The Foreign Service Journal, January 2011

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 China Service I was pleased to see Hannah Gur- man’s excellent FS Heritage profile of John Service (“John S. Service: A Cold War Lightning Rod”) in the November FSJ , and look forward to reading her prize-winning dissertation, “The Dis- sent Papers,” when it is in book form. Allow me, however, to offer some ad- ditional details regarding one sentence in her piece: “When the American For- eign Service Association honored him at a 1973 luncheon, he chose to speak ... on political reporting. ...” This de- scription could give the impression that the event paid tribute only to Service. In fact, AFSA President Bill Har- rop’s invitation letter makes clear that the event’s purpose was broader: “At a luncheon on the Department of State’s 8th floor at noon on Jan. 30, 1973, the American Foreign Service Association will honor those Foreign Service offi- cers in China during the early 1940s who demonstrated their professional- ism and integrity by reporting events as they saw them.” And the noted histo- rian Barbara Tuchman began her luncheon address by saying, “We have gathered to honor a group of Foreign Service officers — represented in the person of Jack Service—whomhistory has recognized as having been right.” It seems fitting to list those officers, here, though even Tuchman’s listing was incomplete: Clarence Gauss, George Atcheson, John Davies, Ed- ward Rice, Arthur Ringwalt, Philip Sprouse, Edmund Clubb and John Carter Vincent. The classic account of this tragic episode in our history re- mains E.J. Kahn’s The China Hands: America’s Foreign Service Officers and What Befell Them . Bob Rackmales FSO, retired Northport, Maine An Admirable Mission Thanks to Krishna Das for bringing our attention to the Department of State’s mission statement (November Letters). We should all be very proud to be associated with such a noble and inspiring document. Now, what are the chances that our newly elected U.S. Congress will adopt a similar ap- proach to how we should treat every- one living within our own borders? Bill Burke FSO, retired Williamsburg, Va. Simplify Interagency Hiring I wanted to write to you briefly to say I greatly appreciated Susan John- son’s President’s Views column (“Ad- dress Mid-Level Hiring to Strengthen Our Institutions”) in the October FSJ . It is exciting finally to see AFSA, and the foreign affairs agencies, not have a knee-jerk reaction to mid-level hiring. I agree that we shouldn’t open the floodgates, but a short-term hiring project targeting individuals with the needed management and foreign af- fairs experience could alleviate some of the shortages identified and exacer- bated with the drain caused by the Critical Priority Country posts. Currently, there are thousands of cleared, experienced Foreign Service generalists and specialists working at posts throughout the world for a vari- ety of agencies. Why not tap into this well of experience and skill to meet the demands of today’s foreign affairs? Red tape and financial hurdles keep some individuals who could become highly valuable assets to State and other agencies from even considering leaving their current positions. I’ll give you a personal example. As part of a Foreign Service interagency tandem couple (USAID and State) with 10 years of government experi- ence, including overseas service as a re- gional specialist, I probably understand and accept the realities of the FS lifestyle better than 95 percent of the new hires starting A-100. And there are plenty of other individuals like me out there. Yet for us to go to work for State in the Foreign Service, we’d es- sentially have to start over. Just to take the State Department Foreign Service exam as a current non- State FSO overseas, I have to hope that my current post hosts the exam, and then pay for a transcontinental flight back to the United States for the oral exam. It is neither efficient nor ef- fective to make some of the most ex- perienced candidates jump through so L ETTERS