The Foreign Service Journal, May 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2014 19 The burden of two very different personnel systems, and a large and growing cohort of appointees exempt from the disciplines of either, is taking a real toll on the Department of State— and the Foreign Service. BY HARRY KOPP FOREIGN SERVICE, CIVIL SERVICE T he U.S. Department of State is one of the few agencies—the Department of Defense is another—with large num- bers of employees in different personnel systems. The two systems, Civil Service and Foreign Service, have different employee benefits, protections, rights and obligations. Conflicts between the systems have long been evident. From the 1940s into the 1970s, a series of com- missions, committees and panels of experts urged the depart- ment to move to a single structure. The department’s leadership agreed with these recommendations, but time and again found reasons to delay or avoid acting on them. State eventually abandoned the effort to integrate the two ser- vices, but not the search for ways to strengthen a sense of team- work and unity of purpose. The dual system, with its administra- tive complexities and inevitable inequities, continues to burden the department’s managers. The Roots of a Dual System The roots of the dual system reach to the 18th century, when Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, created different services to perform different functions: a diplomatic service to FOCUS 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF AFSA AND THE FOREIGN SERVICE HowWe Got to WhereWe Are