What type of action can hope to win public support, first in this country and then abroad? For the policy officer will know that action can almost never be secret and that in general the effectiveness of policy will be conditioned by the readiness of the country to sustain it. He is interested in public opinion for two reasons: first, because it is important in itself, and, second, because he knows that the American public cares about a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. And, given probable public attitudes -- about which reasonably good estimates can be made -- what action is called for to insure necessary support?

May I add a caution on this particular point? We do not want policy officers below the level of Presidential appointees to concern themselves too much with problems of domestic politics in recommending foreign policy action. In the first place our business is foreign policy, and it is the business of the Presidential leadership and his appointees in the Department to consider the domestic political aspects of a problem. Mr. Truman emphasized this point by saying, ``You fellows in the Department of State don't know much about domestic politics.''

This is an important consideration. If we sit here reading editorials and looking at public opinion polls and other reports that cross our desks, we should realize that this is raw, undigested opinion expressed in the absence of leadership. What the American people will do turns in large degree on their leadership. We cannot test public opinion until the President and the leaders of the country have gone to the public to explain what is required and have asked them for support for the necessary action. I doubt, for example, that, 3 months before the leadership began to talk about what came to be the Marshall plan, any public-opinion expert would have said that the country would have accepted such proposals.