The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 ting practical training. We’d then become full-fledged CAOs, IOs and PAOs. At the senior levels, we filled those three job categories in Cairo, Beijing, Mexico City, Moscow, Bonn, New Delhi and other large, important missions. At any given time, perhaps four or five USIA FSOs would be serving as ambas- sadors, while others staffed the Public Affairs Bureau and regional bureau press offices back at State. The rest of us spent our careers in USIA managing our own budgets, buildings, equipment and U.S. and Foreign Service National staffs, ranging from media and educational advisers to cleaning crews. Most of us knew we could do no more than aspire to an assignment as public affairs officer in one of the major embassies some- where in the world. Once we were part of State, many public diplomacy FSOs anticipated that our management experience, com- bined with the opportunity to serve in other cones, would make us shoo-ins to become consuls general, deputy chiefs of mission, principal officers and ambassadors. Immediately after consolidation, there was definitely an increase in the number of public diplomacy–cone of- ficers serving as deputy chiefs and chiefs of mission. USIA had a number of senior officers with broad policy jobs, and they smoothly moved into similar jobs in the State Department. But since then, the number of PD FSOs serving as COMs and DCMs has declined. While there are currently 50 political officers serving as ambas- sadors and 17 economic, 14 consular and 11 manage- ment, there are just seven PD ambassadors. As of January 2009, the public diplomacy function also had the lowest percentage of appropriately ranked employees filling deputy assistant secretary and deputy chief of mission positions. Only 3.8 percent of DAS po- sitions are held by PD officers, compared with manage- ment (4.9 percent), consular (5.1 percent), economic (8.3 percent) and political (9.4 percent). The percentage of PD officers in DCM positions is only slightly better: 4.8 percent of PD officers hold DCM positions, com- pared with management (7.4 percent), consular (9.1 per- cent), economic (10.9 percent), and political (13.6 percent). Today’s Senior PD Officers For this article, we interviewed about a dozen public diplomacy– cone Foreign Service officers, in- cluding some serving at the highest levels of the Service, some who failed to get there and others who have insights into the way the as- signment process works. There is, of course, some subjectivity in these accounts, but they track with statis- tics we garnered from two divisions of the Human Resources Bureau: the Office of Resource Management and Organization Analysis, and the Office of Career Development and As- signments. (We acknowledge, however, that many other bureaus weigh in on personnel decisions.) One of the main reasons PD officers don’t get a pro- portionate number of jobs as chiefs and deputy chiefs of mission and as deputy assistant secretaries of State is that we don’t compete for them. In part, this is a self-fulfilling prophesy — we don’t get the jobs, so we stop trying for them. But beyond that, here are several possible explana- tions: • Many public diplomacy officers sense that our work is undervalued by the political appointees and the political, economic and management officers who make the assign- ment decisions. And several senior PD officers tell us that the Foreign Service is still seen through the prism of po- litical and economic reporting and “traditional” Foreign Service policy roles. • Chiefs of mission and their deputies work with for- eign governments, while public diplomacy practitioners are seen as working with the public. • Most people understand what an information officer or a cultural attaché does, but not as many know what a public affairs officer does. • Many senior PD officers have never done an out-of- cone assignment, which weakens their attractiveness as candidates. • There are few Foreign Service public diplomacy po- sitions in Washington, so most senior PD officers spend the bulk of their time overseas. That, in turn, means that they don’t know “the building” — and people in Washing- ton don’t know them. Nor do they know how to lobby for senior-level jobs. • Current senior PD officers don’t have the range of F O C U S The public diplomacy function had the lowest percentage of appropriately ranked employees filling DAS and DCM positions as of January.