Nixon Vowed to Rebuild the Foreign Service
By GEORGE GEDDA 01.04.07, 7:46 AM ET
Days after his re-election on Nov. 7, 1972, Nixon vented his frustrations about the diplomatic corps during a meeting with his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
Just before saying he was going "to take the responsibility for cleaning up" the department, the president told Kissinger on Nov. 13 that he was determined that his "one legacy is to ... build a new one(foreign service). I'm going to do it."
Months later, Kissinger would become the chief U.S. diplomat as secretary of state, and major changes were never made to the Foreign Service.
Earlier, Nixon had questioned the loyalty of career diplomats to his policies and particularly was outraged by the State Department's performance on international economic policy.
"I don't know of one man, a soul that's worth a goddamn as an economic adviser. Not one. Not one at all," Nixon said at a White House meeting on Jan. 18, 1972, the documents said.
The documents shed new light on the tensions between the Republican administration and the State Department's permanent foreign policy establishment.
It was a period dominated by dramatic developments overseas - the winding down of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the beginning of a relationship with China and the continuing Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union.
Winston Lord, a top aide to Kissinger during the 1970s, said Nixon looked on the Foreign Service as dominated by liberals and as generally "cautious, unimaginative, slow-moving and risk-averse."
He said Nixon was given to hyperbole and his "extreme" comments about dismantling the Foreign Service should be seen in that light. At times, he said Kissinger simply ignored instructions from Nixon that Kissinger felt were given out of pique instead of careful consideration.
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As for State Department officials, Nixon said he has "much more suspicion of them and much more contempt for them than he (Kissinger) has."
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Copyright 2006 Associated Press.
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