Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy

In 1955, Henderson was made Deputy Undersecretary for Management and in late 1957, he asked Willard Barber to put together a course for senior leadership.

Students at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies submitted proposals for the curriculum for the seminar.

[6] The stated purpose of the Seminar is to "give selected officials...a ten-month opportunity for expanding and deepening their perceptivity of and perspectives on what is happening and why in America and the world.

The emphasis is on broadening their understanding of the issues and forces at work in America and the world rather than on training in methods and techniques of management or other specific subjects.

"[3] Deputy Undersecretary of Management William Crockett said the seminar gives senior officials “an opportunity to step back and look at themselves, to get to know their country again intimately, to reevaluate their opportunities and responsibilities in its service and to think imaginatively about their profession and its problems.”[5] Henderson believed the Seminar would be "a launching pad for ambassadors.