The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

34 SEPTEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Back in 1984 my younger son, Christopher, was a junior in college. He came home during vacation and said, “Next year, I’m going to be a senior, and when I graduate I would like to apply for the Foreign Service.” He had seen me in action; he was 8 when our family went to Paraguay. I told him, “It’s a risky business. You may join the Foreign Service and then after five years you find out that you don’t like it. Or you get an assignment you hate, or you get a boss who doesn’t like you and he ruins your career. A lot of things can happen. Not everyone is as lucky as I was. “So if I were you,” I continued, “I would go to law school first and after you graduate, apply for the Foreign Service if you so desire. Then, if you don’t like it, you have a profession to fall back on.” And he agreed. He went to law school, clerked at the Supreme Court, and has now been practicing law for more than 20 years. Yet he does still think some- times about what he could have done in the Foreign Service. Things are bad for the Foreign Service nowa- days, as it is buffeted from all sides. Throughout the nearly 30 years I served, we always had political ambassadors at plush embassies. We also used to have political generals until enough people were killed under their command in the Civil War and the system changed. But nobody gets killed by the actions of a political ambassador. Some non-career people have been excellent ambassadors: Winthrop Aldrich and John Hay Whitney under Eisenhower, Edwin Reischauer and David Bruce under Kennedy, Elliott Richardson under Ford, Kingman Brewster and Mike Mans- field under Carter. One could look up to all of them. Today, we have nothing but bundlers. And the trouble is that bundlers are often bunglers. Moreover, when I go to the department these days, I see political appointees at all levels—most assistant secretaries and even office directors and other personnel. All of that hol- lows out the Foreign Service. At the same time, there has also been a lot of progress. Up until the Second World War, only the very rich could afford to be diplomats. Since then, it’s became much more representa- tive of American society, and that’s a good thing. The Foreign Service became an even better organization when it was diver- sified, when women, blacks and other minorities joined. All that is great, but it’s not unique to the Foreign Service. If you look at law schools, you’ll find more than half of the stu- dents are women. So why shouldn’t more than half of Foreign Service officers be women, too? Still, I can’t really recommend the Foreign Service as a career. When I was an FSO, it was like the priesthood: You were in it until you retired, unless you did something horrible. Now, it is like in the private sector: it’s a job, not a career. And a lot of people get disenchanted after four or five years, and leave. FSJ: Who were some of the people you especially admired or were inspired by during your Foreign Service career? GWL: I’ve already men- tioned Robert F. Woodward, who was ambassador to Costa Rica, Uruguay and Spain, and assistant sec- retary for Inter-American affairs. He was an excellent officer and my role model. And his wife Virginia taught my wife Mary a lot, too. They took us under their wing, and encouraged us from the very begin- ning. He was a demanding taskmaster, but he always said, “You’ll go somewhere. You have the right style and you’ll make it.” Another figure I admired was Secretary of State Dean Rusk. He was knowledgeable; there wasn’t anything you could men- tion that he didn’t know about, not just geographically but historically. He knew the world. He was a Far East expert, but he was equally interested in everything. One person I thought highly of who does not get the credit he deserves is Richard Nixon’s first Secretary of State, William Rogers. He was a personal friend of Nixon, and had been attor- ney general under Eisenhower. Rogers did not have the same background in foreign affairs as some of his predecessors, but he was a superb lawyer and wonderful negotiator. Watching him negotiate with the Portuguese on the Azores Agreement was a sheer joy, because they were real horse trad- ers. Every time we had a meeting the negotiations started from “When I go to the department these days, I see political appointees at all levels—most assistant secretaries and even office directors and other personnel. That hollows out the Foreign Service.”