Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The current Senior Director, as with his predecessor, was promoted from within, havingserved as a director in the office prior to the departure of his predecessor. The President’sNational Security Advisor makes the final determination on hiring Senior Directors.The process for selecting directors is informal. The Senior Director “announces” a vacancyto his proliferation colleagues in the departments and agencies. They, in turn, suggestpotential candidates to the Senior Director. The Senior Director interviews the candidatesand makes a recommendation to the Deputy National Security Advisor. The Deputyinterviews the Senior Director’s choice and, if he concurs, approves the recommendation.NSC budget limitations require that directors be reimbursable detailees, so the SeniorDirector recruits them from among career federal military and civilian professionals. Thishas some advantages, as the positions require a detailed knowledge of the issues,agencies, and persons involved in proliferation-related policy, and the pace of work doesnot allow time for on-the-job training. Hence, career professionals tend to make the best fit.The current Senior Director would like to have one additional director, preferably a ForeignService Officer with diplomatic negotiations experience, to handle regional proliferationmatters. He believes the addition of another director would free the Senior Director tomanage his staff more efficiently and assist more readily in crisis or urgent situations.The Senior Director for Non-Proliferation and Export Controls chairs the InteragencyWorking Group in his functional area. However, this responsibility will soon be transferredto the office of the new Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and InternationalSecurity/Special Advisor to the President for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation andDisarmament. The transfer is a product of the internal Administration negotiationsconcerning integration of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) into theState Department. (See below.)The Senior Director, who also chairs the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) OversightCommittee, responsible for implementation of the U.S.-Russia HEU Agreement, expectsto continue to chair a biweekly meeting of Intelligence Community proliferation analysts,and department and agency proliferation specialists held via a secure videoteleconferencing system.Counselor for Defense Policy and Arms Control. In the Bush Administration,proliferation-related issues and export controls, plus defense policy and arms control, werethe province of a single senior director, who had one staff member to oversee proliferationrelatedand export controls issues. The latter functional area was assigned to a separatesenior director in the Clinton Administration, reflecting the higher priority accordedproliferation-related matters by the President. Some related issues, however, remainedwith the Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, recently renamed“Counselor.” These include Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations, U.S. nuclearposture, START treaty negotiations, ballistic missile defense policy, National and Theater5