To Revive the Foreign Service

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/opinion/foreign-service.html

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To the Editor:

Re “A Plan to Save the State Department” (Op-Ed, March 14):

Samantha Power’s call to Mike Pompeo, the nominee for secretary of state, to strengthen the Foreign Service is welcome, but misses the point.

The Foreign Service needs to be able to defend itself, lacking influence in Congress, unlike the military. It will not be able to do so as long as a third of ambassadorial appointments, and senior positions in the department, are filled by political appointees of often dubious qualifications and little or no interest in the welfare of the Foreign Service.

Even if there are good ones, the very fact that such a system continues to exist means that the Foreign Service will never have the strong leadership it needs to make itself heard in Washington.

Political appointees have been absent from military commands for more than a century, and as a result we have a strong military that commands broad respect and tremendous influence in Washington.

Military officers often serve at the highest levels in the national government, including as secretary of state. The history of Foreign Service officers serving in such positions is very, very thin. And it will remain so until the service makes more effective efforts to strengthen itself.

JAN DE WILDEGIVRINS, SWITZERLAND

The writer is a retired United States Foreign Service officer.