The Foreign Service Journal, April 2018

60 APRIL 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL DEFINING DIPLOMACY for YEARS Above inSILVERFOILonCover FSJ March 1988 The Making of a Defector A former Sandinista major’s story sheds new light on the Nicaraguan regime and the controversy over the Contras. –George Gedda, Associated Press State Department correspondent FSJ May 1989 The Unaccepted Challenge What can be done to improve human rights reporting? First, human rights officers need training. The State Department offers courses in political tradecraft, economic reporting, and labor affairs, but it offers nothing to prepare human rights officers for their jobs. Such training need not be elab- orate, but it should familiarize officers with the problems they will face in the field (case studies would be the best way to do this); bring officers up-to-date on human rights legislation; and put officers in contact with the various human rights organizations and other interested parties— especially congressional staff. –Tom Shannon, FSO FSJ June 1989 Court Orders End to Sex Discrimination After 13 years in litigation, a sex discrimination suit brought against the Department of State [Palmer v. Baker, filed in 1976 by former FSO Alison Palmer] has tentatively been settled in a manner that could change the fate of up to 600 female Foreign Service officers and will certainly alter the entrance examination for many women—and men—seeking to join. –Elizabeth Lee Fitzgerald, a freelance writer 1990 ~ 1999 FSJ October 1990 Diplomacy and the Environment FSJ July 1991 The Diplomatic Mistake That Made Yugoslavia Many decades of Serb-Croat disquietude have brought the Yugoslav nation to a decisive crossroads: their choice is either to continue as best they can, seeking illusive solutions, such as reconstitution as a confederate union, or simply to make a clean break with the past and separate.Without a negotiated and peaceful separation now, the universally feared vision for the future is continued strife and eventual civil war. –Stephen N. Sestanovich, FSO FSJ February 1992 Post Cold War Intelligence: The State Department’s Role FSJ June 1992 Lowering the Nuclear Threshold: The Specter of North Korea If the United States and other concerned governments conclude that North Korea is attempting to evade its com- mitments under the NPT or its pledges to South Korea not to acquire either nuclear weapons or reprocessing facilities, a decision will confront the world community more daunting by far than last year’s decision to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. …But if South Korea appeared in danger of being overrun, would the United States resort to tactical nuclear weapons? That is hardly the vision of a NewWorld Order that President Bush had in mind in the afterglow of Desert Storm. But that is a real-world specter, which must be confronted and thought through. –William Beecher, journalist and former acting assistant secretary of Defense FSJ October 1992 Democratization and U.S. Policy: Principle and Pragmatism In the last year alone, democracies and democratiza- tion movements have suffered setbacks in Haiti, Algeria, Peru, Thailand, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Washington’s handling of these specific challenges shows that, although we are clearly taking the issue more seriously across the board than we might have a decade ago, the U.S. response has varied widely, showing little global consistency of policy application. –Michael Sterner, FSO