Despair Among Diplomats 50, Continued From Page A-1 He collected nearly 2,000 job rejection letters. He went heavi- ly into debt against his $10,000 Foreign Service annuity which would begin at age 60. He was considering a job as a night waiter to save his family from destitution. Now that he is dead, his widow gets $5,500 a year frem a government pension to Support her two children. Mrs. Thomas also has been given a job in the State Depart- ment. She intends to continue her campaign to have her hus- oand reinstated posthumously, Today a “Mr. X” in the de- partment (he prefers to remain anonymous) is facing the same dilemma—being selected out for ‘too long in class,” cight years in Class 4 without promotion. He too is under 50, therefore legally: incligible for a pension: he is a trained linguist and economist with no. contacts outside the: diplomatic world. At 45, he too is worried about support for his wife and two children. The best he has been offered so far is two-year exten- sion of his time in Class 4, mak- ing him—he says—a ‘“‘non-per- son” ineligible for promotion. Mr. X has reftised. He charges the department with inequity and injustice and is demanding his ‘day. in court.” That means a grievance committee to hear his complaints — a committee which the regulations say should be formed within five working days after the request is received. He has gone right up the lad- der in protest — from Director of Personnel Howard P. Mace. to Deputy Undersecretary of State for Administration William B. Macomber Jr., to Secretary of State William P. Rogers him- self. He claims that his whole career in the Foreign Service has been organized to insure his ultimate ‘‘sclection out.” For instance, in the early ’60s just after being promoted to Class 4, he accepted several spe- cial assignments. They were considered a tribute to his excel- lence — a year at Harvard Uni- versity in. graduate economics at government expense. another year in a tough East European janguage course in Washington. Out of Channels Mr. X did not go to East Eu- rope. He ended up in Geneva working in the American mis- sion on international economics. He liked the job enormously. But he soon discovered that those special assignments, taking him out of the ‘normal’ State De- partment channels for efficiency reports by superiors, had hurt his promotion chances. Promotion boards, mcet every fall, one each for the § classes of the Foreign Service. They assess some 15.000 people in the State Department, Agency for Inter- national Development, and Unit- ed States Information Agency — including the 3,000 career diplo- ‘mats. Each board has seven members — some ranking Foreign Service officers, some drawn from ‘other government departments, some from the public at large. These boards are’ allowed to recommend a certain percentage of the hundreds in each class for promotion each vear — a per- centage based largely on the money available from Congress. They also rate the lowest 5 or 10 percent in each class, who aut matically hecome candidate: HW 53080 By GEORGE SHERMAN | fired. vived Despair CHARLES W.. THOMAS {Macomber, who can narrow down the promotion lists, and ithen to Rogers for final approv- al. , The O office — a group of about 135 personnel profession- als — is enormously important jin organizing this procedure. Macomber is in over-all charge, but day-to-day operations — and decisions — are controlled by face. The Staff Work 1 “O” Office does the staff work for the promotion boards. ‘‘O” | Office files and channels the ef- fiency reports which the promo- tion boards receive each year on every officer—reports written by an officer’s superior and re- viewed at the next higher level. Insiders insist that the boards, inundated with thousands of re- ports, rely heavily on the advice of Mace’s subordinate—the chief of the Performance Evaluation Division. : Each year the process is re- peated. A candidate is rated, promoted, or passed over. If he is not in either the highest or lowest percentage one year, he must start over in new com- petition the next year. Here is where time in class takes a toll. As the years build up in any one class, officers become desperate for promotion. Mr. X believes that he was penalized in this competition, because for at least two years of the eight he was allowed, no standard efficiency reports were there for the promotion boards to assess. Nor does the loss of time end there. By specific order of the office, boards are ordered to give lower priority to those offi- cers remaining longest in their class. An analysis in the May 1969 Foreign Service Journal pointed out the stark results— officers are allowed to remain 10 years in Class 3, but 93 percent of all those promoted that year to Class 2 had been in their grade six years or less. . Supporters of X argue that the two years he lost, early during his time in Class 4, were of cru- cial importance. He had wona quick promotion out of Class 5 only to become a victim of too- long-in-class-4. ‘General’ Grievance ; His plea for a hearing has gotten nowhere. No outside grievance cummittee has been ‘set up. Mace has informed him that his grievance about promo- tion is too “general,” and spe- cifically exempted from the grievance system in the regu- lations for more than 20 years. “If L give in on X,” said Mace in an interview, ‘everyone else will want his case reviewed. It ild undermine discipline and away with the selection board em.” is attitude only infuriates 263513 Page 6 “Selection out”, “involuntary separation”, “too long in class” — obscure terms, perhaps, but they spell despair to Foreign Service officers of the United States. These are the polite words for telling a career diplomat he is They are part of a system that is coming under attack both in- side and outside the State De- partment. Even officers who have sur- promotion say morale is sagging and Star Staff Weiter HO” tem. In tion the tough competition for this the critics. They do not take a position’ on the substance of ‘X’s complaint. They simply support his right to “due process of law.” They point out that the State Department, alone in the huge federal bureaucracy, does not have an operational grievance system. Despite the regula- tions, only one hearing has been held in 20 years—and that has been dragging on for 18 months without result. “T am the first to admit that we need a grievance, system,” said Mace. “But we are all babes in the wood on this thing, it is all so new. Up until two years ago I never heard a thing about grievances over promo- tion. It all seems the outgrowth of the unrest of youth in this country. Organizations of For- eign Service officers have be- come outspoken advocates of employe rights.”’ ; The largest of those organiza- tions—the American Foreign Service Association—is demand- ing immediate action. It hap- /pens to be in hot negotiations with Macomber on an executive order President Nixon is to issue this summer on the whole range of management-employee rela- tions in the State Department. Basis For Legislation The association wants that or- der to include an_ elaborate grievance system. It has pro- duced a draft—in fact, it is the basis for the Bayh-Scott legisla- tion. Sources in both Macom- ber’s office and in the associa- tion say that “something like” this grievance system probably will go into the President’s exec- utive order. Meanwhile Macomber and company in the “‘O” Office are clearly trying to avoid revolt in the ranks. The charges of injus- tice, coercion, arbitrary deci- sions are clearly embarrassing to a secretary of state who took office in January 1989 promising the Foreign Service “a ing “divergent views.” Macomber has given Mrs. Cynthia Thomas a job in the office of the science adviser in the department at the $12,500- $14,000 salary of Foreign Service Class 5—just one rank below that of her dead husband. Ms. Thomas is a highly trained woman. But even those close to Macomber agree that Mrs. Thomas was given the job—hard to come by these days in the State Department—as an “act of conscience,’’ The fact that Bayh has been investigating the Thomas case and refusing. te accept the official explanations may be another reason, critics Say. In another move, the director general of the Foreign Service, John H. Burns—who stands be- tween Mace and Macomber in the “O” hierarchy—has propos- ed relaxation of the promotion rules. . In essence the proposed changes would end the “psycho. logical insecurity” in the middle grades of 3, 4 and 5, Instead of the short time now allowed in each class, the officer would now be given 20 years to get through’ all three classes into higher ranking Class 2. Would Keep Tenure Those who failed would still have 20-year tenure. The depart- ment intends to ask Congress to allow pensions for Class 4 offi- cers below age 50.~ Younger officers more able to find a civilian job if forced to leave the service, would face tougher competition and screening in getting across “‘the threshold” to Class 4, These proposals are the re- mined move is afoot to strip the its grip on the promotion sys- D-Ind., Leader Hugh Scott, R-Pa., plan to introduce this week legisla- on the State Department. It would operate directly under the secretary of State, outside the O office. The shock which produced when “retired” Foreign Service Among ‘Ret tive! and open establishment” allow-|: revolt simmering. A deter- (for organization) office of Congress, Sen. Birch Bayh, and Senate Minority 31, to force a grievance system momentum came April 12 sults of departmental task forces set up by Macomber in 1969. Mace and others claim that now the “‘O” Office is being made the scapegoat for an in- human promotion system prev- iously forced on the department by demands of money and long- time overstaffing of middle and upper ranks, They point to the forced reduc- tions in personnel ordered by the Johnson administration—the so- called Balpa 1 and Balpa 2 cut- backs, those ordered due to “balance-of-payments” difficul- ties. Under Nixon came a third alphabetical exercise in man- power—the so-called Opred, Op- erations Reductions of the State Department. Mace estimates that since 1968 these cutbacks have cost the de- partment 1500 foreign service of- ficers, all through executive or- der from the White House. Only coincidentally the Nixon admin- istration has set out to “rational- ize’ Foreign Service employ- ment by getting new balance be- tween young and old, specialists and “generalists.” The critics answer that Ma- comber’s tactics in carrying out admittedly difficult operations have only demoralized the serv- ice more. In the name of greater efficiency and despite universal suspicion of his ‘‘O” office, he has just moved to centralize and contro] all personnel programs still more tightly from that of- e Fant Pas Pune 7, (971 officer Charles W. Thomas, 48, unemployed lawyer and linguist, put a gun to his head at his Po- tomac Avenue NW. home. Almost two years earlier, July 1969, Thomas had been forced out of the State Department without a pension. No one claimed he was incompetent or a security risk. He was simply a victim of competition, ha failed to gain promotion out of Class 4 Foreign Service officer in the required eight years. Today the department estab- lishment acknowledges that “un- fortunate mistakes” were made 4 ired Diplomats fice. This action is based on a recommendation of one of his task forces, which, in turn—the critics say--was controlled by the personnel bureaucrats. “O” Office has also attempted to drown out demands for an in- dependent grievance system by setting up ‘‘unofficial’ hearing panels through its own jurisdic- tion. These are in the hands of Robert C. F. Gordon, an old- hand career officer. Macomber commissioned him a year ago as departmental ombudsman to hear complaints from the serv- ice on everything from travel allowances to promotion. More disenchanted critics charge that the result has be- come a network of informal “kangaroo courts,’”’ three-mem- in the Thomas case. They in- clude the misfiling of an excel- lent performance report and al- leged falsification of another— both errors unknown to the pro- motion boards. For two years Thomas and his wife, Cynthia, tried to appeal the verdict. They went through the system they had served for the past 18 years. They failed. At 46, Thomas was irrevocably “selected out,” only to discover that he was an over-qualified and middle-aged misfit in civil- ian life. See FSO, Page A-8 ber panels set up by Gordon and “O” to hear grievances. They are not called for in Foreign Service regulations. They do not keep stenographic records, they do not allow the complaining officer to examine evidence, to appoint an outside representa- tive, or to question witnesses, In a word they are not independent! or open. ! The result is one more step in: deteriorating confidence in the Foreign Service system. Young- er officers feel helpless, older officers confused and uncertain about surviving the cruel compe- tition. The more cynical of all ages wonder if they are living through the ‘‘house-cleaning” promised by the presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1968.