The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2011

T here is always a “back story.” I offer mine to add tex- ture to Ms. Gurman’s article, which usefully and ap- propriately concentrates on the constitutional duel between Secretary Kissinger and Chairman Pike. First, the case did not begin with a debate between the two men. Rather, it began when Chairman Pike learned of my dissent memorandum and summoned me to testify be- fore his committee. Having been relieved of my position as the country director for Cyprus, I had no formal supervisor to consult. When I called Larry Eagleburger for advice, he told me to refuse to appear. I countered that I would not risk a congres- sional subpoena, but would follow any departmental guidelines for my testimony that he might relay to me. Those guidelines instructed me initially to refuse to respond to any questions, and subsequently to respond only on matters below the classification of “Confidential.” In short, I was to stonewall Chair- man Pike. I appeared before the commit- tee twice. Each time I described the guidelines I had been given. Chairman Pike eventually exploded at the Secretary and the department, but appeared to understand my personal predicament. He then shifted his focus to the attempt to gain access to my dissent mem- orandum. The Pike-Kissinger constitutional duel Ms. Gur- man describes was the result. Colleagues will appreciate that my congressional ap- pearances were harrowing. I was a mid-level officer on my own without institutional support from State, other than Larry’s telephonic instructions. Nor did I have the money to hire a Washington lawyer. I did, however, have friends. Tex Harris, a law school graduate and member of the D.C. bar, gave me legal advice pro bono; he and others also worked to salvage my Foreign Service career. The Professionals Were Right My dissent memorandum was dangerous to the State Department’s hierarchy because it summarized the differ- ences between the career diplomats and the department’s leadership on the Cyprus issue — in a situation in which the professionals were right. With the support of colleagues in my office and the directorates for Greece and Turkey, I argued that: • The Greek junta was planning to overthrow President Makarios, notwithstanding their denials of such intent; • If the Greek colonels established a puppet regime in Cyprus, the Turkish Army would invade and partition the is- land; and • Such an outcome would be disastrous for the United States, for it would destabilize NATO’s eastern flank, giving the Soviets a chance to intervene, and turn the Cyprus prob- lem into a permanent irritant. In order to prevent this disas- ter, I further argued that we should confront the junta and tell them clearly to stay out of Cyprus. My analyses were not given credence, and the policy recommendation was ignored. The results were even worse than I had predicted considering the loss of life, includ- ing the death of our esteemed col- league, Ambassador Roger Davies. The point is that Secretaries of State and presidential administra- tions do not deal well with situa- tions in which the career diplomats are right and they are wrong. This applies on a bipartisan basis; e.g., the Clinton administration’s handling of dissent on an active policy to prevent genocide in Serbia; George W. Bush and the Iraq War; and Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policy and the free- dom agenda for Arabs. However, career Foreign Service officers still have the responsibility to speak truth to power — which the Dissent Channel enables them to do. Attention Must Be Paid In my case, the department redeemed its vow cited by Dr. Gurman “to protect the rank-and-file from political as- sault.” My Senior Foreign Service colleagues circled the wagons around me. Shortly after I was relieved as Cyprus country director, Foreign Service Director General Nathaniel Davis called to say he was assigning me to the Senior Sem- inar for a sabbatical academic year of reading, study, travel and first-rate lectures by the likes of Buckminster Fuller. I did not realize it at the time, but I was being “laundered” for future use. Larry Eagleburger played an informal but decisive role 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 1 F O C U S Secretaries of State and presidential administrations do not deal well with situations in which the career diplomats are right and they are wrong. The “Boyatt Case” from Boyatt’s Perspective