“In Defense of the Foreign Service”

Although I’m a newcomer to the DC world, I’ve quickly gathered that it is a city of many power struggles. One of the largest of these in the government world is between the State Department and the rest of the executive branch (particularly the Pentagon.) It has been an issue for some time, but is apparently easier to spot with the current administration as State is regarded by many as a liberal institution. Figure in a strongly conservative administration plus a war in Iraq and Afghanistan and that can create tension.

I’m far too low on the totem pole to notice much of this, but it was apparently mentioned in a recent column by Robert Novak in The Washington Post. Here is a letter of response to the column written by the president of AFSA (American Foreign Service Association) Amb. J. Anthony Holmes. I thought some of you might be interested in it.

It was fascinating reading Robert Novak’s insider’s account of the
senior personnel machinations at the State Department (“The Mess at
State,” January 11)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011002021.html>.

Novak’s repetition of the old canard that “the State Department
permanent bureaucracy (is) traditionally hostile to Republican
administrations” and his political indictment that career foreign
service officer Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns “surely would
have been in the same post if John Kerry had been elected in 2004 and
seemingly would have been more at home in a Democratic administration”
are particularly egregious statements that seek to undermine 135 years
of bipartisan efforts to create U.S. Government foreign policy and
national security institutions whose purpose is to promote and defend
the interests of the nation, not particular parties or individuals.

History has repeatedly proved that Novak’s strong implication, that
career foreign service officers who work for one administration cannot
be loyal to, nor carry out the foreign policies of, the next after a
political change, is simply balderdash. Does he also impugn the
professionalism of our military and intelligence service professionals?

Novak and others reveal their own biases when they insinuate that,
immediately upon entering the State Department lobby, Secretaries of
State are hogtied by a rogue Foreign Service and held hostage. Memoirs
by recent Republican Secretaries George Shultz and James Baker amazingly
fail to mention these coups.

Especially at a time when nearly 1,500 Foreign Service members have
volunteered to serve unarmed in the Iraqi war zone, carrying out the
Bush administration’s main foreign policy effort, Novak’s gratuitous
slur against State Department employees is unworthy. His statements
disparage thousands of courageous public servants who serve their
country in the most difficult and dangerous places in the world - and
who take a 19% base pay cut for the privilege of leaving Washington to
do so.

J. Anthony Holmes (Amb.)