Video Transcript
Marc I. Grossman—Example of Excellence:
High point
Oh I think the single highlight of my Foreign Service career was having been able, for 29 years, to serve the United States of America. When I joined the Foreign Service I wanted to do something that I could give back something to the country, and I had a chance to do that for 29 years, and it was spectacular. There were lots of very specific things that happened, about expanding NATO, and helping Turkey get into the European Union, refugee crises, other things that were important, but basically it was about serving the United States.
I think diplomacy is changing right in front of our very eyes. When I joined the Foreign Service it was all about passivity and reporting and the Soviet Union. And all the jobs that a Foreign Service Officer has today are active jobs. They are about promoting democracy and promoting sustainable development, and stopping the trafficking in women and children, and fighting drugs and organized crime. And none of those things are really designed for people to report and send back information to other people to decide. It’s for people at the front end of our diplomacy to decide. And I think it’s an exciting time to consider a career in diplomacy, because I think diplomacy is going to change 100% over the next 20 years, and it’s going to be a very exciting thing to be a part of.
Challenge
The most interesting thing that’s happened to me is breaking out of the political cone. I know that people have to be hired in a certain way, and we need economic officers and consular officers, but I think over time the cone structure will break down. And certainly as you get more senior you need to be able to act in all of the cones. And I think there’s increasingly little difference between the jobs that people do, and I think that’s really good. So when I think back to when I was the DCM in Turkey, we confronted one of the great refugee crises since World War II – 500,000 Kurds pushed up against the mountains of Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq after the first Gulf War. And it was a combined effort of people from all of the cones to try to go out there and, first, save these people’s lives, and then stabilize them, and then move them back home. And I was very proud to be a part of the most successful refugee resettlement effort after World War II. But as I say, it took people from every single cone to accomplish that task. And I think that’s what the future of diplomacy is going to be about.
Vignette
For me, one of the most satisfying times I think that I had was when I was a junior officer in Pakistan and I had a chance to go and visit a great political leader in Pakistan who was under house arrest. And I drove and I drove, and I drove to see this gentleman. And it was for me the first time I’d ever seen anybody like this, under house arrest. And we sat down and we talked and we talked. And I was 24 years old and he was a great politician, and I was learning. And I said to him, “What’s it like to be under house arrest?” And he said to me, “You know what’s the greatest thing about the United States of America?” And I said, “No, what?” And he said, “The peaceful transfer of power. You in the United States don’t have people under house arrest when they are done serving their country politically.” And I never forgot it. It was 30 years ago. I can remember that conversation like it was yesterday. And for me, as a 24-year-old American to be representing my country in the political cone in some place like Pakistan and to hear this man talk about what politics should be like, was a very moving experience.
Reflection
I think diplomacy has been revolutionized. When I joined the Foreign Service, there was no Internet, there was no email, there were no nongovernmental organizations. And if you think today of how we communicate and what we do, it’s all completely different. And one of the things that I think is most exciting that the State Department is doing are the virtual consulates. And trying to create an impression in cities all around the world where maybe we don’t have the money or the capacity to put an actual human being, to put a website out there. And people in a town in Russia or a town in Indonesia, or a town in Egypt, or a town in Turkey can sign onto this website, and it will talk specifically about their town, and about how to contact the United States Government and what to do. And I think that’s extremely important. The other thing that I think is so difficult – a challenge I think would be the right way to put it – is with email and with television and the 24-hour news cycle – Al Jazeera, CNN, MSNBC – is the decision cycle that people are trying to work under now is so much faster. And whereas 30 years ago or 40 years ago people had a chance a little bit more to reflect on their decisions and to take in a little bit more information, the challenge for policy makers today and the challenge for people joining the Foreign Service or the Civil Service today is that you have to decide right now, and you have to act right now, because you’re being drive by the Internet and the email, and the 24-hour news cycle.