The Foreign Service Journal, May 2019

28 MAY 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA finally broke with the shameful past and honored the “China hands”—Foreign Service officers whose honest report- ing from that country in the 1940s led to the destruction of their careers by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allies. The New York Times marked AFSA’s tribute to them with an article and an editorial (“Vindication on China,” Feb. 4, 1973). Members of the Foreign Service are willing, Boyatt said, “to undergo tremendous sacrifice for this nation,” but “we will never again permit McCarthyism or any other threat to impinge on our integrity or to silence our dedication to serving the national interest.” Who Will Speak for the Service Today? The reformers never lost their conviction that the Foreign Service, speaking as one through its union and professional association, could protect its institutional values and improve the work and lives of its members. After their retirement from active duty, Tex Harris, Tom Boy- att, Bill Harrop, Hank Cohen and others served multiple terms on AFSA’s Governing Board. They were lobbyists for the Service on Capitol Hill and educators of the public. These men began their active service more than 50 years ago, but their vision for AFSA remains as compelling as it was a half-century ago. Ever since the days recounted here, the American Foreign Service Association has been the champion of the men and women of the Service. Who speaks for the Service, if not AFSA? Not the under secretary for management, nor even the Direc- tor General or Secretary of State. No one now would be as naive as I once was, content to rely on the department to shield the Foreign Service from abuse. Certainly the challenges we face today are as dire as those of the 1960s and 1970s. Over the past two years, the value of the Service as an institution has been called into doubt. Its work has been denigrated, its professionalism devalued, its effort derided, its stature diminished, its funding threatened. AFSA attends to the Foreign Service as an institution. It acts as a custodian of Foreign Service virtues, among them intel- ligence, judgment, integrity, courage, patriotism and sacrifice. It is up to you, AFSA’s members, to ensure by your effort and vigilance that AFSA succeeds. n Certainly the challenges we face today are as dire as those of the 1960s and 1970s.