The Foreign Service Journal, May 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2019 25 also that many members of the Service, especially younger ones, believed that policymakers undervalued their profes- sionalism and denigrated their profes- sion. But even with all those examples, I still trusted the department in the end to take care of the Foreign Service. Reform at AFSA Fortunately, others were not so naive. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a small group of Foreign Service officers, young enough on average to be called Young Turks, came to believe that a strong Foreign Service required an inde- pendent attitude and an independent voice. The structures they developed to support the Service—sometimes against efforts by the agencies in which it func- tioned—are still in place. Their energy and foresight, their achievements and their failures, teach lessons for today. The changes these officers brought about came in two distinct phases. The first began in 1967, when a junior officer named Lan- non Walker, back in Washington after his first tour overseas, discovered that others shared his frustration with the trivial role the Service played in policy. They soon formed a group, meeting often at the home of Foreign Service officer Charles Bray, to develop a program for reform. The Young Turks were late to the party. In 1965, several Old Turks, working in AFSA under the patronage of its president, Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson, had formed a Committee on Career Principles to develop a blueprint for “strengthening the Foreign Service as an instrument of foreign policy.” The com- mittee’s central idea—not new to them, they conceded—was an independent Foreign Service, managed by a Director General outside the Department of State. This Foreign Service of the United States would be able to move its people easily among the several foreign affairs agen- cies and would have the flexibility, through a reserve system, to adjust its staffing levels up or down on short notice. The details of their plan were at once bold, perceptive and (in retrospect) starry- eyed fanciful. Their work did not receive the attention it deserved. AFSA had no capacity to operate as an engine of change. Its attention span was limited; by custom the president was one of the department’s highest-ranking officers, and both he (for they were all male) and the chair- man of the executive board served only one- year terms. Moreover, AFSA’s claim to speak for the Service was dubious; its membership was less than half of those eligible to join. The Old Turks needed the Young Turks to shake things up, and shake things up they did. The group around Walker (age 31) and Bray (age 32) recognized AFSA’s weakness, but saw its potential. So, they engineered an electoral coup. Up until 1967, AFSA’s board and officers were chosen not by the membership directly, but by a college of 18 electors. Walker put together a group of 18 officers to run for the electoral college as a slate pledged to select board members from among themselves. All 18 won. The “Bray Board,” headed by reformer Charles W. Bray III, steered AFSA from January through December of 1970. The board participated in Toward A Modern Diplomacy and prepared the way for AFSA’s later victories in representation elections and negotiations with management. Pictured here, from left to right, are: George B. Lambrakis, Alan Carter, Erland Heginbotham, Barbara Good, Richard T. Davies III, Bray, William G. Bradford, Princeton Lyman, William Harrop and Robert Nevitt. AFSAARCHIVES