ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

clearly followed the advice because less than a month after this meeting, he presented
Marshall with the outline for a European recovery program that came to be known as the
Marshall Plan.
Q: That’s a tough act to follow.
PERINA: It surely is, and not all subsequent Directors were as successful. Over the years,
the office has evolved into something between a think tank and a small NSC staff for the
Secretary of State. It really has two functions: first, to come with up new ideas and
policies, and secondly, to ensure policy coordination within the Department. That is why
almost all substantive memos and papers by bureaus have to be cleared with the staff.
The staff is organizationally a part of the Secretary’s office and is traditionally headed by
an outsider, a political appointee, and not a career State Department person. Because the
position is considered to be on the personal staff of the Secretary, the Director does not
have to be confirmed by the Senate. There are usually two deputies, one a career person
and the other from outside. I was the career one. Then there are usually about twenty or
so members of the staff who cover the world. There is usually an expert for each of the
major geographic regions, as well as experts in functional areas like global economics,
arms control, foreign assistance and so on. Compared to other offices in the Department,
it is thus a very small and compact operation. The members usually are very smart people
from a variety of backgrounds. I would say that in my time about half the staff came from
universities and think tanks outside of government, a quarter was from non-State
Department agencies like the CIA and the Pentagon, and another quarter came from
inside the Department. The office also included the Secretary’s speechwriters. It was a
very good and stimulating mix of people. It was also interesting because as members of
the Secretary’s office we got to see almost everything—all the memos, all the intelligence
reports and so on, both incoming and outgoing. We even saw the memoranda of
conversation or Memcons as they are called of the President’s meetings and phone calls
with other leaders. These are normally very tightly held.
Q: So did you feel the office was influential on policy?
PERINA: In a bureaucratic way the office always is simply because other offices have to
clear their papers with the staff. But if you mean influential on really major foreign policy
decisions, then that is a mixed picture. A few years back, one former member of the staff
did a very informal historical study of its influence. He concluded that it depends almost
entirely on the relationship between the Secretary and the Policy Planning Staff Director.
In other words, the staff is a tool for the Secretary to use. Some Secretaries choose to use
it more, and some choose to use it less. That determines how much influence it has.
Q: How would you judge the influence of the staff while you were there?
PERINA: When I got there in 2004 Colin Powell was Secretary of State. The Director of
Policy Planning was a fellow named Mitchell Reiss, a professor of law and government
at William and Mary College. Colin Powell, whom I admire greatly and thus do not want
this to be understood in a negative way, was more of an operational person than a
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