Reorganizing State: a comment by Major General Herbert J. McChrystal

The State of State: A Proposal for Reorganization at Foggy Bottom and the follow on conversation in the post Department of State and Non-State elicited the following email from veteran public diplomat Yale Richmond (published here with permission):

I knew Gen. McChrystal’s father, Herbert J.  McChrystal, who retired as an Army Major General. We were together 1969-70 in the Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy, a State Department course for senior officers of various government departments and agencies. Herb had served in senior positions at both Defense and State, and I recall him saying once that if we had State’s personnel and Defense’s organization, we would have the perfect government agency.

Yale began his public diplomacy career in Germany after World War II. He is the author of Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia, and other books.


One thought on “Reorganizing State: a comment by Major General Herbert J. McChrystal

  1. With all due respect to Yale Richmond, one of the great true cultural (not “PD”) diplomats, I fear for my country when we have a “perfect” government agency.

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