We hope that, by the end of the Conference, a consensus will emerge on the broad outlines of our comprehensive and constructive approach. We would then look to smaller international groups to deal with the individual proposals we have made.

With the critical political issues of southern Africa-including Namibia and South Africa as well as Rhodesia dominating the scene, the economic dimension of our policy could not in itself be decisive. But it is essential. With the platform established by the Lusaka speech our economic policy strongly reinforces our position. Over time, as the problems of southern Africa are resolved, the relative importance of development issues will increase. At Nairobi we have laid a firm foundation for constructive, mutually beneficial cooperation on those issues.

Mr. Chairman, I found in Africa a great concern with three cardinal objectives:

- that aspirations for selfdetermination be achieved;

- that Africa must take its place as a responsible and healthy participant in the global economic system;

most immediate concern to Africa.

I believe that our policy is moderate and reasonable. More than that it is right.

We have advanced the possibilities for peaceful change by giving African nations an alternative to the path of bloodshed that had already started and was certain to escalate.

We have fostered an economic process aimed at giving all nations a stake in a fair and mutually beneficial global economic system; and aimed at the ultimate termination of handouts from rich to poor nations by enabling developing countries to move toward more basic economic self-reliance;

We have laid the foundation for a strengthened relationship between the United States and Africa, a continent with vast potential for the future;

And we have taken important steps to resist communist encroachment and preserve the balance of global stability-not by truculantly throwing our weight around, but by identifying ourselves with principles which America has always stood for, and which the world still looks to us to foster and defend.

Thus our African policy is an important element in our overall interna

And I found a warm welcome for the concrete proposals by which we applied this policy to the issues of

of relations which fosters peace, widening prosperity, and fundamental human dignity.

We have regained the initiative. We

have offered our African friends a welcome alternative to the future, both political and economic. We have told much of the world that America continues to have a positive vision and to stand ready to play an active and responsible role in the world.

But we should have no illusions. A two-week trip cannot solve all our problems. Africa will be watching us closely to see that we match our speeches with concrete action.

Over the long term the crucial factor in Africa-as in our dealing with all parts of the world-will be the restoring of our domestic fabric and projecting ourselves with coherence, and steadiness in the world.

The African continent today presents us with a major challenge. We are on the way to meeting that challenge successfully. Our actions will have to continue to be comprehensive and well integrated. We have a solid base from which to work. And we have the essential assets to carry out a successful policy. Much will depend on our performance-Congress and the Executive together-over the next few months.

And if we carry out these policies together America will vindicate what it has always stood for: conciliation rather than violence; human dignity rather than oppression; selfdetermination and not colonialism, new or old; progress and hope.

APPOINTMENTS

Vaky, Sanchez named to new posts

President Ford on May 12 nomi

nated new Ambassadors to Venezuela and Colombia.

The nominations, which require Senate confirmation, are:

-Viron P. Vaky to Venezuela. Mr. Vaky, who served as Ambassador to Costa Rica from 1972 to 1974, is currently the U.S. envoy to Colombia.

-Phillip V. Sanchez to Colombia. Mr. Sanchez has been Ambassador to Honduras since May 1973.

D

Mr. Vaky Mr. Sanchez Guayaquil, Economic Officer in Buenos Aires, International Relations Officer and then Information Specialist in the Department, Political Officer in Bogota, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Counselor at Guatemala.

Mr. Vaky served as a member of the Department's Policy Planning Council from 1967 to 1968 and then was designated Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs. He was a senior member of the National Security Council staff from 1969 to 1970.

Mr. Vaky was with the U.S. Army Signal Corps overseas from 1944 to 1946, and a Vocational Appraiser with the Veterans Administration in 194849.

Born on September 13, 1925, in Corpus Christi, Texas, Mr. Vaky was graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1947 and received his M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago the following year. He attended the National War College from 1962 to 1964.

AMBASSADOR Sanchez was Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from September 1971 to May 1973. From May to September 1971 he was Assistant Director of OEO for Opera

tions.

Before joining OEO, Mr. Sanchez was Administrator of Fresno County, California. When he was named County Administrator in 1962, at 32, he was the youngest county executive in the state. That year he was named Fresno's Outstanding Young Man by the Fresno Junior Chamber of Commerce. The following year he was cited as one of California's five Outstanding Young Men by the California Jaycees.

From 1956 to 1962 Mr. Sanchez was

an Administrative Analyst with the Fresno County Government.

Mr. Sanchez has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the California State Colleges, the Fresno State College Advisory Board, and the Board of the United Negro College Fund.

Before his appointment as Ambassador to Honduras in May 1973, Mr. Sanchez served briefly as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs.

Mr. Sanchez was born in Pinedale, Calif, on July 28, 1929. He received his B.A. degree from Fresno State College in 1953 and an M.A. in political science from Fresno State University in 1972.

Taylor nominated

President Ford on May 18 nominated Joseph Z. Taylor as Deputy Inspector General for Foreign Assistance. Mr. Taylor has served as Assistant Inspector General of Foreign Assistance since July 1974.

Mr. Taylor joined the Agency for International Development (AID) in 1963 as Special Assistant to the Administrator. From 1965 to 1966 he served as Deputy Director and Director of the Office of Viet-Nam Affairs at AID, and from 1966 to 1974 he was on the staff of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Edmond appointed

President Ford on May 5 appointed FSO Lester E. Edmond as the new U.S. Representative on the South Pacific Commission for a two-year term. Mr. Edmond succeeds Stanley S. Carpenter, who was recently designated a Foreign Service Inspector.

In a related action on the same day, the President appointed D. Hebden Porteus, of Hawaii, as an Alternate U.S. Representative on the South Pacific Commission for a two-year

term.

Horowitz appointed to ILO

President Ford on May 5 appointed a retired Foreign Service officer, Daniel L. Horowitz, of New Jersey, as U.S. Representative on the Governing Body of the International Labor Office for an indefinite period.

The Office of Foreign Buildings is 50 years old this month.

The Department's global real estate, construction and maintenance operation was established in June 1926, following the passage by the Congress of the Foreign Service Buildings Act on May 7.

That Act marked a milestone in Foreign Service housing.

It empowered the Secretary of State, subject to the direction of a Foreign Service Buildings Commission, to acquire property and buildings abroad by purchase or construction and to alter, repair, and furnish the buildings for diplomatic and consular purposes.

Congress also authorized a Foreign Service Buildings Fund, not to exceed $10,000,000 of which not more than $2,000,000 could be spent in a single year.

The worldwide program was to be directed by the Foreign Service Buildings Commission, established by the Act.

The Commission included the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Chairman and ranking minority members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (now the International Relations Committee).

The Foreign Service Buildings Office-now the Office of Foreign Buildings was created in the Department to administer the program.

During the past 50 years, from June 1926, when the office was established, until last June 30, the Department's Office of Foreign Buildings had acquired 1,592 buildings and sites overseas, consisting of 246 office buildings and 3,154 residential units. Among them are scores of handsome embassies and residences.

to acquire or construct office buildings and residences at posts where inflation and housing shortages have caused rents to increase at unrealistic levels," Orlan C. Ralston, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Foreign Buildings, told the NEWSLETTER.

"In addition to the Department's needs, the buildings program provides residential and office space and related facilities for USIA, the senior agriculture and military attaches at each post, and other U.S. Government agencies with permanent establishments overseas, except for AID, Peace Corps and MAAG or similar Defense-funded establishments.

"Currently, the Department owns office buildings at about 60 percent of the Foreign Service posts. It also has acquired housing for about 38 percent of the Foreign Service personnel stationed abroad."

But it wasn't always thus. In fact, the procurement of suitable quarters for residential and office use has been

since its early beginnings.

According to William Barnes and John Heath Morgan, authors of "The Foreign Service of the United States: Origins, Development and Functions," published by the Department's Historical Office, "Until the act of 1856, which authorized a small allowance for office rent to salaried consuls, the Government made no financial provision for this purpose, as such, in either the Diplomatic or Consular Service.

"In the Diplomatic Service, however, an outfit,' amounting to one year's salary, had been paid to principal diplomatic officers since 1790, as an allowance to defray their costs of installation at foreign posts. The act of 1856, which increased the scale of diplomatic salaries, at the same time abolished 'outfits,' leaving principal officers entirely dependent on their salaries for all expenses of their missions.

"The result was that only rich men, who could afford to devote their private resources to making up the difference between their official salaries and the necessary expenses of their posts, were able to accept diplomatic appointments. The situation was described by Louis McLane in 1831, fol

lowing two year's experience as Minister to Great Britain, in terms which remained valid until well into the 20th century:

"The salaries of the public ministers abroad must be acknowledged to be utterly inadequate, either for the dignity of the office, or the necessary comfort of their families. At some foreign courts, and those whose relations towards the United States are the most important, the expenses incident to the station are found so burdensome, as only to be met by the private resources of the minister.

"The tendency of this is to throw those high trusts altogether into the hands of the rich, which is certainly not according to the genius of our system. Such a provision for public ministers as would obviate these

evils, and enable the minister to perform the common duties of hospitality to his countrymen, and promote social intercourse between the citizens of both nations, would not only elevate the character of his country, but essentially improve its public relasentially improve its public relations.'

President Grover Cleveland, in messages to the Congress in 1895 and 1896, recommended the purchase of official residences for American ambassadors and ministers in the capitals of the more important countries.

To enable the Congress to consider this recommendation, the Department furnished estimates of the costs of acquiring residences at 14 foreign capiquiring residences at 14 foreign capitals. At the time the United States owned diplomatic or consular residences only at Tangier, Bangkok,

Tahiti, Amoy, Seoul and Tokyo.

According to Barnes and Morgan, the property at Tangier had been acquired in 1821 as a gift from the Sultan of Morocco, and, according to the records of the Department's Office of Foreign Buildings, is the oldest foreign property continuously owned by the United States.

The properties at Tahiti and Bangkok were gifts of the Queen of the Society Islands and the King of Siam, respectively.

Only the properties at Tokyo, Seoul, and Amoy had been purchased by the U.S. Government at the time of President Cleveland's recommendation to the Congress in 1895.

It was not until February 11, 1911, that the Congress passed the Lowden Act, named for its author, Repre

sentative Frank O. Lowden of Illinois. That Act authorized the Secretary of State to purchase abroad "such sites and buildings as may be appropriated for by the Congress for the use of the diplomatic and consular establishments of the United States, and to alter, repair and furnish the said buildings; suitable buildings for this purpose to be either purchased or erected, as the Secretary of State may deem best . . .

The Act also provided that not more than $500,000 should be expended in any one fiscal year under this authorization and that expenditures in any one place should not exceed $150,000.

Representative Lowden, in a speech on the floor of the House on March 2, 1910, exlained the purpose of his bill:

"... It ought to be possible for the lowest man in the foreign service to feel that it is within his power, if his service justifies it, to reach the highest posts. This is impossible under existing conditions. Rents are so high in foreign capitals that only the rich can afford to take the highest places.

"What would gentlemen think if our practice were such that only the very rich could become President of

the United States? What would gentlemen say of this democracy if our policy were such that no man could go upon the federal bench or come to Congress unless he were a millionaire? . . .

"We have boasted through all our history that this is a country of homes. Shall the nation alone be homeless? Shall America's flag be a tramp in the capitals of the world, protecting not a nation's home but only the temporary abiding place of America's representatives? . . . Now, let this nation do its part. Let us either withdraw from the capitals of the earth, or let us enable our foreign representatives to serve their country abroad on something like equal terms with the rest of thing like equal terms with the rest of the world."

At the time the Lowden Act was passed, in 1911, the United States. owned embassy or legations buildings in four foreign capitalsConstantinople, Peking, Tokyo, and Bangkok and legation quarters in the International Zone of Tangiers. The Government also owned consular premises in Tahiti, Amoy, Seoul, and Yokohama.

By 1924, only nine embassy and legation buildings had been acquired.

Using solar energy in foreign buildings

As it reached its fiftieth birthday, FBO was looking toward the future by studying the feasibility of using solar energy in its foreign buildings. One small-scale experiment is currently taking place in Tel Aviv.

Last year FBO authorized installation of two solar-heated water systems-one at a middle-grade officer's residence and one at a seniorgrade officer's residence. The systems use standard solar heat collectors and other components available at Tel Aviv.

Each installation consists of four collector plates, about two feet by four feet each, and a water storage tank located above the collector plates. No circulating pump is necessary, as the water circulates by convection. Although an auxiliary electric immersion heater was installed in each storage tank, the special electric meters wired into each circuit indicate so drastic a reduction in electricity consumption that the costs of the installations should be amortized in three-and-a-half years.

In analyzing the feasibility of using solar energy to heat water or to heat or cool buildings, FBO considers three questions: Is it cost effective? Can it

be installed correctly using indigenous labor? Can it and will it be properly maintained?

Cost effectiveness depends largely on hours of sunlight and the cost of fuel or electricity. Use of solar heat for domestic hot water requirements is practical and cost effective in sunny areas of the earth over a reasonable

span of years (determined by dividing the installation costs by the annual savings in fossil fuel or electricity that would have been used to heat water by those methods).

Cost effectiveness of using solarheated water or other fluids for total or supplemental heating of buildings appears to be limited to posts in temperate latitudes where the average number of hours of sunshine each day is high and utility costs are high.

Given the present state of the art, the cost effectiveness of solar hotwater-operated absorption air conditioners, even at such obvious posts as those in the Sahara and Middle East, is estimated to be marginal. The probable installation and maintenance problems expected with such equipment could further limit their use at this intermediate state in their development.

One, at London, was a gift from J. Pierpoint Morgan. The War Department transferred without charge a building providing office and residential quarters for a legation in Panama.

The other seven were located at Paris, Oslo, Mexico City, Habana, San Jose, San Salvador, and Santiago.

In addition, a site had been acquired for a combined chancery and residence in Rio de Janeiro. Total appropriations for the seven embassy and legation buildings were $926,000. In addition, $230,435 was appropriated for furnishings, alterations, and repairs.

During the same period, 1911-24, $355,000 was appropriated for buildings to house the Consulate General and the United States Court at Shanghai, $2,275 for a small consular building at Yokohama, and $3,000 for a plot of ground for consular activities at Mukden.

The Foreign Service Buildings Act of May 7, 1926, really put FBO in business. As we have seen, the Act authorized a Foreign Service Building Fund of up to $10,000,000.

The program went forward on a relatively modest scale until the outbreak of World War II, aided by additional appropriations of $1,625,000 in 1935 and $5,000,000 in 1938.

During the 20-year period from 1926 to 1946, the number of office buildings owned by the Government jumped from 6 to 31 and the number

of residential units from 30 to 83.

The construction program in the period centered on the building of embassy residences in the other American Republics. Among those completed were residences at Lima, Montevideo, Habana, Port-au-Prince, Ciudad Trujillo, Managua and Panama.

After World War II the acquisition of Government-owned buildings. abroad expanded tremendously, largely as the result of foreign currency assets accruing to the United States from disposal of surplus war property, lend-lease settlements, and Economic Cooperation Administration counterpart funds.

In 1946 the Congress authorized the expenditure of $125,000,000 (of which $110,000,000 was in foreign currencies) on the foreign buildings program. An additional $90,000,000 in foreign currencies was earmarked for this purpose in 1952.

Since 1926 the Congress has authorized a total of $558,947,000 for the foreign buildings program, of