Comments on: Foreign Service Myths

By: Consul-At-Arms

Consul-At-Arms — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:05:54 +0000

And you know well just how few countries there are, out of all those FSO are posted, that have such amenities.

During my FS career thus far, only one country out of three.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:21:17 +0000

I do want to point out that there is considerable tension between military and State officers serving at the same posts. The friction is mostly on the military side.

State officers are paid better, have better leave packages, housing, and different sorts of privileges. Often they also get use of military commissaries, Class VI stores, the APO/FPO, and base exchanges. To some, that looks like getting all the cream.

By: Consul-At-Arms

Consul-At-Arms — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:28:54 +0000

Thanks for the link. I've quoted you and linked to you here.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:37:38 +0000

Dave: Nope, not the case when I joined (1979). None of my entry class at USIA was Ivy. Of the State counterpart class, one was an Ivy graduate. Everyone else was second or third tier colleges, military, or second-career. (First careers were primarily education or law.) One were fresh out of a PhD program in Germany--State was shying away from new BAs at the time, preferring those who had some 'real world', i.e., private sector experience. You have to go back to the 50s for the "All-Ivy, All the time" recruitment. Even then, though, it wasn't as uniform as the stereotype suggests. My father-in-law, for instance, was in OSS and in the first CIA cadre. He was a G'town BS with a grad study at Heidelburg in the late 1930s.

By: Consul-At-Arms

Consul-At-Arms — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:13:08 +0000

Thanks for the link.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:17:32 +0000

To the extent that was ever the case, those days are long gone.

It's long gone now but it was absolutely the case when I briefly considered such a career. Of course, that was long, long ago. Ask John Burgess about what things were like in the State Department (and CIA) when he was just starting out.