10 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LETTERS A Disturbing Picture Congratulations on the extraordinary, excellent July-August edition. As this edition brought into sharp focus the state of our foreign affairs institutions at the sesquicentennial, a disturbing picture emerged of a loss of expertise and nonpartisan professionalism. Kelly Adams-Smith’s piece on the National Security Council, signaling a failure to staff and utilize effectively this traditionally important tool for coordination of coherent, informed policy and leadership is particularly alarming. Steve Adams-Smith’s piece raises concern that the distortion or derailing of a merit-based Foreign Service recruitment and selection process could have long-term consequences including politicization of State’s ranks. It is a sad time in our country’s history, in the administration of our government, in the protection of our constitutional rights and democracy. You have done a remarkable job assembling outstanding articles that reflect on the challenges and impacts of all this on our foreign policy. Kudos. Nancy Cohen FSO, retired Asheville, North Carolina Down Memory Lane with a Diplobrat I can’t thank you enough for your kindness in sending me the piece I wrote at the age of 15 that appeared in the November 1955 FSJ (“A Service Teenager Reflects,” https://bit.ly/Emmerson-article) and was included (for how long?) among the welcome-to-the-Foreign-Service documents that FSOs and their families received upon joining the Foreign Service. I guess the logic was that if they knew that FSO John K. Emmerson’s kid had such an enjoyable time as an itinerant diplobrat, maybe their kids would too. I was in Beirut in 1955, and I remember how pleased I was that the FSJ chose to publish what I had to say. I hope that my written enthusiasm for the life of an American diplobrat may have relieved some of the worries that newly recruited FSO families would naturally have had as to whether their children would reject, resent, or possibly even outright hate leading such a peripatetic life. Back then it was every two years: a new country, a new school, and often a new language. Based on my experience my answer was: Don’t worry, it’ll be fun! Full steam ahead! Today, as I work on my own memoir, the memories flood back. My teenage enthusiasm has, of course, been tempered over the seven decades since I wrote that FSJ piece. But I hope my book, if it is ever finished and somehow published, will help to maintain the relish for life that I expressed in those FSJ reflections. Don Emmerson Palo Alto, California Moving the Goalposts At present, members of the U.S. Foreign Service who retire with more than five but fewer than 20 years of service receive 1.7 percent per year credit toward their pensions if they serve until the last day of the month in which they reach the mandatory retirement age of 65. FSOs who retire with more than five but fewer than 20 years of service before that mandatory retirement date receive only 1 percent per year credit toward their pensions. Bills under consideration by Congress—the Foreign Service Age Integration and Reform (FAIR) Act (S. 4002) and its House companion (H.R. 9087)— would increase the State Department’s mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67 to align with Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (FRA). The option to retire later may be attractive for many, and AFSA’s support for that is understandable. There is, however, a cohort of FS members—some already in their 60s— who joined the Foreign Service as midcareer professionals, knowing they would not accrue 20 years of service but who planned to retire at the current mandatory retirement age of 65 with an earned annuity calculated at 1.7 percent per year. As of this writing, the legislation under discussion (which may or may not pass this session) contains no annuity protection of the 1.7 percent for this group. But the fix to avoid a 41.2 percent pension reduction for these officers need not be complicated: a clause grandfathering the 1.7 percent for this cohort or a prohibition against State Department changes to the relevant implementing regulations in the Foreign Affairs Manual should be spelled out in the legislation. Moving the goalposts while the ball is in play—especially for those who are
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