The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding United States citizens abroad.
The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding United States citizens abroad.
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The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding United States citizens abroad.
Created in 1924 by the Rogers Act, the Foreign Service combined all consular and diplomatic services of the United States federal government into one administrative unit. In addition to the unit's function, the Rogers Act defined a personnel system under which the United States secretary of state is authorized to assign diplomats abroad.
Members of the Foreign Service are selected through a series of written and oral examinations. They serve at any of the United States diplomatic missions around the world, including embassies, consulates, and other facilities. Members of the Foreign Service also staff the headquarters of the four foreign affairs agencies:
United States Department of State (headquartered at the Harry S Truman Building in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.)
United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Commerce
United States Agency for International Development
Historical background
On September 15, 1789, the 1st United States Congress passed an act creating the Department of State and appointing duties to it, including the keeping of the Great Seal of the United States. Initially there were two services devoted to diplomatic and consular activity. The Diplomatic Service provided ambassadors and ministers to staff embassies overseas, while the Consular Service provided consuls to assist United States sailors and promote international trade and commerce.
Throughout the nineteenth century, ambassadors, or ministers, as they were known prior to the 1890s, and consuls were appointed by the president, and until 1856, earned no salary. Many had commercial ties to the countries in which they would serve, and were expected to earn a living through private business or by collecting fees. This was an arrangement challenged in the first professional survey of the service, David Baillie Warden's pioneering work On the Origin, Nature, Progress and Influence of Consular Establishments (1813). As acting consul in Paris, Warden had found himself being treated by American merchants as no more than a hireling agent.
In 1856, Congress provided a salary for consuls serving at certain posts; those who received a salary could not engage in private business, but could continue to collect fees for services performed.
Lucile Atcherson Curtis
Lucile Atcherson Curtis was the first woman in what became the U.S. Foreign Service. Specifically, she was the first woman appointed as a United States Diplomatic Officer or Consular Officer, in 1923 (the U.S. did not establish the unified Foreign Service until 1924, at which time diplomatic and consular Officers became Foreign Service officers).
Rogers Act
The Rogers Act of 1924 merged the diplomatic and consular services of the government into the Foreign Service. An extremely difficult Foreign Service examination was also implemented to recruit the most outstanding Americans, along with a merit-based system of promotions. The Rogers Act also created the Board of the Foreign Service and the Board of Examiners of the Foreign Service, the former to advise the secretary of state on managing the Foreign Service, and the latter to manage the examination process.
In 1927, Congress passed legislation affording diplomatic status to representatives abroad of the Department of Commerce (until then known as "trade commissioners"), creating the Foreign Commerce Service. In 1930 Congress passed similar legislation for the Department of Agriculture, creating the Foreign Agricultural Service. Though formally accorded diplomatic status, however, commercial and agricultural attachés were civil servants (not officers of the Foreign Service). In addition, the agricultural legislation stipulated that agricultural attachés would not be construed as public ministers. On July 1, 1939, however, both the commercial and agricultural attachés were transferred to the Department of State under Reorganization Plan No. II. The agricultural attachés remained in the Department of State until 1954, when they were returned by Act of Congress to the Department of Agriculture. Commercial attachés remained with State until 1980, when Reorganization Plan Number 3 of 1979 was implemented under terms of the Foreign Service Act of 1980.
Foreign Service Act of 1946
In 1946 Congress at the request of the Department of State passed a new Foreign Service Act creating six classes of employees: chiefs of mission, Foreign Service officers, Foreign Service reservists, Foreign Service staff, "alien personnel" (subsequently renamed Foreign Service nationals and later locally employed staff), and consular agents. Officers were expected to spend the bulk of their careers abroad and were commissioned officers of the United States, available for worldwide service. Reserve officers often spent the bulk of their careers in Washington but were available for overseas service. Foreign Service staff personnel included clerical and support positions. The intent of this system was to remove the distinction between Foreign Service and civil service staff, which had been a source of friction. The Foreign Service Act of 1946 also repealed as redundant the 1927 and 1930 laws granting USDA and Commerce representatives abroad diplomatic status, since at that point agricultural and commercial attachés were appointed by the Department of State.
The 1946 Act replaced the Board of Foreign Service Personnel, a body concerned solely with administering the system of promotions, with the Board of the Foreign Service, which was responsible more broadly for the personnel system as a whole, and created the position of director general of the Foreign Service. It also introduced the "up-or-out" system under which failure to gain promotion to higher rank within a