THE SECRETARY'S OPEN FORUM

As delivered

Thank you very much. I want to thank the Open Forum for inviting Craig Johnstone to come today. I want to thank Craig Johnstone for coming and thank Alan for giving us the opportunity to cosponsor this and giving me the opportunity to say just a few words.

We have a great profession. Diplomacy is a great profession, and I think that the American Foreign Service is a great career providing, as our recruitment literature states, the most interesting work in the world. However, like all institutions, the Foreign Service and also the Department of State have their flaws.

One of the flaws that particularly bothers me or has bothered me over the years is our predilection for conventional wisdom: about policy, about management, and about so many aspects of our business. Part of it, of course, is natural to the territory. We are serving a nation. We have to reflect the morals and values of our society, and we have to be careful about pushing the limits of those values too far. Also, in the general scheme of things, diplomats, particularly American diplomats, are often more likely to defend the status quo rather than to challenge it.

Unfortunately, I think we and our institution sometimes take it several steps farther. Somehow our own internal culture discourages original thinking and encourages the articulate reiteration of accepted and sometimes very worn truths. While that may be comfortable for the institution and may result sometimes in faster individual promotion rates, it does make it more difficult for the institution to anticipate or to adapt to changing circumstances, and these days that is what our environment is all about.

One of the things that I most like and admire about Craig Johnstone is that he, more than many of us, has successfully challenged the conventional wisdom of our institution and of our culture. Craig has pointed out some of the weaknesses of our culture and of our approach. He has articulated for us and for audiences beyond our profession the need for change; he has suggested and applied solutions.

Now, personally, I have not always admired this. In the mid-1990s I think there were few names that elicited more irritation from me than that of Craig Johnstone. I blamed him for all the "hoopla" about the MPPs and the various other initials that we have in that area, all the meetings and justifications, and the budget niggling that dragged us away from the jobs that we were trying to do in the face of what were already insufficient resources and insufficient support from the Department's leadership. However, I came to realize that it was less Craig Johnstone that I objected to than it was our reaction as an institution to his efforts. I think that he has contributed a great deal to the Department of State and to our profession.

Now as we move into a new administration confronted by an ever more rapidly changing environment, and already besieged by forces of conventional wisdom on a scale beyond what even this elite institution can produce, I think it is very appropriate for Craig to come here and address the need for bipartisan cooperation and how we in the foreign affairs community may help to promote it.

Craig, thank you for coming, and I certainly look forward to your presentation.

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