AMERICANS AREN'T UGLY NOW, AND THEY'RE ALERT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200610002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 31, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

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~3y .Aniitcci ~tziotii
Associate p?'ofessor of sociolo37U at
Columbia, Etzioni is also a staf f meroi-
ber of the University's Institute of War
and Peace Studies.
WITH THE new Johnson Admiziistra-
tion now formally inaugurated, there
will be a number of new ambassadorial
appointments and a reshuffling of State
Department personnel of other ranks
among our hundred-odd oversew,>. out.-
pasts, Inevitably, some of these: ap-
pointments will be determined by
political considerations, but the r.on-
tinual need to improve our Forei~'n
Service will' also be served.
Iiow is the Foreign Service iioiaig
.these days? Is it still full of people
who do not command the ]anguai;?e of
the country in which they live? I)o
they -ever get aut of the capitals? Ilow
do they compare with other Atne;rican
representatives, from the Peace Corps
to the members of military missions?
Visiting 12 American embassies in
Latin America and seven in Africa in
the course of ,the last two years vrhilc
I .was engaged in a sociological study,
I gathcrred the following impressions.
hI;W PN:OPhE realize that much o~f
our information on fhe political 'life
of other countries is obtained not by
the; hush-hush work of the CIA or the
intelligence arms of the military serv-
ices, but by the political sections ot" the
embassies.
laclr embassy I visited had such a
s~:c.tion, sometimes one man, as in
ee ~i.f o~a,r monetac?y
ir'~..Tr~ .c,.;,~
I rnet ~~:re young. The~lar?;e majority
,r?aclu~ red from Princeton, Vale, or
iaarvnrd. They all spoke :fluently tlne
~.an~ua~e of the country in which they
?.vcrt ~tationcd, if it were an easy
;;,~anisl7 in 1G7exi.co City or a difficult
:1,nharic in f.ddis F~baba.
I rare}y mentioned. a name to them,
he it of ax's so muclx
better than our AID ;Inissioxxs.
' In summary, many t)1'. the nit:~`. .nr..
spicuous shortcomings o ti;e? I'~~
i~ervice described in ,~?[';:c ~:;;,y " r_,..,
i.c?an" are not to be sce)t t:~~ci?y. ~'oa::T,
e=nergetic, wel -inforln.eci ,.._:~?cttis
~t;em to serve in most co[:c!Lric?.
du,c desk-bound, that