The Foreign Service Journal, May 2014

20 MAY 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL In 1900 the U.S. had 41 diplomatic missions and 318 consular establishments—and just 91 domestic employees, including the Secretary of State. maintain political rela- tions with foreign powers; a consular service to protect American seamen and other citizens, and attend to American maritime interests generally; and a home or departmental service to take care of matters in the capital. “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations,” said President George Washington, “is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” In line with this doctrine, the consular service far outnumbered the diplomatic service, which far outnumbered the home service. As late as 1900, when the United States was an emerging world power with a two-ocean navy, a colony in the Philippines and a rising global financial center in New York, there were only 41 diplomatic missions compared with 318 consular establishments (not counting some 400 more consular agencies). To oversee and support this far-flung network, filled with patronage appoint- ments, the department had just 91 employees, including the Secretary of State. At the turn of the 20th century, according to historian Tyler Dennet, the Department of State was “an antiquated, feeble organization, enslaved by precedents and routine … remote from the public gaze and indifferent to it.” For diplomats and consuls alike, salaries were low and allowances, other than modest sums for rental of office space, essentially nonexistent. Business and shipping interests complained that the consular service, in particular, served them poorly. Wilbur Carr, then head of the department’s consular bureau, began working with Representative John Rogers of Massachusetts in 1919 to produce a bill to “amalgamate” and professionalize the consular and diplomatic services. The Foreign Service Act of 1924, generally known as the Rogers Act, passed after three years of debate, combining the two services into a single Foreign Service of the United States, with entry by competitive exami- nation, promotion by merit, mandatory retirement, a pension system and other features that remain in place today (see p. 26). Personnel Structure under the Rogers Act The personnel structure of the Foreign Service as conceived in the 1924 Act was a flow-through system, bringing new members in at the bottom and moving them through ranks that emptied with promotions or retirements, by reason of age or time in grade. The system was rotational, with members expected to move periodically from station to station. Officers in the Foreign Service would compete against each other, with the top performers advancing and the worst performers facing possible dismissal. By contrast, the Civil Service system, introduced to the Department of State in the early 20th century through a series of executive orders, was static. Members did not necessarily enter at the bottom, and they advanced in grade only by mov- ing to more highly rated—more challenging and more respon- sible—positions. They had a high degree of job security and were not expected to move periodically from one assignment to another. The principal difference, however, was that members of the Foreign Service expected to spend roughly 90 percent of their time overseas. Members of the Civil Service, with a few excep- tions, worked only in the United States. The exceptions were outside the State Department. Congress established a Foreign Commerce Service in the Commerce Department (1927-1939) and a Foreign Agricultural Service in the Department of Agriculture (1930-1939), and provided overseas postings for employees of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Mines (1935-1943). Employees of all three agencies remained in the Civil Service when sent abroad. When austerity and war later shut both organizations down, their members were reassigned to the Department of State and welcomed into the Foreign Service. Congress revived the FAS in 1954 and the FCS in 1980, and both services adopted the Foreign Service system Harry Kopp, a former FSO and international trade consultant, was deputy assistant secretary of State for international trade policy in the Carter and Reagan administrations; his foreign assignments included Warsaw and Brasilia. He is the author of Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest (Academy of Diplomacy, 2004) and the co- author of Career Diplomacy: Life andWork in the U.S. Foreign Service (Georgetown University Press, 2011). He is nowwriting a history of the American Foreign Service Association, and some of the material in this article will appear in different form in that work.