The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

18 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Searching for Gold in Them Consular Hills S tatutory consular work is substantive in nature. It requires an extraordinarily high degree of intelligence, resourcefulness, persis- tence, imagination, compassion and sheer hard work. This is a specialty requiring every bit as much general ability and technical competence as political or economic reporting. … But few, very, very few officers join the Foreign Service with the goal of doing visa, citizenship or protection work. The overwhelming majority of newly appointed FSOs have for years come in with the clear expectation of forg- ing a career in political work, interrupted only by occa- sional broadening in an economic section. Thus, assign- ment to a consular section carries with it from the very beginning an aura of exile. The new FSO, by and large, accepts the consular assignment as a necessary evil and, for a while at least, is willing to believe that “there is gold to be mined in the consular hills.” Some few find the discretionary powers of a consular officer much to their liking and encounter true and lasting satisfaction with reasonableness and prudence. Most, however, looking toward their ultimate goal, find that the point of diminishing returns is reached after four to six months. Pressure to turn out more and more “cases” in less and less time virtually eliminates any meaningful person-to-person contact between the consular officer and his clients. The standardized interviews neces- sary for efficient operation limit one’s use of the local language to a few key sentences, endlessly repeated. Despite these pres- sures, most officers at the working level would willingly sacrifice production figures to obtain political or eco- nomic intelligence. … Most officers in the senior and upper-middle grades, when asked to expound on the value of consular experi- ence to a political (or economic) career, respond firmly, affirmatively and automatically, rather as if they were reciting the creed at High Mass. But ask any established political officer how many consular assignments he wants in the coming years. Without exception they feel they have “served their time,” gained their experience and have nothing more to learn in a consular job. —John J. St. John, from his article, “The Consular Assignment: A Minority View,” in the March 1966 FSJ . 50 Years Ago and family break-ups. In the mid-1980s, each hostage received $22,000 from the U.S. govern- ment, or roughly $50 per day of captivity, per contemporary Civil Service regula- tions. These figures were not consistent with what journalists and other non-fed- eral American employees who had been taken hostage by foreign powers received for their ordeals. The Algiers Accords, negotiated in 1981 to free the hostages, proved to be one of the main barriers to winning compen- sation directly from the government of Iran because it expressly forbade law- suits against Iran as a condition for their release. When civil litigation failed, the hos- tages appealed to Congress. Both the 107th and 111th Congresses attempted unsuccessfully to enact legislation that would repeal the Algiers Accords. The new legislation will award up to $4.4 million, or about $10,000 per day of captivity (an amount in line with what other hostages and victims of state- sponsored terrorism have received from the U.S. government). Funding will come mainly from financial penalties paid to settle violations of international sanctions. Only 38 of the 53 original hostages are still alive. The new law will also compensate other victims of terrorist attacks, including family members of Americans killed in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Reflecting on the new law, Iran expert Ambassador John Limbert—a former Iran hostage himself and current AFSA Governing Board member—offers the fol- lowing comment: “The appalling episode of 1979-1981 remains one of the ‘ghosts of history’ that haunt U.S.-Iranian relations. As an unre- solved grievance, it still casts its shadow over efforts to change 35 years of Iranian- American futility into something more productive for both sides. “Anyone who doubted the power of this particular ghost had only to listen to