THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2024 23 deserve a Foreign Service that is excellent and representative, and it is management’s job to see that we get it.” Goodbye, USIA. The austerity drive of the 1990s was wind in the sails for a measure long favored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to close USIA, USAID, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), and transfer their functions to the State Department. AFSA initially opposed the bill, but after Bill Harrop and Tom Boyatt rejoined the board in 1995 as retiree representatives, the board was split, with Harrop and Boyatt in favor of the bill and Tex Harris opposed. AFSA took no position, the bill was passed, vetoed, As the gray-flannel 1950s gave way to the tie-dyed 1960s, the spirit of dissent and rebelliousness that spread across the country came to affect the staid Foreign Service. and Evaluation said: “A lot of white males are discriminated against,” and an unknown number of AFSA members shared that sentiment. Neither the Foreign Service Act of 1980 nor the department’s affirmative action programs seemed to have much effect. What did work, at least to some degree, was litigation. First female and later Black officers filed class-action suits that led to hundreds of retroactive promotions and court-ordered changes in the hiring process. AFSA, internally divided, chose not to be a party to the lawsuits. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the mass demonstrations that followed, AFSA abandoned its hesitation and gave full-throated support to greater diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. AFSA’s negotiating positions on issues related to hiring, promotion, performance evaluation, and assignment reflected this change of heart. But AFSA can negotiate only on process and procedure, with limited influence on outcomes. In 2022, according to AFSA President Eric Rubin (2019-2023), the Senior Foreign Service was “the least diverse it’s been in more than 30 years”—two-thirds male and 80 percent white. In the end, as AFSA President Hume Horan (1991-1992) said, “We Americans AFSA president Tom Boyatt (second from left) testified on the State Department Appropriations Authorization Act before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 12, 1974. With him are (from left) AFSA Vice President Tex Harris, AFSA Treasurer Lois Roth, and Hank Cohen, chairman of AFSA’s members’ interests committee. Boyatt led off with an attack on the sale of ambassadorships to campaign contributors. Boyatt, later ambassador to Burkina Faso and Colombia, and Harris (AFSA president 1993-1997) were elected to positions on AFSA’s Governing Board again and again into the 2010s. Boyatt received AFSA’s award for lifetime contributions to American diplomacy in 2008. Cohen, who retired in 1993 with the rank of Career Ambassador, received the same award in 2019. FSJ DIGITAL ARCHIVE (JUNE 1974 EDITION) Image 4
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