The Foreign Service Journal, May 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2015 9 Ambassador Picks: A Fix? Anyone who has completed the A-100 course or worked for more than a week at Main State knows of the tribulations endured by career diplomats nominated to be ambassadors. Their wait (some- times many months) for Senate nomina- tion hearings and votes of confirmation by the entire Senate cause me to wonder: Why is it that a Marine Corps major general can assume command of a divi- sion with 19,000 Marines and sailors, tanks, artillery and other weapons of smaller caliber, without Senate confir- mation—while a Senior Foreign Service officer with a couple of decades of tenure must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming leadership of an embassy with a diplomatic staff of a dozen or so, in a coun- try with a population of less than a million? Each has been selected for promo- tion to a senior grade by boards of senior officers in their services. Each has been nominated for promotion by the presi- dent to the Senate. And each has been confirmed for duty at the selected grade. The Senate has already “advised and consented” to the president’s recommen- dation that the officers on the promotion list are worthy of increased responsibility. The difference is this: After Senate confirmation for promotion, the com- mandant of the Marine Corps has the authority to assign personnel to suit the needs of the service. One day the major general is at a desk at U.S. Marine Corps headquarters; the next, he is com- manding a division in the field. Neither the Secretary of State nor the Director General of the Foreign Service has such authority. Of course, the U.S. Constitution speci- fies that the Senate must “advise and consent” on presidential nominations for ambassadors. Yet, while the Constitution also provides for advising and consenting on “other officers of the United States,” in practice only the top two tiers (three- and four-star officers) of military appoint- ments are for positions that attract the scrutiny of the Senate. I propose that career Foreign Service officers go directly to their posts when named by the president. Exceptions for certain high-visibility posts could be spelled out from time to time by the Sen- ate. These exceptions might include our major trading partners, such as Canada and Japan; enduring military allies, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and the Republic of Korea; and missions where we have extraordinary national interest, such as the United Nations, Russia and China. The same principle of assum- ing duties without Senate confirmation could hold for those appointments within the State Department, such as Director General of the Foreign Service and other posts traditionally filled by career FSOs that are also akin to assignments in the military for one- and two-star officers. Political nominees would continue to face the inquiry of Senate hearings and votes by the full Senate. Speaking as someone who served as a colonel in the U.S. military and had an opportunity to serve as Marine attaché at Embassy London (1991-1994) and to participate in the Senior Seminar, I think this is an idea worth consideration. It would be a major departure from the way that ambassadorial nominations have been handled in the past. But times have changed since 1815, when we had presidential representatives in only six European capitals. Robert B. Newlin Marine Corps colonel, retired Arlington, Va. A Dubious Rationale I cannot be the only loyal Foreign Service Journal reader to have been both shocked and filled with gratitude at find- ing AFSA President Robert J. Silverman’s deservedly high praise for the book by Gary Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide , and its clear indictment of both the policies and character of former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in the March FSJ . Serious criticism of the man commonly considered a foreign policy genius and an American hero of the Cold War era is a rarity. Bass’ book and Silverman’s review are focused on Kissinger’s standby role in the Pakistani military’s massacre of some 300,000 Ben- gali Hindus in 1971, while attending to other business he and his boss, President Richard Nixon, thought more worthy of their time. We know of the massive death and destruction that accompanied the deci- sion to prolong the VietnamWar rather than complicate Nixon’s quest for a second term in 1972. And we know of the failure to oppose the 1974 invasion and subsequent occupation of some 40 percent of Cyprus by Turkey after the unelected Greek military government, itself supported by Nixon and Kissinger, failed in its attempt to incorporate that independent United Nations member state. I accidentally discovered the rationale for these and other policies while reading Kissinger’s review of John Lewis Gad- dis’ George F. Kennan: An American Life in the Nov. 13, 2011, edition of The New York Times Sunday Book Review . Midwa y through this six-page review, apropos of