Laurence H. Silberman

This article challenges the notion that it is appropriate for Foreign Service officers to routinely occupy senior policymaking positions in the State Department. As a recent "political" ambassador who has also served at a senior level in domestic departments of our government, I confess that I ended my ambassadorial stint with less than friendly feelings toward the Foreign Service as a whole. Since then, reflecting as dispassionately as possible on my own observations and looking with some care into past history, I have concluded that the frictions that have arisen almost continuously between the Service and successive Presidents (and their political appointees) have their roots deep in the system of appointments itself-and that they lend themselves to constructive remedies.