The Foreign Service Journal, September 2005

ence and offer any suggestions I had to improve the Service. One of my suggestions was to make available a list of upcoming assignments so offi- cers could bid on posts of interest rather than depending entirely on the whims of the assignments board. The bidding process was adopted within a year or two. I also like to think my experience contributed to the Service’s eventual Diplomats-in- Residence program at various univer- sities and secondments to the offices of governors and mayors and mem- bers of Congress. Following retirement, I found occasion to discuss Foreign Service promotion practices with two friends, one of whom was a U.S. Navy rear admiral and the other a senior U.S. Army colonel. Out of these discus- sions came a paper I titled “Is the Foreign Service Really a Career?”, a copy of which I sent to the director general. The paper was also pub- lished in the Foreign Service Journal . It suggested that FSOs be required to requalify themselves in their special- ties and language(s) every few years, accumulating points for passing an exam in visa or citizenship law for consular officers, current economic theory for economic officers, a “Who’s Who” and “What’s What” exam with respect to world affairs — then choosing a window of opportu- nity to present themselves before the appropriate promotion panel, more or less as military officers do. I thought this would minimize the effect of the previous assignment or the vagaries of the occasional less- than-fully-enthusiastic efficiency report on the promotions process. I got a nice letter from the DG thank- ing me for my ideas, but like so many other initiatives nothing more was heard. I was delighted to read in the June Foreign Service Journal that the Service has developed a Career S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 L E T T E R S u