The Foreign Service Journal, September 2022

AFSA NEWS 64 SEPTEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Archer Blood Continued from page 55 department leadership to take stronger action. However, it was not well received in Washington: President Rich- ard Nixon ordered Blood’s transfer, and he left Dhaka in June 1971. While Blood was honored by his peers with AFSA’s 1971 Christian A. Herter Award for construc- tive dissent, he was not given an overseas posting until after President Nixon had left office. Director General Bernicat offered keynote remarks to recognize Blood’s courageous leadership and use of the department’s Dissent Chan- nel. Instituted just months before the Blood Telegram was dispatched, the chan- nel still provides a crucial medium for employees to offer dissenting views on for- eign policy issues to depart- ment leadership. Bernicat pointed out that the channel is rooted in the fundamental right of free speech and the idea that leaders have the responsibility to disagree with official policy when they believe it is wrong. By sending their dissent cable, Bernicat said, Blood and his staff exemplified the values that the State Depart- ment still aspires to foster in its future leaders: moral cour- age, honesty, integrity and the willingness to speak truth to power. AFSA State VP TomYaz- dgerdi also offered remarks at the ceremony, noting the department’s five decade- long legacy of welcoming dissenting policy views and Blood’s role in shaping it. He noted that AFSA has a com- mitment to “celebrate and promote the idea of dissent in the United States Foreign Service.” At the conclusion of the ceremony, Assistant Secre- tary Lu announced the State Department’s plans to name an SCA conference room after Archer Blood. He presented Blood’s son Peter with a copy of the plaque that will hang outside the room to honor his legacy and memorialize the values that are central to the Foreign Service. n “The Blood Telegram,” one of the State Department’s first-ever dissent cables, was sent by Consul General Blood and members of his staff on April 6, 1971. Town Halls Continued from page 55 cancel contracts and leases without penalty when on official orders. Rubin went on to lay out a list of reform priorities that AFSA is pursuing through collaboration with allies on Capitol Hill. A top priority is to gain more people and more positions for the Foreign Ser- vice, particularly overseas. “Our overseas footprint is way too small,” he said. Some posts lack adequate person- nel, while at others, much of the country team is made up of first- or second-tour FSOs or FS specialists with little experience. To address this staffing gap, AFSA has called for 1,000 new Foreign Service positions at the State Depart- ment and 650 at USAID, and is pushing for an increase to the Fiscal Year 2023 foreign affairs budget to fund the additional personnel. AFSA is also urging the department to expand orien- tation training to 12 weeks, in order to better prepare new members across the foreign affairs agencies for the work ahead. Rubin also addressed the issue of political appointee ambassadors, which, as of early August, account for 47 percent of the Biden admin- istration’s appointments, while 53 percent are career Foreign Service officers (the overall percentage of career ambassadors is higher, as the administration kept nearly all career ambassadors appointed by the previous administration). “The system has long included political appointees to senior positions, and that will continue to happen,” he said. “But we feel very strongly that it should be limited, and we need figures closer to the historical aver- age of about 70 percent of our ambassadorships and at least half of our senior Wash- ington positions occupied by career members of the Foreign Service.” In its effort to modernize employee assessments and promotion precepts, AFSA has supported new core pre- cepts focused on diversity as well as on workplace culture. Rubin said the association would like to move toward a 360-degree evaluation process to integrate feedback from subordinates and col- leagues. Rubin also reiterated AFSA’s support for the dozens of FS members who signed a letter to the State Department’s Bureau of Medical Services demanding access to women’s reproduc- tive health care. “We’re taking a strong position that reproductive health is health,” Rubin said. “More than 200 members from both USAID and State raised their concerns and never received even a cour- tesy reply until one of the signers wrote an op-ed for The Foreign Service Journal [in May] and we sent it to MED.” AFSA, he said, is pushing for commitments from the bureau to improve women’s access to health care when at post overseas. Rubin reminded the audi- ence that AFSA has a team of lawyers and legal counselors ready to advise and support members in their life and career in the Foreign Service. AFSA welcomes your input on issues of concern at member@afsa.org. n PD-USGOV-STATE