The Development of Administrative Roles: The Labor Attache Program of the U. S. Foreign Service

Abstract

IN 1927 Congress authorized creation of a Foreign Commerce Service and in 1930 of a Foreign Agricultural Service. The officers of these specialized services, the commercial attaches and agricultural attaches, although assigned by the State Department to United States diplomatic missions abroad, were primarily responsible to the foreign affairs sections of their respective specialized departments, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture. Thus, while the State Department formally could veto a prospective candidate, once abroad he was free from the supervision and control of the Chief of Mission. Such a situation could produce obvious complications, including diminishing the authority of the ambassador in the field. At the base of such arrangement lay the conception of the State Department as a policymaking agency as contrasted to the other agencies viewed only as operational in the field of international affairs. As the Hoover report pointed out years later, however, any activity in the area of international affairs involves policy-making decisions to a varied degree.'