The Foreign Service Journal, May 2015

36 MAY 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL a single embassy employee had been physically injured during an hours-long siege. The real problemwas political, not physical: The Tunisian government had failed to respond effectively to the initial attack. Nevertheless, still spooked by the news from Benghazi just three days earlier, Washington had ordered the evacuation of Embassy Tunis. Three months after that, I arrived to find one of the strictest security regimes I had ever experienced outside of a combat zone. The embassy’s Tunisian employees had shown amazing resil- ience and resourcefulness following the attack, working from their homes via email and fax to close out the fiscal-year books far from their evacuated American colleagues. For the public affairs section, that closeout involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, which, despite the attack, continued to be dis- bursed. Managing those programs was one of the reasons I was sent to Tunis. Otherwise, almost all public programs and other routine operations were suspended. In addition to a small number of permanent American staff brought back, without dependents, a few others, includ- ing WAEs like myself, were gradually brought in on temporary duty, mostly in security and construc- tion-related positions. Tight restrictions were placed on official visitors, with prior authorization from State’s under secretary for management required. All public diplomacy-related visits to Tunisia, including by regional support staff, were halted. Outside, relative calm prevailed, even as the birthplace of the Arab Spring was undergoing the most important political transi- tion in its history. Inside, priority was going to security construc- tion and to maintaining a low profile. Temporary staff were initially lodged in remote hotels (some were later put into vacant houses) and driven to and fromwork in armored shuttles. In- country travel was discouraged, and representation was minimal. I wanted to get out, to see old friends and contacts frommy two earlier assignments in Tunis, and I felt I could really accom- plish something important in that way—but there was little encouragement to do so. Reduced staffing severely curtailed most public outreach. Security As the Primary Goal? The one thing that was not limited was the security operation. Throughout my six months in Tunis, our staffmeetings typi- cally focused on security and construction issues. Across the entire mission, relatively fewU.S. employees had outside contact work as their primary responsibility. Off duty, I was generally able to move about Greater Tunis more or less freely. Thanks to email and Facebook, I found many old friends and contacts. Some had become “ancien régime,” but they none- theless offered an important window into our understanding of what was happen- ing in Tunisia. Meanwhile, official Wash- ington still had Benghazi in its teeth, and the focus was on security, not outreach. Repeated requests by the embassy to go off ordered-departure status and bring back dependents were rebuffed. Yet just Ever since Benghazi, overseas security has been a club for politicians to use against one another. USIS staff with departing PAO Jim Bullock, center in striped shirt, in the courtyard of the American Center, Tunis, in 1996. COURTESY OF JIM BULLOCK