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SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL RECOMMENDATIONS
The Department of State currently has under way a number of improvements expected to enhance its security capabilities. The Panel fully supports those initiatives but recommends significant additional improvements in a number of areas. These will enable the Department on, State to meet the unusual security challenges it now faces and to fulfill its security responsibilities in the coming decade.
The Panel recommends a reorganization of the offices primarily responsible for security and counter-terrorism in the Department of State. If the Panel's recommendations are carried out, the diplomatic functions of the present Office for Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning will be reassigned to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs.
The Panel recognizes the difficulties in generating an effective international response to terrorism and politically inspired violence against diplomats. The effort, however, is urgently needed and should be pursued vigorously and imaginatively in both bilateral and multilateral exchanges. Further attempts should be made to close loopholes in international agreements, to refine the definition of terms where necessary, and to inspire a greater sense of international community to deal more effectively with those states publicly sponsoring or supporting terrorists.
The Department's operational security activities should be consolidated into a new Bureau for Diplomatic Security. It would be headed by an Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, who would represent the Department of State in the Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism as well as in other such committees or groups dealing with security and counter-terrorism issues. The emergency action planning program and the Anti-Terrorism Training Assistance program, both now part of the Office for Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning, would be relocated to the new bureau.
The principal element of the new bureau should be the Diplomatic Security Service, a consolidation of the present Office of Security, the Diplomatic Courier Service and certain other security functions currently performed elsewhere in the Department. The Panel also recommends that the security programs of the other principal foreign affairs agencies, AID and USIA, be consolidated as soon as practicable with the Diplomatic Security Service.
The Panel recommends a number of improvements in the Department's protective intelligence, threat analysis and alerting procedures. Additional resources must be dedicated to these activities. There must be improved coordination among various offices within the Department as well as with other agencies to assure the timely acquisition, evaluation and dissemination of accurate information relating to threats against our missions and personnel abroad or against those we are responsible for protecting in the United States.
The current division of responsibility between the U. S. Secret Service and the Department of State for protection of visiting foreign dignitaries will have to remain for the present. The Panel recommends, however, that this responsibility eventually be placed entirely with the Diplomatic Security Service. To prepare the latter for this expanded role, a working group of Secret Service and State Department security officials should be established to develop standards and procedures. Arrangements should be made for the Secret Service to provide protective training for agents of the Diplomatic Security Service on a reimbursable basis. There would be a program whereby agents of the two services are exchanged for full tours of duty. The Diplomatic Security Service should also develop a high threat response capability to support dignitary protection details in areas where local authorities do not have that capability.
The Department of State should negotiate with the Treasury Department and the U.S. Secret Service to expand the latter's current protection of foreign diplomatic and consular missions in Washington, D.C. to provide appropriate protective services to threatened foreign missions elsewhere in the United States. Should this course not succeed, the Panel recommends that the Department of State form its own office of trained personnel within the Diplomatic Security service to provide these services. Finally, the Diplomatic
Security Service should acquire necessary additional resources to provide appropriate protection to the persons of threatened foreign diplomats resident in this country.
The Panel recommends improvements in the Department's current programs to inform and train Foreign Service personnel and dependents to deal more effectively with the hazards of terrorist and other forms of violence they might encounter.
The Panel recommends that contingency planning at the post level be improved. The Emergency Action Manual should be revised and published as soon as possible and the crisis management simulation exercise program should be expanded significantly.
Responsibility for the local guard programs at our posts abroad should be consolidated under the general direction of the Diplomatic Security Service, performance standards should be established, manuals should be prepared, and training, both for the guards themselves and for the program managers, should be upgraded substantially.
Marine Security Guard detachments should be assigned to all highly sensitive posts and to all embassies where conditions permit.
The Panel recommends that the Diplomatic Security Service complete the revision of the physical security standards to include state-of-the-art. physical security concepts. These should include appropriate standards for ancillary facilities. They should also include guidelines for residential security and for the effective use of armored vehicles and other security equipment. The standards should provide minimum requirements for all posts and enhanced requirements as threat conditions increase. The standards and guidelines should be made available to all who might have use for them.
Security survey and inspection procedures should be improved and coordinated with other agencies, as appropriate, to provide comprehensive guidance to our missions abroad.
The Panel recommends that a substantial building program be undertaken to correct the security deficiencies of office buildings of the Department of State and the other foreign affairs agencies abroad. Some may be renovated to comply with minimum standards to meet currently anticipated hazards but others will have to be relocated to more secure sites. This program should be coordinated under the direction of the Office of Foreign Buildings. The other agencies should make their unique requirements known to that office and qualified security personnel from the Diplomatic Security Service should be detailed to FBO for security support.
The rebuilding program will be a substantial effort and will require substantially increased resources, personnel as well as funds. The Panel recommends that the budgetary problems that would inevitably delay such a massive project be avoided by adoption of a capital budgeting procedure.
The Panel recommends that those responsible for the various aspects of the security program, whether in the United States or abroad, be held to a standard of accountability. A procedure should be established by which a board of inquiry is convened in the event of a security incident involving loss of life, grievous injury or massive property destruction due to terrorist or other violence.
The Panel has made a substantial number of additional recommendations which must remain classified. Given the ongoing espionage activities directed against our missions abroad and the steadily worsening climate of terrorism, we must not provide details which would be of potential aid to adversaries in exploiting existing weaknesses and shortages in U.S. facilities, procedures and personnel. The Panel anticipates that the detailed classified findings and recommendations will be made available to the overseeing committees of the Congress, and that the classified data will be provided requisite protection within the Executive and Legislative branches of our government.
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