The Foreign Service Journal, October 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2016 15 Nothing to Fear T he July [1966] editorial on the “Rationale of Selection Out” is a moderate, diplomatically phrased and well-reasoned rebuttal of Mr. Walters’ demand for Civil Service standards and security for those involved in foreign affairs responsi- bilities. Having been subjected for some 25 years to “insecurity” and “com- petition,” which according to Mr. Wal- ters must have by this time extin- guished any professional standards I may have possessed, and having survived some 19 Selection Boards despite frequent policy differences with Washington, many unpopular and often unaccepted recommen- dations and a number of sharp disagreements with my superiors (including an ambassador currently serving in the most critical post we have abroad), I think I am qualified to call a spade a spade as far as the Foreign Service personnel system is concerned, and this I shall do. No one who puts security very high on their job requirement list should choose a career in foreign affairs. However, if a young officer wants to serve his country in the most challenging and fascinating area of its operations, and if he has the professional pride and ambition to do his best and take what comes, there is nothing to fear from either the Selection Out system currently in use or the new development Appraisal Report. Perhaps there are in Government service “vindictive superiors” and those “prejudiced” in their judgments, but I have yet to run across such base- ness among my superiors or colleagues. If anything, we are too soft, too lenient in the appraisal of a man’s worth and potential. The only realistic alternative to our present Selection Out system would seem to be the adoption of the military “up or out” criteria. Since this operates more or less automatically and thus eliminates much of the stigma of “selection out”—and in the process a great deal of “dead wood”—it is certainly worth considering. Reduced to military terms this would mean, illustratively, mandatory retirement for CAs at 60, CMs at 58, FSO-1s at 55, FSO-2s at 52, FSO-3s at 50, etc. Would this be more acceptable to Mr. Walters and other opponents of Selection Out? I doubt it. I am convinced that the really competent and dedicated officers in AID, USIS and State covered by the Hays Bill will find the Foreign Service personnel system assuring a far greater recognition of excellence than they have ever known before. Those possessing proven abilities and leadership will go up; those who do not will be eliminated as pain- lessly as possible from an area of government activities too critical to our national survival to harbor mediocrity. —David G. Nes, Cairo, from his Letter to the Editor in the October 1966 FSJ . 50 Years Ago