The State Department Boys.

• Author: Marks, Edward
• Position: Book review

The State Department Boys: Philippine Diplomacy and Its American Heritage by Marciano R. de Borja, Vellum Press, 2014, ISBN-13: 978-0991504787, 388 pp., Hardcover $38.00. Paperback $22.75

The State Department Boys is actually three studies in one, literary triplets under one cover. The first and most obvious is the story of the Department of State's Philippine Foreign Affairs Training Program, which trained the first groups of Filipinos in diplomatic and consular work. The second is the story of these Philippine diplomats as they went on to create and staff the diplomatic and consular missions of an independent Republic of the Philippines. The third story is a fond and touching memorial to Edward W. Mill, an American Foreign Service Officer who directed the training program and is remembered in Manila as the "Father of the Philippine Foreign Service." All together they weave an absorbing story of diplomatic professionalism and camaraderie.

It began before Philippine independence on July 4, 1946 when the Department of State agreed to train the first officers of in incipient Philippine Foreign Service. Forty selectees, divided into five groups, participated in a training course at the Department and then went on to internship type postings to U.S. Foreign Service posts. The trainees eventually formed the initial officer corps of the Philippine Foreign Service, many of its most distinguished officers, and were fondly and collectively labeled the "State Department Boys." The story is a joint one; it is about the Filipino pioneers in their country's diplomacy but also about the American participation in that story. Not that the prominent American heritage in Philippine diplomacy was surprising, given the dominant American role in modern Philippines history since the Spanish-American War.

The story is full of interesting insights into both Philippine and American diplomatic history. Who knew that the first actual Philippine exchange of ambassadors was arranged during the war between Tokyo and the Japanese organized puppet Government of the Philippines?

Following independence from the U.S. after the war, the Filipino trainees for the projected new Philippine Foreign Service arrived in early December 1945 and were enrolled in the then Foreign Service Officers Training School, the earlier incarnation of today's Foreign Service Institute (FSI). Interestingly, the trainees--all of whom had academic credentials equal to that of entering American FSOs...