The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020
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PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION OCTOBER 2020 MAKING INCLUSION REAL McCARTHYISM REVISITED FOREIGN SERVICE October 2020 Volume 97, No. 8 Focus on Advancing Diversity & Inclusion 22 35 Needed: Diversification A Management Mindset in the Foreign Achieving meaningful change requires Agricultural Service a fundamental shift in the Department Launched five years ago, USDA’s Office of State’s handling of its most of Civil Rights is working alongside the important asset: its people. FAS to create a more engaging and By Charity L. Boyette empowering environment. By Valerie Brown 27 State’s Problems Are Not 37 New: A Look at the Record One Bureau’s Model Despite a decades-old legal mandate, for Moving Forward diversity has simply not been a priority With a spotlight on State’s lack at the State Department. of diversity in the senior ranks, the By Richard A. Figueroa Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs has stepped forward with a practical 30 program to create real change. By Stacy D. Williams The Payne Fellowship: Boosting Diversity 40 at USAID Launched in 2012, Making Diversity the Payne Fellowship has proven and Inclusion Real itself a valuable program. in Foreign Affairs By Youshea Berry Reports from the Employee Affinity Groups MICHAEL AUSTIN MICHAEL FS Heritage: McCarthyism Revisited 52 57 61 A Time of “Great Malaise” The Exile of a China Hand: From the FSJ Archive: The experience of a distinguished John Carter Vincent The McCarthy Years career FSO offers a look into the in Tangier Inside the dark side of mid-century America. For the sin of accurately foreseeing Department of State By Felicity O. Yost the success of Mao Tse-tung’s By John W. Ford communist insurgency, Foreign Service “China hands” were accused of disloyalty and punished. By Gerald Loftus THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2020 5 FOREIGN SERVICE Perspectives Departments 10 Letters 7 81 12 Letters-Plus President’s Views Reflections Taking Stock and Looking Ahead Nixon in Moscow, March 1967 15 Talking Points By Eric Rubin By Jonathan B. Rickert 73 Books 9 82 Letter from the Editor Local Lens Continuing the Conversation Reykjavík, Iceland By Shawn Dorman By Ásgeir Sigfússon Marketplace 19 Speaking Out 76 Real Estate Stop Shipping Your 78 Index to Advertisers Personal Vehicle! By Warren Leishman 79 Classifieds AFSA NEWS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION 63 AFSA Memorial Plaque 67 AFSA on the Hill— Expansion Planned Hill Advocacy During 63 Announcing the 2020 the Pandemic AFSA Award Winners 67 AFSA Voter 64 State VP Voice—Blind EERs: Registration Guide Would They Make Sense? 68 AFSA Member 65 USAID VP Voice—Some Shining Survey on Bias Stars Amid the COVID Dark in the Foreign Affairs Agencies 65 Benjamin Phillips Joins 71 AFSA LM as Grievance Counselor 69 Expanding Our Outreach, 71 USAID Rep Trevor Hublin With Your Help Joins AFSA Governing Board 66 Retiree VP Voice—The Foreign Service Act of 2022? 70 AFSA’s Legal Defense Fund 71 AFSA Welcomes Several Comes to the Rescue Incoming Classes 66 AFSA Names High School Essay Contest Winner 70 AFSA Governing Board Meeting, 72 Social Security Tax Deferral August 19, 2020 On the Cover—Photo courtesy of the Payne Fellowship Program/Maraina Montgomery. Payne Fellows gather at the National Press Club. Top row, from left: Mariela Medina Castellanos (2016), Tracey Lam (2014), Taylor Adams (2013), Ellexis Gurrola (2016) and Hoang Bui (2016). Bottom row: Suegatha Kai Rennie (2016), Jolisa Brooks (2016), Stephanie Ullrich (2016) and Brittany Thomas (2016). 6 OCTOBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL PRESIDENT’S VIEWS Taking Stock and Looking Ahead BY ERIC RUBIN s I write this column, we are two us, COVID-19 hit and changed every- Our elected leaders need the advice months away from November’s thing. The Foreign Service and AFSA have and contributions of senior career elections. By the time you read been in battle mode ever since. We’ve all experts before they make critical foreign Ait, only a month will remain helped support our global community policy decisions. There is no substitute before we and our fellow citizens make through authorized departure, ordered for experience, and our members collec- choices that have the potential to affect departure, separation of dependents, tively bring thousands of years of experi- our lives, and those of our children and medical quarantine and crisis-level staff- ence to their jobs every day. grandchildren, for many years to come. ing shortages. The Senate’s role of advice and con- I don’t claim to know how the elec- We’ve worked with the leadership of sent to senior appointments must also tions will turn out, and I would not even our agencies to support bringing new be restored, so that those carrying out want to try to prognosticate. What I will members of the Foreign Service on board the American people’s business have say is that every one of us, as proud citi- virtually, an unprecedented experiment the endorsement and confidence of two zens of the United States, must vote. And that is now paying dividends every time branches of government, as the Founders we must also comply with the Hatch Act a new class of talented and dedicated intended. that governs political activity of federal Americans joins us. AFSA will work hard for change in the employees. We’ve faced the national crisis of con- coming year: more career officers in chief This year has been a year unlike any science over fundamental issues of race of mission positions, a more diverse and in recent memory. Historians will debate and ethnicity in America, and its impact inclusive Service, and more hiring in all and assess how we as a country and we on our Service and our agencies. As the foreign affairs agencies to compen- as a planet coped with the challenges the September Journal and this edition sate for years of under-recruitment and a that came our way, challenges that are demonstrate, AFSA is determined to play generational challenge in terms of retire- ongoing. a role in shaping our response to these ment and retention. For now, though, it is worth taking challenges and in shaping the Foreign AFSA has not always stood firm in stock of what we have accomplished as Service of the future. defense of our members and our profes- a Service and as an association under As this difficult year draws to a close, sion in the face of unjustified attacks and trying circumstances. Beginning last fall the unfinished business of bringing the discrimination. We stand firm now, and and continuing into this year, we stood Foreign Service back to the central role we will continue to do so going forward. up—as a union and association, as a in American foreign policy formulation It is hard to imagine what 2021 will Service and as patriotic Americans—to mandated in the Foreign Service Act of bring, after the disorienting changes and support and defend our colleagues who 1980 remains. That means having Senate- challenges of 2020. But we will be there were compelled to confirmed senior Foreign Service officers for our members and for the essential participate in the serving as Under Secretaries and Assis- national institution that is the U.S. For- legal process of tant Secretaries, or their equivalents, in eign Service. impeachment. all six of the agencies we represent. Right We count on our members to let us Just when we now, among those six agencies there are know how we can do better, and to stand thought we had put only two Senate-confirmed FSOs serving together in solidarity as we look ahead to that crisis behind at the domestic policymaking level. the next set of surprises. n Ambassador Eric Rubin is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2020 7 FOREIGN SERVICE Editor-in-Chief, Director of Publications Shawn Dorman: [email protected] www.afsa.org Senior Editor Susan Brady Maitra: [email protected] Managing Editor CONTACTS Kathryn Owens: [email protected] AFSA Headquarters: ADVOCACY Associate Editor (202) 338-4045; Fax (202) 338-6820 Director of Advocacy Cameron Woodworth: [email protected] State Department AFSA Office: Kim Greenplate: [email protected] (202) 647-8160; Fax (202) 647-0265 Publications Coordinator USAID AFSA Office: FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION Dmitry Filipoff: [email protected] (202) 712-1941; Fax (202) 216-3710 Director of Finance and Facilities Business Development Manager— FCS AFSA Office: Femi Oshobukola: [email protected] Advertising and Circulation (202) 482-9088; Fax (202) 482-9087 Manager, HR and Operations Molly Long: [email protected] Cory Nishi: [email protected] GOVERNING BOARD Controller Art Director President Kalpna Srimal: [email protected] Caryn Suko Smith Hon. Eric S. Rubin: [email protected] Member Accounts Specialist Editorial Board Secretary Ana Lopez: [email protected] Alexis Ludwig, Chair Ken Kero-Mentz: [email protected] IT and Infrastructure Coordinator Hon. Robert M. Beecroft Treasurer Aleksandar “Pav” Pavlovich: Daniel Crocker Virginia L. Bennett: [email protected] [email protected] Joel Ehrendreich State Vice President Harry Kopp Thomas Yazdgerdi: [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS Jess McTigue USAID Vice President Christopher Teal Director of Communications Jason Singer: [email protected] Joe Tordella Ásgeir Sigfússon: [email protected] FCS Vice President Vivian Walker Manager of Outreach and Internal Hon. Laurence Wohlers Jay Carreiro: [email protected] Communications Dinah Zeltser-Winant FAS Vice President Allan Saunders: [email protected] Michael Riedel: [email protected] Online Communications Manager Retiree Vice President Jeff Lau: [email protected] THE MAGAZINE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS John K. Naland: [email protected] Awards and Scholarships Manager PROFESSIONALS State Representatives Theo Horn: [email protected] The Foreign Service Journal (ISSN 0146-3543), Joshua C.