The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2014 17 AFSA Scholarship AFSA.org/Scholar AFSPA Afspa.org AKA StayAKA.com Arlington Court Suites Hotel arlingtoncourthotel.com Clements Worldwide clements.com Coldwell Banker Residential Bro- kerage (Mary Lowry Smith) dcredlinehomes.com Diplomatic Automobile diplosales.com Embassy Risk Management Embassyrisk.com The Hirshorn Company hirshorn.com/afsa McGrath Real Estate Services homesdatabase.com/jimmcgrath PROMAX Management Inc. promaxrealtors.com WJD Management wjdpm.com 50 Years Ago M ore than 60 ambassadors, both active and retired, met at Pennsylvania State University in November 1963 to discuss the role of the American ambassador in this period of rapid change. The conference was based on the idea that the ambassadorship is a responsible office for which definite prepara- tion and proper qualifications are essential. Everyone agrees that the office should be filled with the most qualified per- sons with the best preparation and background. But what is “best”? Problems at the post, instructions, facility in the language of the country of assignment, rela- tions with the officials and nationals of that country, dealings with and control of U.S. personnel and visits of Washington dignitaries, not excluding congressmen, are a few of the many subjects about which any ambassador, active or retired, has significant views. … Against this challenge a number of conclusions were reached. Chief among them, an ambassador must be familiar with a wide range of subject matter, and able to delegate responsibility, adapt himself to the specialized personnel under his charge, qualify as a public speaker, and play a public role in the host country, in addition to his ancient duties of negotiator and reporter. … On the thorny and much-debated question of whether ambassadors should be drawn from the career Foreign Service or from non-career sources, the con- sensus was that ambassadors should be drawn from both sources. Non-career appointments, it was recognized, brought “new, informed approaches and new vitality in our representation abroad.”The existing ratio of two-thirds career as against one-third non-career seemed acceptable, but the establishment of any fixed ratio was not favored. —Excerpted from“The American Ambassador in a Time of Change,” by Thorsten V. Kalijarvi, FSJ , March 1964. A professor of international relations, Mr. Kalijarvi was appointed by the Eisenhower administration as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador (1957-1960). Despite repeated requests from the committee, AIS also refused to provide complete, accurate and thoroughly cited information to Congress. RECOMMENDATION: In responding to future requests for unclassified talking points from Congress, the IC should sim- ply tell Congress which facts are unclassi- fied and let members of Congress provide additional context for the public. FINDING #12: The co-location of IC and diplomatic per- sonnel in Benghazi could have enhanced security; but co-location often presents tradeoffs that should be carefully evalu- ated in high-threat environments. RECOMMENDATION: The com- mittee agrees that IC and diplomatic personnel should generally be co-located overseas, except where the IC determines that, for operational reasons, co-location is not helpful in meeting mission objec- tives or that it poses a security risk. In those limited instances, the IC should work with the State Department in light of chief-of-mission authorities. However, the committee does not believe that co-