The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

launching point for reforms. His efforts led to the election in 1967 of all 18 original members of the reform group, a group that came to be known as “the Group of 18,” to the AFSA Electoral College, which was charged with choosing the new board of directors. Bray realized that AFSA needed someone who could work on the reform agenda full-time, and he volunteered to go on leave to do it. Under his leadership, in 1968 AFSA published “Toward a Modern Diplomacy,” a book-size doc- ument that laid out the reform agenda. Some of the issues driving the support for AFSA becoming a union had to do with basic inequities in the Foreign Service system, such as discrimination against women (among other practices at that time, FS women who married were forced to resign). The Young Turks established the core principle that the professionals in the Foreign Service accept active responsi- bility for the conduct of their profession and the making of rules that govern their careers. They raised the funds to convert a run-down office building into a modern head- quarters for AFSA and a Foreign Service club. Significant successes of the “Bray Board” included the creation of the Dissent Channel for employees to voice differing views on policy; the launching of the first demands for an impartial grievance system through which employees could address unfair treatment; and creation of an AFSA awards program. (Note: For more details on the Young Turk reform move- ment and AFSA’s expansion into a union, see the June 2003 Foreign Service Journal at www.afsa.org/fsj/2003.cfm, espe- cially “AFSA Becomes a Union: The Reformers’ Victory,” by Tex Harris.) Ambassador Lannon Walker, whose remarks were recorded at AFSA prior to the celebration, noted that Bray was the first to push for Foreign Service members to go to Capitol Hill and speak out on behalf of the Foreign Service. Ambassador Ted Eliot, also in prerecorded remarks, re- membered that he and Charlie testified before the Demo- cratic and Republican Party Platform Committees in 1968 to gain support for the career Foreign Service. A Standard for Truthfulness Dean of the State Department Press Corps Barry Schweid was covering the State Department when Bray was serving as the press spokesman for Secretary of State William Rogers, beginning in 1971. Calling Bray a dedicat- ed spokesman for Sec. Rogers, he noted that Bray “set a standard of truthfulness and he set the standards for kind- ness,” and was appreciated for “his directness and dignity.” While Bray was still press spokesman and Henry Kissinger was about to move to Foggy Bottom as the new Secretary of State, Bray heard news of the Nixon adminis- tration’s wiretapping of several Foreign Service officers. Bray resigned from that position. He was quoted as saying D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 57 The Bray Board at a meeting in 1970. From left: George Lambrakis, Alan Carter, Erland Heginbotham, Barbara Good, Richard Davies, Charlie Bray, William Bradford, Princeton Lyman, Bill Harrop, Robert Nevitt.