The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2023 21 We had seen that from 1948 to 1952, President Harry S Tru- man and Secretary of State Dean Acheson did not protect the Service and FSOs from attacks by the Democrat-controlled House Un-American Activities Committee. Likewise, neither President Dwight Eisenhower nor Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had protected us from the depredations of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) from 1952 to 1956. The lesson was clear: In Washing- ton, you must be able to defend yourself. Second, in 1969 President Richard Nixon unexpectedly decreed, in Executive Order 11491, that there should be unions in the federal sec- tor. Suddenly, there was a potential pathway for AFSA to secure and build political and financial power on a presiden- tially sanctioned basis as a union. It was the opportunity of a lifetime; but, of course, not every- body saw it that way. A period of disagreement and debate ensued, both within AFSA and within the Foreign Service generally. We all know how the saga ends. AFSA did become a union. We celebrate this year the glorious golden anniversary of AFSA’s election victories to become the union of all Foreign Service personnel. Indeed, in its half century, AFSA the union has put AFSA the professional association cum union on Washington’s power map. This happy outcome, however, was by no means a foregone conclusion. The years following Nixon’s 1969 pronouncement were a time of strife and struggle. There were elections to be won and momentous negotiations to maximize the potential fruits of victory; and the costs of failure were correspondingly enormous. AFSA President Eric Rubin refers to this era as AFSA’s “heroic age.” Here is that story from the viewpoint of a combatant. Three Elections and an Existential Negotiation The AFSA Election of 1967 . In the winter of 1966, the future Young Turks began to meet in Charlie Bray’s basement to discuss how to improve the Foreign Service. We agreed on only two things: We had to have an institutional platform to reform the FS, and AFSA was the ideal organization for that purpose. Accordingly, Bray recruited Lan- non Walker, and they organized a reform slate to contest every board and officer position in AFSA’s 1967 election. The Young Turks won every seat. At that point we faced the reality that discussing reform is much easier than making it happen. There were consultations with management over the next two years, but no durable results. The AFSA Election of 1969 . With Walker posted overseas, Bray organized the second Young Turk slate, which swept all positions. Later, in 1969, the Nixon executive order raised the union issue, and that became the over- riding focus for the Bray Board. From this point on, the protagonists were: • The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Junior Foreign Service Officers Club (JFSOC) wanted a single system for all government employ- ees under E.O. 11491, the exclusion of all “managers” broadly defined from the union, and a three-year contract covering employee working conditions; • The Young Turks on the Bray Board and the soon-to- be-formed Harrop Board strongly favored a union system, but one that was independent of the Civil Service and one that recognized the unique aspects of the Foreign Service. We also favored negotiation of personnel policy agencywide and a ALEXANDRABOWMAN.