The Foreign Service Journal, June 2006

48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 6 n Feb. 27, 2006, Ambassador W. Robert Pearson stepped down as director general of the Foreign Service and went into retirement, ending a 30-year diplomatic career. He started out as an Asia hand, but for the past two decades Europe has been his specialty, at least during overseas assignments. Before becoming DG, he served from 2001 to 2003 as ambassador to Turkey. The final months of his stay in Ankara were marked by deep reservations among Turkish leaders and the Turkish people over the American invasion of neighboring Iraq. From July 1997 to July 2000, Pearson was the second- ranking official at the U.S. embassy in Paris. Earlier, he served two stints at NATO, the first as No. 2 at the U.S. mis- sion, from 1993 to 1997, a period encompassing the Balkan crisis and NATO enlargement; and from 1987 to 1990, when he was chair of NATO’s political committee. Between 1991 and 1993, he was the department executive secretary under Secretary of State James A. Baker. He also served as deputy executive secretary of the National Security Council (1985- 1987) and political officer in Beijing (1981-1983). His first overseas assignments after joining the Foreign Service were in New Zealand and in the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Bureau. A native of Tennessee, Pearson graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1968. He speaks French, Chinese and Turkish. His wife, Margaret, is a career public diplomacy officer. The Pearsons have one son, Matthew. Three days before his retirement, Pearson sat down for this interview, his second with the Foreign Service Journal. ( FSJ Editor Steven Alan Honley interviewed Amb. Pearson shortly after he became director general in 2004.) FSJ: Can you describe the quality of the applicants that the State Department has been getting in the recent past? WRP: One woman who is a published playwright in South Africa came into the Foreign Service because she said she wanted to make a difference. She is as good a metaphor as any for the quality of people we’ve been getting. We are recruiting extremely well among very qualified people ever since the 9/11 attacks. There is a kind of broad sentiment out there among young people who feel motivated to come into public service to do something good in a difficult time. And the numbers seem to be holding up. FSJ: There was a spike in interest in the Foreign Service right after 9/11. Has there been a decline since the Iraq War, which many people consider to be a mistake? WRP: No. Usually we have more people out of an enter- ing class who want to go to Iraq than we have places for them to go. They are not going because of a kind of chauvinistic or nationalistic sense of patriotism. The people who are coming to us are interested in projecting the values of America that we consider to be good and positive, and believe they can be useful in doing that. That is a statement that is not necessar- ily for or against the Iraq War, but is a little bit more like com- ing to the assistance of a country in a time of challenge; they think they have something to offer in that regard. A N I NTERVIEW WITH D IRECTOR G ENERAL W. R OBERT P EARSON I N A VALEDICTORY INTERVIEW , THE FORMER DG REFLECTS ON THE SUCCESS OF THE D IPLOMATIC R EADINESS I NITIATIVE AND THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL DIPLOMACY , AMONG MANY OTHER TOPICS . O George Gedda, a longtime Journal contributor, is the State Department correspondent for The Associated Press. B Y G EORGE G EDDA