The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 L E T T E R S experienced PD practitioners, most senior rating officers have surely read the Secretary’s statements about the importance he attaches to PD. Surely they are aware that those skills are now part of the standard training con- tinuum for all officers and count among promotion precepts. What they don’t know about the macro and micro of PD they can be taught by any PD officer with a modicum of self-interest. It’s in everyone’s inter- est to get smarter about PD, and those of us who know and practice it best ought to be spreading the word daily. We can claim that we’re not well- understood or intelligently super- vised, or rail that State just isn’t like USIA, and there just might be some grain of truth in those assertions. The real issue, however, is whether those PD officers still in the trenches in the State Department really want to iso- late themselves further by demanding a separate public diplomacy bureau, or would prefer to proactively reach across the information divide and show that they are and should remain part of the team. Elizabeth A. Whitaker FSO Washington, D.C. EFM & the FS Staffing Puzzle Shame on you both, Mr. Honley and AFSA, for not even mentioning Eligible Family Member employ- ment, or the fact that EFM positions are an important component of the Foreign Service staffing puzzle, in your Editor’s Introduction on Foreign Service staffing ( FSJ , April). You focus on the vital contribu- tions of Foreign Service National employees. Similar to the FSNs, the EFMs provide valuable support to our embassies and consulates, accom- plishing a wide range of jobs. We are hard-working and undercompensat- ed, expected to perform at the same