The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

FSJ : Secretary Powell has won enormous loyalty from his new troops, thanks in large part to his success in obtaining much-needed resources for State and reversing the negative trends that the Service had been fac- ing. How can those gains be consoli- dated so they outlast his eventual departure? WRP : Just about everybody I’ve talked to here in the department — Foreign Service and Civil Service alike — has told me that the most impor- tant thing I could do as director gen- eral would be to help consolidate the gains that Secretary Powell and his team have brought to the department. So that is what I consider to be my top priority. My second priority is strength- ening the partnership between the Civil Service and Foreign Service in Washington and strengthening the capability of our excellent Foreign Service National corps overseas. My third priority is to continue to have our State Department and Foreign Service truly represent America by recruiting and retaining qualified minorities. We’re all in debt to the Secretary for what has been accomplished. But a debt, in a way, represents a loan that has been entrusted to us. Now we have to take that loan, if you will, and turn it into an investment, something that continues to pay off for the indef- inite future. The only way to do that is to develop the potential of our per- sonnel. It also requires people to renew their commitments. As Secretary Powell has shown us, we can’t simply depend on what someone else does; it also has to be what we are willing to do. After Vietnam, when the Army corps of officers — younger officers — developed the notion of land/sea/air combat planning as a reaction to what they perceived as the mistakes of that war, they carried that idea forward through a whole genera- tion of military officers. I believe we can do the same thing in the State Department, and I think that’s what we have to do. FSJ : There has been some appre- hension about the new EER form, currently being tried out on FS-1 and Senior Foreign Service officers, which calls for a personal essay from the rated employee. How would you respond to concerns that such a form would be particularly unfair if used to evaluate more junior officers? WRP : This is still a pilot program so, of course, it’s too early to tell. But one of the reasons behind the deci- sion to change the form was the recognition, and I know this from my own experience, that Foreign Service employees agonize over the need to write a two-part evaluation, one part evaluation and one part potential, because there often is a lot of overlap. Secondly, when informal surveys were done, a lot of people admitted that on many occasions they’d been asked to write their own EERs. FSJ : When I was an FSO, I had that experience more than once. WRP : So why not allow the rated employee to express himself or her- self first on what the performance was, and then let the supervisor con- sider that? After all, the employee knows the details and can express them. I basically think there is a cer- tain responsibility associated with drafting an EER for all concerned. So we’ll see how this works at the 01 level and take a careful look at it. We’re certainly not trying to make the process more difficult, but want to make it fairer and more accurate. I have been listening to those who have expressed concerns and we’ll obviously see how the experiment goes. But there does seem to be a general consensus that the previous process wasn’t working as well as it might. FSJ : It hasn’t been in the news so much lately, but last year there seemed to be signs that Congress was looking at taking away the visa func- tion from State and assigning it to the new Department of Homeland Secur- ity. What would you say to consular officers who are concerned that DHS may be planning a gradual takeover of the visa function? WRP : Secretary Powell and [CA Assistant Secretary] Maura Harty have the lead on this. But all of us in the State Department are committed to helping DHS do its job and to ensuring that State continues to per- form the functions assigned to it by law, including the issuance of visas. I think a great deal of good work has been done on this and I don’t have the impression the visa function is going to be leaving the State Department. FSJ : Do you see any need to look at moving toward a unitary personnel system for State Department person- nel, merging the Foreign and Civil Service structures? WRP : I would not allow form to prevent us from taking advantage of any and every flexibility we might have. I believe 10 of the first 47 State Department personnel into Iraq were members of the Civil Service. So I just don’t think we can do crisis man- agement without planning for a Civil Service component. There are ways for Civil Service and Foreign Service colleagues to F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 55 We owe it to ourselves to have a stronger Foreign Service-Civil Service partnership.