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37–366 PDF 2008

S. Hrg. 110–242

BUILDING A STRONGER DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 1, 2007

Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director 

EMILY MARTHALER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 4

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2007

Ambassador Heather M. Hodges, Acting Director General of the Foreign 

Service, and Director of Human Resources, U.S. Department of State ........... 7

James B. Warlick, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International 

Organization Affairs, Bureau of International Organizations, U.S. Department of State ........................................................................................................ 9

Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 20

Thomas Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................................................. 22

John K. Naland, President, American Foreign Service Association .................... 29

Thomas D. Boyatt, Ambassador (Retired), President, Foreign Affairs Council .. 30

Deborah Derrick, Executive Director, Better World Campaign ........................... 32

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Boyatt, Thomas D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 108

Derrick, Deborah: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 32

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 112

Ford, Jess T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59

Hodges, Ambassador Heather M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43

Melito, Thomas: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 22

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 82

Naland, John K.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 101

Warlick, James B.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 52

APPENDIX 

Background on State Department Staffing Shortages ......................................... 117

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Ambassador Hodges ......................................................................................... 125

Mr. Warlick ....................................................................................................... 186

Mr. Ford ............................................................................................................ 195

Task Force Report from the Foreign Affairs Council entitled ‘‘Managing Secretary Rice’s State Department: An Independent Assessment’’ ....................... 199

(1)

BUILDING A STRONGER DIPLOMATIC 

PRESENCE 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2007

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the 

District of Columbia to order. I want to welcome our witnesses and 

thank you for being here today. 

An agency’s greatest asset is its human capital. Today’s hearing 

will examine staffing and resource needs at the Department of 

State in light of current and future global challenges. It will also 

examine how to encourage the employment of more Americans by 

the United Nations and its organizations. 

The men and women who serve in the 266 embassies, consulates, 

and other posts in 172 countries around the world are the face of 

the United States in the international community. It is these men 

and women serving overseas who defend and promote America and 

America’s interests on a daily basis. 

The same can be said of those Americans who serve in organizations of the United Nations. While the high-level management positions Americans secure at the U.N., the U.N. High Commission on 

Refugees, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the U.N. 

Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization are beneficial in 

helping to bring American perspectives and issues to the U.N., it 

is the professional staff who design and manage projects. Americans serving in these positions are part of a professional network 

of employees who bring the culture and traditions of the United 

States to the international community. 

The war on terror has brought new foreign policy challenges to 

the United States. These challenges cannot be solved through 

grand gestures and proclamations; they must also be addressed in 

2

1The Task Force Report from the Foreign Affairs Council entitled ‘‘Managing Secretary Rice’s 

State Department: An Independent Assessment,’’ appears in the Appendix on page 199. 

the routine work of our men and women who serve at the embassies and consulates of the State Department, in Washington, and 

within the halls of the U.N. and its organizations. These are the 

interactions that, at the end of the day, matter most. That is why 

it is so critical for the State Department to assist Americans who 

seek employment in the U.N. 

Since the end of the Cold War, the world has dissolved into a 

patchwork of competing interests, threats, and unexpected challenges. The Cold War structure of our institutions, including the 

State Department, has had to change with the times. 

In 2002, following the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, 

former Secretary of State Colin Powell created the Diplomatic 

Readiness Initiative to revitalize the State Department and to 

bring in 1,158 new skilled, committed, and well-trained Foreign 

and Civil Service employees. Congress appropriated over $100 million for the DRI, which enabled the State Department to hire 300 

new employees and 1,700 new Foreign Service officers. 

On January 18, 2006, Secretary Rice announced her own program, the Transformational Diplomacy Initiative, which called for 

the global repositioning of Foreign Service positions from Washington, DC, and elsewhere to critical emerging areas including Africa, South and East Asia, and the Middle East. Many of these posts 

are considered hardship posts, which the State Department defines 

as locations where the U.S. Government provides differential pay 

incentives to encourage employees to bid on assignments at these 

posts and to compensate them for the hardships they encounter 

there. Such incentives are necessary due to extraordinarily difficult 

living conditions, excessive physical hardship, or notably unhealthful conditions affecting the majority of employees officially stationed there. 

However, global repositioning has resulted in a hollowing out of 

Foreign Service staff, as the State Department has continued to 

lose more staff than it has hired. To make matters worse, in implementing the global repositioning of positions, Secretary Rice did not 

obtain funding for additional positions in these critical emerging 

areas, but instead moved existing positions to them. 

According to a report by the Foreign Affairs Council issued on 

June 1, 2007,1 between 2001 and 2005, 1,069 new positions and 

program funding increases were secured through the DRI. But 

since that time, all of these new positions have been redirected to 

assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hardship posts. 

Roughly 200 existing jobs remain unfilled and an additional 900 

training slots necessary to provide language and other skills do not 

exist. The report adds that in the first 2 years of Secretary Rice’s 

tenure at the State Department, no new net resources have been 

secured. Therefore, whatever gains the DRI secured at the State 

Department were quickly eliminated because of the wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

In fact, in order to meet the ongoing needs in these two countries, Secretary Rice moved 280 mid-level Foreign Service positions 

3

from other posts to staff the U.S. embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The Vice President of the American Foreign Service Association 

has testified that at least 40 percent of State Department diplomats who have served in danger zones suffer from some form of 

post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. It is important to remember that, unlike members of the military, these unarmed civilian 

diplomats are not well-prepared to function in active combat zones. 

Increasingly, service in hardship posts is a requirement for promotion within the Foreign Service, which means that PTSD will 

likely become a mainstay of the FSO experience over the long term. 

The State Department must develop more effective means to acknowledge this health risk and to provide the support that the 

FSOs returning from these posts so greatly require. 

Staffing at the State Department is not the only problem we face 

in our ability to execute U.S. foreign policy. Despite the fact that 

the United States contributes the largest portion of the U.N. budget, Americans continue to be underrepresented at the United Nations and its specialized agencies. At my request, the GAO surveyed five U.N. organizations last year which comprise roughly 50 

percent of total U.N. organizations’ professional staff. They found 

that three of them—the UNHCR, IAEA, and UNESCO—fell short 

of either formal or informal hiring targets agreed upon by the organizations and their member states while staffing levels for Americans and others. This means that the United States is losing an opportunity to contribute important skills, perspectives, and experience to the U.N. 

The September GAO report found that there are barriers keeping 

Americans from assuming positions at the U.N. A critical finding 

in that report was that the State Department does not effectively 

support Americans who seek employment at these organizations 

and, when it does, tends to emphasize only director-level or higher 

posts. 

As the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed 

Services Committee and as chairman of the Veterans’ Committee, 

I am committed to ensuring that our men and women in uniform, 

fighting overseas, and our returning veterans have the training, 

equipment, and support they need both to accomplish their mission 

and sustain morale. 

We need to devote the same attention to the men and women 

serving our Nation in a civilian capacity overseas that we do to our 

service personnel. At the same time, I believe that if we are going 

to be successful in winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the 

world, which is so critical in the war on terrorism, we must do a 

much better job of promoting American participation in international organizations. 

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss this 

critical issue. 

I now would like to move on here. Senator Voinovich is expected 

to be here, and when he does, I will have him deliver his statement 

as well. 

But I want to welcome the witnesses to this Subcommittee today: 

Ambassador Heather Hodges, Acting Director General of the U.S. 

Department of State; and James Warlick, Principal Deputy AssistVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
4

ant Secretary, Bureau of International Organizations at the U.S. 

Department of State. 

And I want you to know that it is the custom to swear in all witnesses. I would ask all of you to stand and raise your right hand 

and to respond after the swearing in. So will you please rise with 

me? Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give this 

Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Ambassador Hodges. I do. 

Mr. WARLICK. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let the record note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Before the witnesses begin their testimony, let me state for the 

record, as we deal with a hearing like this, that I understand that 

our staffs have had some difficulty, and out of that I would tell you 

that I was greatly disappointed to hear that we had some problems 

trying to set up this hearing. And I wish to remind everyone that 

we are here representing the people of this great Nation, and I as 

the Chairman am holding this hearing to understand the staffing 

needs of the State Department. And I want you to know that as 

Chairman of the Federal Workforce Subcommittee, this is not only 

your problem, it is the country’s problem. And so we need to try 

to get as much information as we can from all corners and to try 

to use this to deal with the problems that we face. 

He is right on time. I will ask Senator Voinovich for his statement. Senator Voinovich and I have been working on human capital, and I look upon him as the hero of human capital. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator, and I apologize for 

being late. I want to thank you for calling this hearing this afternoon on the Department of State’s human capital challenges and 

the hiring of U.S. citizens in U.N. agencies. 

As a Member of this Subcommittee, as Senator Akaka said, I 

have had a longstanding interest in improving government management in general and, in particular, an interest in the management of the Department of State. I know that successful diplomacy 

requires the support of a well-prepared and well-managed Foreign 

and Civil Service. 

Unfortunately, the downsizing of the 1990s left a gap in experienced personnel, and the change in reality of the State Department’s mission after September 11 combined to make this challenge a difficult one. As with other Federal agencies, the State Department is losing seasoned staff to retirement at a time when the 

need to engage in public diplomacy has never been greater. I have 

expressed my concerns to Secretary Rice and to Deputy Secretary 

Negroponte and encouraged them to make leadership and management a top priority. I was really concerned when Bob Zoellick got 

the job because I did not think he was going to get involved in 

management. I am hoping that Deputy Secretary Negroponte is 

paying more attention to management. 

This hearing is timely before the loss of Executive Branch leadership due to transition and so we are concerned about what happens 

in the interim. With a number of workforce initiatives begun by 

5

Secretary Rice and her predecessor, Secretary Powell, it is extremely important that the State Department not lose momentum. 

And I know Secretary Rice has tried to really pay attention to management, but I do not know of any Secretary of State that has had 

more to do than she has. I am sure her focus on management is 

not very great because she has no time for it. 

I am aware that priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan have slowed 

progress, but developing critical skills in management, improving 

language training, changing leadership culture to emphasize teamwork between the Foreign Service and Civil Service are fundamental no matter who is in charge. In addition, the Federal Government needs to be the employer of first choice by providing 

meaningful incentives, such as the student loan repayment program, to attract talented staff. 

The Subcommittee held a hearing at the beginning of the year 

devoted to language training in the Federal Government. The need 

to improve foreign language skills is not an abstraction. It took the 

tragedy of September 11 to wake up to the fact that we were not 

prepared for the 21st Century. 

To maintain our competitive business edge and keep our country 

safe, Americans must learn to be global citizens and to communicate effectively with other peoples around the world. I am a 

strong proponent of the good that can be done through cultural exchange programs and the opportunities for citizens of other countries to visit and learn about our country. And spending time in another country can be life-changing for citizens as well. 

The public diplomacy mission of the Department of State is all 

about connecting to foreign audiences and explaining American values and ideals. Yet GAO, in their 2006 report, notes that 30 percent of officers in language-designated public diplomacy positions 

in the Muslim world have not attained the level of language proficiency required for their positions, hampering their ability to engage with foreign publics. 

Most agree that success in our war against terror will depend on 

winning the hearts and minds of Muslims throughout the world. 

Imam Rauf, who visited with me recently, is putting together a coalition of Muslim scholars from all sects to show how the principles 

of democracy and the West are consistent with Islam. How does the 

Muslim world deal with modernity and how does modernity deal 

with the Muslim world? 

The State Department is also responsible for protecting and assisting U.S. citizens who are living or traveling abroad. Unfortunately, many Americans saw the problems of understaffing and 

poor planning firsthand when they tried to comply with the requirement to have a passport for travel in the Western Hemisphere. My office, as well as that of every other Senator and Member of Congress, was inundated with constituents trying to embark 

on travel plans who were unable to get passports in time. It took 

extraordinary intervention with the Departments of Homeland Security and the State Department to ease the restriction temporarily. I just saw something on Jim Lehrer the other night, a report 

that you have got a bunch of young, bright Presidential scholars, 

200 of them that you brought in, and you are working to get that 

backlog down. 

6

1The prepared statement of Ambassador Hodges appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

What is dismaying is that this situation could have and should 

have been anticipated. In other words, we should have known 

something about this. So it brings me back to concerns I have 

raised with the Secretary and Deputy Secretary about the need for 

a continued focus on management. the State Department is comprised of both the Civil Service and Foreign Service, and many of 

the jobs they fill are interchangeable. Many complain that the 

State Department is failing to use or retain civil servants because 

there is no clear development plan for the Civil Service cadre, and 

there is also no clear plan for integrating civil servants with overseas posts when needed. 

Currently, there are many civil servants who would volunteer to 

serve overseas, but there is no way to do that while continuing on 

an upward career path. I think this is a missed opportunity when 

many other key posts are understaffed. 

I have been told that public diplomacy officers in turn are burdened with administrative duties, such as budget, personnel, and 

internal reporting that compete with their public diplomacy responsibilities. I know the State Department is making an effort to 

change this, and I am anxious to hear what is being done to help 

turn this situation around. 

Finally, I want to say a word about our panel on the hiring of 

U.S. citizens to fill positions in U.N. agencies. First of all, I do not 

think we have been aggressive enough. We should be encouraging 

people to apply. Ensuring that professional merit is the standard 

by which candidates are chosen should also be a goal, and we have 

talked to Ban Ki-moon about this. If you want people to apply then 

this cannot be a patronage operation. They have got to believe, ‘‘If 

I come in here and I do a good job, I can move up the ranks in 

this organization.’’

We need to provide whatever support and leverage we can to 

help Ban Ki-moon institute the management reforms that he would 

like to make in the United Nations. I happen to believe that the 

Secretary General is a decent man, understands what needs to be 

done, and has got somebody working on management that I think 

is terrific. 

So, Mr. Chairman, again, I apologize to you and to the witnesses 

for being late, and I look forward to hearing the witnesses’ testimony. Thank you for being here. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. We 

have been working on human capital for many years, and we will 

continue to work on it here. 

At this time, I would like to call on Ambassador Hodges for your 

statement. 

TESTIMONY OF AMBASSADOR HEATHER M. HODGES,1 ACTING 

DIRECTOR GENERAL, FOREIGN SERVICE, AND DIRECTOR OF 

HUMAN RESOURCES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador HODGES. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, thank 

you for this opportunity to testify before you today and address the 

State Department’s efforts to develop, position, and support our 

dedicated corps of Foreign Service, Civil Service, and locally emVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
7

ployed staff to effectively meet the challenges of our worldwide mission. 

The changes we have seen in terms of the Department of State’s 

staffing requirements in the post-September 11 world are nothing 

less than staggering. The number of State Department positions 

overseas that are designated ‘‘unaccompanied’’ or ‘‘limited unaccompanied’’ for reasons of hardship or danger has almost quadrupled 

since 2001, from less than 200 to more than 750 today. 

Since 2001, we have opened and staffed new embassies in 

Podgorica, Montenegro, and Dili, Timor Leste, and set up dozens 

of provincial reconstruction teams under the most challenging circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq, while still maintaining operational readiness at our other 265 missions worldwide. 

We have also enhanced interagency cooperation by increasing the 

number of political military advisors to military commanders in the 

field, expanding details to other national security agencies, and developing the U.S. Government’s capacity to participate in reconstruction and stabilization efforts. 

Sustaining the State Department’s high standards for foreign 

language capability has also become challenging. Since 2001, the 

number of language-designated positions in the State Department 

has doubled. Language-designated positions and critical needs languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Farsi, which are often the 

hardest to teach, have increased by 170 percent. 

Over three rounds of global repositioning, the Secretary has approved the realignment and creation of 285 positions, including the 

establishment of new American Presence Posts, by reallocating positions and implementing other management reforms. The regions 

of East Asia Pacific and South Central Asia have been allotted the 

most new positions, with our missions in India and China receiving 

the largest staffing increases. We have effectively repositioned onetenth of our political, economic, and public diplomacy officers overseas through the global repositioning process. 

The State Department has also increased training to meet the 

needs of transformational diplomacy. The Foreign Service has expanded its foreign language training capacity to increase the number of critical needs language speakers and raise the proficiency of 

existing foreign language speakers. The State Department enrollments in Arabic language courses, for example, have nearly quadrupled since 2001, with roughly 450 enrollments in the various 

types of Arabic courses in fiscal year 2006. 

We also announced a special initiative this summer to encourage 

State Department employees to learn Arabic. Under this program, 

Foreign Service generalists and specialists can curtail their current 

jobs to begin full-time Arabic training. 

Within the Bureau of Human Resources, we have adapted our recruitment intake and assignments processes to maintain operational readiness in the face of global challenges. We have adapted 

our intake process to meet the State Department’s transformational diplomacy agenda and retain our ability to attract the 

best and brightest foreign affairs professionals. Registration is currently underway for the first test offering in September 2007 as 

part of a redesigned Foreign Service intake process. 

8

In addition to changing the way we recruit and hire Foreign 

Service officers, we also made substantial changes to the assignments process in 2006 and 2007. We changed the order in which 

assignments are made, tightened the so-called ‘‘Fair share’’ rules, 

requiring more of our personnel to serve at hardship posts, limited 

Foreign Service officers to 5 consecutive years of service in Washington, DC, and eliminated fourth-year extensions at posts with 

less than 15 percent differential. I am pleased to report that the 

process has worked well. As of July 31, we have also successfully 

filled 93 percent of our summer 2007 openings in Iraq, including 

those in Baghdad and in the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and 

nearly all of our unaccompanied positions worldwide have all been 

staffed with volunteers. 

This year, we also introduced a country-specific assignments 

cycle for Iraq. This new cycle will ensure that we once again fully 

staff our mission in Iraq in 2008. 

Our new assignments procedures have been successful because of 

our dedicated men and women who, in the finest tradition of the 

Foreign Service and the State Department in general, are committed to serving the needs of America. One of our ongoing challenges is staffing overseas positions, and one of our top legislative 

priorities is to implement a new pay-for-performance system within 

the Foreign Service that will establish a single, worldwide pay 

scale for Foreign Service members and eliminate an 18.6-percent 

disparity for FS–01 and below officers serving overseas. 

The State Department has included the Foreign Service pay reform provisions in its fiscal year 2008 and 2009 authorization bill 

request, which was sent to Congress in May 2007. We look forward 

to working with Congress to pass this important piece of legislation, which will go a long way to help the State Department staff 

our most difficult posts overseas. We are doing all we can to meet 

the challenges of staffing our missions in a post-September 11 

world and are proud of our success to date. We also acknowledge 

that, despite our best efforts, the State Department’s staffing needs 

to exceed our current resources. 

The State Department is dealing with a deficit of mid-level Foreign Service generalists due to hiring shortages in the 1990s. At 

the FS–02 level, we have 210 more positions than officers. In addition, the State Department has only been able to set aside 500 positions for long-term training, a mere 5 percent of our Foreign 

Service position base. As a result, we have been forced to leave 

some overseas positions vacant for long periods, or we have had to 

waive language requirements in order to fill positions. 

To address our staffing needs, the State Department requested 

254 new positions in the fiscal year 2008 budget to cover training, 

surge, and rotational requirements. The President’s budget submission has requested new positions for the last 3 years, but Congress 

has not appropriated any new positions outside of the earmarked 

consular and security positions since 2004. 

Our Foreign Service corps of approximately 11,500, while made 

up of the most talented and capable foreign affairs professionals 

this country has to offer, is too small to handle the United States 

of America’s increasingly critical and growing mission of diplomatic 

engagement. To put this number in perspective, our entire corps of 

9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Warlick appears in the Appendix on page 52. 

Foreign Service generalists and specialists is about the size of one 

army division. 

We are hard at work around the world with about 67 percent of 

Foreign Service employees serving overseas and 68 percent of those 

assigned to hardship posts. We are proud of our committed, capable 

Department of State employees who make sacrifices every day to 

serve the American people, and we are committed to supporting 

and enabling them to effectively carry out the State Department’s 

mission. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to address you 

today. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your testimony, Ambassador. And now we will hear from Mr. Warlick. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMES B. WARLICK,1 PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. WARLICK. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, I am pleased to 

have the opportunity to discuss the Department of State’s efforts 

to recruit U.S. citizens for positions at U.N.’s organizations. We 

place high priority on increasing the number of Americans at all 

levels in international organizations. Americans bring to the work 

environment well-honed skills, high levels of education, and relevant experience in their fields of expertise. They are also accustomed to working in a culture where ethics, efficiency, and effectiveness are prized, and accountability is expected. A strong American presence in international organizations is in our Nation’s best 

interests because it translates into influence and a greater likelihood of achieving our policy goals. 

Our highest priority is placing American citizens in policy and 

senior-level positions in the U.N. system. We have worked closely 

with new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his staff to 

identify the most talented Americans and place them in positions 

of responsibility. We were particularly pleased that the Secretary 

General selected Ambassador Lynn Pascoe to serve as Under Secretary General for Political Affairs and Josette Sheeran to be the 

new Executive Director of the World Food Program. The appointments of Nancy Graham as Director of Air Navigation for the 

International Civil Aviation Organization and Craig Johnstone as 

Deputy U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees were other achievements. 

We have also provided assistance to Americans who have been 

successful in obtaining entry in mid-level positions. For example, a 

Foreign Service officer recently obtained an administrative officer 

position in the U.N. Office at Geneva, and an American was selected as an examinations officer in the U.N. Secretariat. 

We are seeking to increase the overall number of Americans in 

international organizations. As of the end of 2005, there were 

roughly 2,200 Americans serving in professional positions in the 

U.N. system, representing 8.2 percent of the professional workforce. This is down from the year 2000 when Americans held 8.8 

percent of the professional positions. 

10

But these numbers do not tell the whole story. We are targeting 

particular jobs, agencies, and programs where the presence of 

American citizens can make especially important contributions. For 

example, there has been a major interagency effort to increase the 

number of Americans at the International Atomic Energy Agency, 

and we have had some success. However, increasing the number of 

Americans, regardless of grade level, is not an easy task. Many 

challenges are not primarily within the control of the United 

States, including restrictions on the number of positions open to external candidates, stiff competition from nationals of other countries, many of whom are multilingual, and limited job opportunities 

for spouses—a problem for many American families that are used 

to two incomes and spouses who want to work. 

To achieve our goal of increasing American representation in the 

U.N. system, we are working in different ways. 

First, we have increased the resources devoted to this effort. In 

2002, there were only two positions assigned to this area, while 

now we have six positions—four of which are fully dedicated. One 

position concentrates solely on identifying and placing Americans 

in senior- and policy-level jobs. Also, in recent years, we have provided higher levels of funding for travel, displays, and materials related to outreach events. 

Second, the State Department has increased and broadened its 

outreach efforts. We have reached a much wider source of potential 

candidates because OPM’s USAJobs website has a link to our employment-in-international-organizations website, as do other organizations. We have continued to compile an international vacancy 

announcement list with a dissemination list that keeps growing. 

We have regularly sent officers from Washington to meet with 

international organization officials to press for an increase in hiring Americans at all levels, to supplement the message being sent 

routinely by our Ambassadors. 

We have participated in more career fairs than in the past and 

are now trying to better target our audiences. Also, we have been 

broadening our outreach geographically by participating in outreach events outside the Washington area, such as in Arizona, 

California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and Texas. 

To help ensure that Americans are hired at the entry level at the 

United Nations for the last several years the State Department has 

funded the costs for holding the U.N.’s National Competitive Recruitment Exam in locations other than in New York—for example, 

in California and Illinois. We also recognize the value of junior professional officers, and the State Department has continued its funding for these positions. For example, there were 15 junior professional officers funded in 2006, which was increased to 17 in 2007. 

I should note that Secretary Rice, her senior staff, and others 

throughout the government have worked actively to place Americans in positions in the U.N. American citizen employment is a 

U.S. Government priority. 

Third, we have been seeking better coordination and collaboration within the U.S. Government. We created an interagency task 

force as a forum for identifying issues, seeking out best practices, 

and disseminating information. We have met individually with U.S. 

Government agencies to examine American employment issues in 

11

international organizations. In addition, in 2006, Secretary Rice 

sent a letter to heads of U.S. Government agencies urging them to 

assist and encourage details and transfers of their employees to 

international organizations. 

We acknowledge that more can be done to place American citizens in U.N. jobs, and we welcome GAO’s report, issued in September 2006, on additional efforts needed to increase U.S. employees at U.N. agencies. We agree with each of the report’s recommendations and are in the process of implementing them. For 

example, we updated all informational documents on our international organization employment website in 2007. We began researching Internet-based options for compiling a roster of potential 

candidates. And, we initiated a study to identify the fields of expertise most often advertised by international organizations in order 

to better target our recruitment efforts. 

The Department of State is committed to placing more U.S. citizens in international organizations at all levels. We are continuing 

our efforts to place more Americans in important posts and will 

continue to engage senior officials, our missions, U.S. Government 

agencies, and international organizations themselves toward this 

end. We will persist in seeking to implement better, more cost-effective, and efficient mechanisms to recruit and place Americans in 

the U.N. system. 

Thank you very much for your attention. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Warlick. 

Ambassador Hodges, it is clear that PTSD is a serious problem 

for FSOs returning from hardship posts, and I would tell you that 

many people do not realize this and how tough it is to serve there. 

What kinds of practices does the State Department have in place 

to support Foreign and Civil Service employees who develop PTSD 

as a result of assignments in those hardship posts such as Iraq and 

Afghanistan? 

Ambassador HODGES. Well, sir, we have instituted a seminar 

that is now required for all people who are returning from service 

in Iraq and Afghanistan and actually many of the other unaccompanied posts if the people so desire who have been under stressful 

conditions. We have, as I say, recently made this a required course 

so that people do not see it as a stigma to go to it, and when they 

show up at a course as if they have some problem. 

Also, we have recently done a survey of people who have served 

in unaccompanied posts and only recently have compiled the information available from that survey. And from that our Medical Division finds that we are sure that perhaps 2 percent of these employees have PTSD, and it is possible that another 15 percent have 

PTSD, although, obviously, it is impossible to diagnose from a survey whether or not people have PTSD. But we are taking this very 

seriously, and the Medical Division is going to be putting together 

a unit, we hope, to look at this problem, to be able to work with 

the military, who have far more expertise than we do in this issue, 

and we also want to become more and more aware of the problem 

because we know, as you said, that this is something that we are 

going to live with for many years to come. 

12

Senator AKAKA. At this time do you have follow-up support? The 

reason I ask is we know that, for instance, PTSD does not come 

immediately. 

Ambassador HODGES. Exactly. 

Senator AKAKA. It may be a year or so. 

Ambassador HODGES. Right. 

Senator AKAKA. Do you deal with that follow-up support? 

Ambassador HODGES. Well, I think we have to do more, and it 

is exactly right that just a follow-on course or seminar when somebody is just back from service is not enough. We have to make sure 

that these people are aware of the resources we have within our 

Medical Division. Also, overseas in some posts we have regional 

medical centers, doctors who are there who travel around to the 

other posts, so they are always available to people who have gone 

on to other assignments. But also our Family Liaison Office does 

work with members of families and is also available to people who 

want to go to them. 

But, again, we know we have to do more. 

Senator AKAKA. In fiscal year 2008, the State Department requested $398 billion plus an additional $1.88 billion for Iraq. The 

Administration granted none of the positions requested in either 

fiscal year 2006 or fiscal year 2007 for training and transformational diplomacy. 

Can you comment on this case? 

Ambassador HODGES. As I mentioned in my testimony, we have 

in many cases tried to fold the training into assignments of people 

going overseas. We would like to have more positions in order to 

give our people more training before they go. Sometimes we have 

had to waive language requirements. Sometimes we have shortened language training. But we have done our best to meet the 

needs of the priority positions. 

Senator AKAKA. George Staples, the recently retired Director 

General at the State Department, has said that the current situation in which FSOs are being required to serve in unaccompanied 

hardship posts is not simply a result of Iraq and Afghanistan but 

a new norm that will become what he saw as standard practice. If 

this is indeed the case, do you think the State Department will 

have difficulty retaining qualified personnel and attracting new 

personnel? 

Ambassador HODGES. It is true that now the median differential 

of all our positions worldwide is 15 percent, and some of those differentials go much higher than that. Also, there are over 750 unaccompanied or limited-accompanied positions around the world 

where, for safety reasons particularly or security in general, we do 

not allow family members to come. And yes, it is very possible that 

this will not change, that it could go up, it will change from post 

to post over time, but it is likely that this will not change. 

But it is interesting. Ambassador Staples would go out to greet 

all of our new entry-level officers, our new specialists, and over the 

year that he was Director General, I think his message got 

grimmer and grimmer. And yet it seems as if we see that these 

people who are coming into the Foreign Service are very energetic. 

They are eager to serve their country. This is very definitely a postVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
13

September 11 generation that is signing up for the Foreign Service, 

and we are really very pleased by that. 

Also, I might mention our attrition rate is one of the lowest in 

the Federal Government, and we actually have a lower attrition 

rate at the entry level and the mid-levels than we have had for 

many years. 

Senator AKAKA. That is good to hear. We will have another 

round. I will ask Senator Voinovich for any of his questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I listened to your testimony, and I would 

like you to share with me as candidly as you can what it is that 

we have not done that makes it difficult for you to do your job. 

Ambassador HODGES. That is a leading, question, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, we always have you folks here, and we 

always give you a hard time about lots of stuff. 

Ambassador HODGES. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. But so often I have found that one of the 

reasons why we have the problems is because we are not doing the 

job that we are supposed to be doing. So I am going to give you 

an opportunity, and Mr. Warlick, to share with us some of your 

frustrations about some of the things that are going on and how 

Congress could do a better job of doing our job so you can do yours. 

Ambassador HODGES. Obviously, we need positions and we have 

requested positions every year, and we need to have them in order 

to provide sufficient training for our people and also to be able to 

meet emergency needs as well, because when we find that we have 

new position needs in a particular area, we have to shift in a way 

because we just do not have enough people. So if we have a need 

here, we have to move somebody from somewhere else in order to 

meet that need. We simply need more people, and we need those 

funded positions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you know how many people you would 

need in order to get the job done reasonably? Do you have any idea 

of what the cost would be? 

Ambassador HODGES. I am going to refer you to some of the reports of NGOs. The Foreign Affairs Council, when they will be testifying after us, they have come up with a recommendation of 

something like 1,100 or possibly more. CSIS is doing a study on the 

Embassy of the Future, and although I do not have that data, I understand that their numbers will be very similar, or even more 

than that. And that would allow for training for positions and 

things like that. 

If I could finish answering your original question, also I referred 

to the issue of payment for locality pay overseas, the pay for performance and reforms there, that really is a disincentive to officers 

to go overseas to discover that when you leave Washington, DC, 

you are going to actually take a cut in pay. People do go overseas. 

They do serve their country. But this would be very helpful to us. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, the question I have is in your budget 

request did you ask for locality pay over the last couple of years 

and not get it? 

Ambassador HODGES. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How about pay for performance? 

Ambassador HODGES. The seniors have pay for performance, 

but——

14

Senator VOINOVICH. I know you have pay for performance for the 

SES——

Ambassador HODGES. Right, but that is what we would like to 

do, is have that for the 01s and below. 

Senator VOINOVICH. You do performance evaluation on——

Ambassador HODGES. Oh, yes, very rigorously. And we have promotion panels every year for every level. That is, in a way, just by 

promoting people, we do a measurement of performance. 

Senator VOINOVICH. But it is not connected with pay for performance? 

Ambassador HODGES. At the moment, below 01 level, no. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Several years ago, I had dinner with an Ambassador and his wife, and I talked to her about Senator Akaka’s 

and our efforts to try and move toward pay for performance. But 

the example she gave me—and, Senator, you might be interested. 

She said, ‘‘We have 15 people that work for us: five are super hitters, five are really pretty good, and five, they are okay. But,’’ she 

said, ‘‘Senator, they all get the same pay.’’ And she said that it is 

not the best kind of environment for people to work in. 

Would you care to comment at all on whether or not this kind 

of a set-up, the current set-up has an effect on attracting people to 

come to work for the State Department? 

Ambassador HODGES. To be honest, I don’t think that as people 

come to take the examination to enter the State Department and 

when they are showing an interest in being in the Foreign Service 

or civil servants or whatever, I don’t think that is a factor in deciding to join the Department of State. I think later on, though, it is 

a factor when people are deciding which assignments to take because they are here, they have their families in school, and then 

they discover that if they go overseas—especially people who are 

the mid-level whose salaries are lower, and then they go overseas 

and they actually take a pay cut. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, what we have to understand is that we 

want to be the employer of choice, and the real issue is that the 

competition is very keen out there for these people. Everybody 

wants them and it seems to me that pay for performance would be 

attractive to someone coming to work for the State Department. 

I am very pleased because the word I got as I traveled around 

is that you are not losing a lot of people eligible for retirement. In 

other words, you have got folks that are capable of retiring or taking an early out and they are sticking around. 

Ambassador HODGES. When I spoke I was referring in particular 

to the entry-level retention rate and to the mid-level retention rate. 

The senior-level retention rate—the retirement rate has gone up in 

the past couple of years, but we believe that has to do with the 

baby boomers and people who have reached their time in class 

within the service. And that is something that we already have 

factored into our workforce planning model. The statistics are not 

really anything different from what we expected. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What you need are more positions and more 

money. As I mentioned in my opening statement, this is a war for 

the hearts and minds of people. I had a wonderful conversation 

with General Jones, who was in charge of Central Command overseas and NATO forces. And if you look at the money we are spendVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
15

ing in the Defense Department and took some of that money and 

put it in the State Department for some of these diplomacy programs, in this new environment that we have, we would be far better off. And when I think about, Senator Akaka, is we have spent 

close to $600 billion now in Iraq, and I think about how some of 

that money could have been better used in the State Department. 

I think there are people in this Administration thinking about it, 

but time is running out. The challenge that we have is to figure 

out how to take the resources we have and allocate them in the 

most effective way, understanding that the enemy is entirely different than those we have confronted in the past. 

Right now, for example, you are worried about folks going to 

places where in the past the State Department did not have to 

worry about it. You could bring your family. But now with this 

growing al Qaeda threat in various parts of the world, the State 

Department is, ‘‘Hey, you had better leave your family at home because we are frightened that maybe something might happen to 

them.’’ Or staff might say, ‘‘I do not want my family to come with 

me because God only knows what is going to happen to me.’’

We really have to have some new thinking if we are going to to 

win the hearts and minds of others and get the job done. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I have further questions for you, Ambassador. Steve Kashkett, 

State Department Vice President of the American Foreign Service 

Association, recently stated that Foreign Service officers fear that 

the Administration is working to transform the Foreign Service 

into the civilian equivalent of the Military Rapid Action Force instead of one characterized by the activist diplomats in the style of 

George Kennan. Do you agree with this characterization? And if so, 

why? And what can be done to create more of a balanced workforce 

in the Foreign Service? 

Ambassador HODGES. No, sir, I think that you have to look at the 

Foreign Service and our missions around the world, the multiple 

jobs that we do, it is absolutely incredible. And so to say that we 

are being transformed into one thing or another would be misleading. 

We do great things, and some of our people are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of them love being there. They love this opportunity to bring democracy to these countries. They love being in 

PRTs. Other people are in Africa where they also see opportunities 

to transform countries, to help these countries be—to support them 

in their democratic endeavors, or in Latin America, but also in European countries, Western European countries. Our people have a 

wide variety of roles. We do a lot of multilateral diplomacy. We 

work with the European Union, and our work with the European 

Union has to do with the rest of the world. 

There are just so many things that we are involved in that depend on the country and the nature of the job that you are going 

to in the individual countries. 

So I think that we are meeting our priorities as the—the Department of State is meeting the priorities that we have as the U.S. 

Government. And so, sometimes we are doing something that you 

could characterize as seeming, as support for what the military is 

doing, or whatever. But we are doing many things. 

16

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Warlick, how does the State Department determine whether a position at the U.N. is important enough to warrant recruiting efforts? 

Mr. WARLICK. We have placed the highest priority on policy-level 

and senior-level positions. The policy-level positions are at the 

Under Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General levels or 

the equivalent. Policy and senior-level positions also may be considered the Office Director equivalent. 

We have placed our highest priority on those positions because 

we believe that they will allow Americans to exercise the most influence in the U.N. system. But our efforts have not been to the 

exclusion of junior- and mid-level positions. We consider those a 

priority as well, and we do seek for Americans to apply for and fill 

as many positions as possible throughout the U.N. system. 

I would like to add that there are particular programs in agencies within the U.N. system that are of higher priority to us than 

others, and we will work most closely with those agencies to ensure 

that Americans are hired, in particular to higher-level positions. 

Senator AKAKA. In those cases, in those positions, is there a process or a way in which the Department of State assists U.S. applicants to move into U.N. organizations? 

Mr. WARLICK. Well, the process happens in many different ways. 

Sometimes there are American citizens that apply directly to the 

United Nations, and we are never aware of their candidacies. We 

wish that we were aware of such Americans because we would like 

to be in a position to support them. 

There are other American citizens who do come to us directly 

and ask for our assistance, and we do, to the extent possible, try 

to provide assistance to them. Sometimes this is done by providing 

factual assistance on the application process. Sometimes it is done 

by endorsing their applications for employment in particular organizations. 

Senator AKAKA. In its report, the GAO states that IAEA has difficulty attracting qualified U.S. applicants, allegedly because the 

pool of American nuclear specialists is decreasing. Do you think 

this contention is valid? Or is it that there are other barriers which 

dissuade Americans from applying for positions? 

Mr. WARLICK. I think the contention is true, but there are many 

factors, including some less known ones, that contribute to the 

IAEA’s ability to attract Americans. 

First of all, I would say that we would like to see more Americans in positions in the International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA). There have been many efforts made by U.S. agencies to encourage Americans to apply for jobs in IAEA; and IAEA has actually hired more Americans into positions. I would say that the contention by the GAO is, in fact, correct. We do have available a limited pool of nuclear scientists and people with those sorts of technical capabilities. There are very good employment opportunities 

for that pool within the United States, and there are other factors 

involved, too. These include the extent to which those scientists 

and other people with technical capabilities can speak other languages and the extent to which they are willing to relocate, which 

often involves the availability of job opportunities for their spouses. 

17

So all this needs to be taken into account to understand why Americans representation in IAEA still needs to be improved. 

I would say, though, with IAEA, we have engaged very actively 

with the senior leadership because of the importance of the work 

of that organization. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Senator Voinovich, do you have any 

further questions? 

Senator VOINOVICH. Yes, I do. 

We had testimony in regard to the fiasco dealing with passports. 

Do you have any idea when the State Department will be able to 

handle its workload timely? 

Ambassador HODGES. You mentioned the passports before. I was 

looking to see if I had brought a fact sheet with me that I believe 

Members of Congress are going to be receiving from Assistant Secretary Bergner today or tomorrow. But we are making tremendous 

progress. Certainly, as you have noted, we have put PMFs to work, 

the entry-level officers, some people who had come back for training courses. We have put people to work at various passport agencies, and they are making considerable progress. And I would say 

that we are optimistic that we will be able to meet the commitments made to you through Assistant Secretary Hardy that we will 

be fairly caught up with the backlog by September. 

Senator VOINOVICH. All right. But what you are doing in a way 

is you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

Ambassador HODGES. I hope not for long. The people that we 

have taken out of training will be put back in training, and then 

they will be able to go off to their overseas positions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Has anybody taken the telescope out and 

looked at what the future looks like? Because there are going to be 

new broder requirements, that is we are going to start requiring 

identification for ground and pedestrian transportation. How is 

that going to impact passport processing? 

It would seem to me that there needs to be better coordination 

between the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. You are the ones that have got the job to do, and I would 

hope that someone is looking down the road to see whether what 

DHS requires is realistic, so you can plan and we do not end up 

with another one of these fiascos. 

I want to thank the State Department for their cooperation in 

getting the Visa Waiver Program through with the 9/11 bill. But 

it seems to me that there are some inconsistencies in whether and 

for what reasons countries are rejected. Has anyone looked at that, 

to your knowledge, or is this outside of your frame of reference? 

Ambassador HODGES. Actually, I would prefer to have the Bureau of Consular Affairs answer that question. I am sure that this 

is something, though, that is ongoing review with regard to the 

various countries. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I would like to have something on 

that. I would like to know what kind of training individuals are 

given in the various embassies. There are supposed to be objective 

standards in place, and I think there may be some variation from 

one place to another. Those people have an enormous amount of 

power in terms of who comes and who does not come. 

18

Ambassador HODGES. The standards would be the same throughout the world, and basically you are talking about non-immigrant 

visas, obviously. Unfortunately, the burden of proof is in the—it is 

the applicant who has to be able to prove that they have every intention of returning to their——

Senator VOINOVICH. I am telling you from my experience, since 

I have been in the Senate and the calls I get, that there are some 

differences about how the Visa Waiver program is being administered, and I would like to know what standards are used, what 

training is provided, and if anybody ever goes back and audits the 

results. 

Ambassador HODGES. OK. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Warlick, what is the difference in pay 

for entry level positions? You have an ambitious young person who 

wants to do something internationally, should they go to the State 

Department or to the United Nations? 

Mr. WARLICK. U.N. salaries will vary depending on the cost of 

living of an individual’s work location. But U.N. system salaries are 

good. They are based on those in the U.S. Civil Service, to which 

a differential has been given which ranges from 10 to 20 percent. 

Also, U.N. benefits overall, are competitive with those provided for 

the U.S. Civil Service. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Have you noted any new programs, policies, 

or, let’s put it this way: Do applicants feel more comfortable about 

applying now with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, or is it about 

the same as before. He is operating more transparently, for example, providing greater financial disclosure than was done by the 

previous Secretary General. 

Mr. WARLICK. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I just wonder, has that filtered out that the 

U.N. may be a better place to work than it was maybe 5 years ago? 

Mr. WARLICK. I think it is too early to identify those sorts of 

trends, but we are very encouraged by the new Secretary General 

and his interest in working with us on this very issue. The message 

that he has communicated to his staff, that ethics and accountability are important, we hope over time will translate into more 

Americans into positions at all levels in the U.N. system. And more 

broadly speaking, his effort to enhance transparency and accountability in the U.N. system is very welcome. We would hope that 

Americans will see that and see it as a place where they would 

want to work. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How much of an impediment is the problem 

of the cost of living in New York and the issue of spouses finding 

a job? Is that a big barrier? 

Mr. WARLICK. We have not quantified the spousal employment 

problem but it does exist. In many places overseas American 

spouses cannot easily find employment. And that does deter applicants from applying. The U.N. provides a post differential based in 

part on cost-of-living, which helps ensure that organizations in 

higher cost-of-living areas will be able to attract employees. 

I would add to that, though, that there are very well qualified 

Americans who apply for U.N. jobs, and we do need to continue to 

encourage the United Nations to look seriously at American applicants. 

19

You had posed to Ambassador Hodges, earlier, a question on 

what can you do. First of all, thank you very much for this hearing. 

In recent memory, this is the first time, I believe, that the State 

Department has testified on American citizen employment in the 

United Nations. The fact that we are doing this today does shine 

a spotlight on the importance of this issue for Congress. 

Second, you and many of your colleagues in the House and Senate meet regularly with senior U.N. officials, including the Secretary General himself, on many serious issues. Nevertheless, we 

would encourage you to include this issue of American citizen employment on your agendas. This is an important area for us and 

should not be forgotten. And I know you would not do that, but this 

is a message for your colleagues as well who travel to New York 

and elsewhere. 

And, third, I would say that this issue is beyond the State Department. Many very well qualified applicants for U.N. jobs are not 

inside the State Department, but are in other agencies where we 

have technical, professional skills. The Secretary of State has 

reached out to her counterparts in agencies and has tried to encourage them to details or transfer their staff and, to encourage 

other qualified Americans to apply for jobs in international organizations, as well. I think an important message from Congress, from 

you and your colleagues, sir, should be that this should be a priority governmentwide; that it is important for all departments of 

the U.S. Government to detail and transfer their staff to international organizations. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I have a number of questions to ask, and I am sure Senator 

Voinovich has other questions, but we have two more panels. So I 

want to thank you so much for being here today, and what we will 

do is submit the questions to you and look forward to your responses to these questions. And, of course, we are doing all of this 

to try to decide what we need to do to deal with the personnel problems that we expect to face and so we can do this together. 

I want to thank both of you for your valuable testimony this 

afternoon, and I look forward to working with each of you to ensure 

that the State Department is well prepared for the challenges 

ahead. And there are many of them dealing with personnel. So 

with that, again, I want to thank you very much for being here 

Ambassador HODGES. And thank you for having us. I second 

what Mr. Warlick has said. It has been very important for us to 

be here, and we look forward to working with you and answering 

any questions you have. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes, and we look forward to our staffs also trying to get information we will need to deal with this. Thank you 

very much. 

Mr. WARLICK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Now I ask the second panel of witnesses to come forward: Jess Ford, Director, International Affairs 

and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office, and Thomas 

Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

20

1The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the Appendix on page 59. 

As you know, it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in 

all witnesses, and I would like to, therefore, ask you to stand and 

raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony 

you are about to give this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole 

truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. FORD. Yes. 

Mr. MELITO. Yes. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let the record note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

We would like to now hear your statements. I want you to know 

that your full statements will be placed in the record, and we look 

forward to your 5-minute statement to the Committee. So will you 

please begin, Mr. Ford? 

TESTIMONY OF JESS T. FORD,1 DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I am 

pleased to be here today to discuss GAO’s work on the Department 

of State’s human capital issues. 

In recent years, State has undertaken several broad initiatives to 

ensure that it has enough qualified staff in the right places to carry 

out its mission. These efforts have included the State Department’s 

Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, designed to hire a reserve of Foreign Service officers and civil servant employees, to support training opportunities for staff, and to enhance the State Department’s 

response to crises and emerging priorities, and also to fill skill 

gaps. 

In addition, the State Department is currently implementing its 

Transformation Diplomacy Initiative, which involves, among other 

things, repositioning overseas staff from locations such as Europe 

to emerging critical areas, including Asia and the Middle East. 

Today I will discuss the State Department’s progress in addressing 

staffing shortfalls since the implementation of the Diplomatic 

Readiness Initiative and filling gaps in language proficiency of Foreign Service officers and other staff. 

GAO has reported on a number of human capital issues that 

have hampered the State Department’s ability to carry out the 

President’s foreign policy priorities and objectives. My statement 

today is based primarily on a report we issued in August of last 

year. 

The State Department has made some progress in addressing 

staffing shortfalls since implementing the Diplomatic Readiness 

Initiative in 2002. However, the initiative did not fully meet its 

goals, and staffing shortfalls remain a problem. Without ensuring 

that the right people with the right skills are in the right places, 

these gaps will continue to compromise the State Department’s 

ability to carry out foreign policy objectives. 

From 2002 to 2004, the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative enabled 

the State Department to hire in excess of a thousand employees 

above attrition to respond to emerging crises. However, according 

to the State Department, much of this increase was absorbed by 

21

the demand of personnel for problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 

thus, the desired crises and training reserve was not achieved. 

In addition, the State Department has placed an increased focus 

on foreign language training in certain critical areas, which means 

that staff who would otherwise be working are instead attending 

language training. State Department officials recently informed us 

they now estimate that the State Department needs as many as a 

thousand new positions to address staffing shortfalls and to support foreign language training needs. 

In an effort to address staffing shortfalls at historically hard-tofill posts, many of which are of significant strategic importance to 

the United States, the State Department had implemented a number of incentives, including offering extra pay to officers who serve 

an additional year at these posts and allowing employees to negotiate shorter tours of duty. More recently, State has made service 

in a hardship post a prerequisite for promotions, and since we 

issued our report, the State Department has increased its service 

requirements of staff at hardship posts and has also taken a number of additional measures to ensure that all Iraqi positions are 

filled. However, State has not evaluated the effectiveness of these 

incentives, and it continues to have difficulty attracting qualified 

mid-level applicants for many of these positions. 

According to State Department officials, mid-level positions at 

many posts continue to be staffed by junior officers who lack experience and have minimal guidance. The State Department has not 

traditionally assigned its employees to particular posts based on 

risks and priorities, but instead has basically assigned people 

based on their expressed levels of interest. We recommended that 

the State Department consider using its authority to direct staff to 

accept assignments as necessary to ensure that critical gaps are 

filled. After our report was issued, the State Department Director 

General publicly indicate the State Department would consider 

using directed assignments, if necessary. 

The State Department has made some progress in increasing its 

foreign language capabilities, but significant language challenges 

remain. The State Department has significantly increased the 

number of worldwide positions requiring language proficiency and 

has enhanced efforts to recruit individuals proficient in certain languages. However, State continues to have difficulties filling language-designated positions. Gaps in language proficiency can compromise the State Department’s ability to execute critical duties, 

including reaching out to foreign audiences central to the war on 

terror. 

In April of this year, we testified that inadequate language skills 

hampered public diplomacy officers’ ability to cultivate personal relationships and explain U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, officials at 

one high visa fraud post stated that consular officers sometimes adjudicate visas without fully understanding everything that the applicants can tell them because of their language deficiencies. 

The State Department officials told us that some language gaps 

have worsened in recent years due to the State Department’s relocation of some staff positions to critical posts that requires superhard languages, primarily Arabic. We reported that almost 30 percent of the staff filling language-designated positions worldwide 

22

1The prepared statement of Mr. Melito appears in the Appendix on page 82. 

were deficient in the language requirements. An example that we 

cited in our report was in Cairo, Egypt, where 59 percent of the 

language-designated positions were filled with people who did not 

meet the requirement. 

Moreover, some officers we met with who did meet the language 

proficiency requirements questioned whether the requirements are 

adequate. For example, officials in Yemen and China stated that 

speaking and reading proficiency levels designated for their positions were not high enough for the staff to effectively carry out 

their roles and responsibilities. 

Additionally, several factors, including the short length of some 

tours and limitations on consecutive tours at the same post hinders 

officers’ ability to enhance and maintain their skills. The State Department officials informed us that the State Department has recently implemented a new initiative that would provide additional 

language incentive pay for staff if they choose to be reassigned to 

a posting that would utilize their existing Arabic language skills. 

In addition, in response to our recommendations, the State Department is taking action to enhance its language proficiency of staff 

mainly through a focus on training. 

This concludes my opening statement, and I would be happy to 

answer any of your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. Mr. Melito. 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS MELITO,1 DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT 

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. MELITO. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, 

I am pleased to appear today to discuss ways to improve the representation of American professionals at U.N. organizations. 

The U.S. Congress has been concerned that insufficient progress 

has been made to improve U.S. representation. The equitable representation of Americans is a priority because the United States is 

the largest financial contributor to most of these U.N. organizations, and according to the Department of State, Americans bring 

desirable skills that can have a significant impact on operational 

effectiveness. 

My testimony is based on a report that we issued in September 

2006 that analyzed U.S. employment at five U.N. organizations. 

My statement today discusses three topics: One, U.S. representation status and employment trends; two, factors affecting these organizations’ ability to meet U.S. representation targets; and, three, 

the State Department’s efforts to improve U.S. representation. 

In the first main finding, our analysis showed that the United 

States was underrepresented in three of the five U.N. organizations 

we reviewed. Based on U.N. agencies’ formal or informal targets, 

U.S. citizens were underrepresented at IAEA, UNESCO, and 

UNHCR, and equitably represented at the U.N. Secretariat, though 

close to the lower end of its target range. UNDP had not established a target for U.S. representation, although U.S. citizens filled 

about 11 percent of the agency’s professional positions. Furthermore, the Secretariat, IAEA, UNESCO, and UNHCR will need to 

23

increase their hiring of Americans from recent levels to meet their 

minimum targets for U.S. representation in the year 2010 given 

projected staff levels and separations. 

I will now turn to the second main finding. While the U.N. agencies we reviewed faced some common barriers to recruiting and retaining professional staff, including Americans, they also faced distinct challenges. Many of these constraints were outside of the U.S. 

Government’s control. Barriers common to U.N. agencies included 

non-transparent human resource practices, a limited number of positions open to external candidates, lengthy hiring processes, and 

required staff mobility and rotation policies. These barriers combined with distinct agency-specific factors to impede recruitment 

and retention. For example, candidates serving in professional positions funded by their member governments were more likely to be 

hired by the Secretariat than those who took the Secretariat’s 

entry-level exam. However, the United States has not funded such 

positions at the Secretariat. 

I will now turn to the third main finding. The State Department 

has increased its efforts to support the goal of achieving equitable 

U.S. representation at U.N. organizations. The State Department 

has targeted its efforts to recruit U.S. candidates for senior and 

policymaking U.N. positions. Although we cannot directly link the 

State Department’s efforts to U.N. hiring decisions, U.S. representation in senior and policy positions has shown some improvement 

in recent years in most of the five U.N. organizations we reviewed. 

The State Department has also undertaken several efforts to improve overall U.S. representation, including adding staff to its U.N. 

employment office and increasing coordination with other U.S. 

agencies that work with U.N. organizations. For positions below 

the senior level, State focused on disseminating information on 

U.N. vacancies through its websites, attending career fairs, and by 

other means. Despite these efforts, U.S. representation in entryand mid-level positions tended to decline in recent years in most 

of the U.N. organizations we reviewed. 

In light of the issues I just discussed, our 2006 report recommended that the Secretary of State undertake three actions: 

First, provide more consistent and comprehensive information 

about U.N. employment on the State and U.S. mission websites 

and work with U.S. agencies to expand the U.N. employment information on their websites; second, expand recruitment to better target Americans for entry- and mid-level U.N. positions; and, third, 

evaluate the feasibility of both maintaining a roster of qualified 

candidates for high-priority positions and also of funding positions 

(such as Junior Professional Officers) where there are representation concerns. 

In commenting on a draft of the September 2006 report, State 

agreed to implement all of our recommendations. In July 2007, 

State officials said they had begun to take some actions to implement our recommendations such as outreaching to new groups and 

conducting a preliminary analysis on the cost of maintaining a roster. 

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I will be 

happy to address any questions you or Senator Voinovich may 

have. Thank you. 

24

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Melito. 

Mr. Ford, Executive Order 11552, dated August 24, 1970, gives 

the State Department responsibility for efforts to increase and improve participation by U.S. citizens in international organizations 

through transfers and details. Do you believe that Federal Government employees are given ample opportunity, support, and encouragement for efforts to pursue employment at U.N. agencies? And 

if they are not, then why not? 

Mr. FORD. Senator, I am going to turn that over to my colleague 

to my left. He is the expert on the U.N. I am the State Department 

guy. 

Senator AKAKA. Fine. Mr. Melito. 

Mr. MELITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an Executive 

order from 1970 which calls for U.S. agencies to facilitate their own 

employees to work at U.N. agencies. And in May 2006, the Secretary of State sent a memorandum out to reinforce this Executive 

order. But in our discussions with the State Department and with 

other agencies, it is very difficult to actually implement this. 

First of all, there is very limited information about these opportunities, and that is one of the things we highlighted. We wanted 

more information on different agencies’ websites. And in our followup work, we found that actually two agencies—the Department of 

Justice and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—have actually 

dropped information about U.N. jobs on their websites since our report came out last year. 

The other thing is when a particular employee leaves and goes 

to the United Nations, his seniority may not carry over with him; 

when he returns, he might not get sufficient credit for the experience he has there; so it is not clear that U.N. employment is rewarded. We highlight in the report that there should be more emphasis on U.N. employment and there should be more recognition 

of its importance. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Mr. Ford, the number of unaccompanied, 

danger-pay positions at overseas posts has increased four-fold since 

September 11, 2001. The risks to embassy employees has, therefore, increased significantly. Do you think this will negatively affect 

recruitment for the Foreign Service? 

Mr. FORD. Well, certainly we have not studied a direct correlation between unaccompanied posts and the State Department’s recruitment efforts. I can say that it is an issue at the State Department with regard to the assignment process. They are concerned 

about having enough qualified people bid for these positions because these positions, as you mentioned, they are unaccompanied. 

If you have a spouse, there is an issue of whether or not you are 

going to be separated from your spouse; or in some cases, if you are 

allowed to bring your spouse, whether there is an opportunity for 

the spouse to get employment in a highly difficult location. 

So I know it is a matter of concern for the State Department, but 

I have not seen any data that would show whether or not it is affecting their recruitment of individuals in terms of having a difficult time attracting the right kind of people. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Mr. Ford, GAO reported that State continues to have significant 

gaps in foreign language proficiency and that this adversely affects 

25

the State Department’s diplomatic readiness and its ability to execute critical duties, including reaching out to foreign audiences central to the war on terror. In what areas were the language gaps 

the worst? 

Mr. FORD. The areas where they have the largest shortfall are 

in management positions; in their public diplomacy area, they had 

shortfalls in that area; their specialists, their foreign affairs specialists, we found many of their positions did not have people with 

the right skill sets. 

Those were the ones where they seemed to have the most difficulty. The effect of this, although it is somewhat anecdotal, but 

we got lots of comments about—particularly in the public diplomacy area. Most of the State Department people in the public diplomacy business have indicated to us that in order for them to be 

effective in a foreign environment, they have to have some fairly 

high-level language capability. And we found in many cases we had 

people in positions that they could not speak the language at the 

required level and, therefore, they could not be as effective as they 

ought to be for carrying out that role and responsibility. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Melito, when the Department of State recruits candidates for employment at the U.N., the Department of 

State does not have any authority in the hiring process at the U.N. 

Given that the Department of State is not the employing body, 

what distinct challenges does that present? And what recommendations do we have to address them? 

Mr. MELITO. This is a question of awareness as much as anything else. The efforts of the State Department in this realm are 

to reach out to universities and different professional organizations, 

in order to make them aware of the U.N. opportunities that exist 

and to facilitate the application process. And this is probably successful in some realms, although we pointed out areas where they 

can do better. 

But ultimately the U.N. is making the hiring decision, and that 

is the U.S. policy. They should be basing their hiring decisions on 

the best qualified candidate regardless of which country they come 

from. And the United States is against individual countries’ actively intervening with the hiring decision. They want to make sure 

the best candidates are brought forward. But the United States can 

do a better job of making the individual applicants aware of these 

opportunities and facilitating the application process. 

We pointed out in the report that they could do this better. They 

have not reached out to a particular professional organization of 

international affairs schools, for example. We met with them, and 

they said they would like to have their students know about U.N. 

jobs. And the State Department said it will be reaching out to 

them, but has not yet. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Melito, are you familiar with Lynn 

Pascoe? 

Mr. MELITO. No. I am sorry, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. He went over to the U.N. to take on a new 

job. You cannot answer this question, then. I was wondering what 

his background was. Was he with the State Department and then 

went over there? Does anybody know? 

26

Ms. DERRICK. He was with the State Department. 

Mr. MELITO. That is actually a State Department person, I think. 

Ms. DERRICK. He was an Ambassador at the State Department. 

Senator VOINOVICH. If you want people to go over to the United 

Nations at mid-level positions from the State Department do you 

think that some type of incentive is needed? For example, agreeing 

give credit for U.N. work when they return to the State Department? 

Mr. MELITO. The incentives should work for both the employee 

and also the agency. On the employee side, yes, it is recognition by 

everyone that this is important—important for their agency, important for the U.S. Government, so we value it and we recognize that. 

So when you return, your career has not stalled but, in fact, has 

benefited from U.N. employment. 

But it is also difficult for the agency because the way it currently 

stands, often the position has to be held open, so it ends up actually being a slot that they have to maintain on their rolls while it 

is not being filled. So it is expensive for them as well, and there 

probably needs to be some consideration of that as well. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Is there any consideration for some of these 

‘‘high-level positions’’? For example, Christopher Burnham went to 

the U.N. and he started to do some transformation efforts, but he 

let everybody know he was leaving at the end of the year. Is there 

any consideration made when we are encouraging people to go to 

the U.N. to also get some long-term commitments so they can really make a difference? 

Mr. MELITO. As part of my work, I looked at a number of different U.N. topics, and I have met with senior-level U.N. officials 

that are Americans that have had long careers. So that does happen. 

It really depends on the type of position and also, obviously, the 

circumstances of the individual. In that case, Mr. Burnham had intended it to be a short-term position, but others want to stay 

longer. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And overall—I asked the question of the previous witness—how do U.N. pay and benefits compare with what 

the State Department offers? 

Mr. MELITO. It is very difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison, and what we highlight in our report is that if you only look 

at salary, the U.N. probably does not look like a good deal for many 

Americans. But the benefits package of the U.N. can sometimes be 

extraordinarily generous. The difficulty is that it is not transparent. Factors such as education benefits only pertain if you are 

overseas at a U.N. agency. So if you are working in Geneva, you 

may get very generous education benefits, including for your children’s college education. But if you are posted in New York, you 

will not get that because you are in your home country. 

So we were looking for some way of making this more transparent so that an American can get a sense of what his benefits 

would be, maybe through some kind of a web-based calculator. 

I will point out that since our report was issued, the State Department has added more information on benefits, and it is actually very useful. But it would require you to do some work to really 

understand you benefits. 

27

Senator VOINOVICH. It could be improved, then. 

Mr. MELITO. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In other words, so that people really can 

make the comparison. 

Mr. MELITO. We met with over a hundred Americans who are 

currently working at the U.N. These people have already decided 

to work there. But one of the things we heard many times was that 

they were surprised, after they were hired, how generous some of 

these fringe benefits were. So you see these are people who actually 

decided anyway, but we do not know about the people who did not 

decide to work at the U.N. because they did not know about the 

benefits. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, if I were the State Department, I 

would get some of those people out doing some recruiting. 

Mr. MELITO. Yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Ford, you state that the incentives for 

attracting mid-level staff to hardship posts has not been evaluated 

and that certain data were not available when you did your review. 

Have you or will you be reviewing the questions the State Department plans to ask in their quality-of-life surveys so that you get 

the best information that is available in regard to whether these 

incentives are working or not working? 

Mr. FORD. We have not been asked to do that. The recommendation in our report was designed for them to collect information, and 

perhaps that survey would be a vehicle for them to do so, so that 

they could better determine what incentives work best and which 

ones do not work so well, and then they could make appropriate 

adjustments. 

Right now, as far as we can tell, most of the incentives are financial, which are probably helpful, but there may be other incentives. 

I mentioned the spousal issue, length of the tour of duty, how long 

you are going to be in a place, things like that. We believe they 

need to more systematically analyze those situations so that they 

can come up with the best set of options that would be available 

to try to make sure they get the right people in the right place. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Maybe Senator Akaka and I could send a 

letter to the State Department suggesting that they discuss the results of the survey with GAO so that we can find out really whether these incentives are working or not. 

Because of problems in filling positions, some mid-level staff with 

less experience are taking some of the jobs that senior people 

should be having. From a quality point of view in terms of delivering services, has there been any examples of this being a problem? Have you seen that at all? 

Mr. FORD. Well, we talked to a lot of senior management in the 

State Department—Ambassadors, DCMs, the senior people at 

many of the embassies we visited—and if you have a junior person 

in a stretch position, in a higher-level position, they do not have 

the level of experience, because they do not have enough supervisors at the mid-level at the embassy, they are not getting the experience and supervision that they need. 

So I think the senior management in many cases would say, you 

are not getting the same quality—not that the individuals are not 

quality people, but that they just do not have enough experience 

28

yet, they have not been in this position long enough to know how 

to deal with certain situations. 

So, there are some risks. I mean, we cited an example in our report in China where there is a fairly high level of visa fraud in 

China. We had very junior people in mid-level positions who are responsible for adjudicating visas. And so there is a concern about 

whether they have enough experience to do that job effectively. 

But I want to make it clear we are not saying that, the individuals in junior levels of the Foreign Service are not quality people. 

As far as we can tell, they are attracting and recruiting quality 

people. It is just a case of experience. 

Senator VOINOVICH. But they need experience. 

Mr. FORD. They need experience. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Just a final question, Senator Akaka, and 

that would be this: If the State Department has not had additional 

authorized positions since 2004, is there any way under the sun 

that the State Department will be able to get the job done that we 

are asking them to do—and it has grown more significant as time 

has gone on, as we have heard—without getting the thousand new 

people that they need to get the job done? 

Mr. FORD. Well, let me say a couple things here. 

First, with regard to the thousand people they say they need, we 

have not really validated that number from a GAO point of view 

as to if that is what they really need. That is what they told us 

they need. But I will say that over our track record of looking at 

their skill sets and their shortages over the last 5 years, they have 

had a gap at the mid-level. They recognize they have a gap. They 

think that by 2010 they will be able to fill all the mid-level positions so that experience issue that I just referred to earlier will be 

taken care of. But it is clear that they have gaps in some critical 

positions, and those gaps, in my view, need to be filled. But I cannot tell you whether it is 1,000 people or 800 or what the appropriate number is. We have not studied that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Maybe you should. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Senator 

Voinovich. 

I want to thank the both of you for your testimony, and without 

question, your testimony will be helpful to this Subcommittee, and 

we look forward to working with you in the future. So thank you 

very much for being here. 

Mr. FORD. Thank you. 

Mr. MELITO. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Now I ask our third and final panel of witnesses 

to come forward: John Naland, President of the American Foreign 

Service Association; Ambassador Thomas Boyatt, President and 

CEO of the Foreign Affairs Council; and Deborah Derrick, Executive Director, Better World Campaign, United Nations Foundation. 

Thank you very much for standing, and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. NALAND. Yes. 

Mr. BOYATT. Yes. 

Ms. DERRICK. Yes. 

29

1The prepared statement of Mr. Naland appears in the Appendix on page 101. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Let the record note that 

the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Thank you very much for being here, and now I would like Mr. 

Naland to begin with your testimony. By the way, I will just repeat 

and say that your full statements will be entered into the record. 

Mr. Naland. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN K. NALAND,1 PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 

FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION 

Mr. NALAND. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, thank you very 

much for inviting us here today. This is a critical topic, and I am 

absolutely delighted that you are shining some light on it. 

In fact, the previous speakers and your own questions have elicited so much of the information that I will just leave my comments 

in the record and just make a few comments off the top of my head. 

There are three issues I see: Shortages. We had Ambassador 

Hodges saying that there is a deficit of over 200 people at the midlevel of the Foreign Service. Then we had Mr. Ford of the GAO saying that we have mid-level positions being filled by entry-level officers. Well, even I can figure out that math. The Foreign Service is 

playing musical chairs with more chairs than people. And so when 

everyone sits down, there are going to be empty chairs. It is just 

as simple as that. 

The President’s budget request for the last 2 years asked for additional people above attrition. The Congress was unable to fund 

them. The budget request going through this year asks for 254 additional positions. And so we ask you to talk to your colleagues 

about the importance of filling these positions. 

The next issue I would cover is training. I am a 21-year veteran 

of the Foreign Service, but I also am an Army veteran, and I just 

had the honor last summer as a Foreign Service officer of graduating from the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, and I am just 

amazed at how much more training Army officers get then Foreign 

Service officers. If you take General Jones or General Petraeus or 

Admiral Mullen, and if you compare their resumes to Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nick Burns or whatever, I think you will 

see that the flag-level officers have gotten [Government funded] 

MBAs, have gotten PhDs, have been to the Command and General 

Staff College, have been to the Army War College. And the Foreign 

Service folks, they hire us, usually we are pretty good, we report 

for duty, and they say, ‘‘Well, good luck. Go ahead.’’

Yes, we do get language training, but we just do not get the kind 

of ongoing professional training that the uniformed military does. 

And, again, that is obviously no criticism of the uniformed military. 

I just wish we were not the Cinderella service and that we had 

some of those opportunities. 

Finally, I would mention the overseas pay disparity, which you 

two obviously are very conversant with. Foreign Service members, 

when they transfer overseas, currently take an 18.69-percent cut in 

base pay. Next year, if there is another budget increase and another locality pay allocation, it will probably go to 20 percent. And 

that just makes no sense to me. 

30

1The prepared statement of Mr. Boyatt appears in the Appendix on page 108. 

2 Copy of the ‘‘Third Biennial Assessment of the Stewardship of the Secretary of State’’ appears in the Appendix on page 199. 

Now, no, there is not attrition yet, and, no, people have not 

stopped applying for the Foreign Service. But at some point it is 

just going to catch up to us. For the last century, the Congress has 

had allowances that put incentives to overseas service in the Foreign Service, and those allowances are being eroded by the pay disparity. 

Now, there are two versions of how to fix this. One is backed by 

the Administration. The other is backed by many of the majority 

members of the U.S. Congress. And the Foreign Service union does 

not care which solution the wise members agree to. We would just 

like to see it fixed. 

So in 4 minutes, I will save the time for questions. I just want 

to thank you very much for having us here today. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Naland. Ambassador 

Boyatt. 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS D. BOYATT,1 AMBASSADOR 

(RETIRED), PRESIDENT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL 

Mr. BOYATT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Voinovich, for affording me and, through me, the Foreign Affairs 

Council, the opportunity to comment on strengthening American 

diplomacy, which is exactly what our organization is committed to. 

In a deeper sense, and on behalf of all of those who think, as I 

do, and as the Foreign Affairs Council does, that management is 

important, thank you for focusing the attention of the Senate and 

the American people on the reality that the management of the 

people who make and implement foreign policy is just as important 

as the foreign policies themselves. The problem in this town is 

that—and certainly in the foreign affairs area—we get seized with 

policy and everybody forgets about the management, and we have 

paid for that over the years. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Affairs Council has just 

published its third biennial assessment of the stewardship of the 

Secretary of State as a leader and as a manager. We have sent copies of this report to every Senator and every Representative and to 

all the relevant staffs, and particularly to your staff. An awful lot 

of work went into compiling this report, which deals with matters 

with which you are seized, and I would respectfully request that 

our report be made a part of and incorporated in the record of 

these proceedings.2

Senator AKAKA. Without objection, we will put it in the record. 

Mr. BOYATT. Thank you. 

I, like Mr. Naland, who set a very high standard for brevity, will 

simply thank you for putting my remarks in the record. I just want 

to hit three or four points. 

I want you to understand who the Foreign Affairs Council is. We 

are an umbrella group of the CEOs of 11 organizations plus myself. 

All of us are concerned with the processes of diplomacy, concerned 

about the people who carry out diplomacy, and concerned about the 

leadership at the State Department in an administrative sense. We 

do not deal with policy. 

31

Among the members of our constituent organizations are virtually all serving members of the Foreign Service, a large number 

of retireds; I believe every retired Ambassador, either from the professional career or from the private sector who have become Ambassadors are members of our organization. We bring a great deal 

of experience to the party. The 12 members of the council itself 

among them have something like 400 or 500 years of Foreign Service, State Department, and diplomatic experience, and the members of our constituent organizations, that number runs into the 

hundreds of thousands. 

I would also like to make the point—a historical point here. This 

morning’s proceedings have concentrated on what has happened 

more or less since 2000, with first the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative and then the vacuuming up of all of these positions by the 

needs of Afghanistan and Iraq and so on. I would just like for the 

record to point out that the hollowing out of the Foreign Service 

began after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the last year of the 

first Bush Administration, when Secretary Baker decided not to 

seek extra personnel to staff the 12 new embassies or 14 new embassies that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union. That 

was taken out of our hide. 

Following that, I think the United States wet into a mini-isolationist era, and during the 8 years of the Clinton Administration, 

we lost 30 percent of our people and 30 percent of the resources, 

roughly. That was readdressed somewhat by the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, but today we are right back where we were in 

1999–2000. And, therefore, I repeat, the principal finding of our report is that the State Department is at least 1,100 positions short, 

and if we do not get these positions, three things are going to happen: One, the gap that exists in unfilled positions is going to remain, and that gap at any given moment is somewhere between 

200 and 400. If you consider that our 6,300 officers are spread over 

the entire world. First of all, half of them serve in Washington and 

New York. The remaining 3,000 are spread over 266 posts, some 

of which are large posts. A gap of 200 to 400 is huge. It is 10 percent or maybe 20 percent, or maybe more, of our officers overseas. 

So the result of that is that there are an awful lot of jobs that are 

not being done today. 

If we do not get the training float, the result is going to be a failure of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. Our GAO colleagues 

made it very clear that we are not fulfilling language requirements 

as they exist today without adding personnel to the Diplomatic 

Readiness Initiative. If you add that requierement, you need at 

least the 900 positions that we call a ‘‘training float’’ to train transformational diplomats. If you do not train transformational diplomats, transformational diplomacy will fail. 

And, finally, there is the issue of the militarization of foreign policy, which has been published and commented on extensively in the 

media. The situation today is that the United States is engaged in 

an existential struggle against Islamic fundamentalism and a 

plethora of new challenges that arise from globalizationm. We are 

confronting these challenges with a structure that was designed for 

the Cold War and with a deficit of about 20 percent in our personnel. The result of that is that whenever a new job comes along, 

32

1The prepared statement of Ms. Derrick appears in the Appendix on page 112. 

such as reconstruction and stabilization, the job goes to the institution which has the people and has the resources. And what is that 

institution? It is the Defense Department. It is the military. And 

today, as we meet here, there are Special Forces soldiers doing 

public diplomacy all over the underdeveloped world. Why are they 

doing that? Because we do not have enough people to do it. 

There is economic development going on under the aegis of the 

military as a result of the CERF program, Commanders Emergency 

Reconstruction Funds, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Why 

is that happening in the military and not in our development institutions? Because they do not have the people. 

So what I say to you is that these three conditions are going to 

remain: Inability to do the job at hand, inability to do transformational diplomacy because of language deficits, and a continuation of the militarization of diplomacy if we do not get these 1,000 

positions and get them in the proximate future. 

The judgments that we made in the Foreign Affairs Council are 

about to be ratified by a CSIS study, as I think you mentioned, Mr. 

Chairman, or perhaps it was Senator Voinovich. They are coming 

to the same conclusion we did. They will conclude that we are 

1,650 positions short. The Secretary’s own Transformational Diplomacy Advisory Council is going to recommend 1,000 or maybe it is 

1,200 new positions now and a doubling of the diplomatic cadres 

over the next 10 years. 

There is a lot of consensus on what the problem is, and there is 

a lot of consensus on what the solution is. And I can tell you that 

all of us who are seized with this are just delighted, fervently delighted, that you and this Subcommittee are taking on these challenges, because they are serious. 

Thank you, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. 

Now we will hear from Ms. Derrick. 

TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH DERRICK,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

BETTER WORLD CAMPAIGN 

Ms. DERRICK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Voinovich. I would like to echo the comments earlier of my great 

pleasure that you are holding this hearing. I think it is really critical information, and I say that not just as an employee of the Better World Campaign and United Nations Foundation, but as the 

spouse of a Foreign Service officer. So I think it is critical that we 

make sure the State Department gets the resources it needs to do 

the job effectively. 

Before I launch into a longer exposition, I would like to say that 

in general I would say my message is that on the U.N., on the employment of Americans at the United Nations basically, with all 

due respect to what the State Department said and what the GAO 

said, it seems to me that the United States is failing to develop a 

farm team, that they have limited resources and in putting those 

resources in, they are making the judgment that they get the most 

bang for the buck by putting it into the higher-level positions appointees that they have, but the people that I know on a more inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
33

formal basis that I talk to who have applied for positions within 

the U.N. system are basically left to their own devices to interpret 

and figure out whether they should go to the U.N., what are the 

benefits, how to get in, how to apply, and how to find the jobs. 

The Better World Campaign aims to help support the U.N. and 

its causes, and especially to strengthen the U.S.-U.N. relationship. 

It is a privilege to work on such a mission and to be here today 

to speak with you. 

The underrepresentation of Americans at the United Nations undermines America’s global vision and its ability to conduct diplomacy in this key institution. The U.N. is increasingly being asked 

to tackle the biggest problems in the world—from nuclear proliferation to global warming; from Darfur to Iraq. Having too few Americans in the U.N. means that the United States is operating at a 

strategic disadvantage when it seeks to enact policies or reforms at 

the U.N. It means that we do, and will, lack a cadre of experienced 

civil servants who know how the U.N. works. It forces the United 

States to use its biggest guns and bluntest instruments to get its 

way there—whether that is threatening to walk out of negotiations 

or standing alone in blocking budgets. 

In short, underrepresentation of Americans within the U.N. system eliminates tools from the U.S. national security tool kit at a 

time when we need all the tools we can get. So I commend you 

again for having this hearing and for the useful and enlightening 

GAO report. 

The GAO largely suggested that State Department operations 

and U.N. structural barriers lay behind American underrepresentation. I think the GAO missed one key point, though, and that is 

that this shortfall comes back to longstanding and inconsistent 

U.S. investments of all kinds in the U.N. and, indeed, in the multilateral system. And I know, Senator Voinovich, that you recognized 

that some of that underinvestment comes back purely to dollars 

and resources and not so much—I know the political winds go up 

and down with the United Nations, but it is also just a question 

of resources. And so an OECD report from last year noted that the 

proportion of U.S. foreign assistance funding going through multilateral agencies altogether, not just the U.N., plummeted from 26 

to 8 percent in recent years. Thus, at the beginning of 2007, the 

United States was behind in its dues or in arrears in virtually 

every major international treaty organization that it belonged to. 

That includes the U.N., NATO, World Health Organization, OECD, 

and the IAEA. 

There is nothing particularly new in shortfalls for the U.N. I 

work for an institution that was founded by Ted Turner when he 

became alarmed that the United States was $1 billion in arrears 

at the U.N., and for a time the United States climbed back into 

better standing, but at the moment, we are sliding back towards 

owing $1 billion. And, once again, I think this is more a matter of 

resources than it is current distrust with Ban Ki-moon of the 

United Nations, because Ambassador Khalilzad has a good working 

relationship with Ban Ki-moon and, in fact, has recently asked the 

United Nations to take on a bigger role in Iraq. 

Rather than working to influence the U.N. with an inside game, 

the United States does not pay its dues on time and in full and 

34

does not work, I think, sufficiently to place American civil servants 

within the U.N. system. The United States tends to have to rely 

on, as I said, more blunt mechanisms like threats of withholding 

funding or public criticism to get its way at the United Nations. 

And this is not the best way, in my opinion, to influence friends 

and thwart enemies. 

The GAO report noted that the State Department has recently 

increased the number of employees helping Americans to find their 

way into the U.N. system. I believe, though, that a couple of the 

political appointees recently assigned to this work have now moved 

on. Further, there was a general attrition of personnel dedicated to 

this task during the 1990s and the early 2000s. So the State Department’s efforts to place Americans in the U.N. system waxes 

and wanes over time, and this means that the United States lacks 

a long-term plan for strategically placing Americans in the U.N. 

system. 

I would also say that GAO’s suggestion that most of the barriers 

to getting Americans into the U.N. are outside of the U.S. Government’s control, I would say that I do not completely agree with that 

because other countries with smaller GDPs manage to find a way 

around these same barriers. European countries are successfully 

putting people in, especially by sponsoring junior professional officer (JPO) and associate expert positions. And, in fact, if you look 

at a list of the countries that sponsor JPO and associate expert positions—this includes Austria, the United Kingdom, Canada, and 

Switzerland—the United States’ lack of participation is striking. 

There are also a few barriers to U.S. representation at the U.N. 

that were not highlighted in the GAO report, such as language, 

general pressure to recruit more nationals from developing countries, and—in the State Department—a relative lack of expertise in 

technical areas where there are more jobs accessible to U.S. personnel. But, again, I would be remiss if I failed to note the overall 

effect of underfunding and underresourcing of the U.S. State Department. 

So I think that there are a couple things that could be done 

above and beyond what the GAO has recommended. First, I would 

say we need greater resources for diplomacy in the State Department. Within the State Department, I would recommend that—or 

we would recommend that the International Organizations Bureau 

get more personnel dedicated to this effort and specifically to head 

Americans into non-Secretariat and more technical positions, like 

the WHO, FAO, or IAEA. And I believe we would recommend that 

we go beyond GAO’s recommendation to study the potential value 

of funding junior professional officers and associate expert positions. The data is in. It is sitting there in the GAO report. These 

mechanisms work, and they work to get personnel into the system. 

The Congress itself could enact legislation to expand the use of 

these positions, and I think that would be an excellent way of getting more Americans into the system. 

I would also encourage the United States to look at getting a roster of candidates for peacekeeping operations positions, and at this 

point I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today 

and would be happy to take your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your testimonies. 

35

Mr. Ambassador, as CEO and as President of the Foreign Affairs 

Council, let me ask you this question: Do you believe that the Foreign Service has become politicized? And if so, why? 

Mr. BOYATT. I don’t. I mean, we can always argue about the 

number of politically appointed ambassadors versus the number of 

ambassadors from the career. But, I think that the Foreign Service 

does what it has always done. It serves the administration in 

power, and as a career service, it must do that. And my observation—and I have been, as you might imagine, very close to the Foreign Service in a variety of ways—is that at the working levels it 

is not very politicized. At the political levels, it is politicized. 

With respect to ambassadors, I think the percentage is roughly 

what it has been for the last 50 years or so—one-third from the 

outside and two-thirds from the inside. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Derrick, you mentioned Ted 

Turner. 

Ms. DERRICK. Right. 

Senator AKAKA. Quite a man. I just wanted you to know that I 

was very impressed with him. 

The IAEA does not have formal staffing targets for Americans. 

In light of the GAO’s findings regarding staffing at the U.N. agency, do you believe such targets should be made formal for all of the 

U.N. agencies? 

Ms. DERRICK. I am not sure that it is necessary in all of the U.N. 

agencies. I think that it is probably more advantageous to actually 

work on getting the personnel in rather than changing the rules of 

the game within the U.N.’s individual agencies themselves. 

For example, when I was talking with someone informally in 

preparation for this hearing, a guy who had worked in and around 

the IAEA for years, he said that the IO Bureau—and, again, this 

comes back to resources—had a woeful lack of understanding of the 

technical needs, the technical personnel needs in the nuclear industry. He said the mission in Vienna was pretty well abreast of it, 

but back here in Washington, DC, in the agency that might be able 

to advertise positions or notify people of positions in the United 

States, they did not have as much expertise as they needed to be 

able to pull on the appropriate people with the United States in 

this area. So I would recommend that instead. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Naland, do you believe that the Administration is moving toward a more military type diplomatic corps at the 

State Department, one which encourages a willingness to follow orders without question? 

Mr. NALAND. No, sir. The Secretary of State has always had the 

legal authority to direct the assignment of Foreign Service members. I met with Secretary Rice last Thursday at her invitation, 

which I really appreciated, and she stated that she wants to avoid 

direct assignment of Foreign Service members to Iraq, but if she 

needs to, she will do it. 

So I believe the Foreign Service—I really believe the word ‘‘service’’ in there. It is like the uniformed military in many respects. We 

do what we are told by the administration in power under the laws 

passed by the Congress, and that is the way it is set up to be, and 

I think that is how it is going to continue. 

I don’t know if that was responsive to your question, but——

36

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for your response. I will call on Senator Voinovich for your questions. Thank 

you so much. 

Senator VOINOVICH [presiding]. You are welcome. 

Mr. Boyatt, you represent quite an impressive organization. 

Mr. BOYATT. It impresses me, too, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I have been very concerned about management at the State Department and expressed my concerns to Secretary Rice. As I mentioned earlier, I was not real happy about Bob 

Zoellick going in there because I thought we needed somebody that 

would concentrate on management. 

You are retired, right? 

Mr. BOYATT. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you like to comment on the difference 

between the Powell-Armitage-Rice——

Mr. BOYATT. Sure. I do not mind. I will try to be diplomatic. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I expect you would. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BOYATT. It is just a historical reality that 9 times out of 10, 

as the Secretary of State, we get either an academic or a lawyer. 

It is also a reality that those are the two most management-challenged professions in the United States. As you know, they are sole 

practitioners who get ahead in life not by managing large numbers 

of people but by being brilliant or winning cases or publishing 

monographs, small-unit warfare. 

And so we traditionally have a deficit on the management side 

in the State Department and the Foreign Service. And when somebody like Secretary Powell came along, who understands and manages the State Department with a chief executive officer, himself, 

and a chief operating officer, Rich Armitage, and a chief management officer, Grant Green, they were extraordinarily successful. 

And they have already become part of a Foreign Service legend, 

which is—the only great managers that we have had before Colin 

Powell were George Marshall, and that was 60 years ago, and 

George Shultz. And now there is a third. And I hope that Secretary 

Rice will become the fourth, but it is going to require a lot of action 

in the personnel area in these next 2 years. We have to build these 

numbers back up, or the job is not going to get done. 

So I had the same reaction to Bob Zoellick that you did. I wanted 

to see somebody in that position who was a manager and not another policy wonk. I will tell you, quite frankly, that the Foreign 

Affairs Council has been considering supporting legislation that 

was put forward some years ago by Congressman Rogers to require 

by law that there be an additional Deputy Secretary position for 

Management. If something like that were to come along, I personally would support it, and I would urge the Foreign Affairs Council 

to do so likewise, because I think you are going to have to institutionalize—the only way we are going to consistently get managers 

at the State Department is to institutionalize the situation. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I am interested in that. As you know, 

I am a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. 

Mr. BOYATT. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am trying to get a CMO for the Homeland 

Security Department and also at the Defense Department. The DeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037366 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37366.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
37

fense Department has had operations and management functions 

on GAO’s high-risk list since 1990, 14 of them in total. And we just 

do not pay enough attention to management around here. 

Mr. BOYATT. True. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would also suggest that you do everything 

you can to impress upon Secretary Rice how important it is to get 

these people on board that are needed. The problem is that the 

Federal Government does not have enough money. What we are 

doing is producing budgets that are not balanced, a higher national 

debt, and the American people have got to know we are not taking 

in enough money to provide the resources that we need to get the 

job done in our respective agencies. That is one of the reasons why 

I think we need to disengage in Iraq and make some of that money 

available. 

Think about all of the money that we have spent there and how 

much difference that would make in the State Department for you 

to do the job they are supposed to do and USAID and some of the 

things that I think will make much more of a difference. I mean, 

I do not think that people get it that this is a different war that 

we are in, and they just do not understand this. We are dealing 

with this like we did other wars, and it is not the same. 

So I would encourage your organization to do what you can, and 

if I were you, I would also somehow get this issue into the next 

presidential campaign. 

Mr. BOYATT. Well, right now we are trying to raise the money 

to do a zero-based budget approach to the 150 accounts, to forget 

everything that exists today except the mission and then to determine how many people and how much money it takes to do that 

mission and build it up from the bottom. And if we achieve funding 

for that, it will be aimed at telling both candidates from each party 

what really needs to be done in the foreign affairs side to win this 

war that we are talking about. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I would welcome it, and if you are interested in somebody that is passionate about this, I am. 

Mr. BOYATT. We are interested. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Naland, you were talking about this 

whole issue of locality pay. I hear this everywhere I go around the 

world, that when, you leave Washington you lose 18.5 percent of 

pay and you projected it to go to 20 percent. 

Mr. NALAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am also a big booster of pay for performance, and I am proud of the fact that TSA has pay for performance. 

The Defense Department in their civilian workforce we have 

160,000 people today that are under pay from performance. 

Without dealing with this locality pay, how successful do you 

think pay for performance is going to be? 

Mr. NALAND. Just a month ago, I got off a State Department promotion panel—I was on there before I became the union president, 

obviously—and we rank order everyone in the competition group 

from A to Z. And so in the Foreign Service we have been doing this 

forever, and so I can easily say how in the Foreign Service we could 

go to a pay-for-performance system in a heartbeat, with having the 

promotion panels do the rank ordering, not some manager who 

likes someone or whatever, but——

38

Senator VOINOVICH. You are worried about the arbitrariness that 

would occur. 

Mr. NALAND. Well, I am not, but other members are. But in the 

Foreign Service, we have a decades-long tradition of having these 

promotion panels rank ordering people, and so we are good to go 

on it. We could do it tomorrow. It is just my understanding is pay 

for performance has been rolled out with DHS and DOD. Some of 

your colleagues——

Senator VOINOVICH. No, DHS, forget it. It is gone. We are trying 

to preserve it in the Defense Department. But the question I am 

asking you is: If we do not deal with this differential, isn’t that 

going to kind of throw a monkey into the wrench—or a wrench 

into—it will foul it up. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NALAND. Our original goal was to get the overseas pay disparity fixed, and Secretary Powell worked that issue through the 

White House and never got it out of the White House. Secretary 

Rice was able to get it out of the White House, but only with the 

White House saying, well, this should be a pay-for-performance 

system. So that is kind of where we stand now. 

If you had done State Department pay for performance 7 years 

ago before DHS or DOD ever were in the mix, it could have passed, 

and we would be doing it. 

So I am all for it. I can see how it would work in the Foreign 

Service because we have been doing this for decades, rank ordering 

people. It is just finding—getting the Congress to agree with whatever mechanism, and as I said, we will take whatever mechanism. 

If you can convince your colleagues pay for performance, I am all 

for it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you think that the State Department has 

the flexibilities it needs to get people to come to work for it? 

Mr. NALAND. Yes, sir. We have people, tens of thousands of people lined up to take the Foreign Service exam. As I think Ambassador Hodges mentioned, instead of giving it once a year, now the 

State Department is going to give it four times a year. And so 

under Secretary Powell and now under Secretary Rice, there have 

been great strides made. There are these polls, which I sometimes 

question, where young people say that the Foreign Service is compared to Disney and everything, it is one of their top dream jobs. 

I do not think they know what they would be getting into, but sure, 

there are plenty of people wanting to come in. So it is very heartening. 

Senator VOINOVICH. You are saying that is not the problem. 

Mr. NALAND. Good people are coming in. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Ms. Derrick, on the U.N., I have spent a lot 

of time talking to—you have got this Under Secretary General for 

Management, Alicia Barcena, from Mexico I think. 

Ms. DERRICK. Mexico, yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Took over for Christopher Burnham, and 

there was a lot of concern that his replacement was not a U.S. citizen, but she has made a commitment there. What do you think of 

her so far? 

39

Ms. DERRICK. I think she is doing quite a good job, and I am encouraged by the overall direction that Secretary General Ban is 

taking the United Nations. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I agree with you and I would comment again 

about entry-level positions. We are doing fine filling top-level positions, but other countries do a much better job of getting people 

into entry-level jobs and having them work their way up in the organization. 

Ms. DERRICK. That is right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. We have failed in that area. Would you 

agree with that? 

Ms. DERRICK. Yes, I would. As the GAO report notes, there are 

a couple of sections within the U.N. where particular sections of either the Department of Energy in the IAEA’s case or the Bureau 

of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)—has a junior professional officer program where they place junior personnel—this is 

like the entry-level professional program. And the report from GAO 

notes that 65 percent—in the Secretariat’s case, 65 percent of the 

people who are put into those positions end up getting hired on a 

permanent basis. So this is a surefire way of getting people in. But 

the United States has declined to participate in this in the Secretariat. So this is just unexplainable, except for resources. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I think you ought to keep working 

with this Administration, but I think you also ought to look to the 

new Administration to try and get them to pay attention. One of 

the things that gets me is we are a billion—we will be a billion dollars behind in our dues to the United Nations. We are asking them 

to do peacekeeping. 

Ms. DERRICK. In Darfur. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I know there has been a lot of controversy 

about the U.N., but I think more and more Americans are realizing 

that it is fundamental to some of the things that we want to get 

done with North Korea, Iran, Palestine. 

Ms. DERRICK. The hot spots. 

Senator VOINOVICH. You name it. 

Ms. DERRICK. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And it seems to me that the U.N. is going 

to become more important in the future for us in multilateral efforts rather than the unilateral approach taken in the first couple 

of years of this Administration. 

So I think I would just encourage your organization to communicate the four things that you would do that you think really 

would make a difference in getting the job done, and I would be 

glad to share that with Secretary Rice. 

Ms. DERRICK. Okay. I would be delighted to provide that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you agree that our public diplomacy 

is probably at the lowest level that we have seen it? And if you do, 

do you believe that because we have not put the resources into the 

State Department and these international organizations, that that 

is part of the problem that we are experiencing? That we do not 

have the right people or the right knowledge and skills at the right 

place at the right time. And as a result our public diplomacy is declining? Do any of you want to comment on that as a kind of finale 

to this hearing? 

40

Mr. NALAND. Yes, sir. I think the State Department and the Foreign Service will be fully employed for the next 5 to 10 years rebuilding some of America’s standing in the world, and to do so we 

need public diplomacy officers who speak the languages and speak 

them well. I mean, today we are worried about Arabic. Ten years 

from now, people will be screaming, ‘‘Why don’t you have Chinese 

speakers?’’ So I think we need the resources, including the nonsexy training float, to provide the training so people can go out and 

give America’s message in the language of the host country. 

Senator VOINOVICH. To win this, ‘‘war for hearts and minds of 

people,’’ we have to get serious about the State Department, hire 

people that have the language skills needed, and maintain embassies that are fully staffed. This would make a big difference. 

Mr. NALAND. Yes, sir. And then a lot of the overstretched uniformed military people could go back to doing traditional military 

jobs or go back to a CONUS post with their family. 

Mr. BOYATT. I agree with Mr. Naland with respect to resources. 

Just two additional comments. 

One, there is the issue of policies. There are some policies that 

are never going to be—they are going to make the United States 

unpopular in certain parts of the world. Until those policies change, 

no amount of public diplomacy is going to change our standing in 

those particular spots. But the challenge is there, and the assessment that we did of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy’s office in our report was very positive. With what they have, they are 

making a lot of progress, and it is strongly supported by the PD 

officers inside that organization. But there are just not enough of 

them. 

And one additional comment. The solution is not to re-establish 

an independent USIA. It is to keep structurally the situation where 

it is and to get more people doing it. And my prejudice here is that 

of an ambassador. When you are in charge of a country team, the 

fewer people that you have reporting back in direct stovepipes to 

Washington, the easier it is to manage that country team. And I 

think that having public diplomacy——

Senator VOINOVICH. In other words, what you are saying is that 

there is more cooperation between the embassy and the USAID 

working as a team rather than reporting back to Washington. 

Mr. BOYATT. Yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It should be a strategic plan, here it is, 

USAID doing this stuff, and you fit it into the State Department’s 

diplomatic initiatives. 

Mr. BOYATT. Exactly, yes. But above all, resources. 

Ms. DERRICK. And I would say if there is a silver lining on all 

of this, it is that there seems to be a great and growing interest 

in people committing themselves to the causes that are extant in 

the Foreign Service and the United Nations. A colleague of mine 

who works in the U.N. office here in Washington, DC, said that 

they had two positions posted recently. They had 700 Americans 

applying for those two positions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, you know what? Maybe if they get it 

we will make some progress. We are at a critical time right now, 

and we have to get our act together and resources into diplomacy. 

If we do not, we are in real deep trouble in terms of the future of 

41

our country and our national security and our relationship with the 

rest of the world. 

Mr. BOYATT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NALAND. Thank you, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I really thank you for being here today, and 

I publicly thank Senator Akaka. The two of us have been partners. 

We have spent almost 9 years on human capital and know how important it is. I am around for at least another 3 years. And Senator 

Akaka just got re-elected so we are going to stay on this. You can 

be assured that, this is not just a one-time shot. 

Mr. BOYATT. So the Foreign Affairs Council is going to stay on 

it, also. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Okay. 

Mr. BOYATT. We look forward to working with you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. 

The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:03 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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