The Eclipse of the State Department

For over a decade it has been received as accepted truth in the highly charged political atmosphere of Washington that the role, power and prestige of the Secretary and Department of State in the conduct of foreign affairs have steadily declined. Accompanying this decline, and accused of causing it, is said to have been an increasing part played by the President himself in this alluring, fashionable and important activity, accentuated, perhaps, by the appearance in the White House of a court favorite-a modern Leicester, Essex or Buckingham-served by over a hundred attendants and constantly advising the monarch on these matters in the antechamber. The New York Times, in a series of articles published in January 1971, dates these developments from FDR's time, though adding that the trend was arrested "during the Truman and Eisenhower years [until] the death of John Foster Dulles in 1959."

Opinions have differed widely whether the eclipse noted is total or partial, radical and sinister, or within constitutional limits and historical precedents in relations between presidents and the first state secretary and department created by the first Congress. A great deal of the resulting debate has been based on wholly erroneous ideas of the nature and source of the national power to conduct foreign affairs, so we might do well to get this straight before going further.

II