1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

interest over the years. I think Foreign Service people tend to do that, once they get
deeply involved, they never let go. It's perhaps a natural result, but it also is an argument
for examining carefully the nature of our Foreign Service training. It seems to me that one
should train diplomats to have as deep and extensive an experience as possible. The
nature of our foreign affairs, of course, has changed in my lifetime. It certainly changed in
George Kennan's lifetime. I'm going to his 100 th anniversary dinner tonight at the Wilson
Center.
The issues have changed, the nature of the instruments used by our president and our
government, broadly construed, Congress’s role has changed as well. Every embassy now
has 20 or 30 entities under its general direction bumbling away, causing mischief or
making a contribution, depending on the quality of direction. The more experience an
ambassador has of the fullness of our overseas life, the more effective he's going to be. It
is not enough to go to A-100, it is not enough just to pass the exams.
The examination threshold is very important. It's a democratizing instrument, number
one. Number two, it's an intellectual threshold which is very important, and it might be a
psychological screening of talent. Do you have enough personal qualities to stand up to
the stresses and difficulties? Entrance into the Foreign Service at the bottom is very
important, but it's only the beginning, and serving at an embassy is only the beginning. I
think it's desirable to have assignments on the Hill, maybe also at other agencies, perhaps
in the academic world or in business to have some real sense of the fullness of American
life?
Any notion that serving as an FSO from the bottom faithfully, dutifully, will certainly
result in becoming ambassador as a matter of course, is a false hope. The career path is
arbitrary and serendipitous, orderly rise in rank and reward is simply not there. The
largest embassies, the most comfortable ones, certainly those with residences like big
hotels, Paris, London and Madrid, are given as political rewards for contributions to the
winning presidential party. That's a corruption of our system, but at its best, the president
rewards people who are experienced and competent and will do a good job, and not just
because they're close friends of the president.
What's left to the career can be the dregs, assignments to the most difficult and
unrewarding and unimportant places. So a Foreign Service career, I think, has to be more
comprehensive, and the leadership of our Foreign Service establishment should, and in
many cases do take this into account. My close friend, Tom Pickering, who is the best
example of success within the career, still benefited by the nature of the draw. In addition
to his great talent, his arms control assignments and UN connection is what propelled
him. If he hadn't done that, he'd be long since retired and doing something else.
So I would say Foreign Service leadership, of which we have very little, should take
account of this kind of phenomena, and it's my hope that people like Tom, and I think he
already has to some extent, through his own example, make the point about the
desirability of this continuing professional education. I feel very strongly about it, not
228