The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2009

1964 to March 1967), given his lack of language or area expertise, but balances that assessment with anecdotes docu- menting the personal qualities that typ- ically stood him in good stead. His first encounter with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, for ex- ample, has echoes of his first meeting with Acheson, described above. Nasser: “You are very young to be the American ambassador.” Battle: “You are very young to be president. We are the same age, and you have done a lot better than I have.” The fact that he and Nasser could laugh together helped him operate effectively, but he arrived at a time when U.S.-Egyptian relations were already on a downward slope, and there was little that personal diplomacy could do to reverse that process. The most lasting legacy of his time in Cairo was probably his early recognition of Anwar Sadat’s potential future importance. Reviving an Old Dispute In November 1962, shortly after taking the helm at the Bureau of Edu- cational and Cultural Affairs, Battle took on the additional responsibility of the presidency of the American For- eign Service Association, at that time not a “day job.” (His predecessor was Charles Bohlen; U. Alexis Johnson suc- ceeded him.) His year in that position coincided with a debate, much of which took place in the pages of the Foreign Service Journal , over the rec- ommendations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Personnel (generally known as the Herter Committee, after its chairman, former Secretary of State Christian Herter). In January 1963, Battle invited Spe- cial Assistant to the President Ralph Dungan to offer a White House per- spective on the personnel and resource needs of the Foreign Service at AFSA’s monthly luncheon. (Sevenmonths ear- lier President Kennedy had spoken on “The Great Period of the Foreign Serv- ice” before the same forum, the only occasion on which a U.S. president has spoken before an AFSA gathering.) Stressing, as did the Herter Report, the need to expand the “traditional concept of foreign policy,” Dungan called for a new emphasis on operations and man- 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9 Unfortunately, the rewards of working for Acheson did not continue during the remainder of Battle’s career.