The Foreign Service Journal, November 2006

NOV EMB E R 2 0 0 6 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 83 A F S A N E W S V.P. VOICE: STATE BY STEVE KASHKETT Punishing “Fraternization” T heColdWar ended two decades ago, yet theDepartment of State continues to carry on the books and selectively enforce obsolete regulations that require employees to report personal contactswith citizens of “communist” countries, as well as “romantically or sexually intimate” relationships with any foreign national as long as they are deemed to be “contin- uing.” These rules date back to an era when the Soviet Union and itsWarsawPact satellites posed thebiggest threat to theUnited States in the world, and when their intelligence services used “honey traps” to lure unsuspectingWesterndiplomats into rela- tionships that could be exploited to gain access to U.S. classi- fied information. Though the department revised the regulations for diplomatic security (12 FAM) more than 10 years ago to do away with non-fraternization and pledged to revise other sim- ilar regulations (in 3 FAM) accordingly, it never did so. Failure to report these contacts was always considered a seri- ous breachof security that carried severe consequences formem- bers of the Foreign Service. Back in theColdWar days, employ- ees would lose their security clearances, undergo extensive inves- tigations and occasionally be forced out of the Service. It may surprisemany to learn that some of this is still happening today. Despite the dramatic changes that have occurred in theworld — the demise of the Soviet Union, the end of the internation- al communist threat and the rise of new dangers from stateless terrorismand Islamic radicalism—key portions of the depart- ment’s foreign contact-reporting policy have remained frozen in the past. The Foreign Affairs Manual states that employees must “... report any relationship (not only continuing relation- ships)with a national of a communist-governed/allied country.” The 3FAMalso states that a reportable relationshipwithanation- al of a communist countrywill “preclude continued security clear- ance for ... assignment to sensitive duties/posts which relate to the nationality of the ... partner in a relationship.” NotwithstandingtherealitythatForeignServicemembersspend much of their careers living and working overseas, developing a wide range of personal and professional relationships with hun- dredsofcitizensofothercountries,theregulationsstillimposecom- plex and Byzantine contact-reporting obligations. Anyone who wants a compelling example of thismuddle should just sit down and try to make sense of all the provisions of 3 FAM 4100. So what do these regulations mean for the Foreign Service employee who has a one-night “fling” with someone inHanoi, a weekly tennis game with a professional colleague in Beijing, an intimate nightly cyberchat with someone inHavana, or even Paris? Do employees really have to report “any relationship,” no matter how fleeting, with a national from a “communist” country? Atwhat point does “sporadic” contact become a “continuing relation- ship” anyway? Who defines “roman- tic or sexual intimacy”? The reality is that — not surprisingly — casual social, romantic or sexual encounters with foreigners are fairly common amongU.S. government employees who spend 10 or 20 years living overseas. Anyone who looks at the number of FS employees with foreign-born spouses knows how true this is. Moreover, it is our job to cultivate personal and profession- al relationshipswith citizens of the countrieswherewe serve. This is howdiplomats canbest influence developments inother parts of the world, get the U.S. message out and represent our nation abroad. Today there are hundreds of loyal Foreign Servicemembers whohave inadvertently run afoul of these archaic and sometimes contradictory regulations. Thedepartment has penalizedemploy- ees, sometimes in capricious and arbitrary ways, for perceived violations of these rules. Even though the department has not always enforced the current requirement mandating the reporting of all relationships with nationals from communist countries, many employees have nonetheless sustained lasting damage to their otherwise productive and distinguished careers for failing to report such relationships. Numerous employees have been curtailed from post. Others have had their security clearances suspended or proposed for revocation for neglecting to report a relationship that they honestly did not believe to be reportable under the FAM. These suspensions can often last months or years, effectively preventing the employee fromwork- ing in all but a few jobs and from being tenured or promoted. The current rules were designed to accompany the dracon- ianbanon “fraternization”with communist-bloc nationals back in the bad days of the Cold War and are no longer relevant to the threat confronting the United States today. There is noth- ing, for example, that would currently require a Foreign Service member to report a “non-continuing” romantic or sexual rela- tionship with an Iranian or Syrian citizen, with a member of Hamas or Hezbollah, or with Osama bin Laden himself! AFSAbelieves this is anurgent problem, andwe have offered to work with the department to produce a new, more coherent set of foreigncontact reporting requirements that focus on today’s threats to the United States and protect our members from the profoundly unfair consequences that many have faced. We should not punish our diplomats for doing what they are sup- posed to do: “fraternize” with people from other countries.