THE FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 368, p. 71-82

Abstract

As career Foreign Service (FS) officers carry out their diplomatic & consular functions, they necessarily assume a unique role in a foreign country as compared with their fellow overseas Amer's. Conducting the business of the US gov in the host country, their relationships with local people take on an inescapable official signif. In addition, their diplomatic status calls for participation in the activities of the local multinat'l diplomatic corps. The result is a special set of conditions on which FS life overseas is based. In the postwar period, the scope & variety of demands made on the FS have expanded along with the increased N of official US citizens abroad. These changing conditions of internat'l diplomacy have posed new problems in defining the professionalism of diplomacy for US FS officers. However, the FS is still given cohesion by participation in a common career `subculture' which derives from similarity of experience, the traditions of the FS, a sense of belonging to an FS officer community which is dispersed over the world, & a common set of values & objectives. HA.