The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2013 45 Eric Rubin William R. Rivkin Award, 1994 Regarding Intervention in Bosnia Briefly describe the dissent that your AFSA award recog- nized. In early 1993, I was one of 13 Foreign Service officers work- ing on U.S. policy in the Balkans who appealed directly to Secretary of State Warren Christopher to consider the moral and practical costs of refusing to do more to stop the carnage, and the damage to U.S. interests. Our dissent came after several years of refusal by our immediate superiors under two administrations to allow the concerns of nearly all of the State Department’s mid-level desk officers, analysts, refugee officers and human rights officers to be shared with the seventh floor and the White House. It was sent in the form of a classified letter, which—to our (naive) shock and embarrassment—leaked to the press after Secretary Christopher shared it with the interagency com- munity. Seeing my name on the front page of the New York Times was one of the worst moments in my adult life. Did your dissent lead to any change in policy? Not directly, but I believe that our dissent—and the discussion and debate it encouraged—helped create the climate for the major shift in U.S. policy toward interven- tion. That occurred a year later with the return of Richard Holbrooke to Washington as Bureau of European Affairs assistant secretary and the launching of the process that led to the Dayton Accords. What was the impact of the dis- sent on your career? Entirely positive. We did get a few hate messages, but overall, our colleagues—who knew we had kept the dissent in classified channels and had never intended for it to become public—gave tre- mendous support. Our group includes officers who went on to become ambassadors, deputy chiefs of mission, deputy assis- tant secretaries and National Security Council senior directors. One of our most important allies later became a two- time assistant secretary and two-time chief of mission. This reinforced my respect for and appreciation of the institution to which I belong. But most of the appreciation should go to Sec. Christopher, who took steps to ensure there would be no retaliation against us and welcomed us to his office to discuss our concerns in a public show of support, as well as to then- Spokesman Richard Boucher and then-Executive Assistant to the Secretary Beth Jones, who translated his directive into concrete displays of support. What was the impact of the AFSA dissent award on your career? I did probably fail to get one assignment because of the award being on my Personnel Audit Report. But overall, it has been very positive. In hindsight, was dissenting the right choice? Definitely. Despite that one ter- rifying moment seeing my name on the front page of the Times , I would do it again in a heartbeat. I believe we helped to contribute to a policy change that was essential for both geopolitical (preserving the U.S. role in Europe and the Atlantic Alliance, and ending the first war in the heart of Europe since 1945) and moral (ending genocide, mass rape, ethnic cleansing and concentra- tion camps in the heart of Europe only 50 years after the end of the Holocaust) reasons. But as I tell the incoming Foreign Service A-100 classes I speak to about dissent, it was also right because it was collective: just about every officer working on this crisis agreed with the dissent and agreed to participate in it. That gave it much greater credibility “I believe that our dissent—and the discussion and debate it encouraged— helped create the climate for the major shift in U.S. policy toward intervention.” –Eric Rubin European Bureau Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Rubin receives an award from Hellenic American organizations honoring his contributions to Greek- American and Cypriot-American relations, May 2013.