policy area; but much can nevertheless be gained by an examination of Karl W. Deutsch and Lewis J. Edinger, Germany Rejoins the Powers: Mass Opinion, Interest Groups, and Elites in Contemporary German Foreign Policy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959).

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of opinion by the mass media. Democratic value theory is doubtless another reason for the empirical neglect of the national opinion-making public. Contrary to the notion of a permissive mass public that play a minor role in the opinionmaking process, democratic theory posits the citizenry as performing the central role, as controlling and directing the choices of officials and the supportive or negative actions of nongovernmental leaders. Consequently, investigators have been inclined to observe mainly what the "people" are thinking and doing and thence to bemoan the discovery that the "people" are neither thinking nor doing. Curiously, the attitudes and behavior of national leaders may be another reason why they have not been subjected to close empirical examination. It seems likely that conflicts within their ranks encourage national leaders to presume they must mobilize mass support for their positions and then to act in terms of this presumption. Consequently, irrespective of whether they activate their "constituencies," national leaders engage in opinion-making behavior which conveys an exaggerated and misleading picture of the role played by the mass public. Just as Congressmen see themselves as speaking for the "folks back home" even when the latter have not been consulted, so do nongovernmental leaders perceive and claim support on the part of those who might be regarded as their followers. The net result of these claims is the impression of an active and aroused mass public which, in fact, is more or less oblivious to the assertions being made on its behalf. Finally, the inaccessibility of the opinion-making public is undoubtedly another source of the imbalance between the conceptual and the empirical attention paid to it. National leaders are few in number and dispersed all over the country. Unlike members of the mass public, they are thus difficult to reach and to sample. In addition, they are busy people who often have neither the time nor the inclination to respond adequately to interviews or questionnaires.15 15

For a provocative discussion of the problems the researcher can expect to encounter in surveying national leaders, see James A. Robin-

AN EMPIRICAL WASTELAND

47

Even if technical difficulties could be surmounted, however, empirical investigation of the opinion-making public would still be extremely difficult. Such an investigation requires the accumulation of behavioral as well as attitudinal data. While various segments of the mass public can be compared by asking a representative sample their attitudes on a given issue, a similar survey of opinion-makers would not be sufficient. A comparative analysis of different groups of national leaders must also focus on their opinion-making activities if the vetosupport function is to be examined and evaluated. Yet, members of the opinion-making public are engaged in diverse pursuits and it is ordinarily not possible for the researcher to examine their behavior under similar conditions or in response to common stimuli. Little wonder, then, that lawyers and businessmen and academics and other groups have been analyzed separately and without reference to each other. What the social scientist needs, in other words, is a convening of the "third chamber." Somebody should attempt to mobilize public opinion behind a proposed policy by calling a convention of national leaders. It should be large enough to include a sample of all the major segments of the leadership structure, from prominent corporation executives to the heads of large farm and veterans' organizations, from religious and educational leaders to the officers of world affairs and women's associations, from legislative and executive officials of the federal government to distinguished scientists and entertainers, from high-ranking labor leaders to well known publishers and commentators. But such a convention should not be so large as to prevent the opinion-makers from meeting together in one place and thereby being contemporaneously subjected to the same stimuli. Perhaps the size of a presidential nominating convention would meet these requirements while at the same time being manageable from a research point of view. Preferably the convention should be at least a day in duration so that the stimuli would take the form of a meaningful and son, "Survey Interviewing Among Members of Congress," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. XXIV (Spring 1960), pp. 127-38.

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memorable experience. To make it even more memorable, the main speeches should be delivered by the top leaders of both political parties. Imagine the impact, for example, of a Republican President and his Democratic predecessor, of a Republican Secretary of State and his Democratic counterpart, of a Republican Vice President and the defeated Democratic presidential candidate, all speaking about the same issue on the same day in front of the same microphone. Surely such a spectacle would provide the opinion-makers present with a stimulus that would last long enough for the social scientist to come along later and analyze responses to it. Of course, it would also be ideal if the convention was sponsored by an important agency of the federal government. In this way the social scientist would be studying those who are regarded as opinion-makers by top government officials. Even more ideally, the convention should be so structured as to focus upon an issue of great national importance, thereby ensuring that all those in attendance would be subsequently inclined to engage in measurable opinion-making activity. Finally, so as to reduce any uncertainty about the exact nature of the stimuli to which responses are subsequently made, the convention speakers of both parties should take a united and firm position on the issue, stressing that those in attendance should exercise the full limits of their opinion-making capacities on behalf of the recommended policy. Every detail of this social scientific fantasy actually occurred on February 25, 1958. The event was called the "Conference on Foreign Aspects of U. S. National Security" and its proceedings focused upon the foreign aid program. It was held in the Hotel Statler in Washington, D. C , from nine-thirty in the morning until ten o'clock in the evening. The conferees, about 1,400, were selected by a staff in the White House and the invitations to attend the Conference were issued on White House stationery in the name of the President of the United States. Included among the conferees were about 250 leading corporation executives, 100 college and university presidents, 20 high-ranking labor leaders, 25 distinguished scientists,

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entertainers, and sports stars, 400 officers of large voluntary associations, 10 admirals and generals, 100 publishers and journalists, 135 members of Congress, and 75 top officials of the executive branch. Among the Conference speakers were the Republican and Democratic leaders cited above, all of whom endorsed the foreign aid program in urgent and unqualified terms. The Conference schedule also included a "Panel on Post-Conference Education" in which the opinionmakers were urged to be active in behalf of foreign aid. Exactly three months after the Conference, 1,067 of the conferees were mailed an 8-page, 71-item questionnaire soliciting information about their social backgrounds, their reactions to the Conference, and their subsequent behavior with respect to foreign aid. Of these, 61 per cent responded, and most of the ensuing chapters are devoted to an analysis of the findings yielded by the 647 returned questionnaires. It must be emphasized at the outset that no claim to representativeness is made on behalf of the data presented herein. While the proportion of returned questionnaires is remarkably high,16 and despite considerable evidence that the conferees who responded were in no way a biased sample of those who attended the Conference,17 the inherent value of the data lies in the uniqueness of the respondents and not in their representativeness. The 647 respondents may have been representative of the 1,067 conferees, who may have been representative of the 1,772 invitees,18 and these in turn may have been representative of the opinion-making public. However, efforts to validate these assertions would not be justified. The available empirical data pertaining to the structure of national leadership is not sufficient to "prove" that the sample accurately reflects the larger population from which it was drawn. Rather the only claim which seems warranted is that 16

A return of one-quarter of the questionnaires is generally considered to be a high response and often, depending on the subject and the respondents, the return rate may not be more than five or ten per cent. Possible reasons for the high response in this instance are suggested in Appendix A2. 17 ls See Appendix A3. See below, pp. 59-62.

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an overwhelming majority of the 647 respondents are members of the national opinion-making public19 and that, as such, they constitute a unique collection of people20 whose social backgrounds, attitudes, and opinion-making activities may shed some light on the policy-making role of national leadership as well as on its susceptibility to consensus-building efforts. The empirical data which follow, in other words, cannot be viewed as a test of the model presented in Chapter I; rather they provide an opportunity to refine and extend the model. 19

To be exact, some ninety-five per cent seem to have possessed sufficient opinion-making capacities to be classified as national leaders (see below, p. 149). 20 The caliber of the persons who responded to the questionnaire can be readily discerned in the listing on pp. 62-68.

CHAPTER

III

National Leadership and Foreign Policy: A Case History It was not so much changing conditions abroad as unchanging ones at home that gave rise to the Conference on Foreign Aspects of U. S. National Security. More precisely, the Conference did not stem from a desire to explore ways of improving the external operations of the foreign aid program, but from a desire to improve the chances of internal acceptance and support of the program. For a decade prior to 1958 —three years under the Marshall Plan and then seven years under the Mutual Security Act—both the public and the Congress had evidenced either apathy or antipathy toward the policy of giving economic assistance to foreign countries. While support had readily been given during this period to expenditures for military defense, the Congress had consistently refused to grant the President all the funds and authority he requested in order to administer the foreign aid program. Indeed, it became standard practice for Congress to cut the President's monetary requests by close to 10 per cent when it annually authorized the program and then to lop off an even larger amount when it subsequently appropriated the funds. The unwavering persistence of this legislative pattern fostered the standard explanation, cited both in and out of government, that lack of public comprehension led Congress to be especially vigorous in its pruning of foreign aid requests. Voters were said to comprehend the need for military defense and thus did not object to the expenditure of huge sums for armaments. But, the theory went, the benefits of foreign aid, being more subtle and intangible, were not so easily understood by the electorate, so that Congressional reductions along this line were dictated by simple politics. Such reasoning was also used to account for Congress's tendency to make much larger cuts in the economic phases of the program than

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in its military aspects, a tendency which had, in fact, contributed to a heavy weighting of the foreign aid program in favor of military assistance. No less important than the public's lack of understanding, the explanation continued, was the absence of articulate and sizable groups working for the adoption or extension of a substantial foreign aid program. Whereas agriculture or labor proposals had, so to speak, natural constituencies which made their influence felt in Congressional circles, sponsors of the foreign aid program could not rely upon any major segment of the public to lobby on its behalf. Only small, "do-good" organizations, it was contended, annually rallied to the foreign aid banner. And these, by their very nature, were unable either to arouse a wide public clamor or to carry weight with large numbers of Congressmen. Owing to a lack of public comprehension and organization, in short, the foreign aid program was the unwanted stepchild of the postwar revolution in American foreign policy. Whatever the validity of such reasoning, it was especially compelling to officials of the Eisenhower Administration late in 1957 as they turned to the prospects for foreign aid legislation in 1958. At that time the discrepancy between the requirements of foreign policy and the realities of the domestic scene appeared especially wide. On the one hand, the Soviet Union had recently moved into the foreign aid field and was making offers of long-term, low-interest loans to underdeveloped countries. Even more recently, in October of 1957, the Russians had launched the first earth satellite and thereby added greatly to their prestige in world politics. These twin developments made the nonmilitary threat to American security seem more dangerous than ever and the necessity of extending and liberalizing the foreign aid program more imperative than ever. On the other hand, although agitated about Russian advances, the American people and Congress did not appear to appreciate their relevance to foreign aid. Not only did opinion polls reveal a continuous decline in public support of the program, but there also seemed to be mounting

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qualitative evidence that its foes were successfully confusing and misinforming the public about the program's goals and administration.1 As for the Congress, it had emasculated the Administration s foreign aid proposals for 1957.2 In particular, 1 Sensitivity to this evidence ultimately reached the point where the International Cooperation Administration felt constrained to deny that foreign aid funds had been used to purchase striped pants for Greek undertakers, bathtubs for Egyptian camel drivers, iceboxes for Eskimos, wild grass for the highways of Lebanon, etc. (New York Times, March 5, 1958). 2 A detailed and iuumrnating account of this episode in the history of the foreign aid program is provided by H. Field Haviland, Jr., "Foreign Aid and the Policy Process: 1957," American Political Science Review, Vol. Ln (September 1958), pp. 689-725. While he cites public apathy as a reason for Congress's emasculation of the 1957 bill, Haviland's account indicates the limitations of the traditional explanation summarized above. In the course of his analysis he suggests or implies that the outcome was also partially determined by such factors as the following: the absence of Presidential initiative between an early television address and last-minute appeals to the Congress; several economy moves within the executive branch which some Congressmen interpreted either as a usurpation of Congressional powers or as equally applicable to the foreign aid program; Congressional annoyance that the Administration's proposals were submitted so late (May) in the session; the Administration's failure to maintain adequate contact with the appropriations committees; Congress's long-standing reluctance to relinquish any of its authority over appropriations; rivalry and jealousy among Congressional committees and subcommittees, especially within the House Appropriations Committee; substantial opposition to foreign aid in both Houses on the part of Southern Democrats, who traditionally had been strong supporters of the program, but who were developing an increasingly protectionist outlook as industrialization in the South occurred at a more rapid pace; civil rights legislation, which was also considered in the last weeks of the session and which aroused, especially among Southerners, passions that spilled over onto the foreign aid issue; the unwillingness of Speaker Sam Rayburn to wield his influence on behalf of foreign aid at several critical points in the House debates, an unwillingness that contrasted sharply with his behavior in previous years; the presence of three conflicting schools of thought among pro-aid members of Congress, i.e., those who favored the Administration's program as a whole (Eisenhower Republicans), those who placed greater emphasis on economic than military aid (liberal Democrats), and those who preferred to tip the balance in favor of military aid (conservative Democrats and Republicans); and the success of the program's opponents in confusing legislative debate through the claim that new appropriations were unnecessary in view of the Administration's possession of $6,195 million in unexpended funds, a fact which was accurate, but also incomplete, as

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it had drastically modified those features of the bill designed to counter Russia's growing challenge in the economic aid field, and, in the absence of wide public interest and comprehension, there seemed to be little likelihood that Congress could be persuaded by the usual means to desist from similar action in 1958. Indeed, both Congressional elections and a deepening recession loomed in 1958, factors hardly conducive to legislative hospitality to a liberalized foreign aid program. The Conference was a response to these circumstances and to the standard explanation that was given for them. By providing national opinion-makers with information about the foreign aid program, while at the same time exposing them to a dramatic demonstration of the bipartisan support that it enjoyed, the Conference was intended to precipitate greater public understanding of how the program contributed to the national welfare—of the fact that there are "foreign aspects of U.S. national security."3 In the words of the official report of the Conference, its purpose was "to inform a broad group of citizen leaders about Mutual Security, with the hope that they in turn would carry the facts to ever-widening groups of citizens."4 Although it was not stated publicly in so many words, a more widely informed public was then expected to lead to more widespread and articulate support of the program, thereby altering the hostile environment in which Congress conducted its foreign aid deliberations. 5 The Conference, in other words, was seen as the initial step of a lengthy process that would involve the entire society and ultimately culminate on Capitol Hill. "This day is the beginning, only a beginning," said the Conference's Chairman, Eric Johnston, in his opening $5,581 million of unexpended funds were already obligated, leaving but $614 million available for new obligations. 3 The Conference's title was adapted from a phrase in the President's letter quoted below. 4 Committee for International Economic Growth, Foreign Aspects of U.S. National Security: Conference Report and Proceedings, Washington, D.C., April 1958, p. 3 (cited hereinafter as Conference Report). 5 The conspicuous avoidance of reference to Congress throughout the Conference raises a number of interesting questions that are considered in Chapter X.

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remarks. "It is a moment in which we might plant seeds. The seeds, if we wish to plant them, will need our devoted care and cultivation in the days, the months, and the years ahead."6 The Setection of Conferees The idea of doing something about public opinion in regard to foreign aid was translated into an official decision when the President requested Eric Johnston,7 in a letter dated January 10, 1958, to "call in Washington a conference of business and organization leaders, bipartisan in character, to explore means of conveying to our citizens a fuller flow of information on the foreign aspects of our national security."8 Preparations for the Conference were begun immediately.9 Mr. Johnston was provided with a small staff and a suite of rooms on the top floor of the old State Department Building, now the Executive Office of the President. An early decision to hold the Conference on February 25 meant that the arrangements had to be completed in six weeks, hardly a long time in which to plan a program, secure speakers, and obtain 1,400 conferees. Indeed, members of the Conference staff recall the pace to have been so swift that no one was quite certain what the Conference would be like when it actually took place. For them the period between January 11 and February 25 was one long emergency, compounded of telegrams, ruffled feelings, conflicting demands, and urgent phone calls. So as to allow sufficient time for replies, only about three weeks were available for the selection of some 1,700 invitees. February 4 was set as the date for mailing the invitations and completing the deliberations whereby lists of thousands of persons and organizations were pared down to manageable proportions. The selection process proceeded on the basis of two major categories: "prominent persons" and "organization 6

Conference Report, p. 21. A long-time friend of foreign aid whose positions at the time included the presidency of the Motion Picture Association of America and the chairmanship of the International Development Advisory Board. 8 The President's letter is reproduced in the Conference Report, p. 89. 9 The ensuing account of the selection process was developed from interviews with several persons who participated in it. 7

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representatives"—a distinction which in the former respect enlarged upon the reference in the President's letter to "business and organization leaders." The latter were culled from a roster of national organizations 10 that had been compiled from lists supplied by the State and Defense Departments and other, nongovernmental, sources. Because of space limitations at the Hotel Statler, the composite list was divided into ten crude subcategories 11 for further sifting. In all, about 300 organizations were eventually selected. These were not distributed equally among the subcategories,12 but represented a choice of the 300 "most important" organizations with some interest, no matter how remote, in foreign aid. In the case of many, especially those having both elected officers and large permanent staffs, invitations were extended to several leaders of the same organization. In all cases the organization leaders were asked to send a designated representative if they could not personally attend the Conference, thereby ensuring the establishment of contact with every selected organization. As for the "prominent persons" category, selections were made with a view to inviting leaders from all walks of American life and from every section of the country. No overall compendium, such as Who's Who in America, was used as a test of eminence. Instead, different sources were consulted for each occupational field and rules of thumb were developed 10 As is common in and around government circles, the word "organization" was used to describe what are sociologically regarded as voluntary associations. Corporations or universities, for example, were not considered organizations, so that corporation executives and university presidents were defined as prominent persons and not as organization leaders. This terminological difficulty has been avoided in analyzing the questionnaire data by referring to associational (organization leaders) and nonassociational (prominent persons) conferees. 11 Religious, women, business, professional, farm, education, military and veterans, nationalities, labor, and assorted causes. 12 But it is not possible to cite the exact number subsumed by each subcategory. A record of these was not preserved, either in this case or with respect to the "prominent persons" subcategories. Nor is it possible, in the absence of original definitions of each subcategory, to derive precise quantitative data from the list of invitees. Hence the distribution resulting from the selection process is more appropriately examined in connection with the findings of the questionnaire (see pp. 110-12).

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57

for selecting the "most prominent" therein. Some businessmen, for example, were chosen from the lists of trustees of the Committee for Economic Development, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers. While the sifting process did not yield an equal number of names for each field, a substantial number of businessmen, lawyers, nongovernmental politicians, educators, religious leaders, television and movie producers, journalists, public relations specialists, publishers, and entertainers were selected. A lesser number of artists, novelists, scientists, scholars, and sports stars were also chosen. In addition, so as to make certain that various parts of the country were represented, lists were scanned for persons of regional prominence, regardless of their occupations. Likewise, occupational subcategories were ignored in a special effort to select a sample of prominent women. It is important to note that in general both organization leaders and prominent persons were selected irrespective of either their party affiliations or their attitudes toward foreign aid. The affiliations and attitudes of most of the persons considered were unknown and no effort was made to determine them. Known opponents of foreign aid were not automatically sifted out. On the contrary, there was a predisposition to include them on the invitation list, partly for reasons of representativeness and partly because enthusiasm about the Conference had led to the conviction that even opponents would find the case it made for foreign aid persuasive. Only one person could be recalled who had been eliminated from the list because of his opposition to the program, not so much in retaliation as in despair that he was beyond persuasion. In other words, since the conferees had been selected solely on the basis of occupational prominence or organizational leadership, their ranks were not consciously biased in favor of foreign aid. Likewise, no attempt was made to bias their ranks in favor of an equal division of Democrats and Republicans. 13 As far as anyone could tell prior to the 13

It should be noted that the single reason for selecting some con-

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Conference, it was not inconceivable that most of the conferees would be critical of the pro-foreign aid speeches or that they would predominantly favor one party, even though the speakers and honored guests at the head table had been chosen with a view to demonstrating bipartisan cooperation. In addition to the two chief categories, invitations were sent to several "ordinary" citizens (mostly students) who wrote the President or Mr. Johnston inquiring about the possibilities of attending the Conference. A few names were also added to the invitation list as a consequence of suggestions by Congressmen regarding constituents they would like to see invited. AU in all, invitations were extended to 1,772 persons, exclusive of members of the Congress, the administration, or the Conference staff. Of these, 447 replied that they were unable to accept the invitation and an additional 81 designated an associate to attend in their place. Another 230 had not replied to the invitation as of the day of the Conference (but an estimated 50 of these later wrote that they had been out of the country and thus unable either to attend or to reply). Altogether, 1,014 (or 57 per cent) accepted the invitation and, along with the 81 designated representatives, constitute the 1,095 nongovernmental persons who appear in the official "Directory of Participants."1* But 28 of those who accepted are known (through information turned up by the subsequent questionnaire) not to have attended the Conference because of last-minute circumstances unforeseen at the time of acceptance. Consequently, 1,067 persons presumably15 attended the Conference in response to an official invitation, and it is this number which constitutes the population later surveyed by the questionnaire. The official directory contains ferees was nongovernmental leadership in either political party or previous contribution to the foreign aid program. However, these efforts to stress bipartisanship and to pay respect to those who had been associated with the program were responsible for relatively few selections and can hardly be regarded as a major bias built into the ranks of the conferees. 14 Conference Report, pp. 95-116. 15 There may have been a few who neither attended nor returned the questionnaire.

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an additional 111 persons who attended but, being members of the administration or the Conference staff, did not receive questionnaires. A separate directory of "Congressional Guests" lists 193 legislators as having attended 1 * in response to a different letter of invitation that was sent to the entire membership of both houses. However, the combined total of 1,371 nongovernmental opinion-makers, administration officials, and Congressmen does not account for everyone who attended the Conference. Besides 97 members of the press who attended in the line of duty and not as conferees, 100 "uninvited" persons are estimated to have been present, largely because some Congressmen were accompanied by unannounced staff members or constituents. Hence the actual size of the Conference was probably close to 1,500, or more than the facilities of the Hotel Statler could comfortably hold. The fact that 38 per cent of the invited opinion-makers neither attended the Conference nor designated a replacement raises the question of whether the proceedings were biased by a process of self-selection. Most importantly, the question arises as to whether opponents of foreign aid tended to decline the invitation, thereby weighting the Conference with friends of the program. A number of indicators justify the conclusion that this was not the case. In the first place, as will be seen, some opponents of the program were present at the Conference, a fact which suggests that an invitation from the White House tends to command acceptance even if its policies do not. Secondly, most of the letters declining the invitation expressed genuine regret that prior obligations made attendance impossible and only a handful had a sarcastic tone or 16 Conference Report, pp. 116-19. However, a survey conducted by an undergraduate at Douglass College, Miss Susan V. Barth, yielded the finding that at least 57 of the listed Congressmen did not, for a variety of reasons, attend the Conference. Miss Barth's letter, mailed early in March, asked each Congressman for his reaction to the Conference and was answered by 67 per cent of those listed. Twenty-one per cent of those who said they had attended voted to reduce the administration's proposals in the previous session of Congress.

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otherwise implied that the invitee did not wish to be a party to anything that promoted the foreign aid program. But, it might be asked, what about the 230 who did not reply to the invitation? Might not have antipathy to the purposes of the Conference precluded the courtesy of a response? Perhaps so, but with a few exceptions, the list of persons who failed to reply makes it seem unlikely. Some of them are known advocates of foreign aid, while the eminence of others whose attitudes are unknown makes it seem doubtful that discourtesy was a major reason for their failure to respond. Rather it appears likely that extraneous factors, such as faulty addresses or travel abroad, accounted for most of the 230 names on the list. This explanation is reinforced by a geographic breakdown17 of those who did not respond. Assuming that the South and the Midwest are the main centers of anti-foreign aid sentiment and that the Northeast is the principal stronghold of favorable sentiment,18 it might be expected that a substantially higher proportion of the invitees from the former regions would have failed to reply than those invited from the Northeast. Such an expectation, however, does not correspond with the facts: no reply was received from 10.0 per cent of the Northeasterners, and the equivalent figures for the Southerners and the Midwestemers were only 10.2 and 11.2 per cent. Although it is unlikely that self-selection biased the list of conferees in a pro-foreign aid direction, it may have been relevant in two other respects that are worthy of note. One concerns the probability that a higher proportion of prominent persons declined the invitation than organization 17

Throughout this study, six regional categories have been employed: (1) Northeast (Conn., Del., Me., Md., Mass., N. H., N. J., N. Y., Pa., R. L, and Vt.); (2) South (Ala., Ark., FIa., Ga., La., Miss., N. C , OkIa., S. C , Tenn., Tex., and Va.); (3) Midwest (111., Ind., Iowa, Kan., Ky., Mich., Minn., Mo., Neb., N. D., Ohio, S. D., W. Va., and Wis.); (4) Far West (Ariz., CaI., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., N. M., Ore., Utah, Wash., and Wyo.); (5) Washington, D. C ; and (6) Other (outside the continental United States). 18 Such an assumption is based upon voting patterns in Congress. See Haviland, op.cit., pp. 719-20.

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61

leaders. Evidence along this line is scanty, but also convincing if it is assumed that leaders of occupational fields (i.e., prominent persons) are more likely to be listed in Who's Who in America than elected and staff leaders of voluntary associations. If this is so—and the rules of that publication warrant such an assumption 19 —then the following datum indicates that prominent persons were more disposed to decline the invitation than organization leaders: whereas 44 per cent of the 1,067 conferees were listed in some edition of Who's Who in America, the equivalent figure for the 447 who declined the invitation was 68 per cent. This is not to say that the Conference was biased in the direction of organization leaders. As will be seen, they were not present in greater numbers than the prominent persons. Rather it is to suggest that the latter were predominant among those who declined the invitation, thereby biasing the Conference insofar as the original selection process was concerned. An explanation of this difference comes readily to mind: the prominent person has a more crowded calendar of advance commitments than does the organization leader; or at least the latter, having a membership to represent, is probably more willing to make schedule adjustments for occasions like the Conference than is the former, whose occupational interests are not so directly served by attending such functions. It seems likely that self-selection among the invitees also biased the Conference along geographic lines. As can be seen in Table 1, the continental region farthest removed from the capital had a substantially lower attendance rate than the other four regions. On the other hand, invitees located in the capital had, by a large margin, the highest rate of attendance. While occupational factors may have partially accounted for these differences (e.g., many of the nonattending Californians were associated with the motion picture industry), it seems reasonable to conclude that attendance by Far Westerners 19

See "The Standards Controlling Listing in 'Who's Who in America,'" Who's Who in America (Chicago: Marquis - Who's Who, Inc., 1958), Vol. 30, p. 2.

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was mainly inhibited by the general factor of long distance and the inconveniences involved therein. 2 0 Of course, it must be kept in mind that noticeably fewer opinion-makers were invited from this most distant region, but the reasons for this TABLE 1 REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF INVITEES AND CONFEREES

Region Northeast Midwest South Far West Washington, D.C. Other

Number invited Per cent attended 656 285 205 140 475 11

60 55 60 36 71 64

imbalance are unrelated to the attendance rate and are an­ alyzed elsewhere. 21 As for those who both answered and accepted the invitation, the reader can develop a concrete notion of the results of the selection process from the ensuing list of every tenth name on the roster of the 1,067 conferees who were sent a questionnaire. The entries on this list have been reproduced exactly as they appear in the official "Directory of Partici­ pants." Even in this abbreviated and sampled form, however, the roster clearly indicates that the selection process did yield an imposing group of prominent citizens. Plainly neither the nonattendance of more than one-third of the invitees nor improvisation and the shortage of time prevented the Conference sponsors from obtaining the kind of conferees which they sought: Mr. Charles Aaron, President, National Jewish Welfare Board, New York City Mr. E. W. Aiton, Director, Four-Η Clubs, USDA, Washington, D. C. 20

In some cases the cost of such a trip may have been one of the inconveniences. Except for two meals, the conferees paid all of the travel and living expenses that attendance at the Conference involved. 21 See below, p. 100.

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Mr. Stewart Alsop, New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, Washington, D. C. Mr. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Editor, Foreign Affairs, New York City Mr. Warren H. Atherton, Atherton & Dozier, Stockton, California Mary Alice Baldinger, Executive Director, National Civil Liberties Clearing House, Washington, D. C. Mr. Frank H. Bartholomew, President, United Press, New York City Mrs. Olive Ann Beech, President, Beech Aircraft Corp., Wichita, Kansas Mrs. Rachel Bell, Committee for National Foreign Trade Policy, Washington, D. C. Mr. Andrew J. Biemiller, Director, AFL-CIO Legislative Department, Washington, D. C. Prof. John D. Black, Economics of Agriculture, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Jacob Blecheisen, Rosiclare Lead and Fluorspar Mining Co., Rosiclare, Illinois. Mr. Howard R. Boozer, Acting Director, Washington International Center, Washington, D. C. Dr. Helen D. Bragdon, General Director, American Association of University Women, Washington, D. C. Mr. Cecil Brown, President, Overseas Press Club, New York City Miss Pearl S. Buck, Perkasie, Pa. Mr. Harmon Burns, Jr., Catholic Association for International Peace, Washington, D. C. Mr. Jameson G. Campaigne, Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana Col. John T. Carlton, Reserve Officers Association of the U. S. A., Washington, D. C. Mr. Ralph E. Casey, President, American Merchant Marine Institute, New York City Mr. G. Russell Clark, Executive Manager, American Bankers Association, New York City

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Mr. David H. Clift, Executive Secretary, American Library Association, Chicago, Illinois Mr. Clarence L. Coleman, Jr., President, American Council for Judaism, New York City Mr. Alistair Cooke, Manchester Guardian, Long Island, N. Y. Mrs. Wayne Coy, Committee for a National Foreign Trade Policy, Washington, D. C. Mr. William B. Dale, Stanford Research Institute, Washington, D. C. Mr. Bertram G. Davis, American Legion, Washington, D. C. Miss Faustine Dennis, Treasurer, Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D. C. Mr. William C. Doherty, President, National Association of Letter Carriers, Washington, D. C. Mr. Roscoe Drummond, New York Herald Tribune, Washington, D. C. Mr. Stephen F. Dunn, National Association of Manufacturers, Washington, D. C. Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, President, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Mr. L. M. Evans, President, National Small Businessmen's Association, Washington, D. C. Maj. Gen. Herman Feldman, Executive Vice President, Quartermaster Association, Washington, D. C. Dr. R. R. Figuhr, President, General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, Takoma Park, Md. Mr. W. W. Forster, Editor, Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. Mr. George S. Franklin, Jr., Council on Foreign Relations, New York City Mr. Clayton Fritchey, Northern Virginia Sun, Washington, D. C. Mr. B. A. Garside, Executive Director, Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., New York City Mr. William Conrad Gibbons, American Political Science Association, Washington, D. C.

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Mrs. Jessie Gneshin, National Ladies Auxiliary, Jewish War Veterans, Washington, D. C. Mr. Bruce Gould, Ladies Home Journal, New York City Gen. Alfred M. Gruenther, President, American National Red Cross, Washington, D. C. Mr. Robert S. Hall, McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D. C. Mr. John A. Hannah, President, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. Mr. George M. Harrison, President, Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, Cincinnati, Ohio Mr. Curtis Hatch, President, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, Madison, Wis. Mr. Roy F. Hendrickson, Executive Secretary, National Federation of Grain Cooperatives, Washington, D. C. Mr. Thomas D. Hinton, Marsh & McLennan, Inc., Boston, Mass. Mr. John R. Holden, National Commander, AMVETS, Washington, D. C. Mrs. I. Ray Howard, Executive Secretary, Maryland Council on World Affairs, Baltimore, Md. Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, Fund for the Republic, New York City Mr. Christopher G. Janus, Bache and Company, Chicago, Illinois Mr. Howard C. Johnson, Assistant to Chairman, United States Steel Corp., New York City Mr. Lewis Webster Jones, President, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N. J. Mr. J. Ward Keener, President, B. F. Goodrich Co., Akron, Ohio Mrs. Ruby M. Kendrick, National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Washington, D. C. Dr. Harold C. Kilpatrick, Executive Secretary, Texas Council of Churches, Austin, Texas Rev. A. Klaupiks, American Baptist Relief, Washington, D. C.

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Mr. Arnold Kotz, American Society for Public Administration, Chicago, 111. Mrs. Catherine G. Kuhne, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Washington, D. C. Mrs. John F. Latimer, League of Women Voters, Washington, D. C. Mr. Pendleton E. Lehde, Foreign Policy Association of New Orleans, New Orleans, La. Mr. Milton C. Lightner, President, National Association of Manufacturers, New York City Dr. A. William Loos, Executive Director, Church Peace Union, New York City Mr. George W. Lucas, Executive Secretary, National Fraternal Council of Churches, Dayton, Ohio Mr. C. Walter McCarty, Editor, Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Ind. Mr. N. Floyd McGowan, President, National Lumber Manufacturers Association, Washington, D. C. Miss Eva M. Mack, National Association of Women Lawyers, Chicago, 111. Mrs. Olga Margolin, National Council of Jewish Women, Washington, D. C. Mr. George Meany, President, AFL-CIO, Washington, D. C. Mr. Troy H. Middleton, President, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La. Mr. W. D. Milsop, General Manager, Eastern States Farmers' Exchange, West Springfield, Mass. Miss Lucile Morsch, President, American Library Association, Washington, D. C. Mr. Richard J. Murphy, Executive Director, Young Democratic Clubs of America, Washington, D. C. Mr. Alfred C. Neal, President, Committee for Economic Development, New York City Miss Lois C. Northcott, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Washington, D. C.

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Dr. Dwayne Orton, President, Council for International Progress in Management, New York City Rabbi David H. Panitz, Synagogue Council of America, Washington, D. C. Mrs. Norman F. Patton, League of Women Voters, WilkesBarre, Pa. Mr. O. E. Petersen, Executive Secretary, Kiwanis International, Chicago, 111. Mr. Warren Lee Pierson, Trans-World Airlines, New York City Dr. Joachim Prinz, American Jewish Congress, New York City Mrs. Percy Rappaport, American Women's Voluntary Services, New York City Dr. Herman F. Reissig, United Church of Christ, New York City Mr. James P. Rice, Executive Director, United HIAS Service, New York City Mr. L. W. Robert, Jr., Robert & Company Associates, Atlanta, Georgia Mr. Wendell L. Rockey, Executive Director, World Relief Commission, NEA, Long Island City, N. Y. Mr. Richard L. Roudebush, Commander-in-Chief, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kansas City, Mo. Miss Billye N. Russell, National President, Pilot Club International, Macon, Ga. Mr. William Sands, Editor, Middle East Journal, Washington, D. C. Dr. Frederick Schiotz, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, Minn. Mrs. Eva Scully, President, American Vocational Association, Washington, D. C. Rabbi Solomon J. Sharfman, President, Rabbinical Council of America, New York City Mr. Dudley L. Simms, Lions International, Charleston, West Virginia Mr. A. G. Skina, Commonwealth Services, New York City

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Mr. J. Kingsbury Smith, International News Service, New York City Mr. William T. Snyder, Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pa. Mr. Floyd Springer, Jr., S. C. Johnson and Son, Racine, Wis. Mr. William P. Steven, Editor, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn. Mr. William I. Stoddard, Secretary, American Shipowners, New York City Mr. Ephraim H. Sturm, President, National Council of Young Israel, New York City Mr. Willis M. Tate, President, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas Mr. Russell I. Thackrey, Executive Secretary, American Association of Land-Grant Colleges, Washington, D. C. Mrs. Raphael Tourover, Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America, Washington, D. C. Mr. Roul Tunley, Women's Day, New York City Mr. Richard C. Vierbuchen, President, Junior Chamber of Commerce of Washington, D. C. Mr. C. C. Walther, President, New Orleans Foreign Policy Association, New Orleans, La. Mr. Edward Weeks, The Atlantic Monthly, Boston, Mass. Mr. William B. Welsh, Young Democratic Clubs of America, Washington, D. C. Mr. H. Harold Whitman, The First National City Bank of New York, New York City Mr. Alanson Willcox, American Hospital Association, Washington, D. C. Mr. Paul S. Willis, President, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Inc., New York City Mrs. Frederick Witt, Stevensburg, Virginia Mr. C. E. Woolman, President, Delta Airlines, Atlanta, Ga. Mr. W. B. Young, Dean, College of Agriculture, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.

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The Events of February 25 Since no response can be understood without some knowledge of the stimuli that evoked it, a brief account of the Conference will facilitate evaluation of the questionnaire data subsequently presented. To be sure, the "atmosphere" of the Hotel Statler on that February 25 cannot be reconstructed as objective fact, but documentary evidence is available for the major events which took place 22 and amply suggests the quality of the stimuli to which the opinion-makers were commonly subjected. The first stimulus was, of course, the letter of invitation mailed on February 4 and written on White House stationery. As the only communication sent to the conferees prior to the Conference, the letter provided the sole basis of the expectations which they brought to the occasion and it is therefore presented in full on the following page. The morning session of the Conference was devoted exclusively to speeches. Subsequent to Mr. Johnston's opening remarks welcoming the conferees, seven twenty-minute addresses were delivered before the luncheon session. The first speaker was the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, who outlined the ways in which the Mutual Security Program served the purposes of American foreign policy. The Secretary was followed by the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956, Adlai E. Stevenson, who dwelt upon the necessity of providing technical assistance to underdeveloped countries. The next address dealt with the military assistance aspects of the program and was given by the Secretary of Defense, Neil H. McElroy. After a brief recess the morning session resumed with a speech by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Allen W. Dulles, who described the "economic and trade offensive of international communism." The last three morning speeches were all devoted to the "moral foundations of United States foreign assistance" and were delivered by representatives of the Protestant, Jewish, 22 All ten of the major speeches and transcripts of the two panel sessions are reproduced in the Conference Report, pp. 14-87.

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

February 4 , 1958

Dear At the request of the President of the United States, I am inviting you to attend a National Conference on "The Foreign Aspects of U. S. National Security" to be held in Washington on February 25. The purpose of this nonpartisan Conference is to discuss the requirements of U. S. foreign economic policy—with emphasis on partnership with the developing nations of the Free World—and then to explore means of conveying to our citizens a fuller flow of information about these requirements. The Conference will take place at the Statler Hotel in Washington, D. C , commencing at 9:30 a.m., and will conclude with a dinner meeting at which the President of the United States will be the speaker. The President's request for such a meeting of distinguished private citizens and leaders of national organizations represents a call to action on a matter of utmost national importance. I am confident that the responsible leaders of the American community will wholeheartedly respond. It would be helpful in facilitating Conference arrangements if you could send your response to me by wire and then forward the enclosed card. Very sincerely yours,

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and Catholic religions: the Reverend Edwin T. Dahlberg, President of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A.; Rabbi Theodore L. Adams, President of the Synagogue Council of America; and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Auxiliary Bishop of New York. All seven of these speeches were long on general assertions of strong support for the foreign aid program and somewhat short on the actual details of its operation. The major recurring theme was the necessity of placing greater emphasis on economic aid and technical assistance. Repeated reference was made to the social and economic plight of the underdeveloped world and the danger that the Soviet aid program would exploit this situation to the detriment of both the United States and the peoples involved. "What use is it," Allen Dulles asked, "if we and our allies concentrate solely on building barriers against some future military attack while the Soviet envoys of trade, aid and subversion get behind those barriers?" Almost every speaker contended that the threat was largely a nonmihtary one, that too much attention had been paid to military considerations in the past, and that a program of long-term loans ("not gifts") was needed to spur economic growth and the development of viable societies in the non-Western world. "Can we ever expect the world to believe in our peaceful intentions," Dr. Dahlberg inquired, "when we appropriate $45 billion for our military budget and only a few million dollars for nonmilitary development and technical cooperation?" Bipartisanship was another theme that marked the morning session, albeit to a much lesser extent than the stress upon economic aid. For example, just as Secretary Dulles stressed the nonpartisan character of the occasion and noted that distinguished Democrats were to follow him at the speaker's rostrum, so did Mr. Stevenson observe that "it is not often . . . that I can agree with the Administration so wholeheartedly." But, he went on, "it is one of the greatest blessings of our party system that what unites us is usually more important than what divides us . . . [and] there is nothing, literally

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nothing . . . more important than what unites us here today, Democrats and Republicans alike." Following Bishop Sheen's address, a half-hour break in the proceedings permitted the Statler's Presidential Room to be cleared of chairs and made ready for the luncheon session. Except for the head table, seats at the luncheon were not assigned and were occupied on a "first come, first served" basis. The size of the Conference necessitated this arrangement and, as might be imagined, some of the conferees were not entirely happy with such seating as they obtained. 23 On the other hand, the makeshift seating arrangements tended to mix the conferees. As one of them who describes 24 himself as "an ordinary American citizen" observed, "One had no idea who might be sitting next to him. He or she could be a great General, a university president, a renowned columnist or author, an inflated tycoon or what have you." Seated at the head table were fifty "honored guests."25 Among these were most of the speakers, twenty members of Congress, some prominent Democrats who accompanied the luncheon speaker—former President Truman—and a few leaders from the fields of business, education, religion, and sports. The bipartisan theme was emphatically struck by the composition of the Congressional delegation at the head table: it included the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the Democratic Majority and Republican Minority Leaders and Whips of both houses, the Secretary of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and the Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and the Democratic Chairmen and ranking Republicans of the foreign policy and appropriations committees of both chambers. It should be noted that despite the bipartisan make-up of the head table, the luncheon session was predominantly a 23

See pp. 265-67. In a letter enclosing a mimeographed memorandum distributed monthly to friends. The latter contained an account of the Conference and the quoted observation. 25 Listed in the Conference Report, pp. 92-93. 24

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Democratic affair, while the Republicans prevailed at the dinner session. These overtones of partisanship were probably heightened by an undenied report 26 that animosity between President Eisenhower and Mr. Truman had prevented their appearance together on the same platform and had necessitated a compromise whereby the former spoke at dinner and the latter at luncheon. After introducing all the guests at the head table, Mr. Johnston turned the gavel over to the former Democratic Secretary of State, Dean G. Acheson, who in turn introduced Mr. Truman. The latter then proceeded to deliver the one speech which focused more than casually upon Congress and its responsibilities in the foreign aid field. "I have come here today to talk to you," the former President said at the outset, "because I have been told that the Mutual Security Program is in grave danger of being emasculated by the Congress." After describing the Conference as "a. good example of a bipartisan approach to foreign policy" and the foreign aid program as vital to the nation's security, Mr. Truman returned to the subject of Congress: And I want to say a word in a political vein to my Democratic brethren in Congress. There was a Democratic vote last year to cut a budget item which should not have been cut, and we are still having a hard time explaining it. Please don't put us on that kind of spot again. If the Democrats in Congress refuse to spend at least as much for foreign economic assistance as this Administration recommends, we will never be able to explain it. People will forgive us for spending too much in the search for peace; they will never forgive us for refusing to spend enough. I will not presume to offer any political advice to the Republicans. I will only pause to throw down this challenge: I challenge the Republicans to do as well by this bill as the Democrats do, and then let's see how we come out. 26

In the New York Times, February 10, 1958.

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The afternoon session began with a question-and-answer panel presided over by Vice President Richard M. Nixon.27 The purpose of the panel was to discuss the details of the 1958 foreign aid proposals which the President had submitted to Congress the previous week. Besides the Vice President, the panel was composed of the four administration officials mainly responsible for presenting the foreign aid program to committees of Congress: Deputy Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon, Assistant Secretary of Defense Mansfield D. Sprague, ICA Director James H. Smith, Jr., and the Manager of the Development Loan Fund, Dempster Mcintosh. So as to avoid what Mr. Nixon called "the spoon-feeding which inevitably is the result when speakers appear before you," the conferees were invited to submit written questions or to ask them orally over microphones scattered throughout the audience. The Vice President announced at the outset that the panel would consider the two types of questions alternately. All in all, about 80 written questions were submitted, but time permitted responses to only ten of them. Eleven oral questions were also answered during the twohour session. At the start of the panel Mr. Dillon outlined in some detail the major features of the mutual security proposals submitted to Congress for fiscal 1959. He referred conferees to a chart which had been distributed to them and which compared the fiscal 1958 appropriation ($3.4 billion) with the fiscal 1959 appropriation request ($3.9 billion). The chart presented 27 With one exception, the entire text of the Nixon panel discussion is reprinted in the Conference Report, pp. 65-81. The one omission was an exchange between the Vice President and the former Ambassador to Luxembourg, Mrs. Perle Mesta, who asked Mr. Nixon why he approved "of spending $10 million for repairing the front of the Capitol . . . when we need the money so badly for security and defense—what happened to you?" The Vice President replied at length, explaining that Congress needed the space, and concluded by saying, "If by improving the crowded conditions . . . we can improve the temper of the House and the Senate for this program, let's go ahead and do it." Presumably this exchange was omitted because of its irrelevance to the subject of the Conference.

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the amount and proportion of money in each of the six main categories of the foreign aid program: Military Assistance, Defense Support, the Development Loan Fund, Technical Cooperation, Special Assistance, and the Contingency Fund. Mr. Dillon explained each of these and observed that the Administration was requesting $500 million less than had been asked of the Congress the previous year. He specifically noted that this decrease was largely due to a smaller request for military assistance. He granted that $500 million more was being sought than had actually been appropriated by the Congress the previous year. But he explained that the entire increase was destined for the economic field, especially for the Development Loan Fund. He stressed that the $300 million appropriated for the Development Loan Fund in the previous year was "nowhere near enough to do the job," whereas the new request for $625 million was "an absolute minimum." In short, the conferees were exposed to a concise description of the monetary dimensions of the program and to the fact that the Administration was moving in the direction of greater emphasis on economic aid. The subsequent question-and-answer period can fairly be characterized as frank and straightforward. While one group of questions sought explanations for why the United States was not doing more in the foreign aid field, another group queried why so much was being done. In the former category were such questions as the following: Is the present program adequate to do the job that has to be done? Why isn't the military part of the program carried as part of the Defense Department's budget? Why not channel all economic aid through the United Nations? Is a second World Bank needed to make long-term, low-interest loans to underdeveloped countries? And the answers were equally candid: Yes, the present program is adequate as long as Congress does not cut the request. Yes, the military assistance program should be in the Defense Department's budget, but Congress does not agree and has refused to go along with the proposal. No, channeling aid through the United Nations would not

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work and would be wasteful because that agency would have to make decisions on a political rather than an economic basis. Yes, the idea of a second World Bank is a good one, but for a number of reasons it probably could not be made to work. Equally frank replies were made to questions contending that the foreign aid program ought to be curbed rather than extended. One of these challenged the wisdom of spending money to develop power potential in foreign countries when the Administration had halted the start of new water-resource projects in the United States. Noting that this had "overtones of a political question," Vice President Nixon undertook to reply and conceded that a difficult point had been raised because "we do want to develop our own country." But, the Vice President went on, "I would like to suggest that we can have the finest reclamation program in the world, and all the flood control that anybody could possibly dream of, in hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, and it is not going to make any difference if we are not around to enjoy it." Another conferee questioned whether the foreign aid program was being administered efficiently, to which ICA Director Smith replied at length that some mistakes had been made, but not nearly so many as some believed and, in any event, these were being corrected along with a constant effort to avoid further mistakes. Similarly, a question was raised about the propriety of providing aid to neutrals or to nations which use the funds for socialist purposes. Again the Vice President responded, and he did so at such length that he ended by remarking that he had practically delivered a speech. The gist of his reply was that the United States might as well not have any programs if it attached conditions to them, that it was in the nation's self-interest to build strong and independent countries which could contest communism rather than simply to purchase friends abroad. In sum, although very few conferees were able to participate in the discussion, the Nixon panel did provide a chance

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for criticism of the program to be aired. And thereby it moved the Conference from the level of general advocacy to that of specific argument. At the same time the necessity of expanded economic and technical assistance to underdeveloped countries continued to be the predominant theme of the deliberations. "I personally believe," said Mr. Nixon at the conclusion of the panel, "that United States interests could be served by spending more in this field than we currently are spending." The ninth speech of the Conference immediately followed the Nixon panel. It was delivered by the Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, James R. Killian, Jr., who elaborated on the relationship between foreign aid and scientific development. After a brief recess the afternoon session was then concluded with a "Panel on Post-Conference Education," which was shortened to some forty-five minutes because of the lateness of the hour. The panel was composed of the Conference Chairman, Eric Johnston, the two Conference Co-Chairmen, Mrs. J. Ramsey Harris and Mr. Erie Cocke, Jr., and two members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representatives A. S. J. Carnahan (Democrat from Missouri) and Chester E. Merrow (Republican from New Hampshire), who had just returned from a joint speaking tour of 32 cities on behalf of the foreign aid program. The purpose of the panel, according to its chairman, Mr. Cocke, was to provide an opportunity for conferees to give "advice" on what "type of educational job" should be undertaken in the months ahead. Altogether, nine questions or comments were presented by the conferees, ranging from a suggestion that a national committee be formed, to a comment that "we should manifest our trust in God more than we do," to a question about the timing of the foreign aid bill in Congress. Both Congressmen gave brief talks and reported that wherever they went on their travels, people were "intensely" interested in foreign aid, and that "once the benefits are explained, they are enthusiastic about it." Both men stressed that the public was uninformed about the program and

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therefore a great deal might be accomplished "if this Conference could be followed by several regional conferences throughout the country." At no point, however, did the Panel on Post-Conference Education focus on the question of what the conferees themselves might subsequently do on behalf of the program. AU agreed that post-Conference education was desirable, but no views were expressed on how this was to be implemented. The comment which came closest to touching upon the manner of implementation was made by Mr. Cocke, and it hardly offered guidelines to future action: "The idea of bringing the organizational people of the country together was not to change anybody's mandates or resolutions but to encourage them to take a long-range approach to foreign affairs generally and particularly to follow through on discussing the foreign aid program on the basis of the kind of information we have received here today." The panel's proceedings came to a close in the following way: Mr. Cocke: Because of the lateness of the hour, may I summarize at this point by saying that it seems to be the consensus of this group that a national organization be formed—a central agency to disseminate information, in liaison with the government but completely independent. Question: (A woman in the audience) Mr. Chairman, may I make a formal motion to that effect? I now make a motion that this body assembled here recommend the establishment of a permanent committee to carry on the work. Mr. Cocke: You heard the motion. Is there a second? The motion has been made and seconded. I do not wish to limit debate, but since the hour is very late, wiU all those in favor so indicate by standing. (The audience stood in unison.) We will try our best to set up the kind of organization you have proposed. Now we are

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going to have to close this session. Thank you very much. We hope everyone here will be back at the dinner tonight. Arrangements for the dinner session were similar to those that had obtained at the luncheon. Seats were not assigned and again the size of the crowd made for complications. Again Mr. Johnston introduced the fifty "honored guests" at the head table,28 which this time included sixteen leaders of Congress from both parties, most of the speakers, top government officials, some prominent Republicans such as the former Governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, and a few leaders from the business, communications, and entertainment fields. The President arrived shortly thereafter and at 9:30 delivered his address to a nation-wide radio audience.29 Fifteen minutes before he was to begin, however, the President had decided to give an impromptu talk to the conferees.30 Noting that they had already heard the main points of his formal address "several times today," the President said that he wanted to express "a few things that are on my heart" before going on the air. He observed that he was "so proud" of the gathering and its evident determination to support foreign aid that he felt obliged to say "thank you" prior to his formal speech. He said that he believed that "from this meeting will flow a great wave of knowledge to educate the people so they will truly understand what we mean when we say that only when there can be peace for the whole world can there be peace for any nation." In his formal address the President explained the nature of the foreign aid program, its accomplishments, and its present functions, concluding that "success in these fields . . . 28

Listed in the Conference Report, pp. 93-94. No part of the proceedings, however, were televised. Composite kinescopes were made for subsequent distribution, but live coverage of the Conference was not undertaken by this important medium of mass communication. 30 These remarks were not included in the Conference Report, but the New York Times for February 26, 1958, briefly mentioned those which are quoted. 29

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depends on the fullest understanding by every American of the importance of these programs to our country." The President also stressed that foreign aid was above politics, that "the array of leaders of both parties who have come together here today is eloquent proof that on this issue partisanship has indeed taken a holiday." More than a few observers noted that the President implemented his convictions along this line by citing the Truman Doctrine, and not simply U. S. aid to Greece, as a landmark of the mutual security program. Perhaps it is also worth noting that President Eisenhower, more than any other speaker, vigorously assailed the foes of foreign aid, calling them "ostrichlike opponents" whose argument "is based on slogans, prejudices, penny-wise economy and above all, an outright refusal to look at the world of 1958 as it really is." After the President's speech, the tenth formal one of the day, the Conference ended, apparently with all concerned satisfied that something important had been accomplished. Certainly it is true that very impressive people had made a very strong plea for maintaining and extending the foreign aid program. As the New York Times account of the next day observed, "Old-time Congressional politicians looked on in wonder at this highly public and trenchant form of lobbying on a public issue. The meetings from first to last went on in an atmosphere both of great good humor and obvious determination." 31 Such, then, was the Conference. Doubtless the reader has already formed ideas about how he would have reacted to the occasion had he been in attendance. But what about the 1,067 opinion-makers who were subjected to this stimulus? Was it likely to shape their behavior or change their attitudes? Was it an experience that they might look back upon as rewarding? Or would it retrospectively seem like a waste of their time? Did they come away feeling better informed about the necessity and nature of the foreign aid program? 31

New York Times, February 26, 1958.

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Did the Conference convert opponents of the program and activate its friends? Or is it likely that the Conference failed to modify behavior in any direction? As might be imagined, the empirical answers to these questions 32 reflect widely different responses to the Conference on the part of those who attended it. Since these differences include varying and conflicting perceptions of the nature of the Conference, it is useful to summarize here what appear to have been the main characteristics of the events that the conferees, whatever their individual reactions, commonly experienced. In the first place, it is clear that the conferees had virtually no opportunity to confer, that their experience was essentially one of passive listening rather than active participation. If a conference is defined as an occasion when ideas are exchanged among participants, the Conference was misnamed and might more properly be regarded as a rally or a meeting. Secondly, it is also plain that the opinion-makers were, rightly or wrongly, exposed to a very one-sided view of the foreign aid program, that the proceedings were not enlivened by a speech opposing "the great giveaway" and "the pouring of money down a rat hole." To be sure, the Nixon panel provided a chance for criticism to be voiced, but no systematic presentation of an opposition viewpoint was included on the agenda. Messrs. Truman and Stevenson, it is also true, called for more imagination in the scope and administration of the program, but the burden of their speeches was essentially the same as the argument of the Republican speakers. Moreover, in presenting a one-sided view of the program, the speakers, singly and combined, raised only the issue of whether foreign aid was desirable or undesirable. They did not expose the conferees to the more difficult and subtle choices which follow a commitment to the foreign aid principle and which are annually the central focus of Congressional debates. Thirdly, while the cumulative message conveyed by the speakers and panelists constituted an impressive case 32

Presented below, Chapters VIII and IX.

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for the general principle of foreign aid, it conspicuously lacked any indication of what the conferees could do on behalf of the program or of how the legislative process limited what could be accomplished in the field. Finally, there can be little doubt that the Conference was a unique event, that it exposed a variety of nongovernmental opinion-makers to the nation's leading politicians and to a vivid demonstration of bipartisanship as an operating principle. Post-Conference

Devefopments

Immediately subsequent to the Conference, and pursuant to its recommendation, Eric Johnston organized a permanent committee to maintain the campaign on behalf of the foreign aid program. 38 The organization was called the Committee for International Economic Growth (CIEG), and eight original members 34 signed a telegram inviting some 400 'leaders in all walks of life" to join them as sponsors of "this continuing effort to advance public understanding." As of April 20, 1958, 327 had accepted the invitation, while 61 had regretfully declined it, largely on the grounds that their positions did not allow them to become formally affiliated with such organizations. Only one-third of the 327 who became sponsors had attended the Conference, while another third had been among the invitees unable to attend. Interestingly, the last third of the CIEG's sponsors, 111 to be exact, had not been invited to the Conference, a fact which partially reflects the extent to which the Committee was more attentive to potential financial contributors in making its selections than had been the case when the conferees were selected. Mr. Johnston was elected chairman of the Committee and 33

But the new organization was not as spontaneous an outgrowth of the Conference as the course of events would seem to suggest. Plans for its activation and details as to its composition and activities had been worked out prior to the Conference. 34 General Lucius D. Clay, Dr. Milton Eisenhower, General Alfred M. Gruenther, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Helen R. Reid, George Meany, Barney Balaban, and Eric Johnston.

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a professional staff was hired to conduct its activities. Although the White House made the Conference records available to the Committee, the latter was established as a private organization without governmental sponsorship and, in the words of its letterhead, was "a non-partisan, non-profit national citizens' association devoted to public education on the relationship between international economic development and the security of the United States." Supported wholly by private funds, the Committee had raised, by mid-April 1958, slightly under half of the $500,000 estimated as necessary for one year of operation. Since contributions to the CIEG were not tax deductible,85 the $235,000 received at the outset from both business concerns and individuals was regarded as an auspicious beginning. Subsequently, however, the rate of contributions fell off and the Committee was forced to curtail its activities and reduce its staff. Like the Conference before it, the Committee concentrated upon informing the public rather than upon persuading the Congress. As one of its early publications noted, "The Committee is not engaged, nor will it engage, in lobbying. . . . It conceives its role to be that of an information center which can direct a flow of solid factual information about foreign economic assistance to the American people."36 By May 20, 1958, the Committee proudly claimed that the flow of information had reached torrential proportions and that "it could treble or quadruple its present output and still be unable to 35

Despite its meticulous efforts to avoid direct contact with Congressmen, the Committee's application for tax-exempt status was turned down by the Internal Revenue Service under the prevailing tax law which disallows deductions of contributions to an organization that "conducts propaganda or otherwise attempts to influence legislation." The Committee did inform prospective contributors, however, that "competent legal counsel . . . is of the opinion that business firms whose interests in general will be served by the work of the Committee are entitled to write off contributions as a normal business expense." Committee for International Economic Growth, "Foreign Economic Assistance in Crisis" (pamphlet), Washington, D.C., March 1958, p. 8. s » Ibid., p. 7.

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meet the demand."37 In this three-month period its accomplishments were said to include the preparation and distribution of three films, three recordings, four "fact sheets" for editorial writers, and four general pamphlets, as well as arranging speakers for forty national meetings, articles and research materials for six national magazines, and different press releases for almost all of the forty-eight states. The latter described the business and jobs which each state received as a result of the foreign aid program. AU told, the press releases were distributed to 800 daily and 1,500 weekly newspapers, and a general feature story was scheduled for "mat service" distribution to 2,500 additional publications. Moreover, during this period two regional conferences, one in Miami, Florida, and one in Dayton, Ohio, were held in cooperation with local groups and patterned after the "citizens' assembly" of February 25. Similar meetings were scheduled for June in Pittsburgh and Kansas City. As for its television, radio, and printed materials, the Committee provided these to 173 national organizations and to over 80 meetings and conferences. The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, requested 5,000 copies of one pamphlet, while the League of Women Voters distributed copies of one of the ten-minute recordings to its 1,050 chapters and another 2,900 were distributed through every lay and ministerial council of the National Council of Churches. A fourteen-minute film of the Conference's highlights, entitled "Partisanship Takes a Holiday," was booked for 168 telecasts by May 25 and two shorter films featuring Congressmen Carnahan and Merrow were each booked for about 250 telecasts by July 15. Indeed, the Committee estimated that by the end of June 1958, "the TV and radio materials alone will have reached more than 20 million people across the country."38 Included among these early activities of the Committee was an effort to enlist the cooperation of the organizations 37 Committee for International Economic Growth, "Summary Report: Feb. 26 to May 20, 1958," p. 1 (mimeographed). 38 Ibid.

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that had been represented at the Conference. In mid-March Mr. Johnston sent a letter to the heads of these organizations thanking them for their participation in the Conference and offering the Committee's assistance in any activities designed to promote discussion of the foreign aid program. Attached to the letter was a one-page questionnaire which sought information on the organization's willingness to distribute materials, notify members of available materials, provide speakers, participate in regional meetings, and organize local committees "for the purpose of conducting educational programs on economic assistance." Approximately one-fourth of the organizations returned the questionnaire and expressed a readiness to utilize the Committee's services in some way. On the basis of the returned questionnaires the Committee announced, on April 1, that "specific working arrangements" had been "established with 57 national organizations representing a total of 24,700,000 citizens."39 Despite its varied and extensive activity during the spring of 1958, the CIEG made no effort to capitalize upon the common experience of the 1,067 opinion-makers who had attended the Conference. A tenth of the conferees, to be sure, were invited to become Committee sponsors and in that capacity received, on April 15, a letter from Mr. Johnston suggesting ways in which they could advance the Committee's purposes. And it is also true that organization heads received the March letter mentioned above. Yet neither of these communications were sent to the conferees as conferees, and at most they reached only about half of those who had attended the Conference. Indeed, the only general mailing to all the conferees occurred in mid-May when the Conference Report was distributed to the entire list.40 Accompanying the Report was a printed memorandum 39

Committee for International Economic Growth, "Summary Report of Operations: April 1, 1958," p. 1 (mimeographed). 40 It should foe noted that since the Conference Report was distributed shortly before the author's questionnaire, responses to the latter may have been sharpened by prior receipt of the former.

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indicating merely that it had been sent "with the compliments of the Committee for International Economic Growth." In short, a large proportion of the conferees received no further word on ways in which they might implement whatever enthusiasm for foreign aid the Conference had stimulated. This is not to imply that the Committee should have circulated instructions to the conferees or in some way capitalized upon their common experience. Nor is it to imply that more would have been accomplished by mobilizing the individuals who attended the Conference than by the exclusive effort to feed information into the mass and organizational channels of communication. Judgments along this line must await analysis of the data pertaining to the reactions and post-Conference behavior of the conferees. At this point, however, the absence of a general mailing to the conferees is relevant in one important respect: namely, it constituted a major aspect of the setting in which they all received, late in May, the author s questionnaire surveying their reactions to the Conference. Both the quantitative and qualitative response to the questionnaire may have been partly shaped by the fact that so little had been heard from or about the Conference in the intervening months. 41 It is not unlikely, for example, that the questionnaire enjoyed a high rate of return partially because it benefited from obligations and energies provoked by the Conference that had not previously been tapped. 42 41 Further data and discussion bearing on this point are provided in Appendix A2. i2 This suggests the interesting possibility that the questionnaire may have served as a stimulus of behavior as well as a measure of it. Conceivably, by probing the opinion-making oudets available to the respondents, it may have spurred some of them to undertake actions they would not otherwise have considered; or, by inquiring about what they had done on behalf of foreign aid, it may have played upon guilt feelings in such a way as to lead to activity. Less far-fetched is the possibility that the questionnaire, by positing the respondents as opinionmakers, either reinforced or exaggerated their self-images of their opinion-making capacities. Moreover, there is some evidence to warrant the conclusion that just as the Conference momentarily bridged the functional autonomy of opinion-making groups, so did the questionnaire mo-

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The legislative condition of the foreign aid bill was perhaps an equally important aspect of the setting in which the conferees received and filled out the questionnaire. As of the date when it was mailed, May 23, 1958, the President's request for $3.9 billion appeared to be faring relatively well in the Congress. On April 24 the House Foreign Affairs Committee had, to be sure, reduced the authorization request by $339 million. But, unlike the previous year, attempts to slash the bill further were rebuffed when it reached the House floor and, on May 14, it was passed by a vote of 259 to 134. Several days later it was reported 43 that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was considering restoration of the entire amount cut by the House. On May 23 the Committee finally adopted a measure which authorized $3.7 billion, or about $100 million more than the House had approved. Thus, as matters stood at the time of the questionnaire mailing, only mild changes had been made in the bill and Congress seemed disposed to resist any and all attempts to modify it drastically. Of the questionnaires that were returned, 81.3 per cent were received on or before June 9, the date of a second mailing to conferees urging those who had not completed the questionnaire to do so. During this "first wave" period from May 23 to June 9 the foreign aid bill suffered no further damages in the legislative mill. On June 6 the Senate authorized $3.7 billion and, by a vote of 51 to 17, passed the bill in virtually the same form in which it was sent to the floor by the Foreign Relations Committee. In other words, during the period when most of the questionnaires were completed, the cuts in the $3.9 billion authorization request were relatively small—or at least it would have required close mentarily introduce a linkage between them. The frequency with which responses were framed in the context of the word "we" suggests that the conferees were encouraged to identify with the opinion-making public as a whole. Regardless of the validity of this speculation, however, we do not wish to carry it too far, lest it lead to a questionnaire surveying reactions to a questionnaire. 4S In the New York Times, May 23, 1958.

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reading of the "small print" in the New York Times to be aware of them. Between the 10th and 27th of June, the foreign aid scene remained virtually unchanged. The only development during this "second wave" period occurred on June 18, when a conference committee split the difference between the House and the Senate and arrived at a final authorization figure of $3,675 million, or $267 million less than the $3,942 million originally requested by the President. In this legislative respect, then, the second-wave questionnaires, amounting to 15.2 per cent of all those returned, were completed under conditions similar to those that obtained when the first-wave questionnaires were filled out. All told, 96.5 per cent of those returned were received prior to June 27, the date when the foreign aid program sustained its first major setback. On that day the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure appropriating $3,078 million, or $597 million less than had been authorized and $864 million less than the President had requested. Included in the slash was more than half of the request for the Development Loan Fund. This event so drastically altered the setting that a "third wave" was established for questionnaires that came in subsequent to June 27. However, only 3.5 per cent of the returned questionnaires fell in this category. As for the conditions abroad during the period when most of the questionnaires were completed, it should be recalled that these were somewhat unsettled by the anti-American demonstrations which accompanied Vice President Nixon's tour of Latin America in mid-May and by the turmoil in Algeria and France that brought General de Gaulle back to power later in the same month. On the other hand, the major upheaval abroad in 1958 occurred after all but nine of the questionnaires had been returned. More than 98.3 per cent were completed prior to July 15, when the revolution in Iraq led to the landing of U. S. troops in Lebanon. Ironically, it was the latter event, and not the public or the Conference or the strenuous activities of the CIEG, that reversed the

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tide, at least temporarily, which was running so heavily against the foreign aid bill. On July 3 the House had rejected the President's appeal to restore the cuts made by its appropriations committee and had passed, by a 253 to 116 vote, the $3,078 million bill. However, subsequent to, and because of,4* the Middle Eastern crisis, the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 5 restored $440 million of the funds cut by the House and approved a $3,518 million foreign aid appropriation. This latter amount was not changed by the Senate as a whole when it passed the bill two weeks later by a voice vote. Then, on the last day of the 85th Congress, August 24, the bill was taken up by a conference committee. For five hours during the night the House and Senate conferees wrangled over the measure, with the latter trying to preserve a large part of the amount restored by the Senate. But in the end, notwithstanding the Middle Eastern crisis, unremitting opposition from the House foes of the program prevailed and the conferees followed the tradition of splitting the difference between the two chambers. The only solace that friends of the program could draw from the actions of the conference committee was a statement by the conferees that the following year Congress would sympathetically entertain requests for supplemental appropriations in deeply cut items such as the Development Loan Fund. The final appropriation for foreign aid was $3,298 million, or $377 million less than had been authorized and $644 million less than the President's original request. As for the $625 million sought for the Development Loan Fund, the figure which Mr. Dillon described at the Conference as an "absolute minimum," it was cut by Congress to $400 million. In short, the seeds which Mr. Johnston spoke of planting on February 25 had failed to take root. Or perhaps they did take root but had yet to sprout. Or perhaps they did blossom but failed to withstand transplantation from the varied soil ** See the New York Times of July 17 and 20, 1958, for accounts of widely held expectations that events in the Middle East would have favorable consequences for the foreign aid bill in Congress.

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of public opinion to the rougher terrain of Capitol Hill. The data turned up by the questionnaire shed some light on which of these agronomical conjectures is most valid.45 45

Of course, there is the fourth possibility that the foreign aid bill would have suffered even a worse fate if seeds had not been planted and cultivated by the Conference and the CIEG. But since such a negative goal was not an aspiration of the Conference or the Committee sponsors, exploration of this alternative would not be particularly fruitful even if it were possible to trace what might have been in the absence of an historical fact.

PART II The Conferees: A Profile of 647 Opinion-Makers

C H A P T E R IV

Social and Political Background Both immediate and long-range purposes underlie the effort in this chapter to outline the past experiences and present affiliations of the conferees.1 The immediate purpose is that of facilitating analysis of their differential reactions to the Conference. As will be seen, the conferees varied widely in their appraisals of the event and in their behavior subsequent to it. While these variations may not be simply and directly related to the social and political background of the conferees,2 clearly cross-tabulation of the two sets of variables will permit a more extensive inquiry into the attitudinal and behavioral differences. If, for example, a high correspondence is uncovered between adverse reaction to the Conference and affiliation with the Democratic party, then such a datum would allow for speculation about the extent to which the effectiveness of the Conference was limited by considerations of partisanship. Similar treatment of such variables as age, sex, religion, region, and occupation may also pave the way to a more thorough evaluation of the impact of the Conference. Not all of the background data presented in this chapter, however, will be used later in the cross-tabulations. Obviously it would be methodologically unsound to cross-tabulate indiscriminately every sociological datum with every behavioral datum and then to attach importance to those 1

By "conferees" is henceforth meant the 647 persons who responded to the questionnaire. Unless otherwise noted, the terms "respondents" and "opinion-makers" shall also refer to this group. 2 For a cogent analysis of the dangers of assuming a simple causal relationship between social characteristics and behavioral tendencies, see Peter H. Bossi, "Community Decision-Making," in Roland Young (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958), pp. 368-69.

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relationships which turned out to be significant. Such a procedure would make it impossible to differentiate between the statistically significant results that occurred by chance and those that stemmed from a systematic relationship. It would also lead to absurd and inexplicable findings, such as, say, that Catholic women in their forties engaged in greater post-Conference activity than Protestant men in their thirties. In other words, the outcome of each cross-tabulation must be predicted in advance if the reliability of the findings is to be maximized.8 The prediction need not be a positive one. Equally useful findings may stem from confirmation of negative hypotheses that predict the absence of a relationship between certain variables. Thus, in subsequent chapters, use will be made only of those background data presented here that were expected to bear some relationship to the behavioral phenomena under consideration. Little use will be made, for instance, of the data on religious affiliation described below. In most cases it was not possible to conceive of a way in which this variable might be related to the reactions and post-Conference activities of the conferees. Why, then, it might be asked, does the ensuing account of the affiliative and experiential characteristics of the conferees include data which will not be put to further use? Indeed, why outline their social and political backgrounds independ8 As noted in the Preface, this procedure is more reliable than that of inspecting the data after they have been cross-tabulated and attaching meaning to those relationships which are statistically significant and yet not absurdly irrelevant. The data pattern which underlies such a relationship can usually be explained in several reasonable, persuasive, and contradictory ways. This means that in order to determine which of the several possible explanations is the most accurate, new data must be gathered and examined. In effect, therefore, the explanations are more in the nature of hypotheses than of findings. If, however, the pattern has been predicted on explicit and reasonable grounds prior to the sorting of the data, then the findings acquire additional reliability and the hypotheses are to that extent confirmed. The procedure of predicting the outcome of cross-tabulations has been followed in every chapter but the eighth, where special considerations rendered the development of prior hypotheses inappropriate.

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ently of the behavioral phenomena with which crosstabulations are to be made? The answer to these questions provides the long-range purposes of this chapter, namely, that separate treatment of the background variables is necessary to permit exploration of the channels through which opinion-making status is acquired. Obviously not everyone can become an opinion-maker. Neither desire nor talent necessarily lead to occupancy of those positions to which opinion-making capacities are attached. Rather some social characteristics facilitate advancement to such positions more than others, and it is a major purpose of this chapter to indicate which characteristics are most likely to lead to opinion-making status and which are not. Presumably knowledge of the most easily traversed routes to participation in the opinion-making process will permit more thorough analysis of its operation. What follows, in other words, is as complete a profile of the 647 opinion-makers as the data will permit, a descriptive profile from which features will subsequently be selected for the more immediate purpose of analyzing how the opinion-makers responded to a common stimulus. Age It is hardly surprising that the conferees tended to be old rather than young. National opinion-making positions are usually filled by persons who have spent years acquiring prominence or advancing in organizations or associations4 to the top posts. As can be seen in Table 2, 76 per cent of the conferees were at least forty years old. And this does not include the many conferees who did not answer the question [#40].5 Assuming that older persons are more unwilling to 4 Henceforth a distinction will be maintained between associations and organizations in order to differentiate the voluntary associations from those organizations—such as the corporation, the newspaper, or the university—that require participation as a condition of continued membership. 5 Numbers bracketed in this fashion refer to the number of the question as it appeared in the questionnaire, which is reproduced in Appendix A-4.

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reveal their age than younger ones,6 presumably most or all of those who failed to disclose their age were over forty. The average age of those who did respond was fifty-one years, or TABLE 2 AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE CONFEREES (PER CENT)

Age

Proportion of the conferees 2 9 28 28 19 1 13

Under 30 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70 - over Question not answered Total

100 (n = 647)

about ten more than that of the average voter and about the same as the average age of the Congressmen toward whom so much opinion-making activity is ultimately directed. 7 Sex8 Nor is it surprising that 77 per cent of the conferees were men. Organizational and associational positions to which opinion-making capacities accrue are not ordinarily open to 6

But the traditional notion that women are especially uncommunicative in this regard was not confirmed by the data: whereas 12 per cent of the women did not reveal their age, the equivalent figure for men was 11 per cent. 7 Galloway reports that the average voter, Representative, and Senator are, respectively, 42, 52, and 57. George B. Galloway, The Legishtive Process in Congress (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1953), p. 370. 8 It should be noted that the proportions of men and women, as well as the percentages for each region noted below, are exact figures ascertained from the Conference records. These were the only data available for all the conferees and thus serve the additional purpose of facilitating efforts to test the representativeness of those who returned the questionnaire (see Appendix A-3).

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women, whose family responsibilities preclude the pursuit of careers that might culminate in the occupancy of such positions.9 Indeed, for this reason the proportion of women (23 per cent) at the Conference would probably have been even lower if, as previously noted, a special effort had not been made to invite a sample of prominent representatives of the fair sex. As for the age differences between the men and women in attendance, these were not significant.10 The men averaged fifty-one years of age and the women fifty years, again excepting the conferees for whom information was not available. 9 Unfortunately space limitations prevented the inclusion of questions pertaining to marital status and family size that would have permitted further speculation along these lines. It is interesting to note, however, that the same factors which lessen the opportunities for women to become opinion-makers also operate to make them more active participants than men in voluntary associations exclusively concerned with world affairs. See Bernard C. Cohen, Citizen Education in World Affairs (Princeton: Center of International Studies, 1953), pp. 78-79. 10 Unless otherwise noted, all quantitative differences have been judged as significant or not significant through application of the chi square test of independence. Thus the words "significant" and "difference" are henceforth used strictly in a statistical way. Differences at or beyond the .05 level of probability are regarded as significant, whereas all others are classified as not significant. (To suggest the extent of significance, throughout a notation has been attached to those differences found to be significant, indicating whether P was less than .05, .01, or .001.) It follows that a very precise meaning underlies the conclusion that the age differences between the men and women in attendance were not significant, namely, that the probability that these differences could have occurred by chance is too great to warrant acceptance of the hypothesis that they were determined by systematic factors. In this case, as in all instances when two variables are found to be independent of each other, the absence of a significant difference between age and sex has the practical consequence of facilitating subsequent cross-tabulations between either variable and any third variable. In the event, for example, significant differences are uncovered between men and women along some attitudmal dimension, these can be examined without concern for whether or not they were fostered by considerations of age. Contrariwise, as will be seen, in those cases where a significant difference indicates that two variables are related to each other, further cross-tabulations with still other variables must take this relationship into account.

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Race As is the case with respect to the holding of federal offices,11 and probably for the same discriminatory reasons, very few Negroes appear to be members of the national opinionmaking community. Only 2 per cent of the conferees fell in this category, whereas 85 per cent listed themselves as whites. Moreover, this disproportion would probably be even greater if 13 per cent of the respondents had not chosen to skip the race question [#40].12 Religion Even more than in American society itself, Protestants predominated among the conferees: 74 per cent indicated that they were affiliated with one or another Protestant denomination. Of the remainder, 11 per cent were Jewish, 9 per cent were Catholic, and 4 per cent reported either a lack of religious ties or an affiliation with a faith other than the foregoing. An additional 2 per cent did not answer the question [#41]. These figures parallel a similar breakdown of the religious affiliations of members of Congress.13 In both cases the proportion of Protestants exceeds the equivalent figure (approximately 60 per cent) for the society as a whole. On the other hand, the proportion of Catholics in the United States is at least twice the equivalent figure for Congress and four times as large as the percentage of Catholics at the Conference. These differences between Congress and the larger society have been explained in social class 11

Matthews, The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers, p. 24. 12 No question was omitted more frequently than this one. Eightyfive of the respondents apparently had such intense feelings about the discrimination issue that in this respect they were unable to distinguish between an application form and a research questionnaire. This interpretation is supported by a letter received from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that inquired about the usefulness of including a racial question in a survey of the Conference. As things turned out, so few of the conferees were Negroes that this question does not have much usefulness insofar as subsequent crosstabulation is concerned. 18 Matthews, op.cit., p. 27.

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terms: the upper and upper-middle class composition of Congress results in underrepresentatdon of the religious views of the lower-middle and lower classes.14 Since the accessibility of opinion-making positions probably declines with each step down the social class ladder, presumably the same reasons account for the excessive predominance of Protestants among the conferees. Region As can be seen in Table 3, the various sections of the country were not equally represented by the conferees.15 Indeed, more than two-thirds of them came from the northeastern states and Washington, D. C.16 In part, of course, " Ibid., p. 26. 15

This finding is perhaps even more clearly evident in the following tabulation of the conferees from each state: 4 Michigan 14 South Carolina 3 Alabama 10 South Dakota Arizona 2 Minnesota 3 Arkansas 6 Mississippi 5 Tennessee 7 California 14 Texas 23 32 Missouri 7 Montana 0 Utah Colorado 2 Connecticut 17 Nebraska 5 Vermont 1 Delaware 1 Nevada 0 Virginia 21 15 New Hampshire 1 Washington 5 Florida 17 New Jersey 14 West Virginia 3 Georgia 0 New Mexico 9 Idaho 1 Wisconsin Illinois 46 New York 248 Wyoming 1 14 North Carolina Indiana 1 4 Alaska 5 North Dakota Iowa 2 District of Kansas 5 Ohio 25 Columbia 339 1 Oklahoma Kentucky 7 Hawaii 2 11 Oregon Louisiana 1 Peru 1 1 Pennsylvania Maine 40 Puerto Rico 2 29 Rhode Island Maryland 1 4 Venezuela 35 Massachusetts This distribution also serves to support Hunter's findings, developed in the course of studying the nation's power structure and the leaders who sustain it, that the "principal cities . . . are anchor points of power and furnish a large proportion of the active personnel." Floyd Hunter, "Studying Association and Organization Structure," in Young (ed.), op.cit., p. 351. 16 Notwithstanding this imbalance, further examination of the regional data yielded the finding that the conferees from the various regions were similar insofar as their age and sex were concerned. Hence subsequent

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this heavy concentration was due to the fact that 64 per cent of the invitations to the Conference went to the Northeast and the Capital. 17 This is not, however, a full explanation of the low proportion of conferees from the other regions. It will be recalled that at the end of the process of selecting TABLE 3 REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE CONFEREES

Region

Proportion of the conferees

Northeast Midwest South Far West Washington, D.C. Other

37 14 11 5 32 1 Total

100 (n = 1067)

invitees, lists were perused for persons prominent in parts of the country far removed from the Northeast. The discrepancy between this effort to achieve a semblance of geographic balance and the result obtained indicates that the conferees were concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard mainly because it is here that the opinion-making center of the nation is located. This conclusion seems logical in view of the large extent to which voluntary associations with a national scope maintain their central headquarters in Washington, D. C , or New York City, the seats of government, finance, and publishing. Underlying the use of region as a concept is the notion that certain factors inherent in the social and economic life of a geographically defined area conduce to attitudes and/or behavior which differentiate residents of the region from analysis of regional differences can proceed without regard for possible distortion resulting from the age and sex variables. 17 For the data pertaining to the regional distribution of the invitations, see Table 1 above.

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other members of the society. These unique patterns may or may not be consciously recognized by those who exhibit them. The fact that the observer seeks to isolate regional variations does not mean that the subjects of his study have a sense of regional identification. Such is the case with the conferees. Although clearcut regional differences have been uncovered in the attitudinal and behavioral data, there is some evidence that most of the conferees did not attribute importance to their regional status. More precisely, given an opportunity to select any or all of five reasons why they were asked to attend the Conference [#17], only 7 per cent perceived that they were invited because they came "from a particular part of the U. S."18 It is not, of course, surprising that the conferees evidenced virtually no consciousness of a regional status. After all, many of them were selected for their estimated opinion-making capacities on a national scale, and, indeed, most of them held posts in organizations or associations with interests or memberships that are not confined by regional boundaries. 19 Furthermore, modern means of domestic travel make it easy for opinion-makers to transgress regional lines and fulfill their responsibilities in a truly national manner. That they are in fact physically mobile and unconfined by regional boundaries can be seen in Table 4. These data clearly indicate that opinion-makers are away from home considerably more often than the average citizen and that the nation's capital is, perhaps for a variety of reasons, a frequent point of call for them. 20 18

See pp. 256-57 for a discussion of Item #17. In this connection it is interesting to note that 4 per cent of the respondents avoided giving a simple reply to the question [#40], "In what state do you work?" Rather they indicated a geographic entity that exceeded regional boundaries. In these cases it was necessary to code region on the basis of secondary evidence (such as postmarks or responses to a question on voting residence). 20 The finding that opinion-makers engage in extensive travel is further substantiated by t i e data describing the frequency of their trips abroad (see pp. 187-88). 19

)2

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND TABLE 4 RESPONSES TO ITEM

#48

(PER CENT)

On the average, how often do you visit Washington, D.C.? Less than once a year 6 One to three times a year 20 Four to six times a year 18 Six to eleven times a year 12 Once a month or more 11 My office is in Washington 32 Question not answered or uncodable answer 1 Total

100 (n = 647)

Party Although unintentionally so,21 the political affiliations of the White House-selected opinion-makers closely resembles the overall national pattern, i.e., a substantial number of Independents holding the balance between more or less equal proportions of Democrats and Republicans. The difference between the representation of the two parties was not, as can be readily discerned in Table 5, a significant one. Too, the data clearly indicate that more than a few of the conTABLE 5 RESPONSES TO ITEM

#42

(PER CENT)

Do you consider yourself a Republican a Democrat an Independent I make it a practice not to reveal my personal political preferences Question not answered or uncodable answer Total

34 37 23 5 1

100 (n =:647)

21 It will be recalled that party affiliations were not considered in the process of selecting the conferees.

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ferees regarded themselves as lacking the attitudes or affiliations of a Democrat or a Republican. 22 The conferees do not seem to have been any more conscious of their party status than they were of their regional identity. Only 9 per cent perceived [#17] that they had been invited to the Conference because "your presence contributed to a spirit of bipartisanship." Even more indicative is the fact that 48 per cent, when asked to generalize about the political affiliations of their fellow conferees [#2], responded that they had "no impression along this line." The contrast between this proportion and the 21 per cent who "had no impression" of the foreign aid attitudes of their colleagues [#3] 28 is so striking (P