The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2018 67 One of her first acts was to create the AAFSW Forum, which became AAFSW’s de facto “think tank.” The forum set out to identify the major concerns that people were beginning to voice about Foreign Service life. For the first time ever, the forum, of which I was a member, identified five groups of issues: family life, including education of children and medical care; the modern Foreign Service wife, including employment, the formation of a skills bank and representation; orientation for wives, including language training and area stud- ies; re-entry issues; and women in transition through retirement, the death of a husband or divorce. We sent 9,000 questionnaires to Foreign Service posts around the world, asking recipients to assess Foreign Service life in these five groups of issues. I was part of an army of volunteers who prepared the questionnaires for distribution. We filled, stamped and sealed envelopes, a tedious manual process fueled by intense determination. Then as now, spousal employment was of para- mount interest. However, the responses revealed an array of other concerns, as well, which people were becoming increasingly will- ing to express. Forummembers carefully reviewed and collated the responses. In March 1977, AAFSW presented the “Report on the Concerns of Foreign Service Spouses and Families” to Sec- retary of State Cyrus Vance. (Note that “wives” had now become “spouses.”) This report contained 11 recommendations, the second of which was to establish the Family Liaison Office. Secretary Vance responded positively to all the recommendations. Of the FLO proposal, he wrote: “The concept is a good one and I support it. … I believe that we should establish FLO or its equivalent with all deliberate speed.” On March 1, 1978, the Family Liaison Office was officially opened by Secretary of State and Mrs. Vance, who also sup- ported the new office. The ceremony was attended by the under secretary for management, the Director General of the Foreign Service and senior representatives of the various department bureaus. Janet Lloyd was introduced as the first FLO director, and I as the first deputy director. In his opening remarks, the Secretary complimented the forum for the quality of its initial report and restated his belief that FLO would be an invaluable asset to the department’s efforts to be responsive to the needs of Foreign Ser- vice families. He described his vision for the new office: “A central clearing house to which and fromwhich information [would] flow between Foreign Service families and the State Department on all matters related to the family and family life in the Foreign Service.” Also present were representatives from Capitol Hill, other executive branch agencies, the military and a number of foreign embassies. The opening received good press coverage. In The Washington Post , Donnie Radcliffe wrote that it was a minor miracle that it had taken only a year from presentation of the report to the Secretary in March 1977 to the opening of the office. Because of the early publicity, FLO soon started to receive visits from other U.S. government departments and agencies, as well as from foreign embassies—all of which were considering open- ing similar offices inside their organizations. On three separate occasions in 1979, I was invited to speak to groups at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency about the functions of the Family Liaison Office, how we had identified needs and what we hoped to achieve. Since the structures and operations of other agencies differ from those at the department, they were eager to see how they could adapt the functions of FLO to their requirements. Challenges and Growth Early on, there were many challenges—first and foremost, survival. We had the solid backing of the Secretary and senior department management. However, in some quarters FLO was regarded with hostility and condescension. Some administrative and personnel officers—as management and HR officers were then called—wrongly believed that senior management’s support for establishing FLO was an implied criticism of the job they were doing. I spent a considerable amount of time speaking at person- nel labs, stressing to often-skeptical and resentful employees that FLO had been created and established in response to changes in U.S. society and Foreign Service life. Among the new realities: spouses wanted to work; divorce was on the rise; parents were becoming more knowledgeable and vocal about their children’s educational needs; and security-related evacuations from posts were increasing. Personnel and administrative officers already had enough to contend with. Changes in societal expectations and Foreign Service needs necessitated new responses from the Department of State—hence FLO. Some critics questioned whether the “little ladies” were capa- ble of professional standards and commitment. Others dismissed us as bored housewives. Janet Lloyd and I stepped cautiously through these minefields. We endeavored to be as professional as possible, aware that any false step would be held up as an indica- tion of incompetence. In my conversations, I also made it clear that we were not motivated by radical feminism. Rather, we were trying to help create the best possible quality of life for all Foreign Service employees and family members. I stressed that if family members are dissatisfied, the employee cannot function at his or