The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

played an indispensable role in launching those efforts and has made them a priority in terms of her time and her engagement. There is no doubt that the U.S. government can and should do more to improve our public diplomacy efforts around the world. Karen Hughes and her team are working flat- out to do just that. I regret that the Foreign Service Journal gave such short shrift to those efforts, and by extension, to the hundreds of career employees around the world who are dedicated to advancing them. The State Department is com- prised of both political appointees and career officers. Both groups of peo- ple, in my experience, understand that our success depends on trusting each other and working well together. It is such a tired old chestnut to assume conflict between the two when it needn’t always exist. Karen Hughes is a compassionate and generous person who has bent over backward to rely on our career service for advice and guidance. I would hope a more generous attitude toward her and other political appoint- ees would prevail in our Service, and that we would not assume conflict where it does not exist. R. Nicholas Burns Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Washington, D.C. A Valuable Issue I have been intending for the last month to compliment the Journal staff on the October edition of the FSJ . It is a very useful report on the current state of the program. In particular, Joe Johnson’s article, “How Does Public Diplomacy Mea- sure Up?” stimulates thought about the future of this field — both the problems it raises for the conduct of international relations and what must be done to mobilize and prepare to discover opportunities and to capital- ize upon them. Perhaps there is liter- ature elsewhere on the subject, but the Journal has done an important ser- vice by assembling and publishing this collection of high-quality articles. William J. Cunningham FSO, retired Associate Professor Emeritus, Center for International Studies University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas PD Officers in PD Jobs The articles evaluating the perfor- mance of Under Secretary Karen Hughes made very interesting read- ing, but I would like to point out an obvious omission. Many entry-level PD officers joined the department as part of the buildup known as the Dip- lomatic Readiness Initiative. Moti- vated to serve our country, they looked forward to addressing a weakness that has been pointed out by numerous fact-finding bodies, including the 9/11 Commission. All of these inquiries found that the U.S. government has failed to properly promote or explain American policy and culture. Considering the obvious need to address this situation, one might think that there would be plenty of opportu- nity for entry-level officers in this area. In fact, there is extremely little oppor- tunity for PD-coned officers to serve in that area until their third tour when, presumably, they have acquired tenure and are part of the depart- ment’s middle ranks. The overwhelming majority of PD- coned entry-level officers will not have the opportunity to serve in a public diplomacy position during their first two tours. A look at the most recent bidding cycle will only confirm this sad fact. As just one example, there was only one available PD slot in all of the Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau. Other regions were hardly better. As I consider the backgrounds of the PD officers in my A-100 class, many of whom had made a mid-career switch and possess formidable experi- ence in journalism or marketing, am I mistaken to believe that it is an incred- ible waste of human resources to delay or mitigate their ability to contribute to the department in this crucial area? Today, unfortunately, I must con- clude that we are misusing some of our human resources. But must it remain that way? Even taking into consideration the number of consular positions that must be filled each cycle and the benefits of using consular work to introduce new officers to State Department culture, I would contend that the department would be better served by getting these officers some experience in their cone as early as possible. In fact, the goal should be to get all entry-level officers some experi- ence in their cone before the end of the second tour. Obviously, the changes required to do this in public diplomacy (opening up more PD positions to entry-level officers or creating more rotational assignments) won’t be accomplished overnight. But in order to begin add- ressing this situation, there has to be a recognition that the problem exists. I sincerely hope that U/S Hughes will share my view that a problem exists and use her considerable influence to address it. Russell K. Brooks FSO Embassy Tegucigalpa Welcome Advice In “What I Wish I Had Known,” (FS Know-How, November), Robin Holzhauer has written a must-read essay for young Foreign Service offi- cers — and for junior careerists in almost any field. Great work! One additional thing to keep in mind, I believe, is the mantra that offi- cers of all grades make themselves J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 L E T T E R S