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The uncertainty is because the story isn’t over yet. What you thought was a one AMERICAN FOREIGN evening show turns out to be a serial. Yes, there is a spartan State Department SERVICE ASSOCIATION appropriations bill, but spending is to be held even below these meager levels, at Governing Board least until February. Why? The direct reason is Gramm-Rudman “sequestration” President: THEODORE S. WILKINSON State Vice President: GEORGE E. JONES to hold the overall federal deficit down; an indirect one is controversy about the AID Vice President: CHARLES UPHAUS USIA Vice President: VANCE PACE State Department authorization bill. In case you didn’t realize (there was Retiree Vice President CHARLES A. SCHMITZ practically no press coverage), President Bush vetoed the State Department Secretary: MICHAEL COTTER Treasurer: MICHAEL DAVILA authorization bill because of a controversial amendment inserted by Senator State Representatives: PURNELL DELLY EILEEN HEAPHY Moynihan; the House repassed the bill without the amendment on November DAVID T. JONES ROSS QUAN 21, but the Senate failed to agree before adjournment at 4:30 a.m. on November DAVID SMITH 22, so the ultimate fate of the authorization bill awaits the reconvening of AID Representatives: WENDELL MORSE SAMUEL SCOTT Congress on January 23. USIA Representative: OMIE KERR Retired Representatives: JOHN J. HARTER One result of this legislative legerdemain is that State has lost $300 million, L. BRUCE LAINGEN about one-tenth of an appropriation of just over $3 billion, either temporarily DAVID SCHNEIDER or permanently. The consequences are particularly severe for our participation in Staff Executive Director: SABINE SISK international organizations, which we thought were beginning to be officially General Counsel: SUSAN Z. HOLIK ConmUer: CATHY FREGELETTE redeemed. In fact, the department had begun the year with promises from OMB Membership Coordinator: JANET L. SCHOIJMACHER to seek funding for our full dues for the UN and specialized agencies, plus Director for Member Services: CHRIS BAZAR enough to begin to pay off growing arrears. Now the United States will once Alember Services Representatives: AMY L. MACEACHIN again have trouble even paying assessed dues on time. CATHERINE SCHMITZ Letjal Assistant: CHRISTOPHER PERINE To fund the State payroll, we are told that funds will be taken out of the Law Clerk: JAY EISENBERG long-term construction program designed to make our posts abroad more LINDA VEGA Conference Coordinator. BRIAN HENNESSEY secure. Even after juggling these accounts, however, our managers will be hard Administrative Assistant: C H AM PA J A RM U L pressed to cover just the pay raise. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for active Executive Assistant: MONIQUE COPELAND Professional Issues diplomacy will probably be missed because our posts cannot be augmented in RICHARD S. THOMPSON Eastern Europe, where all U.S. personnel are already working flat out. Congressional Liaison ROBERT M. BEERS, RICK WEISS Long-term training will continue to decline, staffing gaps will persist and grow, Scholarship Programs and obsolete equipment will remain in place. Travel funds will shrink further. CRISTIN K. SPRINGET How can we escape from what Senator Gore calls this “fiscal straitjacket”? The American Foreign Service Association, founded One way would be for our legislators to assign a higher priority to the work of in 1924, is the professional association of the For¬ our foreign affairs agencies, which after all constitute our first line of defense in eign Service and the official representative of all Foreign Service employees in the Department of peacetime. Of course they ought to, but in the short run that’s not in the cards. State and the Agency for International Development Even if prudent cuts in defense spending are possible, there’s a soup line of under the terms of the Foreign Service Act of 1980. Active or Retired membership in AFSA is open to domestic agencies waiting for handouts along with us, and there are always real all current or retired employees of the U.S. foreign emergency needs like the drug program and natural disaster assistance. One affairs agencies. Associate membership is open to persons having an interest in or close association billion dollars in new aid for Poland and Hungary may pale beside the Marshall with the Foreign Service. .Annual dues: Active Mem¬ Plan, but it represents a minor miracle in today’s fiscal environment. bers—-$80-165; Retired Members—$45-55; Associ¬ ate Members—$45. All AFSA members are mem¬ A less popular but probably more durable solution is to start getting ready bers of the Foreign Service Club, Please note: AFSA now for a meaningful increase in taxes. Both parties are maneuvering to avoid dues and Legislative Action Fund donations may be deductible as an ordinary- and necessary' business responsiblity for this; it’s time for a bipartisan agreement to increase federal expense for federal income tax purposes. Scholar¬ revenues. Americans can live well without the conspicuous consumption of the ship and AFSA Fund donations may be deductible as charitable contributions. 1980s. Maybe more taxes would even reduce spending on imports. In any event, • AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION State and our sister foreign affairs agencies can no longer thrive on austerity. 2101 E Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20037. Ex¬ ecutive offices, membership, professional issues, schol¬ Unpalatable as augmented taxes may be, some of us would rather pay them than arship programs, insurance programs, JOURNAL of¬ see our ability to conduct foreign policy crippled. How about you ? fices: (202)338-4045. Governing Board, standing committees, general counsel, labor-management rela¬ Ted Wilkinson tions, member services, grievances: (202)647- 8160. • Foreign Service Club (202)338-5730.

4 Editorial Board Chairman HOWARD SCHAFFER FOREIGN SERVICE RICHARD AHERNE JIM ANDERSON PETER BENEDICT RICHARD BLUE HELEN FOUCHE BENJAMIN LOWE BERNARD REICH LYNN SEVER THEODORE WILKINSON Development and the National Interest 28 “The Independent C. Stuart Callison Voice of the Foreign Service”

Editor ANNLUPPI Mandates for AID Reform 34 Managing Editor NANCY JOHNSON Assistant Editor! Randal Joy Thompson Advertising Manager JULIA T. SCHIEKEN

The FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL is published monthly except August by the When the Peace Corps Joins AID 37 American Foreign Service Association, a, private non-profit organization. Material appearing herein represents the opinions Kitty Thuermer of the writers and docs not necessarily represent the views of AFSA or the JOURNAL. Writer queries invited. JOURNAL subscriptions: AFSA Mem¬ bers—included in annual dues; Others, Journal: Jena’s Story 43 $25. Overseas subscriptions (except Can¬ ada), $35 per year. Airmail not available. Gene Kvassay Second-class postage paid at Wash¬ ington, D.C., and at additional post office. Postmaster: Send address changes to AFSA, 2101 E Street NW, Washing¬ ton, D.C. 20037. Departments Microfilm copies: University Microfilm Library Services, Ann Arbor Michigan 48106 (October 1967 to present). In¬ dexed by Public Affairs Information Serv¬ Letters 6 ice (PAIS). Advertising inquiries invited. The ap¬ pearance of advertisements herein docs 10 • 25 • 50 15 not imply AFSA endorsement of the services or goods offered. Books 17 ® American Foreign Service Association, 1990 Clippings 20 ISSN 0015-7279 January 1990, Vol. 67, no. 1 AFSA Conference Higlilights 52 AFSA News 54 Cover art: Eric Westbrook

American Diplomacy and the Foreign Service

The special supplement, American Diplomacy and the Foreign Service, inserted between pages 30 and 31, was published by AFSA for use in its outreach and educational efforts. We gratefully acknowledge The Dillon Fund, the Philip Morris Companies, the Mobil Corporation, and the Pecten International Corporation for their support of die publication.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 Letters

Libya: December 2, 1979 the embassy employees quickly headed Mr. Dieffenderfer. They are truly for the communications vault. From officers and gendemen. To the editor: there we followed a secret passageway Anne-Marie Gabor It was with great interest that I read to a side exit. The last ones out of the San Jose, Costa Rica the articles on the embassy takeovers embassy were Charge d’Affaires Wil¬ in Iran and Pakistan in the JOURNAL liam Eagleton and Administrative Of¬ Economic Officers (November 1989). The articles at¬ ficer John Dieffenderfer. They came tested to the courage and heroism of face-to-face with the Libyan militants To the editor: the staffers of those embassies. How¬ and used evasive tactics until all em¬ I believe the criticism of the Foreign ever, I looked in vain for a corre¬ bassy employees were safely out of Service Institute (FSI) economic course sponding article on the takeover of the building. Only then did they in the article, “Econ Training: An the embassy in Libya on December leave. Expensive Luxury?” by Teresa and 2, 1979. The terrorists burned and sacked David Jones (JOURNAL, October I was serving at the embassy in the embassy. The next morning we 1989) is unwarranted, and their pro¬ Tripoli that fateful day when a crowd were evacuated by plane to a safe posed substitute inadequate. of 2,000 Libyan demonstrators began haven in France. Our respective fami¬ I am a graduate of that course, and chanting outside the embassy. Shortly lies were very grateful to have us contrary to their assertion, I have after 10 a.m., they began breaking safely home for the Christmas holi¬ found what I learned there highly down the door of the embassy with a day. The principal officers remained relevant to my subsequent work in battering ram and clambering up to in Tripoli until the State Department the Foreign Service and excellent prepa¬ the second-story windows. The wail¬ officially closed the embassy in March ration for the year of graduate studies ing alarm signaling a terrorist attack 1980. to which the Department of State resounded throughout the embassy. I will never forget that day, nor the later assigned me. After securing all classified material, heroism of Ambassador Eagleton and Since I took the course in 1972, I

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6 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 have served twice in the Bureau of mathematics to do so. tional Trade, two as director, I don’t Economic and Business Affairs (EB), Number crunching is not judg¬ believe I ever looked at, much less once in an overseas economic job, ment and, indeed, that course won’t constructed, one of those complex and twice on desk assignments with produce a certified number-cruncher. graphs showing the point at which substantial economic content (as eco¬ However, certain basic types of quan¬ national and international marginal nomic officer for Pakistan and coun¬ titative analysis are the bread and prices are equalized—the standard fare try director for Egypt). In my current butter of economic reporting officers, of trade theory courses. We usually position as deputy assistant secretary, and need to be well understood by dealt with “EB’s position, the United I am responsible for South Asia and their supervisors. The mathematics States Trade Representative’s posi¬ regional economic issues in the Near required to do a balance of payments tion,” and so on. Yet, in our more Eastern and South Asian Affairs Bu¬ analysis or an estimate of a country’s serious trade policy debates, the basic reau. In all of these assignments, I foreign exchange gap are not that concepts often centered around found it essential to have a good sophisticated, but the concept of what whether U.S. policy should align with working knowledge of the concepts it is you add and subtract grows out trade theory or with the needs of a introduced in the course at FSI— of the type of training one receives in particular industry or a particular supply and demand, marginal cost the FSI course. And the judgment of country. and price, the basic concepts of mac¬ what you can do, for example, about The Joneses’ proposal that the depart¬ roeconomic analysis, public and inter¬ Egypt’s debt problem rests on that ment recruit more people with eco¬ national finance, and international type of analysis as well. nomics degrees has been tried and trade theory. I agree that one needs It is true that many of the eco¬ largely failed. The proposal that the to understand the assumptions be¬ nomic problems we deal with be¬ department encourage more after- hind these theories—although I don’t come, in a sense, problems of bureau¬ hours study is fine, but will not believe, as the Joneses apparendy do, cratic turf rather than economics. In produce very many takers. The idea that one needs an advanced degree in four years in the Office of Interna¬ that we can identify with precision a

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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 7 Letters Leasing certain number of specialists whom to work in the department, and and the department can either produce or whether it is cost effective. Our re¬ hire is probably valid, but, and this is sponses to those questions are differ¬ the key point, the department needs ent from those of your authors. Management relatively few Ph.D. specialists. What The course is designed to produce we need to have in good supply are economists at the B.A. level. It suc¬ of people with a B.A./M.A. background ceeds in doing so, and in a remark¬ in economics plus enough expertise ably short time. . . . Students are able in foreign affairs to apply this general to absorb the material at an acceler¬ Fine Homes discipline to the problems of foreign ated rate because of added maturity economic policy. This is precisely the and wider experience (including liv¬ is an niche filled by the FSI course and the ing in countries with economic sys¬ University Economic Training pro¬ tems different from our own) and gram. because they are not distracted by This is one voice saying, it ain’t other courses. broke, so let’s not fix it! The Graduate Record Exam is a yCrt?... Teresita C. Schaffer reasonable measure of achievement Washington, D C. for the course’s graduates, whose scores match those of students with To the editor: B.A.s in economics. Further, many . OQrtl&W Your article on “Econ Training” (Octo¬ FSI alumni have gone on to do ffn&- ber 1989) asks whether the FSI eco¬ excellent graduate work in economics nomics course produces good econo¬ and returned to apply their skills to A\S\ mists, whether economics is relevant the work of the department.

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8 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 ■ ATTENTION Associations, Schools and Commissaries Your article argues that economics is not a “real” science, like chemistry, and dismisses its relevance to the A child falls at your day care center... department’s work. Yet, in urging recruitment of economists from four- A member slips climbing out of vour pool... year college programs, the article im¬ plicitly concedes the relevance of the A fire damages vour inventory... study of economics. In the regional economic offices, in EB, and in the An employee pockets portions of the weekly receipts... field, economic officers need to under¬ A commercial vehicle is stolen... stand and report on macroeconomic programs for demand management and for structural adjustment to pro¬ vide incentives for improved perform¬ When the unexpected happens, are you ance on the supply side, on debt properly covered? policies, tax laws and incentives, bal- ance of payments positions, and costs Put Clements & Company’s worldwide expertise to work for and benefits of alternative trade poli¬ you in today’s changing insurance market. We represent a num¬ cies. We have found our FSI course ber of major companies with local offices in most countries. training to be invaluable in these We can provide insurance portfolios for your organization areas and others. Surely the Department of State that are comprehensive and competitively priced. should consider obtaining the econo¬ Contact Lawrence Hastings or Maureen Caruso in our Foreign mists it needs through recruitment as Commercial Department today for information on: well as through training. In doing so, however, it must not lose sight of • Commercial Property other considerations, such as the value of broad background knowledge and • General Liabilitvy the importance of women and minor¬ • Fidelity Bonding ity recruitment, which may argue Worker’s Compensation against selecting only those who have • completed a college economics de¬ • Commercial Automobile gree. The decision of other agencies • Group Health such as AID to pay to send their employees to the economics course is • Ocean Cargo evidence that it meets felt needs. • New Package Plans None of this is meant to suggest that the FSI course is perfect or that all instructors are uniformly ideal. As would be the case in college, some of the subjects we took were better taught and more valuable than others. The FSI leadership is fully aware of this and constantly sought feedback on student perceptions of the profes¬ sors and the curriculum. We attribute the high level of the overall course CLEMENTS AND COMPANY content precisely to this ongoing dia¬ 1730 K Street, NW Suite 701 logue and to the strong commitment Washington, DC 20006 of FSI to continuous improvement. Purnell Delly, Mina Goldberg (202) 872-0060 Marc Carlisle, Daniel K. Moore Washington, D.C. Fax: (202) 466-9064 Telex: 64514 Cable: CLEMENTS/WASHINGTON r i OVERSEAS RELOCATION AUTHORIZED EXPORTER FOR THE FAMILY PET Letters DOG, CAT, OR BIRD GENERAL ELECTRIC IS NOW EASY. Mean and Nasty CALL, WRITE, OR TELEX To the editor: THE PET RELOCATION You performed a service by reprinting SPECIALISTS IN TAMPA, GENERAL ELECTRONICS in the November JOURNAL Kenneth INC. USA/DOMESTIC SERVICES Adelman’s ferocious Washington Times ATTN: MILLIE WOOLF critique of Felix Bloch’s earlier JOUR¬ NAL article on the European Commu¬ □ REFRIGERATORS □ FREEZERS OVERSEAS/INTERNATIONAL nity [July/August 1989]. □ RANGES □ MICROWAVE OVENS □ AIR CONDITIONERS □ DRYERS ATTN: DR. WALTER WOOLF I have no idea whether Bloch is □ WASHERS □ SMALL APPLIANCES STAFF VETERINARIAN actually guilty of the allegations made □ AUDIO EQUIPMENT □ TELEVISION against him. His article, however, □ DISHWASHERS DTRANSFORM- ERS □ COMPLETE CATALOG struck me as a sound, unexciting but (Please check box) useful roundup of die state of things Available for All Electric in the European Community—the Currents/Cycles sort of article a professional writes for other professionals. Having spent my Immediate Shipping/Mailing career in Asia, far from the EC, I From our Local Warehouse found it quite enlightening. Adelman’s diatribe reveals nothing We Can Also Furnish PET TRAVEL AGENCY about either Bloch or the European Replacement Parts for 4120 WEST CYPRESS STREET Community but a good deal about Most Manufactures TAMPA, FLORIDA 33607-2358 himself. As I recall, his career col¬ (813) 879-3210 FAX (813) 874-6722 leagues considered him pretty much SHOWROOM General Electronics, Inc. an opportunistic lightweight during 4513 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. his stint at the U.S. mission to the Washington, D.C. 20016 WASHINGTON, DC AREA U.N. and as ACDA director. It now LOW COST ACCOMMODATIONS Tel. (202) 362-8300 turns out that he’s also mean and FAX (202) 363-6538 nasty. TWX 710-822-9450 GENELECINC WSH («THE^|cMERS) Edward Ingraham Washington, D.C.

Hotel-Suites 420 North Van Dorn Street Cross Assignments Alexandria, VA 22304 (800) 368-3339 * (703) 370-1000 To the editor: “An Equipped Kitchen in Every Room” Although Irwin Rubenstein pays lip 1989 GOVERNMENT RATES service to the notion that we are one OFFICIAL OR LEISURE Daily Weekly Monthly Foreign Service, the thrust of his Efficiency $60 $300 $1100 letter in the November JOURNAL is 1 Bedroom 72 400 1200 divisive. 2 Bedroom 86 500 N/A State/City taxes included I am sure Mr. Rubenstein under¬ SAVE MEAL & INCIDENTAL EXPENSE $$ stands as well as any of us that * An Equipped Kitchen in Every Room ambassadors and assistant secretaries * Free Cable TV with HBO/ESPN have considerable latitude in choosing * Free Utilities/Free Parking * Pool/Laundry/Convenience Store their deputies. The real issue here * Complimentary Newspaper/ should be the qualification of the Continental Breakfast officer, not which agency he or she * Metro Bus at Front Door to Metrorail comes from. Mr. Rubenstein points For a color brochure and more rate flyers out that the USIA officers assigned Mail to: The Towers Hotel/Suites (FSJ) G to State “are good officers.” In fact, 420 N. Van Dorn Street Alexandria, VA 22304 they are without exception outstand¬ Name ing Senior Foreign Service officers. Tel No That’s how they got die assignments. Address Mr. Rubenstein wonders how many L: ._i public affairs officer jobs USIA is FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT: Chevrolet Corvette Buick LeSabre

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One State officer on the most recent promotion list to * Visa and Master Card Honored Class 1 got there based in part on his TLC Development Corporation performance at the Voice. 1700 N Moore St. Suite 714 Arl., Va. 22209 A much greater impediment to the careers of Foreign Service officers REAL ESTATE * SALES * RENTALS [(703)527-44411 MANAGEMENT than cross assignment among agen¬ cies is the number of political ap¬ pointees that have been named, not WANT INSTANT TAX RELIEF? only to ambassadorships abroad, but to important positions which were CONSIDER formerly held by career officers in Washington—both in State and USIA. TAX FREE The number of political appointees in USIA has increased geometrically since MUNICIPAL BONDS! 1981. This is very likely the primary factor impeding the placement of Phone — Write — Visit deserving senior officers in both agen¬ cies. So I would suggest to Mr. Rubenstein that if he is really con¬ yi.G Edwards & Sons, Inc cerned about career enhancing oppor¬ Members New York Stock Exchange tunities in the Foreign Service, he 373 BRANCHES NATIONWIDE look to where the real problem lies. PLEASE send me information on Municipal Bonds. FSJ Vance C. Pace N*ma AFSA Vice President for USIA AHrimt City Unpopular Advice State Zip Bui. Phone. Rai. Phone. To the editor: I am a client of A.G. Edwards Yas □ No □ A recent Washington Post review of EDWARDS — Washington, D.C. John Service’s book on the China of Mrs. Ruth G. 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FSJ, January 1980 today has been their inability, often amateurs: cronies, campaign contribu¬ through no fault of their own, to tors, and personal friends. Although there has been much talk of meet these demands. They simply “Political Appointee: A Case Study” the declining role of the ambassador don’t know enough about the interna¬ by Winston Smith as a result of the revolution in tional environment—especially in die communications technology, this is developing countries—to do their jobs FSJ, January 1965 not an accurate picture. True, an effectively. They become, in the ma¬ ambassador no longer has the free¬ jority of cases, an added burden to The Department of State building is dom of action that he may have the professionals on their staff and to something of a shock to the home¬ enjoyed in the days when instructions the desk in Washington. Rather than coming diplomat. The mass, the Spar¬ from Washington reached him by leading and guiding the mission’s tan angularity, the rectangular maze square-rigged ship. Countering this, activities, they must be carried, of New State require some adjust¬ however, is the enormously more shielded, protected, and—when possi¬ ment. It is not a building that caters complex international world that has ble—educated by the staff. to human idiosyncrasy, or even to evolved in the past few decades. With None of this should be surprising individuality. Elevators go when you roughly 150 separate governments if one accepts the fact that diplomacy don’t want them to and refuse to go interacting around the globe [in 1990 and the implementation of foreign when you want them to . . . The the figure is more than 170], the jobs policy in today’s complex world have heating system can be made bearable of our chiefs of mission in most cases become, in every sense of the word, a only by adjusting the locked thermo¬ have become even more demanding profession. . . . Presidents who would stats with a straightened paper clip and call for even more expertise on not dream of entrusting nonprofes¬ (one of the few small triumphs of the their part. sionals with their Chevrolet or their spirit over the system). The unfortu¬ The basic trouble with most politi¬ frontal lobes will award highly sensi¬ nate do not have a window to look cal appointees in the embassies of tive diplomatic posts to complete out of. The fairly fortunate are permit- PAPERBACK LOVERS Enjoy Our Unique Paperback Book Service • Monthly newsletter lists 300 new releases • Featuring mass-market and trade paperbacks BUY • Categorized by subject with brief reviews • Order your selections for immediate shipment • Special requests for any book honored • This is not a book club—no purchase required SELL Subscribe today - enclose your check or money order for $20.00 for one full year to: THE COMPLETE PAPERBACK SHOPPER P.O. Box 44, Dept. 177, Winnetka, IL 60093 Name INVEST Street. City State & Zip Code. Ed Joyce Est. 1974 Retired FSIO

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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 15 10 • 25 • 50 ted to stare out on a prison courtyard, Office procedure is different. There work, an assignment in the depart¬ with giant floodlights peering down. is, as a rule, constant pressure. Ac¬ ment does give an officer a better Only the very fortunate may look out tions and decisions have to be taken perspective. . . . The geographic area upon the Lincoln Memorial. promptly, and there is less time for with which an officer is concerned is We must bear with this, because study and reflection. ... A substantial an entire country or group of coun¬ there are so many of us, and because amount of time is spent by drafting tries instead of a single city or district. it is necessary to pack so many cubic officers on the preparation of memo¬ Problems such as those relating to feet of diplomat into so much space, randa covering a wide variety of trade agreements, exchange control, at a limited cost per foot. Many of the subjects. defaults on debts, American invest¬ architectural arrangements must be New problems in international rela¬ ments abroad, and the conflicting accepted, in the pursuit of efficiency. tions and the increase in activity of interests of many nations and states But uniformity has particularly lit¬ foreign affairs have made necessary a can be studied in their broader as¬ tle utility in our profession. Once an closer cooperation among many de¬ pects. assessment has been made, it is more partments and agencies of our govern¬ One especially salutary experience important that there be one person ment, as well as better coordination in the department is to witness the re-examining that judgment then there of their policies and actions. . . . tremendous volume of incoming cor¬ be 100 voices parroting it. Meetings of [interdepartmental] com¬ respondence. It comes in a constant Editorial mittees make a heavy demand upon stream and overflows everywhere. . . . officers’ time. Messengers bringing additional arm¬ FSJ, January 1940 While there is much more desk fuls become symbolic of the devil. work in the department than in the “Department Assignments for Foreign Work in the department is quite field and while individual officers may Service Officers” different from work done in the field. in many cases have less variety of by George H. Butler

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16 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 s6OX P4, Books V* xv Gy RESTAURANT VV and N Egypt After Nasser. that Lippman wrote only about Cairo. By Thomas W. Lippman. Alexandria is mentioned a few times, PALACE LOUNGE Paragon House, 1989. Assiut once or twice, and such impor¬ tant cities as Port Said and Suez Shep and Hiep Reviewed by James H. Bahti hardly at all. Lowman Thomas W. Lippman, bureau chief for The Washington Post in Cairo Preventing World War III: from 1975-79, has written a readable, A Realistic Grand Strategy. • Fine Vietnamese Cuisine entertaining, and objective book about By David M. Abshire. • Excellent Wine List Egypt since 1970—the leadership styles Harper and Row, 1988. • Superb Deserts of Sadat and Mubarak, the changes (or lack thereof) in the economy and Reviewed by John D. Stempel • First Class Bar the attitudes of the populace, and the David Abshire, drawing on his experi¬ • Banquets mirage of prosperity. ence both as ambassador to NATO • Good Parking Lippman is a keen observer, and in the 1980s and as assistant secretary his descriptions of the baksheesh sys¬ of state for congressional relations in tem, the problems of agriculture, the the Nixon administration, has written burgeoning population problem, the a prescriptive book in the classic housing shortages, and the squalor of geostrategic tradition. He argues that 5401 Lee Highway the inner city ring true. The book is there is danger in the changes that are (Corner of Lee & Harrison) heavily anecdotal, which makes it sweeping Europe as a result of the particularly interesting and readable. Soviet and Eastern Bloc upheaval. He Arlington, VA On the other hand, the lack of foot¬ fears NATO will be dismantled rather 532-8415 notes means one can only guess at the than overhauled to eliminate the exist¬ exact report, book, or speech from ing elements of crisis instability, which which a quotation is drawn. could inadvertently lead the su¬ The author deals in some depth perpowers into a conflict no one with Egypt’s food problems (includ¬ wants. Thus, he raises the specter of ing the impact of the Aswan Dam on 1914, not 1938, lacing his argument VOLVO irrigation), the difficulties of land with many examples drawn from the reclamation, the entrenched bureau¬ contemporary policymaking in which Factory-Set Discounts cracy, health problems, family plan¬ he was involved. To Diplomats Posted ning, and injitah (Sadat’s policy of The book is a broad-gauge, Euro- encouraging foreign investment and a centered effort. Although it deals Stateside and Abroad partial return to private enterprise). with economic issues and the social In what is perhaps the best chap¬ and cultural changes taking place in U.S., U.K., European, or ter, Lippman discusses Islam and the Europe, these appear as almost a Overseas Specs state, i.e., Islamic fundamentalism. sidelight to the “real” issues of mili¬ He describes the position of the tary strategy. His economic advice is Overseas and Domestic Copts in Egypt, and he clearly differ¬ unexceptional, (“an economic strat¬ Deliveries entiates between fundamentalism in egy must strive to make the most Iran and in Egypt. As for the fairly efficient use of our resources”) and recent appearance of “modest” dress there is a tendency to hortatory advice.- KELLY COGHILL among female university students, he There are some excellent discussions DIPLOMA TIC SALES SPECIALIST may have oversimplified this develop¬ of arcane problems in their broader ment, a subject far more complex context, as well as some useful his¬ than Lippman suggests. tory. Though urging caution and dt>Don Beyer Volvo A few nitpicks: unless Khaled vigilance, Abshire is by no means 1231 W. Broad Street Mohieddin was recently promoted, opposed to negotiations with the Falls Church, VA 22046 he is known as die “Red Major,” not Soviets or efforts to reshape the the “Red Colonel.” Nasser national¬ world. However, he reminds us that (703) 237-5020 ized the Suez Canal Company, not “preventing World War III” is the TELEX: 6503855759 the canal; the canal was always Egypt¬ responsibility of the concerted efforts FAX: (703) 237-5028 ian. Finally, I have the impression of citizens as much as policymakers.

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Regional Conflict & U.S. Policy: says consist of history rather than Secretary Donald Easum’s initiative Angola and Mozambique. policy predictions. And some of the to pursue an opening to the new Edited by Richard J. Bloomfield. mistaken conclusions serve to rein¬ ruling FRELIMO party’s leadership Reference Publications, Inc., 1988. force the underlying theme of the in Maputo. book, which is that outsiders have Gerald Bender adds his perceptive Reviewed by Donald R. Norland made (and continue to make) egre¬ critique of U.S. policy under the title: For most Americans the ex-Portu- gious misjudgments and miscalcula¬ “Washington’s Quest for Enemies in guese colonies of Angola and Mozam¬ tions for which we are paying dearly. Angola.” A rare Portuguese perspec¬ bique are among the least familiar The reason, reiterated by virtually tive by Carlos Gaspar recalls some of countries, so any book devoted to every contributor, is a “a quarter the fateful original mistakes, begin¬ them is welcome and deserves careful century of misperceiving . . . realities” ning with what he calls the “myth of attention. But the region, and espe¬ in those countries. Not by the United integration,” which opened the way cially Angola, also happens to be the States alone; mistakes are not the to errors by ill-informed outsiders epicenter of U.S.-Soviet cooperation, monopoly of any country or of any over succeeding decades. Caspar’s chap¬ which has produced change at a pace branch of government. ter is also worth reading as a revela¬ unforeseen by anyone. The political Characteristic of this theme of error- tion of colossal ineptitude by a colo¬ situation in the region when the book prone outside involvement is the long- nizing power that serves as a searing was published in the fall of 1988 has essay on Mozambique by Gillian indictment of colonialism itself. evolved rapidly—to the point that Gunn, entitled “Learning from Adver¬ The story of miscalculations would many of the authors would undoubt¬ sity.” She recalls an early example of not be complete without reference to edly like to revise some of their U.S. ineptitude, i.e., the rejection in the Cuban role. Wayne S. Smith conclusions. October 1974 by then-Secretary of makes a persuasive point that Cuba Fortunately, most of the eight es¬ State Henry Kissinger of Assistant has its own reasons for getting in¬ volved in Africa independently from the USSR, although depending on Export Electronics, Inc. the latter for financial support. One 110/220 Volt Stereo - Video - T.V. - Appliances of the most perceptive contributors is 1719 Connecticut Ave., N.W. (Near Dupont Cr.) the editor, Richard J. Bloomfield, Washington, D.C. 20009 former ambassador to Ecuador and Phone (202) 232-2244 FAX (202) 265-2435 Portugal. He saw the negotiations in NY the summer of 1988 as foreshadow¬ PH|S° TRANSFORMERS • WASHERS • DISHWASH- L'PS ERS • REFRIGERATORS • DRYERS • AIR ing dramatic changes that with the PANASONIC CONDITIONERS • FREEZERS • RANGES • support of the Soviet Union could AIWA TELEVISIONS • VCRS • SMALL APPLIANCES lead to a breakthrough. This he attrib¬ TOSHIBA # AUDI0 EQUIPMENT GRUNDIG uted to fortuitous changes in the AKAI domestic policies of South Africa and SHARP the USSR, for which U.S. policy SANSUI cannot take the slightest bit of credit. First, South Africa saw that the cost of continuing the conflict in Angola COLUMBIA PLAZA PHARMACY outweighed the benefits. Second, the 516 23rd St. NW. Washington, D.C. 20037 USSR decided it wanted to get out of Angola badly enough to risk an Telephone (202) 331-5800 FAX (202) 452-7820 increase in U.S. prestige and influ¬ ence in Angola and the rest of the ORDER ANYTIME BY MAIL region. Bloomfield concludes by re¬ and get our 20% discount on all prescriptions calling the fundamental fact that You have credit with us; order all your drug items from us and pay upon receipt “retrenchment by the Soviet Union You can always rely on us for fast, efficient service (from Angola) is an unsatisfactory Satisfied customers all over the world basis for U.S. policy.” We are anxious to service you It’s rather remarkable that the thrust of these essays remains valid despite the rapid evolution of events that

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A Newsweek (U.S. edition) article ing new. . . . But estrangement Newsweek, Letters to the Editor reporting on the contemporary Foreign between the politicians and the pro¬ November 6, 1989 Service resulted in much comment in the fessionals is getting worse. . . . press. Also excerpted in this section are Whether or not he spied, Felix Concerning your recent article on the letters to Newsweek, both published Bloch typifies certain Foreign Service Foreign Service: for nine months and unpublished. traits: intelligent and professional, col¬ now, I have worked daily with a leagues say, but prone to arrogance, first-rate group of people at the State Newsweek careerism, and a propensity to go Department—Foreign Service, Civil October 30, 1989 native. The notion that the Foreign Service, and political appointees. . . . Service is half Harvard, half Foreign Like any organization, die State Depart¬ The elite, 4,000-member diplomatic Legion has always been a myth. . . . ment has strengths and weaknesses, corps has fallen on hard times. A The reality, says an NSC aide, is that and we should continue to search for career Foreign Service officer, Felix “there are more Felix Blochs than ways to improve its performance. The Bloch, has come under suspicion of George Kennans. FSOs are in danger foreign policy of the United States is espionage. President Bush has given of becoming a drone class.” too important to merit anything less. away more dian one third of Ameri¬ In part, FSO’s seem haunted by the But I would like to emphasize my can ambassadorships to political ap¬ ghosts of predecessors who dared impression that die vast majority of pointees, some of them embarrassing stick their necks out. . . .The hierar- the men and women of the career hacks. Secretary of State James Baker chal policymaking system, with its services are hard-working, intelligent, snubs the Service, relying primarily overlapping bureaus, puts a premium and dedicated people who perform on a small cadre of non-FSO aides. not on originality but on getting an exceptional service for our country. Tensions between the Foreign Serv¬ idea cleared through the network. Many suffer great personal hardship ice and its political masters are noth¬ by Margaret Garrard Warner and, from time to time, some lose ASSIGNED ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA TO Walk to metrorail • 5 minutes to State Department EUROPE National Winner PICK UP A SAAB OR MERCEDES 1987 Inn of the Year BENZ AND SAVE. ENTERPRISE SQUARE If you’re being relocated, here’s a great strategic maneuver: Simply order a 1211 N. Glebe Road. (1-66 and Glebe Road.) new Saab or Mercedes Benz here and Arlington, Virginia 22201 take delivery in any number of European (800) 228-5150 CALL TOLL FREE cities. That way you’ll be able to tour Europe in one of the world’s finest • Facilities* Accommodations sports sedans; and then, when your tour 126 rooms and suites with climate control is up, bring the car home at Restaurant and Lounge offers room service from 6:30 AM to 10 PM considerable savings. Free underground parking, no in/out You’ll not only save money by charges taking delivery in Europe . . . you’ll save Free color cable TV including CNN, even more just for being in the military ESPN and Showtime or Diplomatic Corps. Gift Shop Stop by or call to get the full details

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their lives in the service of their crisis pops up, there suddenly is some ATTENTION... country. In my view, we have the FSO you never heard of before taking PEOPLE on the talent to improve further upon an charge and getting the job done. And honorable and positive record, and when the spodight is not on them, MOVE. . . together we will work to make that they are down there in the trenches, happen. laying the groundwork for lasting Letter, James A. Baker III achievements in human rights, trade, or arms control. The hours are long, Politicians and Congress tend to de¬ the rewards come in service, not in mand instant solutions to complex big salaries. Give ’em a break! Cathie Gill, inc. international problems—and occa¬ George P. Shultz sionally paint the Foreign Service as Opens Doors lacking imagination and effectiveness The article by Margaret Warner in when it struggles to deliver on their Newsweek requires comment. Warner unrealistic expectations. There is, how¬ repeats that old chestnut that Presi¬ ever, more courage in the ranks of the dent Kennedy derided the State De¬ We specialize in Foreign Service than your “drone” partment as “a bowl of jelly.” Per¬ sales and property image conveys. In recent years FSOs haps, in a moment of irritation at the management in the have spoken out on the Marcos re¬ bureaucracy, he did. But where did Metropolitan Washington gime and Central America—and some¬ Kennedy go in his biggest crisis—i.e., times paid a price professionally. the Cuban missiles? Fie went for area. Letter, George B. High, President advice to die Foreign Service in the Senior Foreign Sendee Association person of Llewellyn Thompson, for¬ mer ambassador to the Soviet Union Our name means Other letters to Newsweek and cop¬ and then counsellor in the depart¬ Personal Attention, ied to the JOURNAL: ment on Soviet affairs. Those who Margaret Warner makes a surrealistic participated in the president’s inner Service, and Results. collage of the American Foreign Serv¬ circle during those dangerous days ice from the remarks she collected have reported that Tommy Thomp¬ about it. If there’s a “drone class” in son’s advice regarding probable So¬ Washington, you won’t find it in viet reactions was uncanny in its State, where the hours are long and accuracy and the president was guided the competition for tenure at the top by it. is intense. An “up or out” system The quotes of two Foreign Service patterned on the U.S. military pro¬ officers that support the conventional duces fine career ambassadors but cocktail party criticism of the Foreign forces too many linguists to retire Service need to be corrected. Sam early. Some increase in the flexibility Lewis is quoted as saying: ‘The of the career structure is planned, but sociology of the diplomatic service CathieCiill Inc. the most needed improvement is stop¬ emphasizes playing it safe, giving ping the misuse of top State positions your boss options but not committing REALTORS ® at home and abroad for pure political yourself to one.” In my last post as spoils. ambassador to Brazil, Frank Carlucci Theodore S. Wilkinson, President, and Herb Okun (both FSOs), John 4801 Massachusetts American Foreign Service Association Mowinkel (USIA), Stewart VanDyke Avenue, NW (AID), Vernon Walters (military atta¬ Suite 400 NewsweeFs article portrays Foreign che), and yes, Sam Lewis, were on Washington, DC 20016 Service officers as timid and unrespon¬ my staff I was not aware that these sive “drones.” That is not the Foreign or other staff members were “playing (202) 364-3066 Service I know. In my experience in it safe” and “not committing” them¬ government spanning 20 years in four selves. Quite the opposite; we had different cabinet posts, I never en¬ lively and sometimes heated exchanges Serving Washington, DC, countered a more dedicated and tal¬ on policy positions. Those clear, hard- Maryland & Virginia ented group of professionals. When a headed positions do not seem in any

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Duke University Press 6697 College Station Durham INC 27708 Clippings way to have hindered their careers. president and the secretary of state and that Foreign Service officers are Peter Tarnoff is quoted as saying: when they deal with other heads of paid to observe other countries, this “When FSOs get together, they don’t government and foreign ministers who list has a basis in fact. Beyond that, talk about substance. They talk about benefit from serious analyses and the criticisms reflect a serious lack of promotions and assignments.” After recommendations from their usually understanding, by many critics, of the all, FSOs are human and, like employ¬ well-qualified ambassadors in the purpose and functions of the Foreign ees at General Motors, AT&T, United States. Service. Goldman Sachs, Chase Manhattan John Wills Tuthill The corps of personnel is organ¬ Bank, law offices, and quite possibly Washington, D.C. ized to report on the political and at the Council on Foreign Relations, economic circumstances in foreign they occasionally talk about promo¬ Christian Science Monitor countries essential to policymaking, tions and assignments. But to go on November 9, 1989 to protect U.S. citizens abroad, to and declare flady that “they don’t talk administer visa functions, and to sup¬ substance” is nonsense. This was not The Foreign Service of the United port other U.S. agencies overseas. . . true when I was a Foreign Service States ... is undergoing severe The work today is complicated by officer and I cannot believe it is true criticism. The enumerated faults in¬ terrorism concerns and by expensive today. clude being unimaginative in the rec¬ and often difficult living conditions There has been much mention of ommendations on policy, irrelevant abroad. Added problems are those the demoralizing effect on the For¬ to the decision process, timid, igno¬ presented by America’s social revolu¬ eign Service of the appointment of rant of American politics, prone to tion: the dilemmas presented by two- clearly unqualified persons as am¬ favor foreign positions over Ameri¬ career families and the class-action bassadors to important posts. This is can, and obsessed with careerism. suits against personnel practices true and important. The damage, To the extent that caution is a brought by women and minorities. however, is the weakening of the traditional companion of diplomacy The Foreign Service is a lonely

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“YOUR COUNTRY TEAM AT HOME” Q] REALTOR ® Clippings branch of the nation’s government. It New York Times attack the problem would be to rein¬ has no natural domestic constituency; November 10, 1989 stitute the successful program initi¬ few will stand up for it in Congress. ated by the Carter administration, The important functions of consular Diplomacy is too important to be¬ and reinstitute a presidential advisory and visa services and administration come the exclusive preserve of For¬ board on ambassadorial appointments. breed more complaints than praise. eign Service officers and far too im¬ . . . The records and qualifications of The concept of a professional Service portant and complicated to be turned all career and noncareer candidates prepared to apply its expertise impar¬ over to inexperienced political ap¬ were carefully reviewed by the board. tially to administrations regardless of pointees. Every president has the right A report on their qualifications was party is not well established in the to choose as ambassadors men and made to the secretary of state and the American political culture. . . . Critics women from outside the career Serv¬ president. . . . Although the board’s cannot have it both ways. They can¬ ice. But the current method of select¬ recommendations were only advisory not, on one hand, question the loy¬ ing noncareer ambassadors creates and could be overruled by the presi¬ alty of the Service when its members unnecessary obstacles in the conduct dent, this never happened. Almost work actively on behalf of a policy of our foreign relations. always, the board provided a useful and, on the other, condemn them for This is because the ineptitude and buffer, selecting the best potential a general lack of initiative. Neither inexperience of some of the noncareer candidates. can the nation have it both ways, appointees make it impossible for Ambassadorships are still too im¬ perpetuating the denigration of its them to represent adequately our portant to be available to the highest Foreign Service while at the same country abroad. ... If not corrected bidder. The recreation of a review time expecting proud and effective by prompt bipartisan action, it will board would give the president a U.S. representation abroad. undermine the credibility of our dip¬ chance to withstand political pres¬ By David D. Newsom lomatic representation. sures and appoint qualified ambassa¬ What can be done? One way to dors. By Cyrus R. Vance Allied Owners Are Serving at 32 Overseas Posts Highest rental value Staff of trained agents Qualified, responsible tenants Monthly computerized statements Skilled maintenance personnel for your home management needs

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In February 1989, the late Ambassador appear to be substantial areas of agreement Alan Woods, administrator of the between my views and what the report says Agency for International Development, re¬ about four of them. However, I disagree leased Development and the National Interest, with it about the last three: commonly known as the “Woods Report.” • The report implies that the influence of The 153-page report, an historical and ana¬ AID on the course of sovereign countries’ lytical survey of economic trends in develop¬ development is “severely limited.” I think it ing countries over the past few decades, is significant. joined a growing number of new studies on • It implies that the U.S. foreign assis¬ die problems and lessons of U.S. develop¬ tance program, “as currently structured,” is ment, all of which recognize the need to not very relevant to development. I believe rethink our assistance goals and strategy. it is. The Woods Report concluded by asking • It calls for “radically reshaping future seven basic questions; the answers to which, official assistance programs to face new Ambassador Woods thought, would require realities,” while I believe that we already “rethinking an increasingly outdated conven¬ have effective tools for delivering foreign tional wisdom about development.” He- assistance and that what is needed is an wanted to stimulate national debate on these operational sense of development priorities. questions: • How do we define success? • What Defining success are our strategic interests? • What U.S. foreign assistance is successful when are our humanitarian interests? our strategic, humanitarian, and economic • What are our economic interests? interests are well-served. In sum, we are • How can we reconcile sovereignty looking for progress that is achieved and and assistance? • How relevant is sustained by developing countries’ own ef¬ foreign aid to development? • How forts toward a better world—one without can we better match U.S. assistance to hunger, poverty, ignorance, or preventable the national interest? disease, a world in which people choose their This article presents some of my own thoughts own leaders in stable political systems, have on the answers to these questions. There productive jobs, and share a global prosper¬ ity in a sustainable environment. The distinction between development it¬ Stuart Callison is deputy director of AIDS self (the means) and development objectives Office of Policy Development and Program (the ends) should be clear enough, yet all too Review. The views expressed do not necessarily often the ends are confused with the means represent the official views of AID or its Bureau as the proper aim of foreign assistance. for Program and Policy Coordination (PPC); Foreign donor assistance cannot be expected and the publication of this article does not imply to achieve and sustain multifarious develop¬ official sanction or approval of its contents by ment objectives directly; it must achieve PPC or AID.

28 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 them through the intermediary of indigenous lytical commentary, to measure the apparent development. Development progress involves impact of its assistance programs. self-sustained, broad-based economic growth Because they are independent and sover¬ Development eign, developing country governments are to build a larger resource base and improve¬ priorities are ments in the institutional, political, legal, ultimately responsible for the overall success social, and human resource environment. or failure of their own development pro¬ often violated We can measure the progress of each country grams. As development specialists, however, because of toward development objectives (the ends); foreign donor agencies should be held re¬ conflicts between however, to properly evaluate the impact of sponsible for: short-term a foreign assistance program, we must meas¬ • knowing whether or not progress is being objectives and ure how much it contributes toward the achieved, why or why not, and what are the long-range prerequisites and components of development basic criteria and priorities for progress; development goals itself (the means). • helping counterparts design better and As the Woods Report indicates, the amount more workable solutions to their develop¬ of foreign assistance received by a particular ment problems; and country is not a measure of development • choosing wisely, with host governments, achievement. In fact, the provision of large how foreign assistance can best help. amounts of security assistance to some coun¬ Sensible development priorities are often tries, in excess of their ability to use it violated because of conflicts between short¬ effectively for development purposes, has term political, commercial, and humanitarian been counterproductive to sustainable eco¬ objectives and sustainable, long-range develop¬ nomic development. Such aid has also been ment goals. These conflicts require difficult largely devoid of policy leverage and has political choices by both the developing sometimes had the effect of alleviating the country and the aid donor, choices which are consequences of bad economic policies, al¬ often not made wisely. lowing negative economic trends to accumu¬ late to politically disastrous proportions. American interests (Sudan, Egypt and, in earlier years, the The Woods Report raises questions about Philippines come to mind as countries with three aspects of our national interests— inappropriate economic policies which have strategic, humanitarian, and economic—and received large amounts of security-related emphasizes the importance of sustained eco¬ assistance to relieve their economic distress.) nomic growth to achieving all of them. I see Since economic stagnation and decline are no controversy here within AID, although politically destabilizing, excessive amounts of sometimes other parts of the U.S. govern¬ assistance can therefore be detrimental to our ment define U.S. interests more narrowly. own long-run strategic, as well as economic, Except where the government is clearly a interests in those same countries. big part of the problem (as in Panama, Iran, As the report also states, development or Nicaragua), it is in our strategic interest progress must be measured on a country-by- to promote economic progress and political country basis to account for diverse con¬ stability—indeed, it is a matter of self- ditions and for each country’s particular preservation. In a world changing even more priorities and development strategy. Such rapidly within developing countries than measurements can be made and are already without, political and social institutions must built into the design of AID assistance be able to accept' and permit change as programs. Measurement indicators associ¬ inevitable and to channel it in constructive ated with overall development objectives, directions. This is enhanced by participatory such as gross domestic product (GDP) per democracy, pluralistic societies, and broadly capita and its growth rate, the overall literacy based development progress on many fronts. rate, educational achievement, and life ex¬ As the Woods Report correctly emphasizes, pectancy and mortality rates, provide a basis economic growth is necessary to increase for cross-country comparisons. These alone domestic resources available to underwrite are insufficient, however, and their trends such progress. can seldom be attributed solely to foreign The report worries that the continuous assistance. Program-related indicators that rise in base rights allocations and other measure development progress toward the security-related programs means these will specific intermediate objectives of each AID- “remain the only growing part of the assis¬ assisted project or program must also be tance budget.” The problem goes deeper derived. AID should be able to use such than that. Because excessive flows of assis¬ country program scorecards, along with ana¬ tance have often inhibited movement toward

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 29 policies and prices necessary for sustained demands on our own disaster relief budget. growth and development within the receiv¬ The same goes for reducing the need for ing countries, such aid can be counter¬ It is not in our economic assistance itself. These are all productive in the very countries deemed benefits of institutional development and interests to most important to our long-run strategic sustained, broad-based economic growth. support a interests. Perhaps the current decline in government bent East-West tensions will permit more political Sovereignty and assistance on pursuing flexibility in the use of security-related, disastrous Economic Support Fund (ESF) assistance to No one will deny the legal sovereignty of economic policies support real economic development—or a each developing country. Foreign assistance shift in funding from ESF to development programs are designed to help recipient assistance. countries get on with their own develop¬ From the humanitarian viewpoint, the ment plans and programs, and assistance is American people want to see a steady not normally provided without an official reduction and eventual elimination of hun¬ request from the host government (support ger, poverty, ignorance, and preventable to the Nicaraguan contras being excep¬ disease, sustained by each country’s own tional). However, the report underestimates efforts and resources, and an enhanced devel¬ the degree to which development assistance oping country ability to respond to conta¬ influences policy choices, development strate¬ gious epidemics and natural disasters. This gies, expenditure priorities, and program and requires indigenous institutional develop¬ project design. In fact, it is often alleged that ment and management capacity to achieve foreign donor influence is so pervasive that these ends and an increasing income and donors’ agendas use up scarce investment revenue base to pay for -them. The role of and management resources and preempt increasing resources is vital to sustaining some host country initiatives and priorities. improvements in basic human needs; and it Lack of donor coordination is often an issue, is therefore not normally in our humanitar¬ with each donor going off in its own ian interests to support a government, direction. Influence we have, but it needs to “friendly” or not, that is bent on pursuing be used wisely and with political sensitivity. disastrous economic policies (although we Donor influence on economic policy can often do it—for political reasons). be problematic, since to change some eco¬ Our primary economic interests are fairly nomic policies raises sensitive political issues. straightforward. Americans have always been The most workable diplomatic approach has interested in increased trade and mutual been to let the World Bank and the Interna¬ prosperity, although we sometimes confuse tional Monetary Fund take the lead in our long-run economic welfare with short¬ supporting the more sensitive macroeconomic term commercial interests of particular groups. reform programs. It is more acceptable for (Certain categories of competitive imports— the United States to provide direct support textiles, shoes, and certain agricultural prod¬ to less sensitive sector-specific reforms. ucts—can cause problems for certain groups Overall, the collective influence of foreign and result in protectionist measures that donors, even on policy reforms, is not inhibit trade and development abroad.) In minor. The sovereign states with which we developing countries, trade and mutual gain work are not monolithic, but rather are are best promoted with sustained economic composed of many different groups, some growth. Such growth, which must be export - working toward broadly based economic and market-oriented to succeed, will increase development and some not. With patience the prosperity and buying power of potential and diplomatic persistence, there are many customers for more U.S. exports. Economic ways foreign donors can support and en¬ growth and development abroad also in¬ hance the influence of modernizing forces in crease the productivity and efficiency of developing countries. those who produce U.S. imports, thereby On the question of sovereignty, the Woods tending to reduce our import costs. As Report states, “Foreign resources, including development succeeds we hope for more aid, can preserve incomes and provide short¬ enduring and mutually beneficial coopera¬ term relief in the face of natural disasters. tion, especially in science, technology, and The result, however, is maintaining the trade. status quo, not development, unless the host It is also in our economic interest to help country firmly commits itself to [sound] developing countries better contain and deal policies.” with natural disasters, thus reducing the I believe much more can be achieved,

30 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 eric an and the Foreign Service The American Foreign Service Association

The American Foreign Service Association takes pride in publishing this photographic description of the past and present mission of American diplomacy in commemoration of the bicentennial of the United States Department of State.

Our nation is entering a third century of government under a uniquely conceived and remarkably dynamic Constitution. The life of every citizen is affected by an array of “foreign entanglements” that our first President counseled us to avoid—but which America’s growth to world power status make inevitable today. The story of increased U.S. international involve¬ ment is in many respects the story of the United States Foreign Service.

As spokesmen for and front-line defenders of the world’s leading democ¬ racy, Foreign Service personnel represent all American citizens. Yet many Americans have only a sketchy understanding of how the Foreign Service of the United States functions on their behalf.

Through this publication, the American Foreign Service Association seeks to increase public understanding and support for the Foreign Service, and, at the same time, to contribute to the sense of common purpose and dedication among those Americans who devote their lives to the diplomatic profession.

Cover photo of the Great Seal of the United States, Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State Diplomacy is the art of communicating our country's aims and objectives to other coun¬ tries, clearly and effectively. It follows that the U.S. Foreign Service requires men and women who know how to articulate American values and policy ob¬ jectives to other nations, and how to communicate back to the U.S. government the concerns and objectives of What is the other governments. Most government employees are part of the Civil Service or one of the military services. The Foreign Foreign Service, however, has a unique personnel system, or¬ ganized by Act of Congress in 1924, to ensure that qualified people are available to carry out our country’s Service? foreign relations. A total of over 13,000 Americans work in the Foreign Service, in a tremendous variety of jobs. At home, Foreign Service personnel staff a large part of five U.S. government agencies—the Department of State, the Agency for International Development (AID), the United States Information Agency (USIA), the Foreign Service of the Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service of the Department of Commerce. Abroad, Foreign Service personnel from these five agencies are assigned in 258 diplomatic, consular, and public affairs posts in virtually all of the world’s 171 countries. The tasks done by America’s diplomats have grown and diversified along with our nation’s role in the world. Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State

The History of Service Left, Benjamin Franklin, America's first diplomat, repre¬ sented the Colonies of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Massa¬ chusetts in dealings with the British Parliament from 1757 to 1775 and later went to Paris. Right, John Adams served the Colonies as a Peace Commissioner in negotiations with the British that led to the Treaty of Paris. In 1785 he became the first American envoy to Britain.

The first American diplomats were among the Britain formally recognized American independence. Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin, John As early as 1780, the Continental Congress also sent Adams, and John Jay were sent to European abroad individuals who were tasked to help Americans capitals to encourage support for the Colonies during and promote trade—our first consuls. the Revolutionary War. In 1783, Franklin and other In 1789, at the same time the United States American diplomats signed the Treaty of Paris, in which Constitution was entering into force, Congress created a federal “Department of Foreign Affairs,” soon renamed the “Department of State” because Congress gave it certain domestic responsibilities as well, such as “keeper of the Great Seal of the United States.” After taking office, President George Washington asked Thomas Jefferson to serve as the first Secretary of State. When Jefferson began his duties his staff consisted of four clerks, a part-time translator of French, and two messengers. Article II of the Constitution empowers the President to appoint ambassadors, ministers, and consuls to represent the United States abroad. Washington sent his first two diplomatic representatives to France and Spain, and appointed 17 consuls and vice-consuls to prominent cities where Americans traveled and traded. This distinction between the diplomatic service— corresponding with foreign governments and advising the President and the appropriate Cabinet offices on political and economic developments in foreign coun¬ tries—and the consular service—aiding Americans Thomas Jefferson, Minister to France (1784-89) and the first abroad—continued until the establishment of a unified Secretary of State (1789-1793). Foreign Service of the United States in 1924.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 2 “[An American diplomat] should have an education in classical learning and in the knowledge of general history, ancient and modern. ... He should be well versed in the principles of ethics, of the law of nature and nations, of legislation and government, of the Civil Roman Law, of the laws of England and the United States, of the public law of Europe and in the letters, memoirs, and histories of those great men who have heretofore shone in the diplomatic order and conducted the affairs of nations and the world. ... He should be active, attentive, and industrious, and, above all, he should possess an upright heart and an independent spirit, should be one who decidedly makes the interest of his country, not the policy of any other nation nor his own private ambition or interest, or those of his family, friends, and connexions, the rule of his conduct

— John Adams “The Qualifications Necessary for an American Foreign Minister [envoy],” 1783

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3 A HISTORY OF SERVICE At the outset, America did not want to become involved in foreign conflicts. Yet the war in the early 1800s between England and France directly affected the United States. The British, through their practice of impressment—boarding American ships and seizing many seamen to work on their vessels—taxed the limits of American patience. Eventually President James Madison asked Congress to declare war on England.

CD The Napoleonic wars ended in 1815 at the peace¬ £ (O making Congress of Vienna (1814-15). That conference 0 of European statesmen set down rules of conduct which 1 continue to guide international diplomacy. For ex¬ ample, diplomats affix their signatures to treaties in alphabetical order of the name of their country, and chief diplomatic representatives are divided into four This 1809 political cartoon satirizes President Jefferson's classes, “Ambassadors and papal legates, Ministers attempt to embargo American trade with England to force an end to impressment of American sailors. The policy was plenipotentiary, Ministers resident, and Charges attacked by the New England states as being unfairly d’Affaires.” favorable to France; it was repealed in March 1809. Also written into the Vienna Convention on Diplo¬ matic Relations is the guidance that the function of a diplomatic mission is “ascertaining by all lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving State and John Quincy Adams (center), while the American Minister to reporting thereon to the Government of the sending Russia, epitomized a crucial role of American diplomats by state.” negotiating the enduring peace between England and America in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. Smithsonian Institution

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 4 Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State

Boston Harbor in the 1850s. The importance of Yankee clippers to American foreign relations waned after 1869, when the Suez Canal opened and steam-propelled ships proved more efficient. The consular function developed along with foreign countries, the nature and extent of the foreign American international trade. Early consular trade interests involved, and “such suggestions as might posts were mainly ports of call for American be pertinent to extend the foreign trade of the United merchant ships where the resident consul helped States with those regions.” American merchants conduct trade and gave aid to American seamen. “Observe good faith and justice In 1780, William Palfrey of Massachusetts, an aide to General George Washington, was dispatched to Paris to toward all nations. Cultivate peace be the first American consul, but his ship was lost at sea. and harmony with all. . . . The nation His successor, Thomas Barclay of Pennsylvania, had which indulges toward another an instructions to negotiate the first treaty between the new United States and a foreign country beyond Europe— habitual hatred or an habitual fond¬ the “Treaty of Friendship and Amity” with Morocco, ness is in some degree a slave. It is concluded in 1787. a slave to its animosity or to its Major Samuel Shaw, the third consul sent abroad, was commissioned at Canton, China, in 1786. China affection, either of which is sufficient was an important early trade partner, exporting to lead it astray from its duty and its porcelain, silk, and tea in exchange for American interest. ... It is our true policy to timber, cotton, and other resources. Between 1790 and 1835, U.S. exports increased from steer clear of permanent alliances $20,205,156 to $101,189,082. To ensure continuing with any portion of the foreign world. ” growth of American trade, in 1838 Secretary of State — George Washington John Forsyth urged that consular officers begin to write Farewell Address, September 17, 1796 commercial reports detailing the commercial policy of

5 A HISTORY OF SERVICE Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State 6 , IMS' ***** TELEGBAM o To-^fhv. Tirn-e received, Dated With a huge continent to in the 19th century. the United States devoted explore and settle, became part of the United States, Until the territories early American initiatives One of the most important affairs. States would not interfere in European attention to “manifest destiny” much of its diplomatic on this continent. consul in New Orleans, a consul there was an American d’Affaires and consuls in the in California, Charges and a Minister Resident in Honolulu. Republic of Texas, In 1823, in foreign policy was the Monroe Doctrine. that attempts to subjects for future colonization” and of kings” on the impose the European “confederacy frontier shaped foreign relations The American nations that President James Monroe told the European be considered as the Americas were “henceforth not to “dangerous Western hemisphere would be considered the United to our peace and safety.” Concomitantly, AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE National Archives the indepen¬ 1823, a year after American recognition of foreign 1861 and 1869, was President Lincoln's chief doctrine in Left, James Monroe promulgated his famous of State’s million. Right, a telegram from the Department the Senate. pending status of the Alaska Treaty before between Below, William H. Seward, Secretary of State negotiated the affairs adviser throughout the Civil War. He for $7.2 purchase of the Alaskan territory from Russia P. Trist, dence of South American states. Right, Nicholas California and added 500,000 square miles to the country: the Southwest United States. negotiated chief clerk of the Department of State, 1845-47, 1847. The treaty the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in March Seward of the first telegrapher, Thomas Morrison, informing < ^0® *7- z »/* . ?£-Kj£e *•'** ■y? o£*-\s~~- .»•-«•***. oCl' #£++**4 G? **-.« ■• "t&A+JiSf ■ M * fei , Jt*JL (jb **rw/&4. , tt iU-'n**, **».*:.*' t^tjesOL. /

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American Consul John Howard Payne penned “Home Sweet Home" in the gardens of Versailles before proceeding to his post at Tunis.

Mr. Stewart Newell of Louisiana, upon receiv¬ The earliest “Standing Instructions to Consuls and ing an appointment to serve as consul to Vice Consuls of the United States,” issued before 1801, Velasco, Texas, in 1837, wrote, “Will the said that American consuls “are free to wear the Honorablethe Secretary have the goodness to inform me uniform of their Navy, if they choose to do so.” Instruc¬ if any allowance is made for the outfit and traveling tions issued in 1815 described a modified version of a expenses of Consuls, having found nothing in relation Navy uniform for consuls; in 1817, the Mission to Ghent thereto in the documents furnished to me, and hearing of (Holland) recommended an American diplomatic certain requirements as to uniform, etc.” minister’s uniform as “a blue coat, lined with white silk, American diplomacy had few professional standards straight standing cape embroidered with gold, single in the first century and a half of federal government. The breasted, straight or round buttonholes, slightly embroi¬ patronage system ruled; men who wished to be diplo¬ dered,” as well as the type of buttons, stockings, knee mats, consuls, or vice consuls addressed political peti¬ and shoe buckles, hat—“not so large as those used by the tions to the President or Secretary of State. Remunera¬ French, nor so small as those of the English”—and tion was rare until 1856, when Congress provided sword. salaries to diplomats and consuls sent to certain posts. Such monarchist practices gave way to styles more But many consuls still had to earn their living by consistent with America’s republican values. Congress engaging in trade and charging ships and merchants fees in 1867 forbade diplomatic officers from wearing any for their services. official uniform. In 1896 the prohibition imposed by In the 19th century, diplomats came from political statute on diplomatic officers was extended to consular and business families. Consuls and vice consuls fre¬ officers. In this respect, American practice anticipated quently were active businessmen who already resided in world trends. Uniforms for diplomats were progres¬ the cities to which they were accredited. Some eminent sively abandoned by other nations by the mid-20th literary Americans also took diplomatic and consular century. posts abroad; they included the 19th century writers Joel Barlow, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bret Harte, and the political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

A HISTORY OF SERVICE business points out the propriety of more frequent communications.” By the early 20th century, the steamship and telegraph had narrowed the distances and brought American representatives out of isolation and into frequent contact with Washington, D.C.

DID BARNUM BELIEVE IT THEN? (Original letter in files of Tampico Consulate submitted by James B. Stewart) Bridgeport. Conn., August 9th, 1882. u. s. America. Augustus J. Cassard, U. S. Consul, Tampico, Mexico. Dear Sir: I desire to carry out as far as possible an idea I have long enter¬ tained, of forming a collection, in pairs or otherwise, of all the uncivil¬ ized races in existence, and my present object is to ask you kindly to render me what assistance is in your power to acquire any specimens of these uncivilized peoples. My aim is to exhibit to the American public, not only human beings of different races, but also when practicable, those who possess extraord¬ inary peculiarities, such as giants, dwarfs, singular disfigurements dexterity in the use of weapons, dancing, singing, juggling, unusual strength or agility & etc. With this object in view I should be glad to receive from you descrip¬ tions of as many of such specimen as ycu could obtain and photographs as far as possible, even if it is necessary to send an agent into the interior for the purpose. The remuneration of these people in addition to their board and traveling expense is usually nominal, I shall see that they are presented with fancy articles such as are always acceptable and small allowance monthly. If in any case a group of 3 to 6 or even 10 would be especially novel, I should probably take them but I must study economy inasmuch as I propose to add this "Congress of Nations" to the other attractions of our great show without extra charge. Above, Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first American diplomat in If interpreters should be absolutely necessary please inform me what would be the cost, which must be moderate. South America, was sent on a fact-finding mission to Chile For yourself I should be glad to reimburse you for any proper outlay, in 1810. Later, as the first American Minister to Mexico in and to give you a reasonable compensation for the trouble which you may take in this matter. 1825, he noticed a plant with bright red, petal-like leaves. If necessary I might send a special agent to your country for any specimens which you may bring under my notice, provided they appear to me to warrant such an additional outlay. He took some cuttings of Euphorbia pulcherrima home to If you should meet with any living animals, or reptiles, freaks of Charleston, South Carolina and so the Mexican Christmas nature or in any sense rare or unusual, I should be glad to receive and to refund to you the cost of a photograph and full description of the same, but inanimate objects I do not desire. As it is my wish to get at least plant (“noche buena”) came to the United States as the a portiom of this collection together by January or February 1883, I will thank you kindly to favor me with as early a reply as convenient. “poinsettia.” Left, In 1883, the great circus impresario P.T. Yours faithfully, P. T. BARNUM. Barnum requested unusual assistance from the American consul in Tampico, Mexico.

“Standing Instructions” were issued approximately every ten years between 1792 and 1896 and gave guidance far beyond the question of uniforms. They told what should be reported: signs of preparations for war by the host country, U.S. ship traffic at ports, and assistance given to American seamen and businessmen. “In general, the duties of consular officers require an attention to whatever can promote the commerce and navigation of our country, as well as to the particular affairs of the individuals of our nation who may require the exercise of the consular function.” ConsulsAmerican Foreign Service Association also were to send “samples of manufactures, and specimens of produce which appear to be valuable articles either of export or import, if not generally known... also, seeds of plants and grain which might be cultivated to advantage in the United States.” In the age of communication via sea, the “Standing Instructions” directed the frequency of consular communications with the Department of State: “once in three months at least. They are not required to write William Peter was the American consular agent at St. Lucia oftener, unless in emergent cases, or where interest or from 1873 through 1928.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE American Foreign Service Association

Charles O. Shepard, the first American consul at Yedo (now Tokyo) and Charge d’Affaires to Japan, shown in 1870 with his guard in front of the U.S. legation in Tokyo. Posts in the 19th century usually had only a few Americans with a staff of local assistants. American representatives spread out to isolated spots all over the world. Advances in communications and transportation narrowed the distances and led to centralized posts responsible for large regions. American Foreign Service Association

aw 5 The American consulate on Front Street, Dawson City, 5 CO Yukon Territory, Canada, opened during the gold rush of > 1897-98; the first consul went to his post by dog team 700 I'; miles from Skagway, Alaska. Relatives in the States g 3 frequently asked the consul to locate American miners, fishermen, and whalers. Nine of the American consuls posted in Northeastern Mexico gathered in the garden of the Saltillo consulate in 1922 to share common experiences and methods. They were the two consular representatives at Saltillo and one each from San Luis Potosi, Piedras Negras, Chihuahua, Tampico, Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, and Ciudad Juarez. Only the last three of these consular posts were operating in 1989. The development of nation-states also changed the nature of American diplomatic contacts. Bilateral treaties, signed by only two countries, no longer sufficed when dealing with concerns common to many countries. The first multilateral treaty, the Geneva Red Cross Convention of 1864, reflected the intertwining of national interests. Agreeing on interna¬ tional standards, especially postal and telegraphic con¬ ventions, began to occupy the diplomatic agendas of many nations. The Spanish-American War in 1898 and the subse¬ quent acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico from Spain for $20 million gave the United States new overseas commitments, ending nearly a century of Delegates to the 1884 International Meridian Conference. isolation and non-involvement. Construction of the The United States invited the governments of all the nations with which it had diplomatic relations to “fix on ... a com¬ Panama Canal (completed in 1914) and China’s “Boxer mon prime meridian, to be used in the reckoning of longi¬ Rebellion” of 1900, a popular uprising against foreign tude and in the regulation of time through out the world.” domination by Britain, France, Japan, and Russia, fur¬ Delegates selected the Greenwich Meridian (which passes ther prompted American attention on the Pacific region through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England) as the point from which other meridians are measured and at the turn of the century. adopted an international system of 24 time zones. Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State

Mr. Tyler Dennett, chief of the Division of Publications, reviewing some of the historical documents under his charge at the Department of State in 1925. Early treaties, encased in tooled leather, velvet, silk, bamboo, lacquer, gold brocade, and even ivory, had a “skippet,” a round silver container embossed with the Great Seal, attached to the tassels that sealed the document. The Granger Collection, New York

President Theodore Roosevelt believed that the United States might be forced “to the exercise of an international police power” to uphold the Monroe Doctrine.

As a consequence of America’s broadening perspec¬ tive, in 1908 the Department of State established the first geographic bureau, the Division of Far Eastern One multilateral treaty may be the Affairs. Western European Affairs, Near Eastern Af¬ equivalent of hundreds of treaties fairs, Latin American Affairs, and Russian Affairs between countries. To illustrate, (renamed Eastern European Affairs after the Bolshevik revolution) soon were added. Since Africa was mostly in 1933 the United States was a in the control of European colonial powers, American party to 82 multilateral treaties. interests were handled initially by the Western Euro¬ pean Affairs division. More than 25,000 bilateral treaties Throughout this century, as the responsibilities of the would have been required to create U.S. foreign affairs agencies have expanded, geo¬ the same relationships among all graphic and issue-specific bureaus have been organ¬ ized, and sometimes reorganized, to address the evolv¬ the parties. ing nature of U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic rela¬ tions. Recently created bureaus in the Department of State, for example, include Refugee Affairs, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, International Narcot¬ ics Matters, and Oceans and International Environ¬ mental and Scientific Affairs.

I i A HISTORY OF SERVICE By 1871, there were 49 diplomatic missions and 329 consular posts representing the United States abroad. All correspondence and records were handwritten. Only one clerk in the Department of State handled incoming and outgoing telegrams. Thus, brevity was the watchword. A telegram from the Paris Consulate General during the Franco-Prussian War is revealing. American Consul General John Meredith Read, Jr. telegraphed Washington on September 12, 1870: “Prussians within 28 miles. I shall remain in Paris to guard our interests.” Secretary of State James G. Blaine introduced the typewriter in the Department of State in the early 1890s, but only for diplomatic and consular correspondence to individuals. Official correspondence was handwritten “My trusty old typewriting machine has been my companion until well into the 20th century. The State Department during 14 years of wandering, from Siberia to Tierra del Fuego, from Scandinavia to Tasmania. We have greeted had two telephones by 1895, one in the Secretary of and been greeted by officers at port towns, inland cities, State’s office and the other in a booth outside the office mining camps, villages in the tropical heat of the jungle and for the 60 employees. on cold mountain tops.... And we are still going strong,” wrote Charles C. Eberhardt, an inspector of overseas post By 1940, there were 58 embassies and 263 consu¬ operations in 1924, about his peripatetic existence and his lates; as of 1989, 141 embassies and 102 consulates. 1910 model typewriter.

Left, Alvey A. Adee dedicated his life to serving the U.S. government in the Department of State. Appointed Secretary of the U.S. Legation in Madrid in 1870, he was transferred to Washington in 1877. By 1886 he was Second Assistant Secretary of State, the number three man in the Department of State, the position that he held until his death in 1924. Also in this 1888 photograph: (l-r) Assistant Secretary George L. Rives; Solicitor Francis Wharton; Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard (1885-1889); and Third Assistant Secretary John Bassett Moore.

Adee’s duties included reviewing all outgoing correspon¬ dence; in 1912, he and his assistant, Margaret M. Hanna (right), took approximately 20 minutes to scrutinize a few dozen pieces a day. With the outbreak of World War I, the volume increased to hundreds and, by 1922, thousands a day. Miss Hanna became in 1918 the first chief of the Division of Coordination and Review, which ensured that each geographic division was properly informed of instruc¬ tions and policies issued by the others. This numerical fluctuation suggests the always chang¬ ing landscape of American diplomacy. The development of aviation and communications technology broadened the range and flexibility of American diplomacy. Would the advent of faster travel Germans are in, Giiant. Os*end boat suspended and easier communication diminish the role of Ameri¬ since this morning. American refugees cut off can consuls and diplomats? “No” was the answer from from England. Conmunication with Holland ex¬ William P. Cochran, Jr., a career Foreign Service offi¬ tremely difficult. Major Treadv>ell here, could cer, in 1932: “In the days of Adams and Jefferson, full not return to London Embassy,. Government veBsel most urBently needed foT safety with food supplies, instructions for the conduct of negotiations were given o money and coal to supply needs of stranded to the envoys involved. Sometimes they dared exceed Americans. Msrbe obliged to secure quarters for their written orders, but if a concession of major impor¬ Americans who are unable to leave. Please send tance was involved it was essential to communicate with cn instructions. m CD Washington. Thus, negotiations were lengthy and pro¬ tracted. Today, the procedure is much the same, but with Telegraphic reporting by American diplomats provided accurate reports on the outbreak of World War I. This the telephone, telegraph and wireless, new instructions telegram gave a view different from newspaper accounts can be obtained in several hours instead of several that the 50,000 Americans stranded in Europe were months. The net result is to speed up the process of “perfectly safe.” negotiation, not to detract from the importance of the human element.”

World War I massively increased the numbers of immigrants seeking to enter the United States. Right, the usual scene just before the opening of the American consulate at Palermo, Sicily, every morning in 1921. Consul Louis G. Dreyfus, is at the right of the group on the balcony. Above, the U.S. consulate at Warsaw was receiving from 700 to 800 applications for visas a day in 1922. Vice Consul Sabin Dalferes and Polish staff member Miss Wrczescz classified visa applications according to the relationship of the appli¬ cant to citizens of the United States. Today, electronic technology as well as revised immigration laws have completely changed U.S. consular operations.

13 A HISTORY OF SERVICE American Foreign Service Association 14 The Era was Personnel Board. He Japan U.S. Ambassador to Grew Career Officer Joseph served as the first chairman of the Foreign Service at the outbreak of World War II. Reform system.” appointments as a result of the “spoils their Victorious politicians would reward especially By the 20th century, the public, A career diplomat expressed the tenor of the times in 1919: “It seems almost inconceivable that a nation like received their Earlier consuls had invariably they could earn supporters with overseas posts, where consular fees for their services. fees. Support American consuls who pocketed their trained consular grew for a carefully selected and service to protect our interests abroad. An Executive Order in 1906 regulated consular salaries and initiated a competitive examination and performance system for overcharging by businessmen, called for an end to appointments and promotions in the consular service. ours, priding itself on its common sense, its efficiency, its far-sightedness, and its patriotism . . . should have allowed this condition of things to become notorious. character and ability of men as important as policies.’ system is poisoned by political partisanship. It will require a long campaign of education and a series of disasters, so evident that every man in the street can understand them, to awaken us to a realization that policies are more important than parties, and the This can be accounted for only by the fact that our whole AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE strictly to the etiquette of the country where you are Administration. high officials. stationed. from the Department. official or private conduct with anyone. not in the hands of your friends at home. wrote In 1916, Secretary of State Robert Lansing • Keep your temper always. • Be industrious, studious, thorough and punctual. • Do nothing to cast discredit on your country. • Be neat in dress and appearance. • Be courteous to all. • Be discreet in speech and conduct. American Service, on the proper mindset for • Be American first, last and all the time. entered the advice to his nephew, who had just • Never write for publication without pemiission • Observe carefully the social customs and conform • Do not criticize your Government's policies or its • Remember that you are serving the present • Be loyal to your chief. Do not discuss your chief’s diplomats. Some extracts are: • Live modestly and always within your means. • Remember that your future is in your own hands and • Avoid making confidences or repeating scandal. created in which Foreign Service. “A life service has been advocated creation Left, Representative John Jacob Rogers reward.” Carr, Chief of the and in consular offices.” Center, Wilbur J. creation of the Consular Service, was instrumental in the make a given of the Foreign Service because “it would the problems individual more expert and experienced in highest degree each member may devote himself with the of appropriate of consecration and the greatest assurance in diplomatic daily arising if he had had experience both Aside from expressing indignation about political patronage and potential profiteering from consular fees, observers questioned the division between “consuls” and “diplomats,” whose functions overlapped increasingly. Representative John Jacob Rogers of Massachusetts spearheaded a reform movement in Congress. The Rogers Bill of 1924 merged the diplomatic and consular services into one Foreign Service, in which all Foreign Service officers were to be “subject to promotion on

Department of State merit.” Moreover, the President, while continuing to exercise the Constitutional power to appoint envoys, could not insert such appointees into the career service.

Clifton R. Wharton took the first Foreign Service Public support of the professional examination, given in 1925. He became the first black Foreign Service fostered a sense of American Foreign Service Officer. He is pictured in 1958 at his swearing-in as Minister to Romania, shaking hands with purpose and esprit de corps among Deputy Under Secretary of State Loy Henderson, another veteran Foreign Service Officer. those who worked as American diplomats and consuls. The American Foreign Service Associaticl American Consular Association (formed in 1919) evolved into the American Foreign Service Association in 1924. A February 1922 editorial in the American Consular Bulletin stated, “The Association is designed to foster and to further . . . the contribution of the officers themselves to the work of the State Department; it is a voluntary instrumentality for contributing our bit. The Association is not intended The Rogers Act took effect on July 1,1924. On that date, the first group of Foreign Service Officers pledged service to as an organism for the collective the nation. Many who participated in the historic ceremony were already members of the consular or diplomatic service, defense of our rights. Our rights such as Lucile Atcherson (fourth row), who in December need no defense. It is intended to 1922 became the first woman appointed to a career post. whetten and to elevate our sense of duty.” THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON “There is none who understands fully Xovember 29, 1941 the stuff of which international affairs

TO THE fCRBICT S2P.VICE: are made, none whose mind can I fa glnd to have this opportunity to send e message embrace and calculate ail its of appreciation fid good cheer to every member of the Foreign Seryic®, complexities, none who is not being Jio branch of the Sovernraent hen been free froa the Added etrnln which another year of var has brought, but you. constantly surprised by the turns it who serve in foreign lands have perhaps been tried most severely of all. Tou have contributed in no small measure to our country's actually takes. In the end, it is only deterwined effort to meet fully and honorably its responsibilities

in the field of international relations. For that and for your right principles, consistently

fine spirit of loyalty end devotion I am deeply grateful.

Although we cannot escape a consciousness of mankind1o applied—not the gift of prophecy sorrow, «e still aey know the joy of the true spirit of Chrisisaa. or the pride of insight—that achieve Uy wish fd** all of you Is that you may find such Joy end the! ■you will face the Hew Tear with faith and a. high resolve to the best results.” strive for better days. I an confident that they will cone.

— George Kennan Career Foreign Service Officer, written in the preface to his book, Russia Leaves the War, 1956. This letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is dated eight days before Pearl Harbor.

Dean Acheson, Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953, participated in the negotiation and signing of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949. This 1950 photo with some of his top advisers shows (l-r) Edward W. Barrett, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs; Willard L. Thorp, Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs; John E. Peurifoy, Deputy Under Secretary for Administration; James E. Webb, Under Secretary; Acheson; Paul H. Nitze, Director of the Policy Planning Staff; Jack K. McFall, Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, and William J. McWilliams, Director of the Secretariat.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 16 The Modern Service A corps of only hundreds at the time of the Rogers Act, the Foreign Service has grown to a combined total of over 13,000 officers, support staff, and specialists today. At first growth was gradual. Despite President Woodrow Wilson’s sponsorship of the League of Na¬

tions, the Senate rejected internationalism in 1919. The Foreign Service Officer U. Alexis Johnson, at left, headed United States remained isolationist in the inter-war the U.S. Delegation to Strategic Arms Limitation Talks period and neutral at the outset of World War II. (SALT I) from 1973 to 1977. He is shown here with a team The surge in Foreign Service personnel came in the of American diplomats at the negotiating table with Soviet negotiators. postwar period between 1945 and 1965. The United States emerged from the war with worldwide responsi¬ bilities that demanded a foreign affairs officer corps enhanced in both size and scope of function.

U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations Ambas¬ sador Charles W. Yost, a career Foreign Service Officer, successfully urges the defeat of a resolution to expel Taipei and seat Beijing as the representative of China in the U. N. General Assembly in 1965. Right, world opinion subse¬ quently changed: On October 26,1971, then-Ambassador George Bush and aides including Foreign Service Officers Michael Newlin (at Bush’s elbow) and Assistant Secretary for International Organizations Samuel DePalma (right foreground) confer as the U.N. Assembly votes to seat the People’s Republic of China over U.S. objections. Mr. Bush later served as chief U.S. diplomatic representative in Beijing. The United States provided leadership at the San To counter propaganda efforts by communists and Francisco Conference in the spring of 1945 Just others, the United States set up a new foreign affairs after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, in the entity, the United States Information Agency (USIA) in drafting of the United Nations Charter. After reviving 1953. Today, more than 1,000 Foreign Service profes¬ an economically prostrate Europe through the Marshall sionals tell the American story abroad through USIA Plan, the Truman Administration turned to the less informational and cultural programs. developed world and established an ongoing foreign aid In 1961, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency program, which in 1961 because the U.S. Agency for (ACDA)—the first governmental organization created International Development (AID). Today, AID by any country to focus exclusively on arms control and employs nearly 2,000 career Foreign Service disarmament issues—and the equally innovative Peace professionals who help plan and administer economic Corps were added by President Kennedy. Foreign and technical assistance to needy countries. Service personnel often hold positions in these newer The ideological and military challenge of commu¬ agencies. nism in the postwar era led to a separate set of responses. The Department of Commerce and the Department The United States and European Allies joined to create of Agriculture have their own Foreign Service officers a collective defense partnership, the North Atlantic who together with State and AID officers work overseas Treaty, in 1949. Subsequently, American diplomats on behalf of the U.S. domestic economy. wove a pattern of bilateral and multilateral pacts to Although many new elements have been added to our contain Sino-Soviet expansionism in Latin America, Foreign Service, the concept of a professional career the Middle East, and the Pacific as well. with advancement based on merit is clearly durable.

Upper left, Secretary of State James A. Baker III is shown flanked by four Foreign Service Officer advisors at his first meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow in May 1989. From left, Baker, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock (partially obscured), Under Secretary Reginald Bartholomew, and Assistant Secretaries Rozanne Ridgway A United States Information Agency exhibit informs visitors and H. Allen Holmes. Above, Political Officer Todd Becker, to the American Center in New Delhi, India, about President left, in the seat reserved for the United States in the Berlin John F. Kennedy. House of Representatives.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 18 Adjustments to the Foreign Service Act in 1946 and in the last decade, but they are still low, particularly at 1980 did not change the basic system. The prestige of the highest grades of the Service, and efforts continue to working in the Service has remained high because of its expand the Service to make it fully representative of the standards of integrity, loyalty, versatility, and American people. excellence. And although morale was undermined in Those who meet the entrance requirements and the 1950s by ill-founded charges that career officers choose to enter can expect to serve the United States in were responsible for having “lost China” to a number of different foreign countries and probably communism, public appreciation was raised to a new several continents. The number of independent coun¬ height by the courage of U.S. embassy hostages in Iran tries where the United States has embassies has tripled in 1979-81. since 1945, when only 50 countries were considered Entry applications for the Foreign Service in the eligible to sign the U.N. Charter. Overall, however, the State Department, AID, and USIA run up to 20,000 number of Foreign Service posts has decreased; to annually; only about 300 persons are selected after the reduce operating costs, more consulates have been examination and screening process is done. Percentages closed and their functions centralized in the largest ones of women and minorities in the Service have increased or in embassies.

Terrorism has taken a heavy toll among employees of the Foreign Service. Above, the Foreign Service Memorial Plaque, maintained by the American Foreign Service Association in the State Department’s Diplomatic Lobby, is inscribed with 161 names of Americans serving their government abroad in foreign affairs who died "under heroic or other inspirational circum¬ stances." Since 1965, 86 names have been added, including the names of the 13 Americans who died in the terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1984. Left, the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4,1979, was unprecedented in recent history. 444 days later, the “American hostages,” many of whom were Foreign Service Officers, were released.

19 THE MODERN SERVICE Representing America Abroad No more the sleepy outposts that some once were, American embassies and consulates in foreign cities now have their lights burning until late evening, sometimes through the night. Communicators are on duty around the clock to provide instant communications with the State Department, the White House, the Defense Department, and other agencies when a diplomatic incident takes place or when Americans are in trouble. Consul Lynne Cox presents Certificate of Birth Abroad to American baby Tiana Christine Marenah and mother Denise Some posts are small, streamlined to save the Marenah. government overhead costs. Some major embassies house hundreds of personnel from dozens of agencies with specialized interests abroad, such as the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Agency, Treasury, or Justice. All but the most remote are thronged with visitors during working hours: travelers seeking visas to enter the United States, Americans who need citizenship services, U.S. experts and legislators on official travel, U.S. businessmen requesting briefings, or just foreign citizens with questions which arise from their boundless curiosity about America. And for many of these foreigners, it is the American Foreign Service personnel that meet them and answer their questions who will form their most enduring Commercial Officer James Lee (center) meets with two impressions about our country. visiting American bankers at the Business Facilitation Center in the U.S. embassy at Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Left, Agricultural Officer Marvin Lehrer inspects the Dominican Republic's sugarcane harvest, an important Dominican export. Right, the Department of Agriculture and the Agency for International Development (AID) work together to improve foreign crop production: USA tractors provided to the Dominican Republic by AID, with Dwight Steen (left) and Dave Gardella (right).

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 20 ratfMis

In Georgetown, Guyana, U.S. Information Agency Officer Bill Edwards, right, shakes hands with Mr. Kenneth Barclay, Executive Director of the Guyanese Society for the Blind. Ambassador Clint Lauderdale, center, had just presented “talking calculators" to the Society on behalf of the American people.

Representative Steven Solarz (center) and narcotics U.S.-sponsored trade shows are a meeting ground for director Caesar Bernal (right), investigate the use of businessmen around the world. Foreign Service Officer herbicides to hamper illicit coca production in Peru. Walter E. Stadtler (left foreground) shows U.S. techno¬ logical export products at the U.S. Trade Center in Stockholm, Sweden.

21 THE MODERN SERVICE Embassies and consulates still fulfill the traditional Among the many functions that have been added in functions spelled out for them at the Congress of Vienna the 20th century, public affairs officers at embassies in 1815. handle relations with the local press as well as educa¬ Political and economic officers observe and listen, tional and cultural outreach to host country citizens. report home about what they see and hear, and seek to Many posts have commercial attaches to promote influence their hosts to agree with U.S. policies, in U.S. exports and help U.S. businessmen, and our larger accordance with the instructions they receive from embassies often have labor attaches and/or science Washington. attaches to help forge links with counterpart communi¬ Administrative officers, secretaries, and special¬ ties in the United States. ists take charge of all the various support services that Major components of American embassies in devel¬ keep missions functioning in distant lands, sometimes oping countries are the AID officers, who design and without the infrastructure we take for granted at home, implement U.S. economic assistance programs. like assured supplies of power and water (or even police Finally, management and coordination of these vari¬ protection). Foreign Service Nationals—citizens or ous elements of the mission is entrusted primarily to the sometimes non-citizen residents of the host country— deputy chief of mission, or DCM, who in many of our are usually employed to provide essential assistance in largest embassies is likely to be the senior career For¬ post administration. eign Service officer. Ambassadors, who serve at the Consuls apply U.S. immigration law in deciding pleasure of the President, may be either career officers whether applicants qualify for visas, and provide vari¬ or politically appointed non-career nominees from ous services for American visitors and residents in the other professions, and are normally expected to serve country. about three years in their posts abroad. Over the past 30 Embassies also still normally have military service years, Presidents have tended to select about two attaches to assess their host countries’ changing mili¬ Ambassadors from the career corps for every one they tary capabilities. name from among their own political supporters.

Telling America’s story is one of the tasks for American Consular Officer Robert Sorensen hands out an information diplomats. Ambassador Anne Martindell, left, talks to Radio sheet on emigration procedures outside the U.S. embassy New Zealand, with support from Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow. Charles B. Salmon Jr.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 22 Multilateral Missions The Foreign Service also represents the United States at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and in the array of specialized multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization that are sited in Geneva and Vienna for the most part, with a few headquartered elsewhere in Europe, Canada, and Africa. (The United Nations Environment Program is in Nairobi, Kenya.) Similarly, there are diplomatic missions with Foreign Service staffs at some regional How many loaves of bread? This heap of American wheat organizations that are not affiliated with the flour was provided to the people of the Sudan by the United United Nations—the North Atlantic Treaty States, through the Agency for International Development. Organization (NATO) and the European Communities in Brussels, and the Organization of American States in Washington, for example. These missions specialize in reporting and negotiating, and do not carry out the same range of functions as embassies.

Semper Fi: In Hong Kong, Marines Joe Marti and Rick Tyrrell monitor critical spots in the Consulate General. The United States Marine Corps provides Marine Security Guards to most U.S. embassies and consulates. The contemporary threat of terrorist attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions makes the Marine Guards more vital than ever.

Above, in Hungary, a group from the U.S. embassy gets a bird’s eye view of a state-run apple plantation, including (visible from left) Economic Officer Thomas Schlenker, Communicator Ray Guerrero, Marianne Kuchel, and (far right) Agricultural Attache Nick Thuroczy. Left, front door guard Luigi Colucci is at the entrance to the U.S. mission to The Holy See (the Vatican) in Rome, Italy. Mr. Colucci is one of nearly 9,000 "Foreign Service Nationals" who work with Americans at U.S. diplomatic missions.

23 THE MODERN SERVICE Living Abroad

Probably the best read documents in Foreign Social life at embassies tends to be active. American Service libraries are the “post reports,” which communities in small and isolated capitals get to know tell personnel seeking a new assignment what each other well and congregate often. In all capitals, living conditions are like at each of our posts abroad. representational standards necessitate that U.S. Adjustment is a major challenge, particularly for diplomats, like all others, entertain frequently. families. Spouses who work must find new jobs or Diplomatic gatherings serve as places to meet host forego income. Children must change schools, country officials and to learn current information. sometimes educational systems, sometimes languages. Tours abroad vary from 18 months to three or four Embassies now have “community liaison officers” to years. At the end, even if going on to another foreign help families adjust abroad. post, personnel are expected to take “home leave.” The On occasion potential physical danger requires idea dates back to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “no restricting postings to employees who will separate person should be continued on foreign mission beyond from their families and leave their dependents in the an absence of six, seven, or eight years. . . . We return United States. This was the case in Saigon during part like foreigners, and, like them, require a considerable of the Vietnam war, and more recently in several residence here to become Americanized.” Middle East and Latin American posts. All posts have increased security measures against terrorism in recent years, but U.S. facilities remain prime targets in regions of political instability, and Foreign Service personnel are now thoroughly indoctrinated about personal security precautions while serving abroad.

Above right, Foreign Service Officers Donald Roberts and Michael Oreste, with military attache Major Michael Martin, learn Arabic from teacher Ahmed Tajouri in Tunis, Tunisia. Above, Foreign Service Officer Frank Ricciardone, fluent in Egyptian Arabic, checks out recent literature in order to tell the United States what's on the minds of Egyptians.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 24 Shopping on the local economy. Foreign Service personnel Katie Dionne, a teacher at the International School of Dakar, can carry an allotment of American foodstuffs with them to Senegal, and the spouse of Foreign Service Communicator their posts, but hamburgers don’t come in a can. Gary Dionne, teaches kindergarten students from three countries.

Margaret Boeker, spouse of Ambassador Paul Boeker, receives a miniature tortora reed boat from villagers at Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.

Harvey Feldman, Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, accepts a welcoming gift of spears in Pureni Village, Southern Highlands Province. The villagers are traditionally Ambassador Dennis Kux gets into the spirit of Ivory Coast festivities dressed Huli tribesmen. In Lima, Peru, three husband-and-wife Foreign Service teams are pictured: Donna and John Hamilton (left), Frances Cintron and Mark Johnson (center), and Lina and Susie Lukens, spouse of Ambassador Alan Lukens, opens Donor Lion (right). Such “tandem career couples" are more a water reservoir given by the United States to the village of numerous, although the percentage of Foreign Service Etsouali, Congo. personnel who are single has increased from 10 percent in the mid-1970s to nearly 50 percent today.

Would you believe they're weighing a baby? In Indonesia, a Foreign Service Officer with the Agency for International Development advises on health, nutrition, population, and Communicator Fred Jennings repairs radio antenna after a infant care. wind storm in Zaire.

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 26 A diplomatic courier leaves Washington carrying critical documents out to the field.

Serving in Washington When their tours abroad are finished, Foreign instance, the “desk” officers in each agency who keep Service personnel usually return to Wash¬ track of all government-to-government relations be¬ ington to serve in their own agencies-State, tween the United States and the country they are respon¬ AID, USIA, Commerce, and Agriculture. Some go to sible for. Others follow regional or global developments the Foreign Service Institute to master new languages or in “functional” ways, like economic officers who ana¬ to advanced training in subjects like economics. At one lyze world trends in commodities such as coffee. point or another many do excursion tours of a year or All are ultimately responsible for their actions and two outside their own agencies in another department of their recommendations through their agency chiefs to the federal government, with Congress, or in a state or the President, who under the Constitution has the au¬ local government. In contrast to embassy jobs, where thority to formulate and execute foreign policy. the organization is usually small enough to grasp easily, To coordinate foreign policy and national security it takes a while to learn or relearn all the people, rules, issues, President Eisenhower began and his successors and organizational relationships one needs for a Foreign have continued using a centralized national security Service job in a big domestic government institution. staff in the White House. Foreign Service personnel Some Washington jobs are country-oriented; for have often served in this important nerve center as well.

27 THE MODERN SERVICE Foreign Service Officers were instrumental to the success of the U.S. Mediating Team for Southwestern Africa Peace, which brokered an end to Cuban intervention in Angola, South African withdrawal from Namibia, and the completion of the decolonization of Africa. Left, members of the negotiating team. Above, at the moment of signing the Accords at the Presidential Palace in Brazzaville, Congo, on December 13,1988, the American representative (second from left) waits to sign for the United States. Foreign Service Officers John Ordway, Earl Irving, and Michael McKinley stand ready to coordinate the process behind the representatives from South Africa (left), Angola (second from right), and Cuba (right).

Challenges for the Future Each day several thousand foreign affairs tele¬ through common efforts to restore law and order grams pour in and out of the U.S. government’s throughout entire regions; stemming the flow of illegal communications centers. There are boundary narcotics; eliminating the root causes of political terror¬ disputes, overdue intergovernmental and private debts, ism; providing food and medication where famine and unsatisfied ethnic minorities, non-tariff barriers to war have brought unprecedented suffering and flows of trade, independence movements, and unsettling mass refugees. exoduses like Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union Other issues are more susceptible to technical discus¬ or undocumented alien workers entering the United sion and solutions if the will and money can be brought States from Mexico. together: protecting the environment and finding new Increasingly, the United States has also been con¬ energy sources that will preserve it; cooperation in cerned with observance of human rights in both friendly space; exploring the ocean depths to common benefit. and hostile countries, and Foreign Service officers must All of these transnational issues will demand increas¬ ascertain whether allegations against host governments ing international cooperation. American Foreign Serv¬ are well-founded or not. ice officers will play central roles, and may be called Add to these a new set of “transnational” issues that upon to explain and defend why our country has to cannot simply be resolved in bilateral dealings with accommodate others to get what we all want in the long another country, and it becomes clear that the Foreign run. The task won’t be easy. But the Service has had Service has a challenging agenda. Negotiations to con¬ tough assignments before and, drawing upon a diplo¬ trol and reduce nuclear, chemical, and conventional matic tradition of more than 200 years, can be counted weapons is one major element of this broader agenda. on to meet the tests of the future. Some transnational issues can only be dealt with

AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 28 The American Foreign Service Association is the professional organization of American Foreign Service personnel. Active or retired membership is open to all employees of the U.S. foreign affairs agencies. Associate membership is open to anyone having an interest in foreign affairs and American diplomacy. Established in 1924, the association is committed to enhancing the quality and supporting the mission of the Foreign Service of the United States. For further information and copies of this publication, write: AFSA, 2101 E Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037.

American Diplomacy and the Foreign Service is an American Foreign Service Association publication. The Dillon Fund, the Philip Morris Companies, Inc., the Mobil Corporation, and the Pecten International Corporation provided support for this publication.

Editor: Ann Luppi Design and Production: Ann M. Kurz

Steering Committee: Michael Cotter, Charles A. Schmitz, David T. Jones, David I. Hitchcock, Jr., George High, Leila Poullada, George F. Jones, Theodore S. Wilkinson.

Our thanks to the Department of State Public Affairs Bureau, AID Photo Library, USIA Library, Dr. William Slany, Paul Claussen, Jim Murray, Susan Povenmire, and the editors of State magazine.

Special appreciation goes to the many named and unnamed individuals who contributed writing and photographs about the Foreign Service.

Photographs prepared by Photo Effects, Bethesda, MD; Spectrum Color, Golden, CO; and H&H Graphics, Washington, DC.

Copyright 1989, American Foreign Service Association even when the policy framework is not is not relevant to development, stating that perfect. When policies are sound, donor “current foreign assistance programs do little resources can more productively ease re¬ or nothing to address foreign debt. . . . The collective source and foreign exchange constraints and Strategic aid [security assistance] has little quicken the pace of economic growth. How¬ bearing on development. . . . The trade influence of ever, even when the political regime clings component of economic development is largely foreign donors on to unproductive economic policies, modest the domain of other federal agencies.” development amounts of assistance can often help build First, it is true that our assistance is priorities and for the future—through education and train¬ seldom used directly to help a developing policy reform is ing programs, by helping to solve public country pay its foreign debt, although security- not minor health problems, and by increasing aware¬ related foreign assistance funds have occa¬ ness of the benefits of family planning. In sionally been used for critical debt repay¬ many countries AID has effectively sup¬ ments. Debt-service requirements are only ported programs designed to build indigenous one component of a balance of payments capacity to identify and analyze development deficit, however, and solving the current problems, to choose among alternative pol¬ debt problem financially, no matter how icy solutions, and to implement development important, is not economic development. projects and programs, including necessary Development is achieved only when the policy and institutional reforms. (AID pro¬ country is able to earn and Save the foreign grams in Madagascar and Zambia are good exchange needed to make the debt-service examples.) Over time, such efforts will pay payments itself and to start closing the rest off in better decisions and greater political of its balance of payments deficit. Toward support for sound economic policies. this end, AID programs have long supported The report claims that U.S. “economic market- and export-oriented activities and, and trade policies, the dynamic growth of in more recent years, structural adjustment the American economy, and the foreign and economic policy reform programs that investment decisions of our vast private encourage and facilitate export promotion sector” have greater impact on developing and efficient import substitution. These ac¬ nations than our foreign aid programs. This tivities increase earnings and savings of is probably true for those countries that arc foreign exchange, reduce balance of pay¬ succeeding and approaching advanced- ments deficits, reduce the need for additional developing-country status (and for those borrowing, and position the country for loan geographically close to us). For the laggards repayment, thus helping developing coun¬ (and those farther away), the world market tries address foreign debt. and foreign investment opportunities arc Second, despite the best efforts of AID to certainly important and establish some of the use security assistance effectively for develop¬ parameters within which economic develop¬ ment purposes, short-term political or secu¬ ment can occur; but these are not first-order rity objectives pursued by State and the issues. Most poor developing countries must annual nature of the obligation authority first establish a supportive policy and in¬ prescribed by Congress sometimes inhibit its stitutional environment, find solutions for constructive use. Furthermore, State and serious domestic economic and social prob¬ Congress control the allocation of security lems, and break some severe constraints to assistance funds among countries. Turning development before they can attract much actual disbursements over to State, as some new foreign investment and become com¬ critics have suggested, would not likely cause petitive on the world market (in all but their them to be used more effectively for develop¬ traditional exports). If developing countries ment purposes. It would be better for State, cannot take good advantage of new market AID, and Congress to address the contradic¬ opportunities and adjust quickly to changing tions between our short-term and long-term world market conditions (which most of political and development objectives, and to them cannot), they will receive little, or even revise our funding and diplomatic approaches negative, impact from U.S. economic and accordingly, yet there is no effective U.S. trade policies, foreign investment from our government mechanism to do so. private sector, and the dynamic growth of Finally, the report confuses the promotion the American economy. of U.S. exports and granting access to the American market with the economic devel¬ Foreign aid and development opment of developing countries. Many of The Woods Report implies that U.S. devel¬ our foreign assistance programs are designed opment assistance “as currently structured” to promote trade-oriented development, par-

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 31 ticularly by supporting structural adjustment signed to help achieve development as effi¬ and market-oriented economic policy re¬ ciently as possible. forms. Development assistance has long been The Woods Report would agree with this The urgency of concerned with improving a developing coun¬ formulation, but it seems to equate our the need does not try’s ability to produce competitively for present foreign assistance program with the permit us to both domestic and foreign markets, thereby Marshall Plan and similar post-war programs think in terms of earning or saving the foreign exchange it which simply transferred resources to help several needs for imports from the United States rebuild Europe and Japan. The report com¬ generations for and the rest of the world. pares today’s development task to the multi- success In addition to promoting trade, AID has generational development of Western Europe evolved tools to support development in and the United States, which was accom¬ many varied and increasingly effective ways., plished internally and has continued because AID provides technical assistance and train¬ domestic institutions promote economic ing to improve economic analysis and policy growth, competition, and trade by reward¬ choices, development strategy preparation, ing individual enterprise. It claims that the and program design and management. It “current structures and concepts [of develop¬ supports the modernizing elements of devel¬ ment aid] are based on a past which no oping countries and the reform programs longer exists,” that future official assistance they are able to launch. It helps build programs must be radically reshaped to face indigenous capacity in such areas as applied new realities, and that they should comple¬ research and the development and dis¬ ment and support the “greater contributions semination of appropriate technology, es¬ of the U.S. private sector . . . and the pecially in agriculture but also in other dynamism of the American economy itself.” sectors. These concluding statements convey a When policies are right and improved limited perspective on current U.S. foreign technologies are available, foreign assistance assistance programs and today’s development can help break critical foreign exchange and needs and priorities. It has long been clear domestic resource constraints to more rapid that ours is the more difficult task of development. It finances foreign technical construction rather than reconstruction. The assistance, education, training, and imports only large resource transfers we have today required for investment and production, and are for “security” programs and are not it provides local currency for other priority development assistance, per se. The historical development activities. It provides foreign comparison suggested in the Woods Report exchange and local currency to facilitate is inaccurate and inappropriate. private sector investment and, where re¬ Development is long-term work requiring source flows are large enough, to assist with difficult institutional changes and broad par¬ the physical infrastructure and related institu¬ ticipation, and it does depend largely on tional development needed to improve trans¬ developing country' governments and people portation, communications, irrigation, flood themselves. It can be misleading, however, control, community water supply and sanita¬ to compare today’s development process to tion, energy production and distribution, the slowly evolving innovations and institu¬ marketing, and storage. Assistance programs tional developments that permitted the onset help build the institutional capacity for of modem economic growth in Western human resource development in education, Europe and the United States in the 17th, health, and nutrition programs. They also 18th, and 19th centuries, and the urgency of support critical family planning and environ¬ the need does not permit us to think in mental programs, helping developing coun¬ terms of several generations for success. tries build capacity to deal with their share The developing countries of today do not of serious global problems. AID programs, benefit from the high land- and capital-to- as currently structured, are most certainly labor ratios of Europe and North America, relevant to development. and their starting points are, for the most part, much lower on the income scale. They The national interest do not dominate the rest of the world If it is in our national interest to achieve the politically and militarily. Their population overall development objectives mentioned in growth rates are much higher. And they are this article, and if the only way to do this on facing a catch-up game where competitors in a sustainable basis is through economic, the rest of the world are way ahead of them social, and political development, then our in many important respects (technological, foreign assistance programs should be de¬ institutional, political and social develop-

32 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 ment, capital accumulation, capacity for trade, developing countries so that they can take infrastructure development, communications, advantage of private American contributions and the American economic example—and human resource development). Success is While competition in the marketplace is not primarily to support or complement the keener than that initially faced by Europe latter. In the process, however, U.S. aid progress toward a and the United States, a more dynamic programs do play a critical role in supporting world without world market does provide opportunities for policies, institutions, and other aspects of hunger, poverty, growth not present earlier. Furthermore, the development abroad that facilitate U.S. pri¬ disease; a world policy and institutional examples and the vate sector investment and trade, support in which people technology available today mean the latter education and training, underwrite the choose their own can work toward a faster catch-up scenario. humanitarian and development efforts of leaders, have Current U.S. aid programs have evolved PVOs, and promote the free market example productive jobs, over time (and are still evolving) to meet the of the U.S. economy. and share a complex needs of developing countries to¬ Instead of a radically reshaped assistance global prosperity day. Although high-risk by nature and not program, achieving a better match between always successful, they have worked passably U.S. foreign assistance and the national well and have helped many developing coun¬ interest requires closer attention in Wash¬ tries make important progress. This has been ington to, and more effective support for, especially true where a good sense of develop¬ the economic, social, and political priorities ment priorities has been maintained, with of development within each recipient coun¬ appropriate emphases on a market-oriented try. The U.S. government must establish an economic policy framework and on building effective mechanism to delineate our long- strong indigenous institutions capable of run national interests in die objectives that doing the job themselves. can be achieved through successful de¬ Effective tools for delivering useful for¬ velopment and to give them a better balance eign assistance exist within the current aid vis-a-vis short-run political concerns and the program, and I see no need for radically demands of specialized development (and reshaping the substance of the program protectionist) constituencies. itself. What has been lacking is a collective, This will require strong executive leader¬ comprehensive sense of development priori¬ ship. It means Congress must rewrite the ties (as opposed to overall development Foreign Assistance Act and annual ap¬ objectives) in foreign assistance legislation, propriations legislation to drop functional in State, and in AID/Washington that can accounts, earmarks, unnecessary “barnacles,” be applied on a country-by-country basis. and idealistic but unrealistic goals imposed For example, the Woods Report is correct globally and to focus attention on country in emphasizing that developing countries specifics, giving AID the flexibility it needs cannot sustain improvements in basic human to do its job effectively. It means establishing needs without broad-based economic growth, a mechanism for overall economic policy and in identifying the achievement of sustain¬ coordination in the United States vis-a-vis able growth as a top priority. But neither developing countries (especially in the trade can these countries sustain economic growth and agricultural arenas). It means making without the increasing participation of health¬ sure each AID mission prepares a sound ier, better educated, better fed, and more development strategy—which requires a com¬ involved workers who feel that they have a prehensive analysis of its host country situ¬ real stake in the future of their own countries ation and its key development problems, and some control over their own individual opportunities, and constraints; identifying destinies. Human resource development must an effective set of development priorities; remain an important part of the devel¬ and supporting assistance strategies designed opment effort and as a necessary comple¬ accordingly. ment to economic growth. A focus on development in order to Which activities are political, economic, achieve its objectives would lead us to reduce and social priorities, or what mix of them foreign assistance to governments that imple¬ might be optimum, at particular points in ment wasteful economic policies. It would time in individual countries, must be deter¬ not mean excluding needs of lower priorities mined on a country-by-country basis. They (than, say, economic growth), but rather cannot be dictated globally by the legislated taking them in their logical turn, within the targets and earmarks of foreign donors. context of each country. This certainly can Finally, our foreign assistance is and should be done within the current structure and be provided to support developments in concepts of U.S. development assistance. □

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 33 Congress, universities, consulting proach of the United States toward other groups, foundations, development pro¬ nations must change. fessionals, and AID staff agree that U.S. The amount of U.S. foreign assistance has foreign assistance is in a critical period of declined in relation to developing world transition. As the articles in the February economies and to contributions from other 1989 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL pointed multilateral and bilateral donors, such as the out, the underlying framework of foreign World Bank and Japan. In addition, the assistance no longer makes sense. Changes clout of the United States in determining in the global order, the growing disparity policies of international organizations has between bureaucratic and development man¬ diminished in recent years. dates, and a crisis in the federal budget all With the emergence of a true global mean that a new paradigm of foreign assis¬ economy, the United States is realizing that tance must evolve. What impact these changes it shares, and will continue to share, com¬ will have on the structure and operations of mon problems with the Third World that are AID is not yet clear. directly related to the interdependence of AID’s Center for Development Informa¬ countries. The United States must now be tion and Evaluation (CDIE) recendy pub¬ more cooperative with tile Third World, and lished an annotated bibliography of 50 recognize that Third World countries have articles reassessing foreign assistance, written developed their expertise to an adequate by a wide range of organizations. These degree to work as colleagues with the included Michigan State University (MSU), United States in the search for creative,

RANDAL JOY THOMPSON Mandates for AID Reform

the Phoenix Group (comprised of a group common solutions to global problems of of highly qualified development profession¬ absolute poverty, disease, the environment, als), the Hamilton-Gilman Task Force in the population boom, and debt-ridden econo¬ Congress, the Worldwatch Institute, the mies. The future and well-being of America Heritage Foundation, the Overseas Develop¬ will now, more than ever, be determined by ment Council, the Development Assistance solutions to these problems. Committee (DAC) of the OECD, the Fu¬ Studies are now appearing which ask what tures Group, and AID itself. Although hold¬ the United States can learn from the Third ing a variety of world-views, the authors of World to help solve mutual problems and the studies all discuss why a change in make the transition to the 21st century foreign assistance policy and approach is successful. Many of the “appropriate technol¬ mandated and why there may be a funda¬ ogy” and “technology blending” solutions to mental shift in the relationship between Third World development problems are rele¬ donors and recipients. Several common themes vant to the United States and the future emerge. global society. No longer is technology transfer unidirectional from the industri¬ The United States is not as economically alized nations to the less developed coun¬ or politically powerful as it was in the past tries. Rather, it is now very interactional. In and, therefore, the attitude and the ap- addition, restoring American international Randal Joy Thompson currently serves in AID’s strength and improving the trade deficit are Center for Development Information and Evalu¬ now viewed as inextricably tied to the ation. The views and opinions expressed are progress of developing countries. those of the author and in no way should be attributed to AID. 34 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 The underlying reasons for foreign assis¬ While some countries are stagnating or tance are not agreed upon, and the empha¬ declining, others have achieved remarkable sis on military- and security-related assis¬ progress. Consequendy, flexible and differ¬ The informal tance rather than economic assistance can ent assistance strategies need to be developed policymaking no longer be sustained, given public opin¬ that are appropriate to these differing circum¬ activities of the ion, budget cuts, and assistance results. stances. Advanced developing countries and bureaus need to As Congressman David Obey has stated, newly industrialized countries require more be officially two widely shared perceptions underpinning customized approaches. Historically, AID recognized and earlier assistance no longer justify the pro¬ has had a centralized policymaking appara¬ formalized gram, namely, that vital U.S. interests abroad tus. The Program and Policy Coordination are threatened by Soviet expansion and that Bureau (PPC) has issued standard, overarch¬ foreign aid can protect those interests by ing policy papers and guidelines, most re- promoting economic recovery and growth. cendy categorized under the “four pillars of The sense of urgency from die Soviet threat development”—policy dialogue, transfer of is diminished, and confidence in the ability technology, institution building, and private of aid to secure U.S. interests or foster sector. These guidelines have sometimes development in poor countries has been forced an artificial unity on countries, and eroded, according to Obey. Moreover, given central and geographic bureaus have neces¬ the requirements for budget cuts mandated sarily evolved their own more appropriate by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, the sub-policies under the centrally defined ones. United States can no longer afford to pro¬ The informal policymaking activities of the vide excessive amounts of assistance to coun¬ bureaus need to be officially recognized and tries such as Egypt, Israel, and Pakistan for formalized so that conflict between the essentially political reasons, nor can it afford center and the periphery does not ruin the the high costs of financing rights to bases good intent of policymaking. abroad. These programs must share the Too much emphasis has been placed on burdens of budget cuts with other, more program processes, such as planning, de¬ development-oriented programs. signing, implementing, reporting, and ac¬ Our objectives in foreign assistance have counting, and too little emphasis has been become too diverse. Special interest groups placed on development results and ac¬ have imposed so many “barnacles” and countability. earmarks on aid that it is difficult to know Probably the classic statement of AID’s what AID is supposed to accomplish. overemphasis on program process rather Since there is an ambiguous mixing of dian results was made by Judith Tendler in military, political, humanitarian, and devel¬ Inside Foreign Aid. She argued that the opment goals, no clear system of accountabil¬ obligation-obsession of AID’s staff led to ity for results can be agreed upon. There is a project selection and design responding more weak foreign assistance constituency, en¬ to AID’s own organizational imperatives compassing too many small interest groups than to felt needs of recipient countries. with often conflicting goals and agendas. Project design, hence, became an end in Increasing congressional earmarks have meant itself, rather than the initial step in a flexible that the gap between “aid for need” and “aid process of design-implementation-monitoring- for political expediency” has widened and evaluation-redesign. The same criticism has the distribution of funds has become seri¬ been made internally within AID by task ously skewed. Moreover, earmarks to specific forces in 1977, 1981, and 1983. All argued technical areas have forced AID staff to that project design was often a politicized spend according to Congress’s preference paper exercise to satisfy AID/Washington rather than to country requirements. For concerns, not those of the host country, and example, in 1989, 60 percent of total aid that project review often served as a “proxy” resources went to ten countries and of that for actual development. Rewards and pun¬ amount, 37 percent went to Israel and ishments were tied up with this design- Egypt. Ninety-five percent of economic sup¬ approval-obligation process rather than with port funds were earmarked to countries and the eventual impact of the implemented 65 percent of development support funds projects. They concluded that AID had were earmarked to activities such as child become too cautious and overcentralized and survival, population, and basic education. that there should be increased delegation of decisionmaking authority to the field. Developing countries are becoming in¬ Moreover, as PPC Assistant Administra- creasingly diverse.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 35 tor Richard Bissell points out, functional The “Standard Implementation Mecha¬ accounts retain little of their original mean¬ nism” must change. In the past, the United Reporting ing and provide few benefits and many States worked government-to-government requirements to impediments to effective program manage¬ with host government public institutions to AID ment and accountability. The yearly authori¬ implement development projects. The rea¬ Washington zation and appropriations system does not at sons for this were closely aligned with the and Congress all make sense given the necessity for multi¬ assumptions inherent in the aid process, year development planning. In addition, have including the facts that aid was to reward reporting requirements to AID/Washington friendly governments and to make them overshadowed and Congress have overshadowed project strong enough to support U.S. policy; that project implementation and evaluation duties. Nena it was easier to control projects in govern¬ implementation Vreeland of CD IE found out from inter¬ ment agencies and to assure that they fol¬ and evaluation views that AID field professionals spend lowed AID rules and regulations; and that duties about 60 percent of their time on reporting AID could leverage recipient governments requirements to Congress and another 20 in case they failed to comply with project percent on reporting to AID/Washington. agreements. However, given the debt crisis, As one AID staff member pointed out, many Third World public sectors are cutting “Development is something that AID does back under stringent structural adjustment on a Thursday afternoon.” programs. They cannot afford the recurrent costs required to maintain social programs Recent approaches to development, justi¬ initiated by donors. Governments are increas¬ fied by the mid-1970s “New Directions ingly turning their programs over to non¬ Mandate,” have been misleading in assum¬ governmental organizations and the private ing that development could be encouraged sector. In addition, development assistance by short-term solutions. funds are being cut back and the United Many critics, both within and without the States, which can no longer afford to main¬ foreign assistance community, are beginning tain projects indefinitely into the future, is to focus on how best to encourage a seeking organizations which can sustain activi¬ longer-term impact on economic growth ties themselves. rather than on solving immediate problems of poverty through service-oriented projects. There is no consensus regarding how More emphasis is being placed on policy and all these factors will ultimately change institutional changes more conducive to higher foreign assistance and the structure and growth rates and to directly facilitating the functioning of AID. But most of the authors economic activity of the poor through small of the 50 studies agreed that AID as business and employment generation ven¬ currently structured would necessarily have tures, rather than on providing services. to change. Most also agreed that, once and for all, economic development assistance There are many organizations involved in would have to be separated from politically economic interaction with developing coun¬ motivated assistance and that development tries in addition to AID, and other activi¬ professionals would have to have the free¬ ties are critical to a positive interaction dom to allot funds according to development with these countries. need, development performance, and U.S. Organizations such as Treasury, Agricul¬ interests. Some recommended that the State ture, the U.S. Trade Representative, Com¬ Department distribute politically oriented merce, the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, assistance, if such assistance were still deemed and the Overseas Private Investment Corpo¬ essential by Congress. AID would then be ration (OPIC) must be better coordinated free to act in a more humanitarian spirit and with the Department of State to achieve a to function more like a foundation that greater developmental impact with diminish¬ would finance problem-solving collaboration ing funds. In addition, private foreign assis¬ between Third World recipients and institu¬ tance, financed direcdy by U.S. citizens and tions within the United States such as amounting to $12 billion per year, must be private voluntary organizations, universities, taken into account. And with the reshaping and the private sector. Almost all agreed that of the international economy, other means the coordination of foreign assistance should of stimulating Third World growth, such as take place by committee at the presidential trade, finance, and investment, must be level. Finally, a restructured AID should recognized as equally or more important have significantly more freedom from the than foreign assistance. legislative branch. □

36 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 When the Peace Corps Joins AID

KITTY THUERMER

One blisteringly hot day—one among many in to the agency? If so, how? As this question Mali—I learned that the local AID mission had was examined, it soon became obvious that been singled out for an unusual prize. In the the number of conclusions corresponds ex¬ face offeree competition, Senator Proxmire had actly to the number of people interviewed. bestowed on AID/Bamako his annual Golden During the turbulent months that pre¬ Fleece Award. According to Proxmire, AID/ ceded the creation of the Peace Corps in Bamako employees had the most swimming pools 1961, batde lines were drawn to determine in a drought-ridden country. This piece of the agency’s independence. Bill Moyers, for¬ information confirmed my darkest suspicions: mer Peace Corps’s deputy director, recalls how could a development agency claim to be going to Lyndon Johnson for advice. “Boy,” effective when its overseas staff lived such lavish the vice president boomed, “you put the lifestyles? Peace Corps into the Foreign Service and Shading my eyes from the sun, I turned to they’ll put striped pants on your people— my fellow> health workers in disgust. “I wouldn’t when all you want them to have is a work for AID if you paid me a million dollars!” knapsack, a tool kit and a lot of imagina¬ Whereupon I jumped up, doomed the last of my tion.” Johnson further warned, “If you want Diet Coke, and dove straight into the sharp, cool to recruit the kind of people I think you waters of the AID health officer’s pool. want, you’re going to have to ask them to do something for their country, and not for AID or State. I don’t think your volunteers Today, Peace Corps volunteers are going to write home and tell their mom (PCVs) continue to trek in from and dad that they’re giving up two years of the bush and test the hospitality their lives for the Agency for International of their AID compatriots. Yet Development.” chances are that the AID officer—under Having fought to preserve the fledgling whose hot shower the volunteer is luxuriat¬ corps from being swallowed by a behemoth ing, in whose booze cabinet the volunteer is State Department in Washington, Sargent rummaging, and in front of whose VCR the Shriver and his staff were equally determined volunteer is riveted—is himself or herself an that volunteers maintain a separate identity ex-Peace Corps volunteer. overseas. Kelly Kammerer, a former volun¬ Has the infusion of former Peace Corps teer who is now AID mission director in volunteers into the professional ranks of Nepal, remembers that in 1963 in Colombia, AID over the last 15 years made a difference where there was an enormous AID program under the Alliance for Progress, “We were Kitty Thuermer, a former volunteer in Mali, indoctrinated in Peace Corps training to works for the National Council of Returned have nothing to do with the embassy or Peace Corps Volunteers, Washington, D.C.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 37 by hiring an ex-volunteer, the AID people would see that volunteers were really human beings. Vitale passed the test. Although new to the bureaucracy, he was quickly given senior responsibility due to his language skills, cultural experience, and technical in¬ sights, which permitted him to operate very comfortably in the Ecuadorian context. As to whether his Peace Corps friends thought he had sold out, Vitale says, “Defi¬ nitely—they thought I was die bad guy.” His early actions at AID did nothing to dispel that image. “One day a group of volunteers came to me wanting support for a project that I didn’t think made a lot of sense. So I kept stonewalling them. Finally, AID. I don’t think it was as bad as being they just occupied my office. When they kicked out of the Peace Corps for being seen refused to leave, I had to go to the acting associating with AID people, but it came director and tell him about their project. He pretty close to that.” This separatist attitude, said, ‘Well, it sounds like a good idea, go Kammerer maintains, was due to the “per¬ down and tell them we’re going to support ception that AID people lived in big com¬ diem.’” pounds with servants, didn’t know the lan¬ Vitale laughs at the irony. ‘That put me guage, didn’t know die people—they were in close proximity with a very interesting very' different from us.” group of young men who were dealing with John Chromys, who was a volunteer in campesino leadership training programs. And Bangalore, India, adds, “You have to under¬ that set the stage for the way AID did stand that in training we read The Ugly business in Ecuador for the next four years. American and the works of Tom Dooley. By the time I left, I had a local staff of 14 The whole idea was to live with the people. Ecuadorians. They ended up breaking away . . . You were not carrying a ton of baggage, from AID and creating their own consulting extra privileges, nor were you carrying a lot company. It was all a result of those five of dough. You were not a sugar daddy. You Peace Corps volunteers encouraging ATP to operated under the principle of scrounge: think of a new way of dealing with commu¬ you had to make do.” nity development.” Beth Hogan, in AID’s Bureau of Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance, served as a Universally acknowledged is the volunteer in the Ivory Coast in the late fact that AID and the Peace 1970s. Although high on the Peace Corps, Corps operate under different she believes the separatist attitude among the mandates, that they march to expatriates was naive and egotistical. “I felt different drummers. “I think there’s a funda¬ like we were being indoctrinated in Peace mental contradiction between ATP and Peace Corps training to think that we were holier Corps, and the returned volunteer who goes than thou. That our intendons were purer, to work for AID soon runs chock-a-block that we were above the embassy and AID into it,” observes David Mattern, whose people because we knew what Africa was like volunteer service in Mali in the late 1970s and they didn’t.” was followed by an AID contract. “Returned One of the first volunteers to embrace die volunteers are attracted to AID because they “if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em” philosophy of see it as a Peace Corps with money—a career advancement was Paul Vitale, today powerful organization with the ability to get an urban planner. In 1965, Vitale had no things done on a big scale. But AID has sooner completed his volunteer service in none of the flexibility of Peace Corps,” he Ecuador than he was tapped for a direct-hire continues, “so when a project flops, it has position by AID/Quito. “It was rather an much more to lose in terms of money, unusual thing at that time, but they were prestige, and government relations. It is, anxious to create a better relationship be¬ essentially, a government-to-government or¬ tween AID and Peace Corps.” The blood ganization, while Peace Corps, for all its was so bad between the two agencies, notes failings, succeeds in being a people-to-people Vitale, that the Quito director hoped that organization.”

38 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 One illustration of the people-to-people lasting impact was nil. Kammerer remembers approach is recounted by Bhekh Bahadur Schieck saying, “You have to resist the Thapa, former Finance Minister of Nepal. tendency to want to do something tangible, AID and the “One volunteer I visited was living in a hut something in bricks and mortar.” Peace Corps with two Nepalese schoolteachers. Inside the “Which is what I did as a PCV,” Kam¬ operate under hut he had used the same things that merer adds. “I went in and organized the different Nepalese use, but had created more hygienic people, built rural roads, paved the town mandates, living conditions. The teachers picked up plaza, and built a few schools, but I won¬ march to these habits and, in turn, taught them to the dered when I left whether it made any different rest of the village. If we were to take the difference, whether people would go back to same problem to the World Health Organi¬ living exactly as they had before we came.” drummers zation or another interested agency, the first Kammerer adds, “I think you need to have a thing they would do is send a $40,000 different perspective. It’s that perspective consultant to look at village sanitation.” By that Peace Corps volunteers see as cynicism the time they write the reports, Thapa on the part of AID people—that AID is only continues, “thousands of dollars flow into concerned with the bigwigs and macro- documents, and then bureaucrats at both economic problems. But I think as you go ends go and organize a health team. They from country to country and see the current take months to prepare a report. But the problems with AID projects that aren’t Peace Corps is different. Things like these sustained, it’s a little more difficult to sustain may be very small, but how profound an your own idealism in the face of reality than impact they make. They cannot be measured it is during two years as a Peace Corps in economic terms.” volunteer.” Peter Deinken, a former volunteer in Kammerer believes it is natural to “evolve Honduras who now works in AID’s Near from looking at the immediate problems that East Bureau, understands the frustration of you deal with on a local level, to how can Peace Corps volunteers who sign up with you impact on a country’s economic develop¬ AID fresh from the field. “The general ment so that the entire country grows. In reaction to working in a large organization many cases you’re able to effect that kind of is to rebel against the bureaucracy—against change through project assistance. You can things that impede action. But volunteers tell a country that you’re going to put in a have to realize that in AID there are many clean water supply in a certain area, but in more forces at work than in the Peace Corps. return they have to commit to doing some¬ Like everyone else in Washington, AID’s thing else—maybe charge people for using ticket to funding is on the Hill. We compete the water so that the money will go into a for resources with lots of other agencies and fund that will maintain the pipes. It’s a organizations.” different way of thinking that I think comes Deinken also points out AID’s place in naturally with different responsibility.” Kam¬ the larger foreign policy playing field. “We merer admits he gets a lot of satisfaction out mustn’t forget that development is aimed at of project assistance that you can see and furthering not only U.S. foreign policy touch. “But I also know that unless you have objectives but also U.S. economic objectives. sustainable development, it’s not money well But when volunteers realize that we deal spent.” with the dark underbelly of politics this sometimes discourages them.” Although the purpose of AID has The philosophical difference between the traditionally been different from two agencies is perhaps best illustrated by a that of the Peace Corps, over the story from Fred Schieck, deputy assistant years AID’s own mandate also administrator for Latin America. He told has shifted to reflect the political trends of Kelly Kammerer that when he was AID the time. This internal policy shift has had director in Guatemala, he used to sit in his implications for ex-PCVs working within the office and look out the window and wish agency. “ATP has changed dramatically in he’d gone into every single village in Guate¬ the last 15 years,” notes Paula Goddard, a mala and put in a clean water system. But he former volunteer in Kenya who now serves realized that there was not enough money in as deputy director of the Center for Develop¬ the United States to build them all, plus ment Information and Evaluation in the keep them working. And unless programs Bureau for Program and Policy Coordina¬ were concentrated on a broader, macro- tion. She sees the future of AID as being economic policy level, the ability to have a much more in the policy arena. ‘The direc-

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 39 tions which have been posed for AID by this “The day I arrived in Guatemala I was administration have been more in the strictly introduced to a young AID worker and the economic arena. There’s been a downplaying first thing I noticed when he opened his If there was of the kind of basic human needs issues that mouth was his beautiful Spanish.” Among ever trouble are at the heart of Peace Corps programs, other attributes, Speicher thinks former vol¬ brewing in an and that were really at the heart of the AID unteers also tended to form deeper friend¬ overseas post, program 15 years ago. In the very early days, ships with Guatemalans. there's no one we were more into institution-building, in¬ As recruitment chief, Speicher has hired I'd rather have frastructure, things that had an indirect plenty of qualified people who never served at my side than impact on the poor. Then we went into basic as volunteers. But when discussing his over¬ an ex-Peace human needs, supposedly bringing services seas posts, and how a number of them direcdy to the poor, and now we’re back to became hot spots, he says, “If there was ever Corps volunteer the phase of indirect, macro-level focus— trouble brewing in an overseas post, there’s change the national policies of the recipient no one I’d rather have at my side than an country so people will have more money in ex-Peace Corps volunteer—someone who their pockets, free-market forces, more eq¬ knows his or her way around, and can speak uity. Today, AID is focusing very much on to the local population and get back to us the policy environment of the recipient with their view of what is going on.” country as a whole.” John Lewis, the Sahel regional desk offi¬ Goddard believes that the relevance of a cer, also speaks highly of his Peace Corps Peace Corps background was at its height co-workers. “Although AID is one of the when the volunteer was able to plow his or smaller donors in Africa, our influence is her experience back into an AID project of a much larger than the amount of money we similar ilk. “If you had been a public health spend because of our expertise, or our ability worker in the Peace Corps, and then you to mobilize expertise.” That expertise, he were hired by AID to develop a rural health claims, “is a result of the knowledge that care delivery system—that kind of perfect every third guy at AID has about the reality marriage probably reached its peak in the on the ground at the local level. That’s late 1970s.” As AID takes on a new direc¬ because every third guy was either a Peace tion, she believes the relevance of actual Corps volunteer, or played enough softball Peace Corps work is perhaps diminished. with PC Vs that they had a sense of what’s However, Goddard feels that this is miti¬ going on.” Lewis sees the difference at posts gated by the impact of the Peace Corps’s without Peace Corps involvement, maintain¬ value system, which influences what volun¬ ing that “if you walk into the AID mission teers do in AID, no matter at what level. in Egypt, you immediately sense that ATP Whether designing a primary healdi care doesn’t have a feel for the man in the scheme or macroeconomic policy, there’s a street—because there’s no Peace Corps in tendency to have a greater degree of respect Egypt.” for local customs, more recognition of a Lewis cautions, however, that Peace Corps need to be collaborative in style, more experience alone can be dangerous for for¬ understanding of the need to accommodate mer volunteers because of the false impres¬ differences rather than just marching in with sion that their anecdotal experience means the American way. they know what’s what in Africa. “A PCV can be fairly cocky, whereas someone else Few will deny that ex-PCVs have a who doesn’t have that experience might high profile within the agency. The come with more humility and be willing to most obvious example is Peter explore a little bit more.” Others point out McPherson, whose Peace Corps that some Peace Corp volunteers are horrible service 25 years ago in Peru launched a administrators—and not all are so culturally career that led to his tenure as AID adminis¬ sensitive. trator from 1981-87. At some posts, Peace Corps volunteers While the total number of ex-volunteers can reach a critical mass. A case in point is working in AID remains elusive, John Kathmandu from 1978-82, where more than Speicher, chief of Foreign Service recruit¬ 50 percent of the AID mission had been ment, maintains that they constitute 40 volunteers in the region. The program offi¬ percent of each entering intern class; their cer, the agricultural office director, the rural impact spreads throughout die agency. development, health, and project develop¬ Speicher was never a volunteer, but he values ment officers—all were ex-volunteers. “These what Peace Corps volunteers have to offer. people had a real practical sense, they had

40 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 excellent language skills, old school ties in what they found as soon as they hit their terms of connections, more access to Nepalis,” jobs was that they never got die chance to says Laura MacPherson, a former AID em¬ get to know the people at the ground level. ployee. “We got into a lot more trouble with “Did [a new agricultural officer] get a Washington, and if anything there was more chance to tour the islands? Go out into the understanding of Nepal and less understand¬ fields with the farmers, talk with them about ing of Washington policies. But I think that their crops, about the rain, the weather? Did was a real special case.” he get a chance to regularly sit down with farmers’ groups, to be at the farm markets While Kelly Kammerer strug¬ when diey were selling and buying their gles to find the right words products? Did he get a chance to talk to the to describe die metamorpho¬ women who were selling the products in the sis that takes place when a market to find out where they got them?” Peace Corps volunteer makes a career com¬ He shakes his head sadly. “They didn’t get mitment to AID, MacPherson offers a more a chance to do any of that. First of all, there’s succinct theory: “You get seduced by the a daily dow of cables coming in from lifestyle.” headquarters, asking for information and However, the lifestyle includes the dreaded plans. Then in March there’s the Congres¬ word “bureaucracy.” Many argue that no sional Budget Submission (CBS), for which matter how technically skilled or culturally everybody is madly writing proposals. They’d attuned are Peace Corps volunteers, the go into the AID office at 8 a.m. and stay minute they cross the tumsdle into AID, until 7 p.m., and when cables were overdue they immediately fall into a sinkhole of they’d be there until 2 a.m. When the CBS paperwork. John Chromys subscribes to this was due, they were there around the clock theory, based on observations he made when for ten days straight.” he was a Peace Corps director in the Chromys summed up the situation: “In Caribbean. “My experience widi ex-PCVs the world of planning documents, budgeting working for AID is that although there was requests, quarterly reviews, quarterly re¬ a lot of Peace Corps spirit—in terms of sponses, Congressional Budget Submissions, caring and wanting to make things happen— congressional inquiries, and Caribbean Basin

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 41 changing the whole nature of how people see development—that it is not just some¬ thing that happens overseas, that more and more it happens in die halls of Congress. It happens within organizations, in terms of what kinds of issues they focus on; it •t happens in families, in terms of what kinds of programs they contribute towards; and it happens with the individual, in terms of what kind of person he or she is going to vote for. “I really believe that here at AID, if you’re bright, talented, energetic, and have some good ideas, the sky’s the limit. That doesn’t mean that you can become your own god Initiative plans, they spent all their contact and run off widi a $3 million program, but I hours on the microadministrative structure believe that in government you have unbe¬ of the organization. And what little outside lievable potential for change. [At first] all time they had was reserved for representa¬ you see is the bureaucracy. But I think there tional entertaining with high-level officials.” are people inside the agency who are vision¬ The image of AID as a giant, unwieldy aries, who will support creativity when they papermill is countered by those who insist see it, and allow it to flourish—that’s been that even a single returned volunteer can the case in my experience.” make a difference in the system. Paula Goddard acknowledges that ATP is a vehicle ver the years, the gap between for the U.S. government and therefore doesn’t O the knapsack and the pin¬ always fit well with one’s own views of how striped suit has become nar¬ things should be done. But she maintains rower. David Mattern sums up that it is not a monolithic institution. “It’s the contradictory emotions which arise when got lots of little corners which are very many volunteers go to work for AID. “A lot decentralized, where the individual has enor¬ of volunteers looked at AID with mixed mous potential for impact.” feelings, envious of its clout, and scornful of Goddard recalls when she was acting its bureaucratic ways. Yet it is also flattering director of the Women in Development to be courted by AID, to be appreciated for (WID) office. “During that time I wrote the your knowledge of the field, and to be paid policy paper for the agency and got it for it.” He smiles. “And who knows? There’s approved. It was pretty dramatic stuff in always the possibility that you will make a those days. We were not only placing the difference.” Reagan administration in favor of having a Tina Thuermer, an ex-Zaire volunteer WID program at all, but we were making it who now works in education, is more a priority. Peace Corps volunteers tend to practical in describing the impact of former take individual initiative, and A TP’s the volunteers in a bureaucracy. “Let’s face it,” place where you can make these kinds of she says, “when you’re a Peace Corps volun¬ things happen.” teer, you are trained to adapt to other Beth Hogan strongly agrees. When asked cultures. The AID bureaucracy is another why she believes that the individual can rise culture. You now have a whole generation above the AID bureaucracy, she doesn’t of ex-PCVs integrated into the system.” hesitate in her answer: “Because I’ve done Beth Hogan concurs. “I think that by it.” Over the last eight years, Hogan has now, returned Peace Corps volunteers are so worked hard to build, and then manage, a entrenched in the development community development education outreach program, that you don’t necessarily see them as a under Biden-Pell legislation, which is de¬ separate subset. In fact, they have become signed to educate a cross section of Ameri¬ mainstream, and I think thaf s a good thing. cans about development issues and our You know, you won’t believe this, but I’ve relationship with the developing world. “To been working with a colleague for seven years see die creation of a field—development and just yesterday I found out he was a education—that didn’t exist before is incred¬ Peace Corps volunteer. That means that ibly exciting. There is a feeling diat you’re we’re totally infused into the system. I think doing something groundbreaking that is that’s great.” □

42 FOREIGN SERVICE IOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 Journal

Jeiio’s Story

GENE (JENO) KVASSAY with FRED GODSEY

n the morning of and a heavy wooden door with a O A former round hole in the center just large October 23, 1956, I was let out of my prison political prisoner enough to accommodate a small metal cell and escorted under recalls the bowl of food, which a guard was guard in the usual manner to the supposed to push through three times prison yard. I noticed that the guards ill-fated Hungarian a day. The food was usually a piece had been tripled, and that they kept revolution of stale bread and watered-down soup. their machine guns at waist level. One of 1956. A tiny piece of meat would be in¬ of the odier prisoners whispered to cluded in the soup once a week. The me that “something was happening.” and that the Hungarian revolution cell contained a small wooden table Of course, we had no way of know¬ had begun. I was in the infamous and a broken toilet. I had only one ing that, earlier, the police had opened Gyujto prison in Budapest, well into worn, dirty blanket and slept on a fire on demonstrators in Budapest, my fourth year as a prisoner of the metal frame which was covered by a that street fighting had broken out, Hungarian Communist political sack of straw. The principal features police. of my cell were a naked 200-watt Gene Kvassay is now a claims specialist My unheated cell measured exactly bulb, which burned day and night with an American insurance firm. Fred six by nine feet. It had a solid above the door, and a barred window Godsey was a vice consul in Budapest. concrete floor, thick concrete walls, that measured exactly 20 by 24 inches.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 43 The little window was positioned consul and I worked diligently to¬ Budapest. near the ceiling so that I could look gether for several hours to make a I was charged with treason, spying out through it only by standing on good wax impression, so that the for the U.S. government, and agitat¬ my toes on top of the table. By doing AVO could made a key that worked. ing against the Communist leaders of so, I could see a small part of the hills The vice consul and I agreed upon Hungary. When I refused to sign the of Buda and one of the prison watch- a date when I would steal the brief¬ “confession,” which the AVO had towers. case. I drove him that evening to a prepared, they began beatings and The events which brought me into bar in Buda and, while he was having other indescribable tortures, physical a Communist prison began seven a few beers, I took the briefcase in a and mental. After three and a half years earlier when I was hired as a taxi to AVO headquarters, where mondis of these tortures, during which chauffeur for an officer of the Ameri¬ they opened it and photographed the I suffered a ruptured kidney, broken can legation in Budapest. The AVO documents which they found inside. I ribs, broken fingers, and had most of (Hungarian/Soviet Communist politi¬ then returned the briefcase, docu¬ my teeth knocked out with a club, I cal police) then called me in and told ments intact, to the car. I never knew signed the “confession” without read¬ me that I had a choice: I could report what the documents were, but the ing it. to them regularly about my work for vice consul seemed very pleased with After I signed, I was moved to the the Americans—or I could go to the operation. Marko Street prison in Budapest to prison. I continued to work for four years await my trial. This prison was even I told my American employer about as a driver for various officers of the more primitive, but at least the rou¬ this, and he had no objection to the American legation in Budapest—and tine beatings stopped. I was kept, arrangement. I kept him informed of continued to report, always with their chained most of the time, incommuni¬ the details of my meetings with the knowledge and permission, to the cado, until December 8, 1953, when AVO. They wanted to know the AVO. During this time, however, I I was dragged from my cell and told names of any Hungarians who were made a mistake. I confided to three by the guard that this was to be the in contact with my employer, where day of my trial. he traveled, and as much as I could I was escorted to a courtroom. The find out about what he did. They notorious Olti, a former Nazi turned were especially interested in any docu¬ I was charged with Communist, known as a bloodthirsty ments that he might leave in die car. coward and criminal, was my judge. I was very uncomfortable with this treason, spying for the After my “confession” was read aloud situation, but I needed a job and, as U.S. government, and by the prosecutor, a man whom I had the son of an anti-Communist, Hun¬ agitating against the never seen before arose and said that garian ex-diplomat, it was impossible Communist leaders of he was my defense attorney. He told for me to find other work in Commu¬ Hungary the judge, “This son-of-a-bitch is a nist Hungary. criminal and a danger to our democ¬ The job was nerve-wracking, but racy. I request a severe punishment there were occasional ludicrous mo¬ for him.” After cursing me for 15 ments. For example, one day my minutes, the prosecutor asked for the Hungarian colleagues, who were also AVO control officer instructed me to death penalty. Judge Olti sentenced drivers for the legation, that I was steal the briefcase my employer, an me to death by hanging. being required to report regularly to American vice consul, usually carried Fifteen days later, I was taken from the Hungarian political police and in the back seat of his car. They the prison in Budapest to die Maria that I had told my American employ¬ wanted to photograph any docu¬ Nostra prison, near the little town of ers about it. They were in a similar ments found in the briefcase, then Szob in northern Hungary. This was situation, and we began to confer return it to me so that I could put it the end of the line for me. I was to with each other before making our back in the car. I duly reported this stay here until my execution date was reports to the AVO. assignment to the vice consul, but a fixed. I was prepared to die—even Unfortunately, and for reasons problem arose when he told me that looked forward to death as a release. which I do not know to this day, one he always kept the briefcase locked. I felt that death would be better than of dtese colleagues was arrested by When I went back to the AVO with spending years in prisons. I condi¬ the AVO. After several weeks of this information, they gave me a little tioned my whole body to prepare for solitary confinement and severe tor¬ tin box of wax and said that I should, hanging. The handcuffs were removed, ture he signed a confession in which somehow, get the key and make an and I was put into cell number three, he gave my name and told the AVO impression of it so that they could solitary confinement. The cell, also six what I was doing. I was arrested in make a duplicate. I reported to the by nine feet, was freezing cold. I slept March 1953. Eight plainclothes po¬ AVO that I had obtained the key on a wooden bench and tried to keep licemen came early one morning to when the vice consul had left it in the warm by covering myself with a sack my parents’ house in Buda. They briefcase while the car was parked filled with dirty straw. The toilet was handcuffed me, chained my legs, and before the legation. In fact, the vice a small cast-iron bucket, and the little drove me to the Fo Utca prison in

44 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 barred window was so high in the wall that I could not look out. On Sunday morning, April 23, 1954, the Communist commandant of Maria Nostra opened the small circular window in the door of my cell and told me that my death sentence had been commuted to 20 years of hard labor. I felt extreme disappointment. I had been cheated. For many months, days, and nights I had been preparing to die. Now I was being denied the liberation which death would have brought me. I was kept in Maria Nostra for several more months before being taken for labor in the coal mines at Verpelote. There, I dug coal 300 feet underground for two years, always under heavy guard. I was constantly hungry and ill, with practically no medical attention available. Finally, I suppose my mind gave way, and I cursed the guards. I was again chained and brought to the Gyujto prison and put in solitary confinement. The small cell was, in some ways, better than the backbreaking work deep under¬ ground. After several weeks in solitary, I was allowed to work in die Gyujto prison yard, under heavy guard, to¬ gether with 200 others, both political prisoners and common criminals. We poured concrete for new houses being built in the prison compound for the Communist prison guards. I was al¬ lowed to shower three times a week, and for this I was led, handcuffed, by a guard to a special bathroom down the hall. On these trips to the shower, I was made to stare at the floor at all times, but I could hear the constant rattle of chains and occasional moans and screams. I awoke early on the morning of October 24, 1956, aware that something was different— an eerie silence enveloped the prison, which normally housed over 1,000 prisoners and guards. I did not hear the usual clanging of chains and shuffling of feet in the corridors. The breakfast that morning was served by guards instead of the usual trustees, and I could see that no prisoners were being let out of the cells to work. I climbed to my little window and saw

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 45 only a thick fog, which, I assumed, army. They had die prison files stacked no help from the United States or any was the reason that no work was on the table. They asked me about other Western country. Liz and I being done that day. But shortly my sentence, consulted my file, shook made preparations to try to go to the afterward, I heard the sound of gun¬ my hand, and said the most beautiful United States. Our decision was rein¬ fire. I again peered through my win¬ words that I shall ever hear, “You are forced when, one day in late Novem¬ dow and caught a glimpse of a free!” ber, I recognized one of my brutal Hungarian jet fighter plane coming I was given an identity document AVO prison guards riding openly in over the prison, firing its machine and walked out of the prison. The a Budapest streetcar. I hurriedly got guns. The cell doors remained closed, feeling of elation at being able to in touch with a “guide,” and he and gunfire continued throughout the walk through the streets was over¬ agreed, for a fee, to take Liz and me day. We received no more food that whelming. Fighting was still going into Austria. day. on throughout Budapest as I walked The next day, I saw through the to the home of my fiance, Elizabedi, iz, the guide, and I took round hole in the cell door that the in Buda. We had a joyful reunion a local train from Budapest guards had tom off all their uniform amid many tears. We had been plan¬ to Celldomolk and Szom- insignia, and I heard heavy gunfire ning our wedding shortly before I bathely on December 2. just outside the Gyujto prison walls. was arrested, and now we could We walked at night from there to the The prisoners were still kept locked resume our plans and hopes for die Austrian border, hiding in haystacks in their cells. On Sunday, October future. We went to my parents, who and forests along the way to avoid 28, late in the evening, freedom lived near Elizabeth’s apartment, and Soviet military patrols. We crossed fighters set up a loudspeaker just my mother prepared my first real the border the night of December 4 outside the prison gates and informed meal in years. During my years in and walked to the Austrian town of the inmates about the progress of the prison, I had only a spoon with Rechnitz, arriving early in the morn¬ fighting, the formation of a new which to eat the prison food, and ing. We had stumbled into many government, the demand for the with¬ when I tried to use the knife and fork ditches and streams; our clothing, drawal of Soviet troops from Hun¬ at my mother’s table, I got such which was all that we had, was torn gary, a dissolution of the political cramps in my hands that my mother and dirty, and we were very tired and police, and the demand for a com¬ had to cut the food into small pieces hungry. A little Austrian girl led us plete democratization of Hungary. so that I could eat it with a spoon. to her house, gave us some food, and After this announcement, the prison¬ I talked with my parents and friends took us to the local Red Cross office, ers, including myself, climbed to the about the possible outcome of the which sent us by bus to Viemia and windows and sang the old Hungarian revolution. Although street battles the American consulate. anthem as loudly as we could and were continuing and Soviet reinforce¬ American Consul Emile Juhasz, shouted, “Long live the revolution.” ments were pouring into Hungary, one of the most remarkable men I’ve It was a very moving experience for we had great hopes that the Western ever met, and whom I had biown at me. powers, especially the United States, the legation in Budapest, was in The next Wednesday, October 31, would send us military aid. Broad¬ Vienna, assigned there to help die the gunfire outside the prison was casts from the Voice of America, to Hungarian refugees. He arranged for very heavy, and later in die evening which we all listened regularly, led us travel documents and put Liz and me all of the cell doors were opened by to believe that help was on the way. in a hotel for a few days until we trustees. When my door was opened, Liz and I were married on Novem¬ were flown out of Munich, Germany, I saw a most wonderful sight: all of ber 4. The fighting was extremely on a U.S. military transport plane. the Communist guards were lined up heavy in Buda that day, and we After a few days at Camp Kilmer, against a wall in the prison yard with literally crawled on our hands and New Jersey, we flew to Wichita, their hands above dieir heads. They knees to a church near her apartment. Kansas to join my brother, who had were later locked in the prison cells. It was early in the morning, and the come to the United States in 1948. Young freedom fighters, mostly col¬ priest, who was one of my old high Liz and I became American citi¬ lege students, set up a table draped school teachers, was only half-shaven. zens in 1961 and established a home with die old Hungarian flag and, My brother-in-law and my father in Kansas, where we have a son and through a loudspeaker, asked us to loaned us their wedding rings, and two wonderful grandchildren and en¬ stay in our cells, which would be kept the half-shaven priest conducted what joy the life of a typical American unlocked. They said that on the fol¬ surely must have been the quickest family. All things considered, we feel lowing morning all political prison¬ wedding ceremony ever performed in that fate has been bnd to us. I try not ers, but not criminals, would be freed. the church. We then took shelter in to think of my years in a Communist I spent a sleepless night and the next the cellar until the gunfire around the prison, but sometimes in the wee morning took my place in line to church decreased. hours, I am awakened by faraway appear before a revolutionary commit¬ By die end of November, we real¬ screams and the distant clank of tee, consisting of one civilian and two ized that the fight for freedom in chains on cement floors. □ uniformed officers of the Hungarian Hungary was lost—there would be

46 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990

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FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 51 AMERICAN BUSINESS AND SHIFTING ECONOMIC FORCES IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD

(Top left) Registering for the AFSA AFSA Conference Conference, American Business and AFSA’s first major conference on Government in a Turbulent World. international affairs, held in the State (Top right) Sabine Sisk, AFSA Department on November 30, drew executive director (left) talks with a capacity audience of business repre¬ Harry Johnson, AID and Heike Terrell, president of Languages, sentatives and Foreign Service people Inc. (Right) The panel on Business to explore ways to improve collabora¬ Opportunities in the Communist tion between American business and World met in the Loy Henderson government in international affairs. Room. (Bottom left) Joan Spero, Vice President Dan Quayle, Deputy vice president of American Ex¬ Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, and press, speaks at the panel on U.S. 38 distinguished panelists provided Economic Policy. (Bottom right) the highlights. A fuller report of the Panelists and participants exchange conference will appear in February. views on the “risks and rewards in developing countries.”

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 Photos by (Top) A view of the Benjamin Franklin Reception room Julia T. Scbieken during the conference lunch. The keynote spech was gven by Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. ((Left) Vice President Dan Quayle is greeted by AFSA Vice President George Jones as Ambassador Robert Stuart, president of the Council of American Ambassadors, cospon- ser of the conference, looks on.

“This conference is a splendid initiative by the American For¬ eign Service Association and offers the business community an excel¬ lent opportunity to establish an enduring relationship with repre¬ sentatives of the United States overseas. (Right) Under Secretary Robert Ted Brophy, GTE McCormack and AFSA Presi¬ dent Ted Wilkinson greet guests at the reception in the Benjamin Franklin room. (Above) Charles Schmitz, conference director.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 AFS A ♦ NEWS

AFSA submits position on affirmative action

During his testimony on Foreign limited, so as to avoid distortions Department of State is studying Service personnel reform before the that will adversely affect other offi¬ what to do for 1990—change the Dymally and Sikorski subcommit¬ cers in their normal ascent on the exam just enough to satisfy the tees in October, AFSA President career ladder. Mid-level entry has its courts that all bias against women Ted Wilkinson was asked for a own set of traps and must be used has been eliminated, change the formal statement of AFSA’s position judiciously. The least desirable out¬ exam radically, or eliminate it alto¬ on affirmative action. AFSA subse- come would be to force the pace of gether, creating some new kind of quendy submitted a two-page state¬ mid-level entry to the point where entrance process. . . . We need to ment, which also formed the basis candidates are brought in whose eliminate all vestiges of discrimina¬ of Wilkinson’s address to a meeting capabilities or commitment to over¬ tion in the exam, but we also need of the Thursday Luncheon Group seas service are still unproven. to make sure that it remains free of (the minority issues coalition). “Another important part of the political influence and favoritism. Excerpts from the statement fol¬ process is the examination for new Whatever new system is selected low: “AFSA’s view on minorities in entrants. We understand that the must be . . . fair and objective.” the Foreign Service has two pillars: First, we believe we must make the Foreign Service fully representative AFSA supports executive pay raise bill of the American people. No minor¬ In letters to majority and minority of course, the Foreign Service), where ity should be excluded or unfairly leaders of both chambers of Con¬ . . . the disparities are also signifi¬ underrepresented. gress on November 15, AFSA Presi¬ cant and increasing.” “Second, the Foreign Service is a dent Ted Wilkinson encouraged The executive pay raise approved career, not just a collection of jobs. prompt legislative action to raise by Congress in late November pro¬ It requires skills that must be learned executive pay levels for federal gov¬ vides for increases in SFS salaries of over many years. . . . These jobs take ernment employees, including the 3.6 percent (the same as the COLA) training and experience. Therefore Senior Foreign Service. The letters on January 1, 1990. Raises of 18-25 we believe the great majority of new noted that federal executive salaries percent will follow on January 1, entrants to the Foreign Service should lag parity with comparable private 1991. With regard to the ongoing come in at the bottom. sector jobs by about 37 percent. efforts of Civil Service Committee “What these two principles mean We also maintained that “the Chairman William Ford (D-MI) to is that there must be much greater executive pay raise should be fol¬ develop a comprehensive pay pack¬ minority representation in the For¬ lowed by an across-the-board pay age for all federal employees, we are eign Service, and that most of it raise for all other professional and told that a plan may be available must come through more energetic clerical federal personnel (including, early next year. and better focused recruiting of young people. And we must make the Foreign Service more attractive Bureau improperly issues and interesting to minority young people. ... By the same token, the memos of "official probation" department needs to make a special At AFSA’s prompting, management dures for Administrative Promo¬ effort to keep the new young minor¬ has taken action regarding improp¬ tions). This section states that in ity officers it recruits. That means erly worded memoranda which pur¬ cases where an employee may be special attention to the careers of ported to place certain employees deemed ineligible for an adminis¬ minority officers, special training, on “official probation.” Upon learn¬ trative promotion due to unsatisfac¬ and special preparation for the jun¬ ing of these memoranda, AFSA had tory performance, the responsible ior threshold. first contacted the bureau responsible administrative or executive officer “AFSA continues to support oppor¬ for their issuance. AFSA’s inquiry should advise the employee in writ¬ tunities for mid-level entry as well, revealed that the memoranda were ing of the unsatisfactory determina¬ as long as the numbers are strictly being issued based on the authority tion and provide a reasonable pe¬ delineated in 3 FAM 559.5 (Proce- riod, ordinarily 60 days, for the Continued on page 56 54 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 AFSA investigates catalog delivery problems

In recent months, AFSA has re¬ the catalog is being sent to a specific sion, and only learned of the change ceived numerous cables from posts recipient. Even when companies upon receiving complaints from the regarding employees’ failure to re¬ agree, at an employee’s request, to field. AFSA has since contacted man¬ ceive catalogs sent through the delete these words from the labels, agement to urge a partial revision of pouch. Many employees—especially the situation may still remain current policy so that labels reading those at hardship posts—rely heavily unresolved, since many companies “(name) or current resident/occu¬ on these catalogs, both for basic send all State Department mail pant” can be forwarded. goods and for holiday gift shopping. wrapped together in pre-sealed pack¬ This change would permit em¬ The problem occurs because the ages. ployees to receive legitimately ad¬ department refuses to process mail The department adopted its cur¬ dressed catalogs, and still allow the whenever a mailing label contains rent policy on catalogs in 1987, department to filter junk mail out of the words “occupant” or “current primarily as a means of reducing the pouch system. The pouch office resident.” Many companies include junk mail and cutting costs. AFSA is currently in the process of consid¬ these words on all labels, even when was never consulted on this deci- ering such a policy change.

Decision on USIA Update on drug testing challenge deferred AFSA representatives met on No¬ testing, like all contemplated testing The USIA Standing Committee con¬ vember 9 with Sheldon Yuspeh, under the DFWP, will take place at tinues to meet on a monthly basis. director of the department’s Drug- labs or medical offices under con¬ The addition of Omie Kerr to the Free Workplace Program (DFWP), tract, not in M/MED. governing board has brought an for a briefing on the status of the In mid-1990, the department ex¬ additional voice supporting USIA program’s implementation. (Since the pects to send out notices to all issues to AFSA. department is required by law to holders of “sensitive positions” as¬ As previously reported, AFSA has have a DFWP, AFSA’s ability to signed to Washington—an estimated under consideration challenging negotiate its major components is 12,400 persons. The employee may AFGE for exclusive bargaining rights nonexistent, except where the State appeal the inclusion of his or her on behalf of USIA. AFSA is the Department may violate other laws position in the program. Actual bargaining agent for State and AID or its own regulations.) testing of employees, other than in the Foreign Service. A new factor Mr. Yuspeh told us that in early those under “reasonable suspicion,” has emerged, however. AFGE and 1990 the department expected to will not begin until early 1991. The USIA management entered into a begin drug testing of all applicants department has not yet decided new three-year agreement effective for State Department employment, whether to test a random sample, or August 25, 1989. It was made both Foreign and Civil Service. In whether to test all employees on a available to AFSA on request only the case of FS junior officer candi¬ periodic basis: e.g., when they have in late October and subsequently dates, testing would take place shortly their next required physical exam. distributed in USIA. after the candidate passes the oral Mr. Yuspeh confirmed that the This, in effect, makes a challenge exam, but before the security investi¬ department has no plans to do drug impossible until near the end of the gation and medical examination. Can¬ testing of employees overseas, al¬ new three-year contract, in 1992. didates who test positive for sub¬ though it will look at that question The last three-year contract was stance abuse lose their candidacy again after it has had a year of signed in 1985. Since it was not and must initiate the entire exam experience with full-scale domestic renegotiated at its termination in process over again. testing. If the decision is made to 1988, it was automatically extended Also in early 1990, the depart¬ test in conjunction with the medical for a one-year period, and AFSA has ment will begin “reasonable suspi¬ clearance exam, however, Foreign expected that an additional one-year cion” testing of current Washington- Service employees opting to take extension would come into effect based employees. This testing can that exam in the department might early next year. be ordered only by a deputy assis¬ also be required to have a drug test. The result of this is that, while tant secretary of personnel “as a last AFSA will continue to keep its we still have under advisement the resort,” if efforts to refer the em¬ members informed of developments possibility of a challenge, we doubt ployee suspected of drug abuse to in this area. that it can take place until the M/MED have been unavailing. This summer of 1992.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 55 NEWS

State Standing Committee

George F. Jones of the House-Senate conference. How¬ for a job that requires a security State Vice President ever, AFSA wrote Representative clearance and every time your clear¬ Obey (D-WI) and Senator Leahy ance is updated. Like other em¬ (D-VT), the principal conferees, and ployee organizations, AFSA opposed AFSA Washing¬ talked with their staffers and those the gready expanded intrusiveness ton’s activities this of Senator Kasten (R-WI), the prin¬ of the revised form, and particularly month were again cipal supporter of the “reasonable the sweeping release you must sign, dominated by preparations for the cause” language. We also spoke with authorizing access by Diplomatic conference on cooperation between Representative Don Edwards (D- Security investigators to your finan¬ business and government, and by CA), the chairman of the House cial, medical, and other records and legislative action on the Hill. In the Subcommittee on Civil and Consti¬ waiving your right to sue for the latter department, AFSA can claim a tutional Rights, who gave us imme¬ release of erroneous information. significant victory. diate support and was instrumental These subcommittees, at least, were At the request of AID, members in changing die position of the a sympathetic audience. of the House and Senate foreign House conferees. The conferees We’ve also been building our affairs committees included in the amended the foreign aid bill to relationships with other employee State authorization bill an amend¬ provide for suspension only after organizations in the department. In ment to Sec. 610(a) of the Foreign conviction, and even added addi¬ addition to our meeting with the Service Act, providing for immedi¬ tional due process protection. The Thursday Luncheon Group (TLG) ate separation from the Service of bill is now law. A staffer on the reported on elsewhere in die Netvs, any employee convicted of a job- losing side told us, “We were rolled.” AFSA cosponsored with the TLG a related crime, “subject to reinstate¬ What a pleasure to be able to tell lunch at the Foreign Service Club in ment with back pay if such convic¬ you that for once we were a roller, honor of Representative Dymally tion is reversed on appeal.” AFSA not a rollee. Contribute to AFSA’s (D-CA) on November 20. I met shared State and AID management’s Legislative Action Fund. It works— with the Foreign Service section of interest in being able to separate and it works for you. the Hispanic Employees Council and convicted employees, and we worked Also this month, Ted Wilkinson with the co-presidents of the with them and congressional staffs testified for AFSA before the Sikorski Women’s Action Organization. Soon (including, be it noted, that of and Edwards subcommittees on I expect to see the American Asso¬ Senator Helms [R-NC]) to develop abuses of die security clearance proc¬ ciation of Foreign Service Women. language that would meet that inter¬ ess, and I testified before Represen¬ With all of these groups, we find est as well as protect the rights of tative Conyers’s (D-MI) subcommit¬ that although AFSA’s interests and employees. tee of the House Government Op¬ mandate may be broader than theirs, Unfortunately, perhaps anticipat¬ erations Committee on the new there are many subjects on which ing that the State authorization revision of SF-86, the form you we can work together to mutual would be vetoed and never become must fill out every time you apply benefit. law (as proved to be the case), management simultaneously was work¬ ing on inserting separation language into the FY-90 foreign aid bill— Probation memos continued from page 54 without notifying AFSA. This provision would have permit¬ member to raise performance to a monishment. AFSA immediately ted indefinite suspension, without a satisfactory level. raised this issue with management, hearing or any other form of due Nowhere in the FAM is reference noting that these memoranda could process, of any employee who “there made to “official probation”. The find their way into an employee’s is reasonable cause to believe . . . has period described is designed to bene¬ official performance folder and cause committed” a job-related crime. fit the employee by providing a time unwarranted career damage. Agency management, of course, span during which an individual can The department’s response ac¬ would determine what constitutes remedy any deficiencies in his/her knowledged that use of the phrase “reasonable cause.” performance and thus avoid an unsatis¬ “official probation” had been inap¬ Despite the fact that contradic¬ factory rating. The memos in ques¬ propriate, and indicated that such tory language was being enacted in tion turned this principle on its language would not be used in the the authorization bill, this provision head—by utilizing the term “proba¬ future. Management has assured was passed by both houses in identi¬ tion,” they implied that die employ¬ AFSA that no such documents will cal form and therefore would not ees had received a punishment com¬ be placed into any employee’s per¬ normally have been on the agenda parable to a reprimand or ad- formance file.

56 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 AID promotion fig ures released Negotiations update Congratulations to those who made directions, budget levels, training, it, and condolences to those who placement, and affirmative action. AFSA continues to negotiate had hopes, but didn’t make it. The In order to facilitate career planning with State and AID manage¬ overall promotion numbers were and realistic career expectations, we ment in connection with disci¬ down from previous years—there are encouraging the agency to un¬ plinary action regulations. As were 91 promotions in 1988 (not dertake substantive, long-range per¬ reported in the December edi¬ including the results of the Senior sonnel projections and to communi¬ tion of AFSA News, we have Foreign Service and Senior Thresh¬ cate the results of those projections been unable to reach agree¬ old Boards) but only 85 in 1989. to employees. As an example, the ment at the bargaining table According to Personnel, the number likely impact of a significant SFS on a number of disputed is¬ of promotions has been almost ex¬ salary increase on promotion pros¬ sues. Although we have suc¬ clusively a reflection of lower attri¬ pects at the senior levels for the next cessfully concluded negotiations tion rates. Retirements are down at several years is of significant interest on a majority of proposals, it the senior levels, perhaps in anticipa¬ to many Foreign Service officers. may be necessary to seek assis¬ tion of significant Senior Foreign We expect that agency management tance from the Federal Labor Service (SFS) pay increases, which is reviewing this issue; we would Relations Authority (FLRA) has a ripple effect on the whole hope that the results of this review in order to resolve several egre¬ Service. There has apparently been could be made available to employ¬ gious issues. no real effort, to date, to restructure ees, either generally or through their die rank profile of the agency away career counselors. from what many regard as a “top- heavy” structure, although this may be in the cards for the future. The Letter on Eastern Europe impact only other factor affecting promo¬ tions is an ongoing agency-wide on Foreign Service sent to Selin effort to bring personal grades more or less into accord with position AFSA wrote Under Secretary for task force study provide the data for grades. Management Ivan Selin on Novem¬ “a special appeal to OMB and the The overall numbers for 1989 are ber 17 to urge the formation of a Congress. If defense expenditures shown in the tables below (results task force to assess the impact of must be increased at times of. . . of the Senior Foreign Service and events in Eastern Europe on the military threat, then it should also Senior Threshold Boards cannot be department’s long-range budget and be recognized that expenditures on announced until the president has personnel needs, “rather titan at¬ foreign relations need to be in¬ submitted the list to the Senate for tempting to deal with this historic creased, but at considerably less advice and consent). These numbers sea-change through the normal cost, when the opportunity arises to include seven promotions that di- budget and position-justification proc¬ advance our national interests reedy resulted from the agency’s ess.” through diplomacy. AFSA will sup¬ Affirmative Action Plan. It should State Vice President George F. port you in your efforts to build that be emphasized, however, that the Jones told Selin that “AFSA believes consensus.” latter did not come at the cost of it is of critical importance that the others being “bumped” from the department not simply respond to Outreach brochure events—in Eastern Europe or any¬ promotion list. Affirmative action AFSA has produced a brochure, (AA) promotions are additional, where else—with catch-up measures . . . but rather plan to reallocate American Diplomacy and the Foreign drawn from those rank-ordered for Service, which has been inserted promotion and falling within five resources and personnel so that we stay ahead of predictable needs. . . . into this issue of the FSJ and can be slots of the cutoff line. However, pulled out and passed along. AFSA because they are additional they may It is clearly predictable that we will need expanded staffing at our East¬ members can use the brochure in have the effect of decreasing the their individual efforts to explain number of future promotions. ern European posts, as well as at Western European posts and depart¬ and encourage public support for 1989 Promotions ment offices that deal with. . . the Foreign Service. Additional cop¬ Eastern Europe. New posts will ies may be available, depending on FS-05 to FS-04: 4 demand and funding, for AFSA FS-04 to FS-03: 23 (3 AA) certainly be opened over the next few years. The financial implications members to distribute to civic and FS-03 to FS-02: 25 (1 AA) student groups and to friends and FS-02 to FS-01: 33 (3 AA) are obvious, from language training to communications equipment to family. Please write the Outreach The issue of promotions is tied security costs.” Program at AFSA and include a inextricably with other personnel The AFSA letter urged that the description of how you would dis¬ and program issues: future program tribute the copies you request.

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 57 Federal health insurance: a look to the future

Robert Beers much for the benefits received, i.e., sion of Medicare in the final hours Congressional federal payments for health insur¬ of the first session of the 101st Liaison ance for the average federal em¬ Congress. Second is the report of ployee are approximately $1,100 per the Bipartisan Commission on Com¬ While legislative pre¬ year less than employer payments prehensive Health Care scheduled dictions are notori¬ for health insurance for a typical to be submitted to Congress March ously unreliable, one emerges as a private sector counterpart. 1, 1990. The commission’s mandate virtual certainty: the next few years • Federal employees and retirees covers the areas of both hospital and will see a significant, if not radical, are confronted with too many op¬ non-hospital long-term care for the overhaul in the structure of our tions when trying to decide which elderly and infirm, and comprehensive country’s health insurance systems. plan would best meet their require¬ health services “for all individuals in High on the list of the administra¬ ments. The result: many become the United States.” tion’s priorities in the personnel confused and end up selecting an With retirees making up 40 per¬ field is an overhaul of the Federal option which costs too much for die cent of the total FEHBP enroll¬ Employees’ Health Benefits Program benefits received. ment, of whom 80 percent are (FEHBP). Now in operation some • Over the years, the principle of eligible for Medicare coverage, par¬ 30 years without any fundamental “adverse selection” has led to a ticular attention must be directed changes in its authorizing legisla¬ concentration of elderly enrollees towards coordinating FEHBP cover¬ tion, FEHBP insurance options have (retirees) and chronically ill persons age of annuitants with any initia¬ increased from 36 at the start of the in certain high-option programs with tives generated by the bipartisan program (Blue Cross & Blue Shield, a resulting escalation of premium commission’s report, as well as any Aetna, 13 employee organization charges, as younger, healthier indi¬ possible revisions in the Medicare plans, and 21 Health Maintenance viduals elected to leave those pro¬ benefits structure. Organizations (HMOs), which at grams in favor of lower-cost op¬ Thus, 1990 promises to be the that time were called “comprehen¬ tions. It was this process that led to year in which important changes sive medical plans”) to today’s total Aetna’s withdrawal from FEHBP as will begin to be phased into our of some 450 options, of which of December 31, 1989. nation’s health care systems, includ¬ about 400 are HMOs. Specific legislative proposals for ing the strong possibility that a An opening move in the process revising die FEHBP are being devel¬ realigned FEHBP will be ready to of realigning the FEHBP was the oped in several areas. On behalf of be introduced within the next 18 release of a management-consultant the administration, OPM is man¬ months. study of the program commissioned dated to submit its recommenda¬ by the Office of Personnel Manage¬ tions to Congress in February 1990. ment (OPM) in April 1988. Since The staff of the House Post Of¬ New Editorial Board dien the Congressional Research Serv¬ fice & Civil Service Committee is Members ice, at the behest of the House Post preparing its version, presumably Office & Civil Service Committee, based on the findings and sugges¬ The Editorial Board had a large published the results of a compre¬ tions contained in the Congressional turnover of members in the fall. hensive examination and review of Research Service study. Patricia Mallon was the first to the program with possible “strate¬ Finally, Senator Ted Stevens (R- leave, retiring in August after a long gies for reform” in May of last year. AK) has announced his intention to and distinguished Foreign Service Subsequently there have been two introduce a bill which essentially career. Ambassador Anthony C.E. all-day conferences, one in October would offer a “core plan” of basic Quainton has gone on to his new 1988 and die other in November benefits open to all federal employ¬ post in Lima; Philip-Michael Gary 1989, sponsored jointly by the Na¬ ees and retirees, with several op¬ is in Arabic language training; Law¬ tional Academy of Public Admini¬ tional add-ons providing expanded rence S. Fuchsberg is on his way to stration and OPM, which brought coverage in the form of lower de¬ Zagreb; John E. Lange went to together representatives of the ductibles and co-insurance, and ex¬ Lome; John Pielemeier’s three-year FEHBP insurance plans, employee panded coverage in certain diagnos¬ term on the Board ended in Novem¬ health insurance executives from pri¬ tic areas, an HMO option, and a ber; and Perry Shankle and David vate industry, and senior staff from “Medigap” option for retirees eligi¬ E. Zweifel have joined the inspec¬ both the legislative and executive ble for Medicare coverage. tors’ corps. branches of government. Meanwhile, there are other impor¬ New members include Richard From all of these reports and tant developments, past and pend¬ W. Aherne (State), Peter Benedict conferences several common themes ing, which inevitably must influence (AID), Richard N. Blue (AID), emerged: the future structure of the FEHBP. Helen S. Fouche (a Foreign Service • FEHBP is urgendy in need of First was the virtually total repeal of spouse), Benjamin Lowe (State), reform. In general, enrollees pay too the Catastrophic Health Care expan¬ Howard Schaffer (State), and AFSA President Ted Wilkinson.

58 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 Scholarships

Cristin Springet goals to reach and dreams to trans¬ Suzanne Marie Collins Memorial Scholarship form into realitv. She had made an Scholarship. Administrator excellent beginning along that path “Soon after receiving the award, When you give a when she too soon left us. Since she wrote us from Notre Dame donation to the Suzanne had spent most of her life University^. This ignited a growing AFSA/AAFSW as a Foreign Service family member, two-way correspondence as well as Scholarship Programs, the obvious we decided to establish an AFSA visits and dinners in our home. result is that a student is awarded a scholarship in her name and mem¬ “We expect to see much of grant to help defray the ever- ory to help other young people in Michele in the years ahead, and even increasing costs of a college educa¬ realizing their own goals and dreams. when our journeys separate us, she tion. But when you establish an “To date, thanks to the generosity will be lodged firmly in our hearts. annual donation, or a perpetual fund, of friends, family, and colleagues, It is a thought both ironic and there are additional benefits. I would three outstanding young ladies have mysterious, but ultimately beautiful, like to share with you a letter that I been assisted financially in meeting that the loss of our daughter, with have recently received from Mr. and the ever-escalating costs of univer¬ all its pain and sorrow, should have Mrs. Jack Collins. sity studies. Not often in life do you as one of its legacies a relationship “Our 19-year-old daughter, get a bonus when you try to do so replete with joy, warmth and Suzanne, died suddenly in July 1985. something worthwhile. Our bonus fulfillment. It is perhaps in these A young lady of natural grace and has come in the warm friendship we terms that the full significance and beauty, she was gifted with a vi¬ have established with Michele Burk- value of AFSA memorial scholar¬ brancy of spirit that hungered for art, the initial recipient of the ships can best be viewed.”

Jane Potter Thomas Bowie Patrick O’Conner 1989 Legislative William Christiansen George F. Thowie Frederick C. Oechsner Action Fund Jeanne Norrins Edward W. Schaeffer Lucy Diana Quinn Robert Paganelli Albert S. Fraleigh Mary F. Replogle Contributors Alta Wonder Normand Reddon Robert O. Blake Willy D. Baum Lyne S. Few Robert Bliss Robert Knickmeyer William D. Blair Jr. Henry G. Krause Jr. Charles T. Cross Larue Lutkins Marine Crane Domnick G. Riley Edmund Kelly Irving Tragen Julian Fromer James A. Derrick Max Krebs Phyllis Speck Laemmerzail G. Arnhilt Sara L. Andren John Bell Thompson William Blackerby Melissa F. Wells Orsen W. True worthy Alfred Wellons William Chevoor Janet M. Gorbett Brian S. Kirkpatrick Harold Engle John Hagemann Margaret E. Abraham Laurie A. Johnston Mary' Venison Richard Herndon Robert E. Johnson William D. Broderick Lester Anderson Alden Irons Gilbert H. Sheinbaum Robert Gilson Julio Arias Joseph John Jova Richard S. Dawson Jr. Willy D. Baum Dwight Cramer John C. Panos Pierre L. Sales Dane F. Smith Mabel Waller Ronald H. Pollack Wesley K. Sasaki George A. Smidi Ann Gordon David Popper Willard O. Brown John D. Ingersoll Oliver Sause Brynild Rowbery Patrick M. Rice Douglas J. Clarke Raymond Harrell Charles Sanders Nicholas MacNeil John Doney Jr. Mary' Manchester Reppard Hicks William J. Gill Herbert G. Wing Richard Teare Arthur J. Mekeel Gilbert N. Haycock A. Virginia Weppner Oris Kolb Marion Daniels William H. Gleysteen Henry L. Pitts Edna Long William Krieg Michael Galli Thomas H. Ball Michael Carroll Walter J Sherwin Winifred J. Hall George M. Barbis John McCullough E.I. Underhill Jr. W. Paul O’Neille Jr. Clark H. Billings Harriet Thurgood Robert Neumann Norman R. Schute William R. Duggan Sydney Wagoner Jr. Joseph Yager Virginia Bingham John G. Oliver Dianne Blane Thomas Boyatt Stanley R. Kidder Donald R. Mackenzie William Cole Edward Joyce Gerald G. Jones Morris Weisz Carolyn Cooper Sanford Mentor James J. Blake Norman W. Mosher Stephen Dobrenchak Lois Taylor William R. Tyler David L. Piet Stephen Winship Harry Houk Charles S. Kennedy Jr. Leon Weintraub William R. Tyler Alfred E. Wellons M.A. Sanderson Jr. Parker D. Wyman Alice R. Ward Jackson W. Wilson Nelson F. Sievering Jr. R.A.& Cy Brown Theresa Healy Rebecca Haynes Karen C. Stanton David C. Holton Clyde Taylor Philip J. Rizik Richard F. Dienelt Theodora M. Grant-Katz Harold Christie Richard Benedick George G. Grande Roger C. Brewin Robert Ryan Sr. Margaret Dray Anna F. Meek Herbert Levin Robert Block Amelia Fitzjohn Broderick Alfonso Arenales William B. Coolidge Davis Chamberlain Amelia M. Szatko George B. Lambrakis Alta Fowler Isaac Russell

FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JANUARY 1990 59 Professional Issues Busby urges tenacity in dealing with terrorism

Richard S. Thompson said dtat competing U.S. foreign Professional Issues Coordinator policy interests in these countries cause built-in friction between the Terrorist violence cannot be elimi¬ counterterrorism office and die geo¬ nated, but if we adhere to our graphic bureaus. present policy we can reduce it to Reviewing current threats, Busby manageable levels. This was the key noted that the spectacular hijackings message brought to an attentive of the 1970s and early 1980s have audience at the Foreign Service Club given way to sophisticated airline November 7 by Ambassador Morris bombing attacks. D. Busby, coordinator for counter¬ Concerning the hostage situation, terrorism. he said he foresees no quick solution Ambassador Busby defined ter¬ until there is a change in Iranian Ambassador Morris D. Busby rorism as premeditated, politically policies. Another growing threat is motivated violence against noncom¬ narco-terrorism. As the United States mote its interests. He said that batants. He said that terrorists use becomes more successful in its anti¬ improvement in Iranian behavior violence to create the perception narcotics efforts, he said, we can depends on whether Rafsanjani re¬ that a government cannot safeguard expect a direct threat against Ameri¬ ally wants to change and on whether its citizens. Governments must re¬ cans and an effort to drive us out of he can prevail in die face of the spond to the violence in a way that drug-producing countries. extremists in his government. An¬ does not contravene basic values or Lasdy, the insurgency in the Phil¬ other questioner asked about accusa¬ freedoms. ippines continues to pose a direct tions that the United States sup¬ Busby explained the three ele¬ threat to Americans, and several ports terrorism in Central America. ments of U.S. counterterrorism pol¬ U.S. citizens have been killed in Busby said that our policy must be icy. First, the United States will terrorist attacks there this year. consistent and that we must con¬ make no concessions to terrorists. Ambassador Busby noted that the demn terrorist attacks no matter This does not mean we won’t talk United States has begun counterter¬ who perpetrates them. to terrorists regarding hostages, but rorism discussions with the Soviets Assessing the U.S. bombing of we will not give in to ransom and hoped that these would lead to Libya, Busby said that it led to demands. Rewarding terrorists only possible bilateral and multilateral considerable favorable modification encourages more terrorism. He said cooperation against terrorism. of Libyan behavior but that further the Iran-contra affair damaged our When the first questioner asked if change was required, such as the credibility but that this element of we did not need to address the root expulsion of the Abu Nidal terrorist U.S. policy is now back on a solid causes of terrorism, such as the group and an end to training and footing. Some nations have found it political grievances of the Palestini¬ financing of other groups. difficult to adhere to this policy, but ans, Busby repeated that terrorism violating it only puts odiers at risk. is never justified. When the ques¬ Second, we will bring terrorists tioner suggested the only way to to justice by applying the rule of reduce terrorism was to address law. Busby stated that no political these grievances, Busby said that cause justifies terrorism. The vio¬ violence against innocents cannot be Do It Now! lence terrorists commit is simply condoned, and that state sponsors common crime, such as murder, must not see terrorism as a legiti¬ Support the Foreign Service arson, and kidnapping, and terror¬ mate course of action. During an and recognize your deserving ists should be tried for these crimes. exchange on the PLO, Busby said colleagues by nominating can¬ Third, we must go after state that if there was a clear-cut case of didates for the AFSA Awards. sponsors of terrorism. He said ter¬ PLO backing of a terrorist incident, Details were mailed to all ac¬ rorist groups cannot operate with¬ the United States would have to tive duty members and may out the money, arms, sanctuary, and break off the U.S.-PLO dialogue. also be obtained from AFSA passports which are supplied by a Asked about prospects for im¬ Post Reps, or from AFSA small group of countries, notably proved behavior by state sponsors, Washington. Deadline Iran, Libya, and Syria. The United Busby said that Syria continues to is January 31! States pursues individuals and groups believe that activities by terrorist when it can, but countries must be groups within Syria and in Syrian- held ultimately accountable. Busby controlled areas of Lebanon pro-

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A personal message from Arthur E. Morrissette, founder and president. NTERSTATE I^an cjCinei ~Qnc. In VA 703-569-2121, Ext. 233.800-336-4533 . In MD 301-773-3555 MCI 745 5801 Rolling Road, Springfield, VA 22152 FF357 Eagle Talon Dodge Dynasty

Jeep Cherokee

Chrysler LeBaron Convertible YOURRVSSPORT TO SWINGS. As a member of the Diplomatic Delivery can be arranged for the United Corps, you are entitled to special States or most overseas locations. privileges through Chrysler’s Diplomatic It’s easy to take advantage of these Purchase Program. In addition to special privileges. Just mail in the professional-service, you’ll receive convenient response card on page 7 and preferred savings on a full line of 1990 we’ll send you a catalog plus complete —"Chrysler Motors products. Choose from information on the Diplomatic Purchase Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge and Eagle Program. Or call (313) 978-6526 or telex cars, or Jeep and Dodge Truck vehicles. 0235264 CHRYEXIMDET.

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