The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

68 F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L / DE C EMB E R 2 0 0 6 October 24, 2006 Dear Madam Secretary, I am writing today with a sense of deep sadness to expressAFSA’s dismay at the recent, unfathomable decision by the Department of State— in violation of the department’s own regulations, its negoti- ated agreements with AFSA, and the guidelines in the ForeignServiceAct— to assignamid-level civil servant fromUnder Secretary Karen Hughes’ office to fill the recently establishedSenior ForeignService position as chief of the department’s high- ly-touted new Public Diplomacy Rapid Response Team in Brussels, which is meant to serve as the “hub” for ourmedia outreachefforts throughoutEuropeonIraq, Afghanistanand thewar on terrorism. The creationof this important position and the manner in which it was assigned were processes that minimized employees’ awareness of its existence and excluded many Senior Foreign Service officers who have extensive career experience in public diplomacy inEurope, theMiddle East and South Asia. As you know, the Foreign Service Act of 1980, bolstered by the Foreign Affairs Manual andsubsequent administrative case precedents,makes it clear that only in truly exceptional instances should Foreign Service positions overseas be filledby non- FS personnel. In such rare cases, you or your designee justify this anomaly by exe- cuting a Certificate of Need that explains why the department was unable to find a qualified FS employee and what unique qualifications the non-FS employee has to warrant assigning someone from outside the Service. In this Brussels PDcase, there are many highly qualified Senior Foreign Serviceofficerswithappropriate experience, far exceeding that of the non-FS person brought in, whomight have jumped at the chance to take this key position inBrussels —if they had beenmade aware of its exis- tence and given the opportunity to bid on the position. At a time when the depart- ment is asking our members to devote a greater part of their careers to service in more difficult hardship and danger-pay posts — and when the global reposition- ingexercise is shrinking thenumberof posi- tions atmore comfortable Europeanposts — it is incomprehensible that the depart- ment would deny this senior Brussels opportunity to career ForeignService offi- cers. This position might well have been aperfect fit andan ideal onwardassignment for a veteran FSO coming out of an unac- companied tour of duty in Iraq, Afghan- istan, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Iregrettotellyou,MadamSecretary,that thedepartment didnot even followits own standardpractices to findaForeignService officerforanewlycreated,immediatevacan- cy. During your tenure as Secretary, the department has sent out 119 formal calls via cable for volunteers for 193 priority posi- tions. Many of these positions came open unexpectedly, after the normal assign- ment cycle had run its course, and needed to be filled urgently. Yet the department made no such call to fill this Brussels PD position. Its refusal to issue such an announcement sends the message to our membersworldwide that either itwas a low- priority position (and thus one in which a non-ForeignService employeewouldnever be considered), or that the assignment processwasmanipulated so that the possi- ble attentionof unwantedapplicantswould beminimized. Ineither case, AFSAdecries the failure of the department to follow its own rules, its negotiated agreements with us, and its abuse of the assignment powers the Foreign Service Act provides you. Moreover, other important rules were disregarded. The Senior Assignments Divisiondidnot“cede”theposition,asmust be done before a senior-level job becomes available to a non-senior officer for assign- ment. And particularly egregiously, the department didnot execute, as required in advance of such an assignment, the CertificateofNeeddiscussedaboveuntilwell after the fact, andonlyafterAFSAexpressed its deep displeasure over the way this posi- tionhad beenhandled. The cursory,min- imalist natureof thedepartment’s efforts to find a Foreign Service officer feedour con- clusion that this was a “pre-cooked” deal done in contraventionof the department’s own rules and standard practices. Madam Secretary, over and above the inexplicable abuse outlined above, what AFSAfinds so incomprehensible about this assignment is that it goes such a long way todirectlyundermine themessage that you havebeen sodetermined to sendabout the need for Servicediscipline andyour call for sacrifice. Inhis recent “TheFuture IsNow” cable to the field, thedirector general called for theForeignService “to renewour com- mitment ... to theprincipleof Serviceneed.” I canreiterate toyouwhat youalreadyknow for yourself, that theForeignService ismeet- ing this call. Inyour cable toall FSperson- nel sent last week, you asserted that “our assignment process must be fair to all employees.” Imust tell youthat theForeign Service also expects this same discipline on thepart of StateDepartmentmanagement intermsoffollowingitsownrulesandresist- ing attempts to give special treatment and preferred onward assignments to staff members of senior department officials, be they career officers or political appointees. This assignment is devastating for morale and is both an abuse of the department’s authority and an affront to the Foreign A F S A N E W S LETTER TO THE SECRETARY AFSA Protests Assignment System Abuse FROM AFSA PRESIDENT J. ANTHONY HOLMES TO SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE The AFSA Governing Board has voted unanimously to initiate an institutional grievance to undo this assignment.