TESTIMONY OF MARSHALL P. ADAIR
PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

March 1, 2001

Mr. Chairman,

I am Marshall Adair, President of the American Foreign Service Association. I have been a career member of the Foreign Service for the past 28 years. As part of my career, I have served in Europe, Africa, Asia, and here in Washington. On behalf of the 23,000 active-duty and retired members of the Foreign Service, I wish to thank you and the Committee for holding these important hearings on the state of our foreign affairs agencies and the Foreign Service.

Diplomacy is a critical component of our national security, along with our military forces and intelligence services. The latter two get a great deal of attention from the American public and the Congress. However, diplomacy, which in many respects is our first line of defense, is often overlooked or taken for granted.

At the core of our diplomatic apparatus is the Department of State and the American Foreign Service. The Foreign Service was created in 1924, by an act of Congress, the Rogers Act. At that time our national leadership recognized that our nation could no longer afford to conduct its diplomacy on an ad hoc, haphazard basis. Congress saw that we needed a single, professional diplomatic corps to ensure quality representation all over the world regardless of which political party occupied the White House. The 1924 Rogers Act created that professional service with a special system of rank and promotions similar to the military. It was made deliberately different from the Civil Service in order to ensure that a mobile corps of professionals would be available for worldwide service at the discretion of the Secretary of State and the President. The Rogers Act has been revised by several successive acts, but the essential character of the Foreign Service remains the same.

1. We carry our rank in person, as does the military, not according to the position that we are occupying, as does the civil service.

2. We are subject to a demanding service discipline, serve at the discretion of the President and the Secretary of State, and must be available for worldwide posting. There are legal and regulatory limits on the amount of time we can be posted in the United States

3. We have a bottom entry system that, unlike the Civil Service, has up-or-out promotion requirements, and unlike the Civil Service, we continue to have a mandatory retirement age (65).

Foreign Service personnel and their families are posted in 183 countries around the world; often in difficult and dangerous environments. We are the eyes, ears, and voice of the U.S. government and the American people, promoting and protecting American interests and values in the international arena by directly engaging the government officials of foreign nations, their community and opinion leaders, and their people. We monitor and analyze developments around the globe and make recommendations to our policy leaders on ways to advance and defend American interests. We are engaged in the entire array of issues confronting our nation, from preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to regulating the emission of greenhouse gases. We promote trade by U.S. companies overseas and investment by foreign companies in the U.S., and we work to make sure that U.S. companies are competing with foreign businesses on a level playing field. We provide support to over 35 other U.S. government agencies that also work abroad. Last but not least, we protect and assist Americans abroad, whether they are part of the over 5 million citizens permanently living outside of the U.S., or those travelling overseas for business or pleasure.

In performing this important work, Foreign Service personnel encounter more than their share of hardship, danger, and disease. They are part of the professional environment with which we must cope. The bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two years ago are the most dramatic recent examples of the dangers we face. As you know, the American Foreign Service Association sponsors two plaques in the Diplomatic Lobby of the State Department listing the names of Americans who have died under heroic or inspirational circumstances in this profession. There are currently 186 names on the plaque and we are running out of space.

These dangers have not stopped the Foreign Service from performing its mission. If anything, the threats and the challenges have been met with increased determination on the part of these dedicated men and women. However, recent studies have begun to point to a different kind of danger that does undermine that determination of our diplomatic service: neglect and lack of support at home.

Over the past several decades, the steady tightening of resources has resulted in a Service that is spread too thin, is behind on much needed training and is deficient in providing professional growth opportunities. The Foreign Service is becoming a less attractive career to those contemplating entering, and even to those who currently serve. Some of the warning signs we have seen recently include:

· The sudden appearance of a shortage of 300 mid-level Foreign Service Officers to positions in 1999.

· A decline in the pool of applicants for the Foreign Service written examination from 20,000 in the 1970s to 9,000 in 2000.

· An increase in attrition rates in the middle ranks.

The recent task force on State Department Reform, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and chaired by former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci pointed out that:
"*while the State Department has traditionally recruited from the nation's most talented ranks, fundamental reform of the department's human resources practices is needed to reverse the decline in morale and falling retention rates*. Particular attention must be directed toward improving the department's selection and recruitment of personnel, expanding professional development opportunities with an emphasis on leadership training, making the department's promotion system more responsive to outstanding personnel, and enhancing the quality of life the department provides its employees and their families."

THE NEED FOR A WORK FORCE PLAN

We agree with the Carlucci Report that these areas need to be addressed. However, even more fundamental than action in these areas is the need for a realistic and honest Workforce Plan. In the FY 2000 and 2001 State Department authorization bill honoring Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan, Public Law 106-113, Section 326 requires that "Not later than March 1, 2001, and every four years thereafter, the Secretary of State shall submit a report" that includes, among other requirements, "a workforce plan for the subsequent five years, including projected personnel needs, by grade and by skill." It then states that in determining needs, "foreign language proficiency, geographic and functional expertise, and specialist technical skills" must be considered.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot urge you enough, as part of the Committee's oversight, to ensure that this requirement is taken seriously by the Administration and the State Department. If we do not know what we have, and are unable to project what we need to fulfill our diplomatic responsibilities, then we will remain constrained to haphazard and ad hoc responses to events beyond our control.

The American Foreign Service Association recently completed the initial part of an independent work force planning study to encourage the Department to move in this direction. This initial study is an assessment of where we are in terms of human resource needs. I would like to include a copy of this report with my testimony for the Hearing Record. We estimate that the Foreign Service is short 1,175 people if the Department is to staff all of its Foreign Service positions, and to train people to fill these positions without unacceptable staffing gaps.

The types of training, methods of recruitment, approaches to increase retention, and the promotion system are all important details that fill out the picture, but the canvas needs to have an outline sketch, and that sketch is a Work Force Plan.

THE NEED FOR RESOURCES

Mr. Chairman, all of the recent studies point to two fundamental requirements. First, the foreign affairs agencies need to undergo vast reform. Second, serious resource commitments need to be made. The Report by the Task Force chaired by Frank Carlucci states:

"*while resources will be necessary for reform, reform will be necessary to obtain those resources from Congress. "

Everything that we have seen so far indicates that Secretary Powell and this Administration are serious about reforming and rebuilding our professional diplomatic service. They will need both the encouragement and the support of Congress.

Congress has the authority and responsibility for appropriating resources, and we look to you and your colleagues for this support. However, I also want to make clear that we do not believe Congress alone has been responsible for the insufficient resources dedicated to the civilian foreign affairs account in recent decades. We all bear responsibility there, and we all must work together to turn around the situation we now face.

We have seen the funding for the International Affairs Account sharply decrease over most of the past dozen years, with a slight upturn in the past couple of years. We have also seen the operating accounts of the foreign affairs agencies remain relatively flat, even as demands on the foreign affairs agencies increased. We know that the funding requests the State Department has made to successive administrations have been cut, and the amounts the Administrations have requested from the Congress critically underfunded the foreign affairs agencies and their programs. The functional budget figures for FY2002, released by the Administration yesterday, indicate an increase in the Administration's request. We are appreciative of this and hope the Congress will appropriate to this level, if not more, with sufficient support for the operating accounts to accommodate the reforms that need to be made.

In talking to various offices on the Hill, we have often been told that if the Administration will not ask, and it will not fight for additional funding of the State Department, then the Congress will not provide it.

However, there have been times when the Congress, in exercising its oversight responsibilities, funded more than the Administration's request. In FY 2000 appropriations, for instance, even after the bombings in East Africa and the Accountability Review Boards recommendations to increase funding $1.4 billion a year for 10 years to improve embassy security, the Administration requested an irresponsible $50 million to improve security in our buildings and a total of $300 million including manpower needs. It was only after the Congress demanded a realistic request that the Administration revised its numbers and increased the amount for embassy security by an additional $250 million for construction. For this we wish to express our deep gratitude to both your committee that provided the necessary authorization levels, and to the appropriations committees that demanded a resubmittal.

In the FY 2001 appropriations, while the total 150 account went down again, funding for the Administration for Foreign Affairs Account, the State Department's operating account, was actually greater than requested.

Mr. Chairman, we all know that increased funding is not the total answer, but it is certainly part of the answer. Without additional funds, we cannot increase our staffing to meet real needs, and our workforce will continue to be over-extended. We will not be able to provide adequate training without sufficient staffing levels to allow training or the necessary resources at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center; and we will not be able to provide adequate security at our posts and missions abroad without more funds.

We do acknowledge that the Congress has fully funded the requested levels for Worldwide Security Upgrades, and we appreciate that. Unfortunately, to this date the Administration has not requested, and Congress has not deemed it possible to fund the levels of security upgrades recommended by either the Accountability Review Boards or the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel.

Mr. Chairman, with additional funding, for instance, we could recruit better and decrease the amount of time it takes to bring a person on board. We could provide for the written tests to be given several times a year on-line as the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) is done. With additional funding, we could increase the number of Oral Examination Boards and have them meet more often to examine potential candidates and shorten the waiting time for entering the Foreign Service.

One of the points of personnel emphasis in the Carlucci Report was "enhancing the quality of life the department provides its employees and their families." Some improvements can be made in this area at no extra cost to the government by changing the Department's methods of operations. However, others do require funds. When the operating budgets are so stretched, something has to give, and it is usually the improvements to employee quality of life. A small example is the way Part Time and Temporary employees (PITS) who work in our posts abroad were treated in 1989. These positions are often filled by family members because of limited employment opportunities for them abroad, regardless of their skills or degrees. Up until 1989, PITS were allowed to contribute into the federal retirement system during the times they worked and to accumulate creditable hours for their services. However, in changing over to the new retirement system, the Foreign Service Pension System (FSPS), the law said that part time workers could not participate and part time was defined as working one year or less. The Department, because of funding shortages, decided to define PITs as working on one-year contracts, and thus not eligible for retirement credit and the employer contribution. Thus, our PITs worked sequential one-year contracts without benefiting their retirement status. In 1998, the Department created a new category of employees, The Family Member Appointment (FMA), which had a different definition of work and allows them to participate in the federal retirement system. However, even to this day, PITs who worked after 1989, are still unable to claim retirement credit. Mr. Chairman, this is an issue of enhancing the quality of life and showing that the work of our PITs are needed and appreciated.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, the 1998 Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Stimson Center reports, the 1999 Accountability Review Boards and the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel Reports, and the 2001 Carlucci and the Hart-Rudman Reports are correct. Serious work needs to be done in reforming both the foreign affairs agencies and the way business is done in the Department of State and the Foreign Service.

Much can be done without new legislative authority, but leadership and political will at the highest levels, as well as the determined interest and oversight of the Congress, are essential. Change is difficult to accomplish - particularly for those being asked to change. Outside interest is needed to overcome the forces of inertia, and to provide the support necessary for success.

These reports are also correct in that if needed change is not made now, our national interests will suffer. Diplomacy is our first line of defense and is essential to our national interests. If diplomacy does not succeed then we will have to revert to the use of more costly and more risky resources of our military and intelligence services.

The time to act is now. More than 1,500 Foreign Service Officers recently signed a letter to Secretary Powell describing the Department of State as dysfunctional. The time for more Blue Ribbon panels is over, and action must take its place.

In his public statements and his meetings with State Department employees, the Secretary has clearly and consistently expressed his intent to remedy the serious underfunding of the international affairs account and to make needed changes in the Department. In AFSA's private meeting with the Secretary, we expressed our appreciation for that commitment and pledged our support for his efforts to address these serious problems.

We must do it right. We need to plan and determine what is needed. We need to provide the necessary resources and support to protect and advance our national interests in the international arena. In terms of personnel, we must recruit the best, train them to be better, support and protect them, and use them to the best of their capabilities in serving the national interests of the American people. To do less is to waste this valuable and gifted resource, and to waste our future.

As always, the American Foreign Service Association stands ready to assist the Congress and to serve the Administration in achieving the necessary reforms, and we again we thank the Committee for holding these very important hearings.

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