The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | April 2013 29 shall provide the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, with each nomination for an appointment as a chief of mission, a report on the demonstrated competence of the nominee,” the Bush 41 White House staff made the mistake of sending identical boilerplate nominations for the ambas- sadors to Australia and Spain. Senator Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., picked up on this, and AFSA went to court to have all the nominations made public. That release revealed just how careless and cavalier the nomination process had become; for instance, the nominee for Guatemala was expected to be a fine ambassador to Venezuela. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee at least debated some of the nominees’ qualifications, and split on party lines in reporting them to the Senate floor. But in the end the Demo- cratic opposition abandoned principle to go along with “the system,” and the candidates were approved by large majorities. Only one, a New York donor with more social than profes- sional qualifications, fell by the wayside—and only because she Fight the Good Fight By Ted Wilkinson A FSA’s becoming a union 40 years ago reinforced one of the Governing Board’s primary duties: maximizing the professionalism of the American diplomatic service. A large part of that effort is the constant struggle to keep chief-of- mission and agency leadership positions in the hands of career Foreign Service officers. As current AFSA President Susan John- son and others have documented, there is an accelerating trend away from assigning career Foreign Service officers to top-tier State Department jobs—even as the number of such positions proliferates. The job of defending the Foreign Service against non-career incursions should be a lot easier than it is. After all, the legisla- tive and executive branches of our government are already on our side, at least in principle. Congress bestowed on us a benign governing statute, the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which states that “positions as chief of mission should normally be accorded to career members of the Service,” and “contributions to politi- cal campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment.” In response to questions during his campaign about awarding ambassadorships to donors, President Barack Obama sounded as though he had actually read the statute and agreed with it. Alas, the president’s first term proved that little has changed. Nor is there any reason to hope for significant improvement dur- ing his second. The dreary rollout of donor nominations that followed Pres. Obama’s inauguration four years ago was all too reminiscent of President George H.W. Bush’s first two years, when I served as AFSA president. Some of us had hoped that Bush’s own diplo- matic experience and military service would lead him to place a premium on professionalism. Sadly, an inept White House appointments staff shuffled donor rolodexes instead, sending a stream of scarcely vetted nominations to Capitol Hill. Ignoring the 1980 statute’s provision that “the president “AFSA should continue to fight the good fight for the appointment of truly qualified individuals to key positions, both overseas and in Washington itself. After all, Congress itself set that standard in the Foreign Service Act of 1980.” —Ted Wilkinson (AFSA President, 1989-1991) Psst! Hey, Buddy, Wanna Buy an Ambassadorship?