The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 11 Defining Diversity A letter in the December FSJ objects to all white males shown in an honored group on the cover of the September issue and pleads for more diversity. I recall serving with a group of white males who could not have been more diverse in backgrounds and experience— one a Mayflower family descendant, one the son of holocaust survivors and another who was the first in the family to go to college from a remote place in Appalachia. Life in the Foreign Service is a rich experience because of the real diversity of individuals we work with and enjoy, not by photo representation of demographic or other groups. The Foreign Service exists to be an effective instrument to advance American foreign policy interests. I have served and negotiated in many places, fromNorth Korea to South Africa. I don’t recall that the folks on the other side of the table ever cared if the U.S. teamwas composed of Aleut lads or the sons of Vermont hill farmers. Whoever we were, we were rec- ognized as representing the United States, and dealt with accordingly. Herbert Levin FSO, retired New York City, N.Y. Useful Focus on Afghanistan I amwriting to express my appreciation for the December issue of the FSJ , focusing on Afghanistan. My only direct connection with that country is a week I spent there a very long time ago. But no American citizen can afford to be unconcerned about its present state and its likely future. From that standpoint I found the three focus articles in your December issue to be truly valuable. They were serious articles, worthy of a serious publication, and indeed likely to be of interest to people inside the govern- ment. To be sure, they presented three distinct perspectives. But when taken together they gave a definite feel for what is really going on there. I also appreciated the December Letter from the Editor, setting out the issue’s con- tents and significance and how the articles related to each other. I found it helpful in my reading of them. I hope for similar articles and letters in forthcoming issues. The Rev. Theodore L. Lewis FSO and FSR, retired Germantown, Md. “Up or Out,” Redux In the November Journal , FSOMatt Weiller lambasted George Lambrakis’ denunciation of “Up or Out” (Septem- ber Speaking Out). He said the view was “severely dated,” asserting that more, not less, up or out is necessary in order to weed out officers for “areas of conduct, suitability and discipline (known as CSD) and performance management issues.” Mr. Weiller is conflating two separate matters. It is one thing to be able to weed out officers for legitimate reasons. But it is quite another thing for the State Department to eat its seed corn by involuntarily separating perfectly good officers through the promotion panel process. Employee Evaluation Reports are inflated, and promotion panels are chal- lenged to identify the true best performers based on EER after EER of imaginative writing. But so much more that is unre- lated to performance impinges on the process: limited promotion numbers for