automaticity in granting pay increases by differentiating more for performance. (c) Work began on the grading of jobs in the Bank, with the evaluation of some 450 benchmark positions at all levels. They provide the framework for evaluating the remaining 5,000 jobs. The results of the grading survey will be implemented in late fiscal 1984. (d) Implementation of a Human Resources Information System (HRS) continued during the past year. It permitted, among other things, the launching of a project to develop computerized staff profiles that will assist in making more effective use of the abundant talent throughout the Bank. (e) Follow-up to the Attitude Survey conducted in fiscal 1982 was carried out throughout the Bank, at both the unit and institutional level. After the results of the Survey were discussed with all staff members, managers in the institution formulated plans to bring about improvements. Senior management also discussed actions to be taken to meet issues of institutional concern arising from the Survey. (f) A proposal for an integrated management-development training program, endorsed by senior management, is in its final stage of development. Implementation will take place over the next three years. The CHAIRMAN. How about the World Bank and the IMF? What influence are we exerting in all of these international agencies to see that women get into policy positions? At the time I was there about 92 percent of our fellowships and scholarships programs in which you are deeply interested went to men; 92 percent of all programs we financed. We brought them here and when they went back we kept separating women and men even more. Intellectually and culturally we just pushed the women back into the kitchen and that was wrong. The Percy amendment required that we have a reach-out positive program to see that we give an equal opportunity. The first country I visited was Jordan and they said I know what you are going to ask. We now have approximately 50 percent women who are going to the United States for their advanced degrees and 50 percent men. It is the first time we have ever come up that high. Could we have some record as to what progress we have made since that went in? I think it would be a great thing for USIA to tell the good story that we have to tell there. When I was a delegate at the first conference held in Mexico City we produced a committee print on the proceedings of that conference. I know that highly divisive political questions were introduced into the proceedings of that conference in Mexico, but I think thanks to the wisdom and preparation of the members of the U.S. delegation working with delegates from other countries we were able to group all of the highly political questions such as racism, apartheid, and the PLO into a single declaration. The U.S. delegation joined in the unanimous vote which adopted the world plan of action. The mid-decade conference in Copenhagen on the other hand equally if not more so was politicized on the same issues and resulted in the United States having to vote against the wishes of all of the other governments with but one or two exceptions. My only questions come down to these: What long range planning is your Agency doing with regard to the 1985 Ü.N. Women's Conference? Mr. WICK. We would be happy to provide the broad detail and the specifics. I can tell you that in our junior trainees for the foreign ww service applicable to the USIA we have quite an increase in women whom we have actively recruited. I might just add for right now that Jeane Kirkpatrick is our Ambassador to the United Nations and Jean Gerard is our Ambassador to UNESCO. She is a very bright lawyer with wonderful credentials and is doing a very great job for us. The CHAIRMAN. Have you considered enlisting the assistance of the national women's organizations who were so helpful to us in Mexico to help your Agency prepare for the final conference? I just could not have been adequately prepared unless we had had their help. They were absolutely invaluable to me. It was absolutely marvelous the way they worked. They talked the same language of every other women's group. Whether the language itself was different was immaterial. Even through sign language they all got the signals. Can those special national women's organizations be usefully used? Mr. WICK. Í am sure they can. I do not know the answer to that but we will certainly find out. I think Dr. Trowbridge, if it is appropriate, might add some relevant information to some of these questions you are posing. Dr. TROWBRIDGE. Senator, we have been working with some of those groups and just this past week we received, after consultation with them, a proposal in the amount I believe of $80,000 from the Overseas Education Voters Fund to plan this whole 1985 Nairobi activity. So we have in fact been working with them. We have been talking with them and that proposal has come forward. The CHAIRMAN. I have one last question and then, Senator Zorinsky, I will yield to you for whatever time you need to finish your own questions. Have you considered giving one or more planning grants to such internationally experienced women's groups to assist in bringing about a productive result to the Nairobi conference? Dr. TROWBRIDGE. One of those grants did come forward last week for precisely that activity, a planning grant, as it were, for 1985 Nairobi activities. The CHAIRMAN. Could we then have some of the advice and consent functions and consultative functions? I would be most interested in which organizations you might be giving considerations to and would ask my colleagues on the committee, many of whom have direct ties also and who have not had a chance to evaluate yet for any suggestions and comments we might be able to pass on to you and to work closely with you in this. It has been an issue that has not been given the kind of priority in recent years. Other events have swept over it, and we are not about to declare a national holiday for women as we begin to debate tomorrow on the Martin Luther King holiday. But I think a lot has been accomplished in this last decade. I just do not want to see the momentum let up. I think USIA can play a major and important role in keeping the world informed and actively participating yourselves in keeping this movement underway. I do feel that it adds immensely to the economic wealth of our country, all developed countries and certainly the developing world. But to take half the population and say you are not capable and competent to have this kind of education and this kind of background because of the customs and mores is wrong. I think we can really help the world break down those customs when you still consider that in Saudi Arabia I think there is still only one women with a driver's license and she is a doctor. There is a long way to go. We have a long way to go. Mr. WICK. We can certainly do better with regard to driver's licenses. I think you have been a little bit ahead of your time. Nothing will stop the momentum that has been generated toward acknowledging the equality of women. We are very mindful of that, and we will be very pleased to use our instrumentalities to tell the world about America, and to tell them. about the progress in this area in which you have been so vitally interested. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Senator Zorinsky. Senator ZORINSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wick, I would like to continue the questioning that I previously initiated and that is, would you provide the committee with the statements of those panelists and others in the Agency who complained of pressure from Mr. Godson? Mr. WICK. Certainly. Senator ZORINSKY. What steps will you take to prevent continuing abuses in the Private Sector Office including intimidation of grant review panelists and to assure that the guidelines agreed to earlier this year are carried out? Mr. WICK. We will continue to do the best job we can. I feel assured that despite the volume of what we do, and the fact that it is administered by humans a few of whom are imperfect. However, staffers have immediate knowledge of anything that is an aberration. I am grateful to them for keeping me posted. Very seriously we think we are doing a good job. We have a big organization of some 8,000 people. I think Roy Godson, from my investigation of what happened, used unwarranted pressure. The statements that you will receive indicate that nevertheless the pressure was totally rejected by the two key managers involved, Dr. Thompson and Dr. Trowbridge. However, we will give you a complete report on what happened, and we would be happy to have your people talk with anyone involved. There is a certain line between advocacy and pressure. We get calls from congressional staffers all the te urging us to make grants to various groups, and we do not regard that as improper. We regard that as a proper function of advocacy, that puts a focus and brings legitimate pressure to bear in determining whether our capabilities of assessment and analysis are as competent and as sharp as they should be in a given situation. In this situation I think Roy Godson transcended that line of advocacy. In his own mind I am sure, knowing the people involved and being totally confident in his own view of his bona fides and commitment, he did not regard that as unethical. But he passed that line. He has resigned. [The information referred to follows:] STATEMENT OF DR. RONALD L. TROWBRIDGE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH Roy Godson called me prior to the panel vote (August 8) on the International Youth Year Commission grant amendment and asked specifically by name that I get in touch with Dave Whitten and Bob Coonrod, who were voting panel members, with the view of getting them in line. He then said he was going to call Scott Thompson with the view of getting the panelists in his shop in line. I acknowledged his request and closed the conversation diplomatically, but with private disbelief that he would ask such a thing of me. I did nothing to act on his request, nor did I then discuss it with Dr. Thompson. 9/26/83 Date Ruelle Dr. Ronald L. Trowbridge Statement of Csaba T. Chikes Policy Application and Coordination Officer Concerning a Telephone Conversation with On or about August 4, Associate Director Scott Thompson called me into his office to discuss the grant proposal from the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC) which was scheduled for consideration on the following Monday by the Private Sector grant review panel, of which I am a representative from the Bureau of Programs. Evidently, Dr. Thompson had received a telephone call from Mr. Godson concerning the NSIC grant who expressed great unhappiness with my negative vote on the proposal during an earlier panel session. Dr. Thompson was urged during this call to get Bob Shuettinger and me into line for the next panel vote. I understood that Mr. Godson complained that at the first panel session things went badly on his proposal because Shuettinger was gone and Kathy Plowman who represented him on the panel was presumably influenced by my objections to the proposal as presented. I was surprised to discover that the votes of individual panel members were known to a grantee representative, but I pointed out to Dr. Thompson that Shuettinger would probably have agreed with me and that, in any event, this was a non-sensical way to approach the issue. Dr. Thompson told me that he felt this was unacceptable behavior on MI. Godson's part and asked why I objected to the Godson proposal. I explained that although I was all in favor of the program, my main objection to the grant as proposed was that I felt it looked very peculiar to have someone from NSIC running around representing the United States on international youth matters at the same time that the Agency was already funding another organization which was supposed to be the "official" US non-governmental organization for these activities. I added that I thought the situation ironic inasmuch as I have long been an advocate of both Godson and his youth programs. In fact, during the first part of my Washington tour, I was the Agency program officer in charge of the grants to the U.S. Youth Council and its Labor Desk (to which Mr. Godson was an advisor). I was with Dr. Thompson in his office shortly thereafter with Fred Knecht, his then Special Assistant, and Bob Shuettinger when another call came in from Mr. Godson over the speaker phone. We heard Mr. Godson emphasize the importance of Scott's getting me and Bob to vote "correctly" on his grant this time and decry the problems I was causing. Mr. Godson made it absolutely clear that he wanted the grant approved as he had written it with the money going to NSIC. I should emphasize that Dr. Thompson in no way tried to pressure me into changing my vote on this grant proposal and, indeed, expressed his disdain for the effort made to persuade him to do so. My position on the merits of the grant proposal was not changed by Mr. Godson's calls. |