The Foreign Service Journal - November 2017

16 NOVEMBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 1 Those who do not recall the past are condemned to repeat it. This was perhaps the basic conclusion which emerged from our review of reformmovements in the U.S. foreign affairs community since the end of WorldWar II. There were some in the Committee who drew a corollary: those who recoil from the future are likely to regress in the present. 2 The Department of State has primary responsibil- ity for direction and coordination of the overseas activities of the U.S. Government. The Committee found no persuasive arguments for a sweeping reorganization of the Executive Branch. It was not impressed by the case for an omnibus Department of Foreign Affairs. It believes that the Department of State will almost certainly share foreign affairs functions in the 1970s with a growing number of agen- cies, institutions, and individuals—if it continues to develop the role envisioned in NSAM 341. 3 The authority of the Secretary of State and the Chief of Mission are the central elements in foreign affairs community architecture. Nothing in the Committee’s view of the period ahead suggested that the role and function of either would or should substantially alter in the 1970s. The new vigor being given the SIG/IRG (senior/interdepartmen- tal regional groups) concept inWashington and the continu- ing validity of the Country Team concept in the field seemed to us to mark the right forward movement. But both the Secretary and the Chief of Mission will need to be supported by greater use of managerial tools, more subtle and pertinent planning mechanisms, more sophisti- cated techniques of coordination, greatly increased technical 50 Years Ago Interim Report of the Committee on Career Principles A Set of General Propositions and First Principles skills among personnel, and quali- tatively different ways of handling information. A few illustrations follow. The planning function is now both too close to, and too removed from, operations; too close because so much of policy is made on an ad hoc basis in response to emergent and volatile situa- tions and too removed, because planning institutions are not sufficiently related to operational concerns. As operations must increasingly be disciplined by well- defined and communicated objectives, so the policy- making mechanisms must be related more directly to the imperatives and deadlines of operational urgencies. — William Leonhart, chairman of the Committee on Career Principles, excerpted from the supplement of the same name published in the November 1967 Foreign Service Journal . The committee was established by AFSA in 1964 to examine “the relation of current policy and administration to the strengthening of the Foreign Service as an instru- ment of foreign policy.” Its work continued through the next several years under the leadership of reform-minded FSOs who became known as the “Young Turks” and were elected to lead AFSA in 1967. The committee’s work cul- minated in the 1968 publication of a manifesto, Toward a Modern Diplomacy. AFSA’s ambassador tracker indicates that 43 out of 188 positions are currently vacant (excluding countries that do not have a diplomatic relationship with the United States). Vacant, in this instance, means that no one has been nominated or con- firmed for the position of ambassador and the previous incumbent has left post. Embassies and consulates without an ambassador are still being ably led by career diplomats acting as chief of mission or chargé d’affaires, but foreign governments take note when the ambassador post in their capitals remains vacant. As of press time, Presi- dent Trump has only put forward a total of 51 ambassador nominations. Check AFSA’s website (www.afsa. org/ambassadorlist) for up-to-date information about nominations and appointments of career and political ambassadors.