20 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 1972, the three officially recognized unions at the State Department also lost recognition. With the stroke of a presidential pen, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA, for members of the Foreign Service), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE, for members of the Civil Service), and the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE, for civil servants in the Bureau of Consular Affairs) were stripped of official recognition. Left standing after the cancellation of more than a half-century of official arrangements and cooperation was the Ben Franklin Fellowship. A Dramatic Rise BFF has become the only de facto employee organization of the U.S. Department of State. A year after the president’s inauguration, it functions as the equivalent of a Communist Party cell in Soviet government ministries. Membership is not required to maintain employment, but those with ambition and aspirations for advancement may conclude that joining BFF is the ticket to future opportunities. The public endorsement of BFF membership for active-duty employees by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, a BFF member, has sent a very clear signal. This was on display during the official 2025 State Department awards ceremony in May. DACOR was disinvited from presenting their annual Foreign Service Cup at the ceremony, a long-standing tradition. Deputy Secretary Landau chaired the ceremony, where he proudly declared himself a member of BFF. He further urged active-duty employees to join BFF before introducing Philip Linderman, recipient of the department’s highest award, the Director General’s Foreign Service Cup. Linderman, a retired FSO, is a co-founder of BFF and its current chair. In his speech, Linderman denounced the impact of DEIA policies on the composition of the Foreign Service and urged both active-duty employees and retirees to join the BFF. This has been accompanied by a series of highly partisan columns posted on the group’s website, some by active-duty members of the Foreign Service and Civil Service. Since then, State has hosted several joint activities with BFF, including recruitment events, significant in light of the fact that in 2025, State shut down the entire Diplomats in Residence program as well as the entire recruitment office in the Bureau of Personnel and Training at State. Troubling Realities There are many troubling and problematic aspects of BFF’s rise to prominence at State and in the Foreign Service. Political exclusivity. As noted previously, all employee organizations and unions lost recognition and were banned from State Department facilities. Only the BFF has been allowed to use department facilities for meetings and events. The Deputy Secretary of State and many other senior officials are proud members. The message could not be more clear: If you want to survive and thrive at State, you should join the BFF and conform your personal politics to its partisan agenda, which tracks loosely with the Trump administration’s agenda. This is historically unprecedented and represents a serious surge in politicization of the workplace. Leadership complicity. I don’t see how the Deputy Secretary and other senior officials can join BFF and then say that membership is voluntary and will
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