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    "localId": "75851930",
    "label": "Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussion, Reel 7, Track 2",
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    "id": "75851930",
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    "title": "Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussion, Reel 7, Track 2",
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        "Dean Acheson Papers",
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{
    "seq": 9,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "3/14/54: Reel 7, :ack 2, Page 9\nA\nin France, while this weakness of government from the point of view of\nmaking decisions has been true for a long time, there has been no change\nin the highly centralized bureaucracy of administrative control. There-\nfore there is a very distinct difference in France between government,\nin the sense of making national decisions, and administration, which is\ncentralized bureaucracy. Bureaucracy gets in everybody's hair. It is so\nomnipresent that dealing with it is through corruption and evasion, which\nhas become very far-reaching It is said in France that, while governments\nchange, ministers do not; therefore there is more stability in France\nthan appears to be the case. This I think is not a correct analysis. It\nis true, for instance, that Bidault and Schuman have been in the Foreign\nOffice-one or the other of them-since 1946; but this does not mean that\nin\nthere is any greater capacity/fox dealing with the central problem, in\nhad\nmaking the central decision. And while I think Schuman, XR a period of\nmost brilliant leadership in international affairs, it was a leadership\nthat had no roots, either in the French people or in the parliamentary\ngroup, so that when you came to the point of making the last, ultimate\ndifficult decision, what happened? Schuman had to leave, because he was\nWAN\nthe fellow associated kyxx with the EDC, and you had to have somebody\nwho was as much like him as possible, party-wise and otherwise, except\nN\nU.S.\nwho was not committed to it as deeply, and that was Bidault. I should\nthink that it is fair to say-I don' it know about this, but I would gather\nthis from Mr. Furness's monograph, that in certain ministries where admini-\nstration is more important than basic decisions, such as agriculture,\nthere has been more continuity, by the result of a minister's staying\nthere through successive governments. I do not think that the continua-\ncreates\ntion of individual ministers increases administrative power or/makex any\ngreater ability to make decisions. Now, this brings us to the question-\nis there anything that can be done about this? I don it know whether\nthere is anything that can be done about it, and x what I a.m proposing"
}