The Foreign Service Journal, May 2008

M A Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 5 Since its founding in 1924, AFSA has taken on a myriad of ever-changing issues in response to the evolving global and do- mestic environments facing the Foreign Service. However, at least one AFSA position has never changed: overseas diplo- matic missions should almost always be headed by career Foreign Service members. Though many non-career ambassadors have served our nation well, an even greater number have lacked the skills and experience needed to properly represent our nation. The problem of unqualified non- career ambassadors appointed for their political loyalty has a long history. For example, in 1957 President Eisenhower sent Earl E.T. Smith, a businessman who spoke no Spanish, to Cuba. In hindsight, more experienced leadership was needed there (he left three weeks before Fidel Castro seized power). The news media has reported the “selling” of ambassadorships at least since the Nixon administration. That reporting has criticized appointments made by presidents from both political parties. In response, there have been initia- tives over the years to limit the number of unqualified ambassadors. For exam- ple, nonpartisan groups have offered to weigh the qualifications of nominees, and lawmakers have submitted bills to limit the number of non-career ambas- sadors. But, those reform efforts failed. The one partial success was the insertion of language into the Foreign Service Act of 1980 setting qualifications for ambassadors. Thus, current law states that they “should possess clearly demonstrated competence to perform the duties of a chief of mission, including… useful knowledge of the language … and understanding of the history, the culture, the economic and political insti- tutions, and the interests of that country. … Contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor. ” Unfortunately, to quote Johnny Depp’s line as pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, that language has been treated as “guidelines rather than rules.” So why raise the issue now, given this track record? The answer is that two recent tragic events may have strength- ened the prospects for reform. First, the devastation of New Orleans and the central Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 showed — unambiguously and in real time — the danger of placing an unqualified political appointee in a criti- cal position. While there were also fail- ings at the state and local levels, it is clear that International Arabian Horse Association officer Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, with catastrophic results. Second, the “long war” against ter- rorism that was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has highlighted the need for, in the words of a 2006 U.S. Senate report, “the president [to] send to the Senate as nominees for ambas- sadorships only those candidates who are qualified for the sensitive and important post-9/11 role of U.S. ambas- sador.” That report, Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign , urged that all ambassadorial nominees possess “the qualities of expe- rienced judgment, knowledge of intera- gency missions and activities, and a solid grounding in the culture and politics of the region to which the candidate is expected to be assigned.” Those two new factors argue for immediate action to limit the number of unqualified non-career ambassadors. Absent such action, some U.S. embassy may someday experience its own Michael D. Brown moment when expert advice is ignored and top leader- ship fails during a crisis. Of the proposed solutions, the easi- est to implement would be for Congress to lower the non-career portion of ambassadors from the informal histori- cal average of 30 percent to a statutory maximum of, say, 10 percent. That would allow a select number of distin- guished citizens — for example, retired lawmakers — to go out as envoys, while ending the unchecked spoils system under which scores of low-level political activists are tapped for critical national security positions for which they are unqualified. Now is the perfect time to imple- ment a bipartisan solution to this long- standing problem. P RESIDENT ’ S V IEWS The 10-Percent Solution B Y J OHN K. N ALAND John K. Naland is the president of the American Foreign Service Association.