The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020

72 MAY 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Happy Warrior It is very hard for me to visualize a world without Tex. For 50 years we battled together to secure an AFSA victory in union elections to represent all Foreign Service personnel; to structure an employee–management system enabling us to negotiate “personnel policies and procedures” with the foreign affairs agencies; and to establish an independent grievance system to provide for individual challenges to administrative decisions before an impartial judge. Tex Harris was a huge (physically and operationally) pres- ence in all of these struggles, but in achieving a grievance system enshrined in statute his heroic efforts became legendary. This is a Foreign Service tale that needs to be retold every generation. It also serves as a metaphor for all of those qualities that made Tex the unique tribune of the people that he was. The drive for a grievance systemwas sparked by an individual case. In the late 1960s Charles Thomas, a rising star in the Foreign Service, was suddenly selected out without an annuity. No one would explain to him, or later to his widow, Cynthia, how this could have happened. The total opacity of the Foreign Service rating and promotion system was fiercely defended by State management. Distraught over his treatment and his inability to support his family, Charles Thomas took his own life. His widow, with two small children to support, was in a des- perate situation. She needed a champion. Tex, in his capacity as an AFSA officer, became that champion. He was personally offended by the injustice done to Charles Thomas and his family, and equally offended by the system that enabled such treatment. He was determined to remedy the indi- vidual and institutional situations. For seven years, beginning in 1969, Tex fought for the legisla- tive enactment of a grievance system for the Foreign Service. As a passionate leader, he conceived how such a systemwould function, helped draft the details and built a coalition headed by Indiana Senator Birch Bayh (Charles Thomas was a constituent). Tex was relentless and maintained his optimismwhile treating his opponents without any personal malice. Finally, in 1976 it all came together. CynthiaThomas prevailed in her lawsuit against the State Department and herself became an FSO. The department, reacting to the sunshine on its record created by Tex and others, admitted that due to “clerical error,” the personnel folder on the wrong Charles Thomas had been sent to the Selection Board that endedThomas’ career. The Bayh bill creating a grievance system for the Foreign Service was passed by both houses, signed by President Gerald Ford and subsequently incorporated into the Foreign Service Act of 1980 as Chapter 11. Later in the very good year of 1976, White House Chief of Staff Don Rumsfeld arranged for President Ford to send a letter to Cynthia apologizing for what the system had done to her hus- band and the family, and expressing the hope that an improved systemwould prevent such things in the future. Charles Thomas was posthumously reinstated in the Foreign Service at the rank he previously held, and his family received the appropriate survivor annuity. (Kudos to John Naland for discovering this lovely story while researching presidential libraries.) So let us think for a moment about how this vignette illustrates what we have lost with the passing of Tex. Gone is an implacable foe of all forms of injustice, a happy warrior who fought for his beliefs without malice toward opponents, a constant friend, a passionate Foreign Service leader who loved the Service and every member thereof, a 6’7”, 350-pound Texan who was all heart. Our consolation is that Tex’s achieve- ments will live on in our hearts and in the clan memories of the Foreign Service of the United States. We shall not see his like again soon. —Thomas D. Boyatt Tom Boyatt and Tex Harris pose for a snapshot while working Capitol Hill. COURTESYOF IANHOUSTON In 1993, Tex Harris was elected for his first term as president of AFSA, heading the new Governing Board that took office on July 15. AFSA/ FSJ AUGUST 1993