The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

20 MARCH 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL In Washington, the State Department had no “double-check” system for safes and office doors at COB and only casual control over who entered the building. that once let waggish officers substitute their dog’s photo for their own has been replaced by state-of-the-art IDs with double-coded entry systems. After bitter experience, ranging from a disappearing computer (hopefully only stolen by cleaning staff, not espionage- connected) to a listening device in a State Department conference room (a foreign diplomat was detected receiving transmissions), internal security has also tightened. The ultimate embarrassment remains the “man in the brown tweed jacket,” who entered the Secretary of State’s outer office and walked away with the all-source morning briefing pouch ... and was never seen again. Combined with revelations that some officers nominated for ambassadorial appointments had a significant number of security violations, these shortcom- ings prompted a major security overhaul. There are now stringent rules regard- ing penalties for security violations that can be career-threatening (or at least promotion-delaying). The blistering recognition that 9/11 terrorists were in the USA with legitimate visas, not “illegals” slipping across the border from Canada or Mexico, prompted extensive rethinking of admission poli- cies. The largest group of new FSOs is now in the consular cone; virtually every applicant frommost countries is person- ally interviewed by a U.S. officer with computerized “lookout” lists constantly consulted. Concern for security has also been driven by WikiLeaks’ distribution of mas- sive amounts of classified material to the global media and Edward Snowden’s even more disastrous revelations of NSA opera- tions, the ramifications of which are still unfolding. Consequently, security today is any- thing but casual. Diplomatic Security offi- cers are now among the largest contingent of State Department personnel. We are doubtless more secure, but “nervous in the Service” is also a reality when a secu- rity violation is no longer a trivial offense. Family-Friendliness Until the 1970s, the concept of making the Foreign Service “family-friendly” literally did not exist. (One recalls the old military maxim, “If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one.”) Particularly in developed countries, support came primarily from Foreign Ser- vice colleagues, not from post manage- ment or Washington. As a result, arrang- ing housing, finding suitable schools for one’s children, and dealing with separa- tions and family emergencies could all be real struggles. Larger societal changes have, thank- fully, brought the Service into the 21st century. Management now recognizes that spouses have careers that require accommodation, particularly those in tandem couples. If the spouse and family are not happy, the FSO is not—and the chances rise that he or she will depart. With the creation of the All-Volunteer Army, the U.S. military has learned to pay a great deal of attention to assuring family support on bases, both for stateside and deployed assignments. State is still playing catch-up to some extent, but the Family Liaison Office, along with Community Liaison Offices at posts and youth support groups (“Around the World in a Lifetime”), have helped. There is also much greater flexibility in terms of timing high school education to alleviate the trauma of moving a rising senior from one school to another. The growing number of FS personnel on unaccompanied assignments for a year or more find it much easier to keep in touch with loved ones via innovations like Skype—allowing the FS member to know about every physical or social mis- ery without being able to help. The Double-Edged Sword of High Tech In 1968 we were not reporting on clay tablets written in cuneiform and delivered via Pony Express. Most standard reporting was by airgram (in effect, a memorandum sent by diplomatic pouch whose delivery often took weeks). Telegrams, written in compressed language (“telegraphese”), were reserved for high-priority commu- nications. In the late 1970s, State got low-level Wang computers with text editing capabilities, and high-priority embassies received optical scanners for telegram transmission. Frenzy mounted. By work- ing until midnight in Washington, you could send guidance to European posts that would arrive by the opening of business. Conversely, by working until midnight, European posts could send responses that would arrive at midday in State, thus continuing the frenzy- response cycle. Almost unnoticed, airgrams disap-