The Foreign Service Journal, March 2019

10 MARCH 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL But wait! Also in that issue, I find a fascinating piece on “Gaps in the Record” from historian Warren Cohen about his decision to resign as chair of the Secretary of State’s committee that reviews the Foreign Rela- tions of the United States volumes before publica- tion. The Iran 1952-1954 volume, Cohen explained, “did not constitute an honest record of American activity in Iran,” and that was because the committee, under new rules in the 1980s, had been denied access to the material not being included. His departure in protest led ultimately to new legislation to open up more documents for review in the FRUS compilation process. And in that same edition, then-AFSA President Ted Wilkinson shared a broad vision in AFSA Views: “These days we wake up each morning half expecting to see another striking new feature on our horizon from some further dramatic change in the political landscape. In the course of months, we’ve watched the Warsaw Pact disin- tegrate, with signs that the USSR may follow.” (This prescient note is a reminder that the narra- tive that the breakup of the Soviet Union took the U.S. government by surprise is off-base. For that story, click over to the December 2011 FSJ .) Wilkinson asked ques- tions in 1990 that resonate today: “Clearly our goals should encompass consolidating the remarkable gains of 1989-1990 and dealing more intensively with remaining trans- national problems—surplus armaments, narcotics, refugees, population, the environment and underdevelopment. What is less clear is how best to pursue these goals. Are our govern- ment’s foreign affairs agencies still properly structured for a changing set of challenges? Is the Cold War era rational still valid? …We think the Foreign Service ought to have something to say about how [these questions] are answered.” And he announced that AFSA had formed a task force to look at the big questions. Anyway, I hope you get my point about the rich and relevant content that has been published in 10 to 12 editions every year since 1919—and that you will enjoy visiting the digital archives and sharing the rare finds within. (Go to the archive home page and try out the archive-only search function using names or key words: www.afsa.org/fsj-archive.) As frequent Journal contributor and current Editorial Board member Harry Kopp warns in the April 2018 FSJ : “Poking around in the archive will stir the sediment of memory in ways that are informative, revelatory, provocative and habit- forming.” Anniversary Reflections The Journal is a mirror for the Foreign Service, for 100 years of diplomatic history. So much is reflected there about the people, the institution and the era—from editori- als to advertisements. The archive reveals that as the FSJ marked important anniversaries, an editor or FSO would reflect on the publication’s origins and path, its phases and progress, and its growth from being under the watchful eye of the Department of State to a more “independent voice of the Foreign Service” (the 1980s tagline). Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’d like to share some of the more illustrative passages from past Journal anniversaries. At the 10-year anniversary, in the March 1929 edition, Assistant Secretary of State Wilbur J. Carr, wrote: “This, the tenth