The Foreign Service Journal, March 2023

32 MARCH 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • Overseas, there should also be more rotational job opportunities to enable all entry-level Foreign Service Generalists to spend extended periods of time in different sections of a mission. Determining how this would work at each post should be part of the “right people in the right places” program cov- ered in Blueprint #3. The Presidential Management Fellows program is an excellent model that builds a training continuum and a rotational opportu- nity or development assignment into a two-year program. This rotational proposal makes eminent sense, and echoes a practice that those of us who were part of the now-defunct U.S. Information Agency benefited from. After joining USIA in 1983 and being assigned to Beijing as a junior officer trainee (JOT), I was fortunate to have rotations that took me to the commercial, economic, and consular sections. I also profited from a stint in Shanghai, where I returned 25 years later as consul general. Proven Benefits In their oral histories recorded and catalogued by the Asso- ciation for Diplomatic Studies and Training, retirees Don Bishop and Brian Carlson testify to the benefits of their rotations. As Don Bishop states: “USIA had its own sequencing for the training of new Foreign Service Officers, different than State’s. New USIA FSOs were sent for one year to a training post, usually at one of our larger embassies. This was so the new officer could be exposed to all the different parts of Public Diplomacy, both on the ‘information’ and the ‘cultural affairs’ side. The year at the first post also included some months of rotation through State sections and the Foreign Commercial Service. “Afterward, a new officer went on to a second post in a junior officer position, usually as an assistant information officer or assistant cultural affairs officer. Generally, I found that new State officers were jealous of the USIA system.” Brian Carlson relates his experience thus: “I departed to an assignment as a so-called ‘junior officer trainee’ in the American Embassy in Caracas. In those days a junior officer training assignment was for 12 months. It was ‘over comple- ment’—meaning that you did not occupy an existing position on the organization chart. It was intended to be a rotation among various jobs in the mission—both in USIA work (the cultural work, exchanges, the press side, and the binational center), as well as in different embassy sections (political, economic, administrative). In each section, a younger officer was assigned to be my ‘supervisor,’ and I was given some kind of assignment or project to work on. “I always thought the JOT program of USIA was a good introduction, and I often thought more State Department junior officer positions suffered sometimes because they didn’t have the opportu- nity that USIA’s JOT had to move around and get different experience, to get a different experience, get a real insight into all aspects of the service.” Other alums agree. In her oral history, Judith Bryan remarks: “My rotation in Tokyo included many embassy sections, which truly gave me insight into how an embassy works. Also subsections if a large USIS operation. Invaluable part of my training.” Martin Quinn has this to say on the subject: “The former JO rotation policy was a very good one. I served 1984-1985 for two months each in Management, Consular, POL, Commercial and Econ sections in Riyadh, a well-run embassy, before returning to USIS. The perspective was absolutely invaluable.” And Mary Ellen Gilroy echoes the sentiment: “My JOT rotation in Port-au-Prince was excellent preparation for future assignments as PAO and DCM. I spent a month in all the embassy sections, including USAID and MLO.” Despite Occasional Roadblocks Of course the rotational experience, which sometimes included a Washington, D.C., component, faced occasional roadblocks. Susan Clyde, who was head of Foreign Service Personnel for USIA before the 1999 merger, observed that the program depended on the goodwill of the people involved at the post, including a PAO willing to let a junior officer spend time in another section instead of doing public diplomacy work. The rotational proposal echoes a practice that those of us who were part of the now-defunct U.S. Information Agency benefited from. Maria Carluccio/Theispot