Foreign Service Scholarships

Last summer, Secretary of State Dulles gave an enthusiastic endorsement to the Wriston Committee's report on improvement in the United States Foreign Service. The State Department, however, still has made no move to gain Congressional authorization for one of the Committee's major proposals, the creation of a national scholarship system for prospective Foreign Service officers. Congressmen have not been so dilatory. The new session had barely opened last month when several cager Representatives introduced bills calling for a National Foreign Service Academy, a plan which the State Department has opposed in the past. Since its officials have freely admitted the urgent need for a more efficient recruitment program for the Service, the Department should end its delay and seek quick Congressional approval, either for the Wriston scholarship proposal or for a modified plan embodying the same general principles.

A scholarship program for qualified students already enrolled in college has distinct advantages over an Annapolis-type institution for Foreign Service candidates alone. While the Wriston proposal calls for an expenditure of two million dollars a year for approximately 750 scholarship grants, that figure is economical compared to the sum that would be required to establish and maintain a separate Foreign Service Academy. The State Department has held that prospective Foreign Service officers can gain as adequate a preparation for a diplomatic career in any of the nation's accredited college as they could in an academy of their own. A scholarship program would tie the Service more firmly to the colleges, with advantages for both, instead to isolating diplomatic training from other areas of education.

The scholarship plan would close the present gap between the time a prospective candidate graduates from college and the day he actually receives an assignment as effectively as an academy. Foreign Service scholarship holders would be able to dispose of such troublesome incidentals as security clearances while in college and could then pass directly into the Foreign Service on graduation. The scholarship system can also further the State Department's aim of establishing closer contact between the Foreign Service and the population at large, by aiming for diversity among the award-winners.

Certain aspects of the original Wriston proposal should perhaps be revised to ensure that the scholarship program accomplishes its objectives. The present plan would give members of Congress the power to make most of the final scholarship selections. A better method might be for a three-men committee in each state, representing the Foreign Service, education, and the public, to choose the scholarship holders, as a minority of the Wriston Committee suggested. Although the Wriston plan would award the grants only to students entering the junior year in college, qualified seniors as well might receive one-year grants. And if a State Department agency is to advise the scholarship holders on their course program, as the Committee suggests, that supervision should be mild enough to allow these students to gain the full educational benefits of their college years. Flexibility should be the keynote of the system. But whatever the details, the State Department should seek authorization for a scholarship program in this session of Congress.