The Crisis of Security at State

Publication Date: March 1989

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Bretton G. Sciaroni

Research Area: Government

Keywords: National security

Type: Report

Abstract:

The State Department consistently underestimates the complexity and seriousness of the security threat to U.S. embassies abroad. In spite of repeated failure to correct the problem, the Department, from former Secretary of State George Shultz down, has lobbied against the kinds of substantive reforms that would correct the problem.The changes needed to improve security dramatically cannot be cosmetic, as they have been in the past. A serious restructuring of the way State provides for the physical security of U.S. embassies and the security of U.S. data and secrets is needed. Anything less will just be courting future security debacles.