Legislative proposals regarding diplomatic security

US Department of State Bulletin, Jan, 1986

On Monday, November 4, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Diplomatic Security Service and the Diplomatic Security Service were officially established, bringing to fruition the pricipal organizational recommendations of the Secretary's Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, chaired by Admiral B.R. Inman.

The Inman panel's report, which contained over 100 recommendations, was a comprehensive update on a security situation that has changed significantly over the past few years.

Nearly every day the media carries a virtual catalogue of the latest terrorist acts. Official Americans and American facilities overseas are frequently targets of mob violence, terrorism, criminal acts, and espionage.

The natur and intensity of the threat varies from region to region, from country to country. While in Lebanon we face nearly every imageinable thread--from car bombs to artillery, kidnapping, assassination, and random violence--in Jamaica our chief worry is crime. In Africa, political instability often produces security concerns for our personnel. In Europe radical leftists and several Middle Eastern terrorist groups carry out acts of violence against americans and American Facilities.

Our experience has shown that existing threats will not disappear. In fact, new threats will be layered on top of the existing threats. We have seen this clearly in Lebanon, for example. Our principal concern in Beirut used to be assissination and kidnapping of our personnel. We are still concerned about this, but now we also have to protect our personnel against car bombs and artillery fire. We need a dynamic program to protect our people and facilities against this expanding array of threats. We believe the Inman panel's recommendations form a solid foundation for such as program.

The Chain of Command

The central theme of the Inman panel's report was that in order to manage and direct security overseas and at home effectively, there must be clear cut chain of command for overall authority and responsibility of our security programs. The Inman panel clearly preferred that these prorams rest with the Secretary of State. The report went further to say that the fundamental problem of the existing situation was the lack of centralized authority; that the program was, in fact, overly fragmented and without a clear chain of command. Secretary Shultz recently stated "neither the Congress, nor the American public understands or can be expected to condone confusion in security responsibility, authority or hierarchy."

The establishment of the new Bureau of Diplomatic security and the Diplomatic Security Service exemplifies the Secretary's commitment to ending such confusion. Overseas, as the Secretary testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last July, "the Ambassador ultimately has to be the responsible party." He went further to say, "We have tried to make it absolutely clear that the Ambassador is responsible for security, and we have got to take this seriously and that's where the responsibility lies." The establishment of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is inteded to attain that objective.

Improving the professionalism

of Security Personnel

One of the principal goals of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is to raise the level of professionalism among the Department's security personnel. It should have a clearly defined mandate, outlined in legislation, and structured along the lines of other Federal law enforcement, security, and intelligence agencies, such as the U.S. Secret Service and the Office of Naval Intelligence. The director of the Diplomatic Security Service would be a professional security law enforcement, or management official.

In order to ensure the professionalism and effectiveness of the Diplomatic Security Service, comprehensive training is essential. A great many of the panel's recommendations dealt directly and indirectly with improving the training of our personnel both here and abroad. This would include professional training for security personnel and intelligence analysis, and security awareness programs for the Foreign Service in general. This program would help foster a more realistic view of the threats overseas, and of our individual responsilities.

We plan to revise our recruitment literature to reflect more accurately the threat of terrorism and crime while serving our country and crime while serving our country abroad. We are providing "hands on" training in evasive driving and firearms familiarization to employees stationed at high-threat posts; we have identified resources needed to implement this program. We are expanding and improving on the "Coping With Violence" course offered to all personnel assigned overseas from all agencies.

The Inman panel stressed the necessity of a standard of accountability for those responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the security program. We have already acted on this recommendations using the existing statutory authority held by the Inspector General of the Foreign Service and the Foreign Service Grievance Board. Further, an accountability review process is incorporated into the legislation currently being cleared within the executive branch.