Too at home abroad.

• Author: Crosby, Harry
• Position: Foreign Service

If official Washington were an S&M club, the State Department would be strictly on the receiving end. Few public servants get so much abuse and so little respect--whether from the American public, the Congress, other executive branch bureaucrats, or even the president. Franklin Roosevelt reportedly once compared dealing with the Department to "watching an elephant become pregnant--everything's done on a very high level, there's a lot of commotion, and it takes 22 months for anything to happen." A generation later, John F. Kennedy would deride Foggy Bottom as a "bowl full of jelly" with "all those people who are constantly smiling." It's hardly surprising, then, that James Baker would continue his habit of relying on a few trusted aides, ignoring the State Department bureaucracy altogether.

Call me a masochist or a smiling idiot, but I joined the Foreign Service anyway. And like any good diplomat who expects to rise thorugh the ranks, I can say that Roosevelt and Kennedy were both right and wrong. The State Department arguably attracts a higher proportion of bright, talented, and dedicated individuals than any other branch, department, or agency of the federal government. It's what happens to them once they join that justifiably sends the Department's critics around the bend. At its worst, the institutional culture of the Foreign Service can work like alchemy in reverse, turning the bright into the dull, the talented into the mediocre, and the dedicated into the merely employed. If Foggy Bottom wants to build up some measure of influence and respect, it's going to have to change the way it teaches its people to do business.

Every year, approximately 14,000 Americans take the written Foreign Service examination, a sort of super SAT that tests their grasp of U.S. history and culture, politics, economics, international relations, and English. (On my deathbed, I'll still remember that Zimbabwe is named after some stone ruins--one of the many questions I flubbed the first time I failed the test.) Of these 14,000 applicants, 2,500 will make the cut and move on to a numbing day-long oral examination, which some 600 to 650 will survive. Eventually, after a lengthy background check, anywhere from 150 to 200 will take the job.

The selection process produces an impressive group of recruits, especially on paper. According to the Bremer Report, one of two internal State Department studies done in 1989, 99 percent of all entrants have college degrees, and 67 percent have some sort of graduate degree as well. But a look behind the numbers shows why the entering classes aren't as good as they could be. If you were a smart, motivated college graduate pounding the pavement, would you wait 12 to 15 months to find out if you got a job that would probably pay you two thirds of what you might make elsewhere? Not likely, especially if you were a hot enough prospect to attract the attention of other top-flight employers. The Bremer Report cites the lengthy selection process as one reason why two out of three candidates offered jobs with the State Department turn them down. You can look at this in one of two ways: People willing to take a job after waiting for 15 months are either very dedicated or not very dynamic.

Cone heads

I had no reservations about the brain power of my classmates--few of whom, contrary to one still-popular stereotype--were Northeasterners or Ivy Leaguers. True to the Department's lingering reputation as a white boys' club, though, most of my fellow entrants were white males (37 percent were female, and the minority quotient was virtually nil). The class's average age was 28, a throwback to the average 10 years ago. (During the intervening decade, the average entrant's age had risen steadily to reach 32 in 1989). We had a sizable contingent of ex-lawyers who moaned about the pay cuts they were...