Bill Moyers: When Thomas Jefferson became Secretary of State in 1790 there were to be representatives of four foreign countries in Washington-Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Spain. Jefferson's chief problems were to negotiate commercial relations with each of the four countries, to gain from three of them control of territory surrounding the new nation, and to maintain neutrality in the war that raged between two of them.

Now there are 128 diplomatic missions in Washington, and while the chief problems continue to be commerce, war, and peace, the world is a far more complicated place. As we move toward the end of the twentieth century the problems we face are a crisscrossing web of issues, each of which is tangled with the next, so that today's solution may be tomorrow's headache or war.