APO AE 09213-1315
November 1, 1995
The Honorable Jeffrey Garten
Under Secretary
U.S. Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C. 20000
Dear Mr. Garten:
BusinessWeek magazine reports that you will be leaving Commerce for the position of Dean of the Yale School of Management. Yale will be the better for your joining it. The BusinessWeek article also says that you are reconsidering your earlier opposition to combining Ex-Im, OPIC, and the Trade & Development Agency. Let me share an idea with you which I think makes lots of sense, but which I've been unsuccessful in selling to either Commerce, USIA, or State.
I spent thirty-eight years abroad as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer -- much of that time as Counselor of Embassy for Economic and Commercial Affairs. It's always bothered me that U.S. citizens seeking commercial advice and help making appointments with contacts -- but who often also want to consult an English language library, and who may need the notarial or other services of the American Citizen Section of a U.S. Embassy, have to travel to three or more separate locations, often across town from each other.
In London, near Leicester Square, the Swiss have come up with what seems to me the near perfect solution. And I hope we aren't too proud to learn from the Swiss -- who are no slouches at promoting their trade. The Swiss have erected a Swiss Center which combines all Swiss Consular, Information and Tourist Services, Chamber of Commerce, and Library Services in one location. Moreover, the Center is designed to catch Londoners' attention by including a mobile frieze surrounding the second floor, patterned on the medieval clocks of Berne, where costumed Swiss burgers and musicians (plus some cows and goats) parade to Swiss tunes and yodeling on the hour.
On the ground floor are located the Swiss Tourist Office, national airline, and railroad to serve tourists interested in visiting Switzerland. The second floor contains the Swiss Library. The Third, the Swiss Chamber of Commerce. The fourth, the Swiss Consulate. There are two basements: the first contains an upscale Swiss restaurant; the second, a lower priced Swiss cafeteria. When I inquired (being struck by the novelty of the idea), I was told that apace for the Chamber of Commerce, the commercial airlines and railroad services, and the eating facilities were all committed ahead of time and are leased commercially on a long-term basis, while the government services sections are maintained by the Swiss central government.
Now I realize that things aren't so simply done under our system of government. Indeed, those who responded to my earlier letters putting forward the idea for joint U.S. Commercial/Cultural/Travel Centers told me that it would be impossible to get the State Department, Commerce Department, and USIA to agree to operate out of a single location. While I am not unfamiliar with Washington bureaucracy, I think this reflects a defeatist attitude. And in a day when we are trying to reduce budget expenditures, doing things more cheaply and effectively, and, in effect, as Vice President Gore has put it "reinventing government", this is an idea whose time may have come.
With a little thought I'm sure designers could come up with some notions of how to make the exterior of such centers -- to be located in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, and other major world capitals, as attractive as the Swiss Center in London. Perhaps we could install mechanized scenes of a New Orleans Jazz Band, a Western Rodeo, a mock up of a Hollywood film stage, an erupting Yellowstone Park geyser, a Colorado ski slope (with jumper?), and perhaps a colorful three dimensional diorama portraying the grandeur of a Zion or Bryce National Park -- or the Redwoods of California. This would draw the crowds seeking personal services away from our chanceries -- something most ambassadors desire anyway -- putting them nearer where users would prefer services to be delivered and out of the more remote, prestige areas where embassies are customarily located. And I suspect that with advance consultation and adequate design the local American Chamber of Commerce and several of our international airlines would find it highly desirable to lease space in each such center, possibly fully underwriting the cost of operating the USIS library and consular services units.
I suggest that one of the more useful things you might do as you leave government is to circulate this idea, giving it the prestige and momentum of your name and position.
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