United States Foreign Service

I

Introduction

United States Foreign Service, segment of the United States Department of State that aids in maintaining peaceful cordial relations between the United States and other nations. The Foreign Service was established by Congress in 1924 by combining diplomatic personnel concerned primarily with governmental relations and consular personnel concerned largely with individual and commercial matters. The Foreign Service is responsible for gathering information conducive to the formation of American foreign policy, for implementing foreign policy abroad, and for safeguarding U.S. citizens and their personal and commercial interests in other lands. The Foreign Service maintains embassies, missions, consulates general, consulates, and consular agencies throughout the world.

II

Organization

The personnel of the Foreign Service is divided into two groups. The Foreign Service Officer Corps, composed of the chief U.S. diplomatic and consular personnel abroad, includes ambassadors; ministers; counselors of embassy; attachés for science, labor, commerce, and agriculture; first, second, and third secretaries; and consuls general, consuls, and vice-consuls. The second group includes personnel with specialized occupations such as scientists, engineers, communications specialists, security officers, and clerical staff.

Applicants to the Foreign Service Officer Corps must be U.S. citizens. They must pass written, oral, security, and physical examinations and be confirmed in their appointment by the Senate.

III

History

Article II, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, allows the president with the advice and consent of the Senate to appoint ambassadors. The foreign diplomatic service of the nations, however, actually originated even earlier, during the American revolutionary period, when emissaries from the Continental Congress traveled abroad seeking assistance for the colonies' struggle for independence against Great Britain. During the early years of the new republic, leading statesmen, among them Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams, usually served as foreign ministers. In 1792, Congress created a consular service, the early duties of which were largely confined to matters of shipping. Through the century that followed, these posts, and diplomatic positions as well, came to be filled as a form of political patronage, sometimes by incompetent individuals.

---

---

As relations between the United States and other nations expanded in scope and complexity, the need for a trained corps of skilled and capable diplomats became increasingly apparent. In 1856, Congress regulated diplomatic salaries and classified consular posts; diplomats filling the more important consular positions were forbidden to engage in private trade. In 1895 President Grover Cleveland put the consular service on a limited merit basis. For the first time, appointees had to demonstrate their fitness for diplomatic work by previous service in the Department of State or by passing a qualifying examination. The professionalization of the Foreign Service proceeded through the adoption of merit examinations and changes in tenure and promotion policies. Salaries were raised, and allowances while serving abroad, for example, the allowance designated for entertainment expenses, were increased.

In 1906 Congress, by law, and President Theodore Roosevelt, by executive order, regularized and extended the merit system instituted by Cleveland. In 1909, President William Howard Taft decreed the same system for diplomats in the Foreign Service below the rank of minister. President Taft also initiated a rating system on which promotion was based; in 1915, Congress made the Taft decree a law.

The most important step toward professionalization of the Foreign Service occurred in 1924 with the passage of the Rogers Act, creating the present-day Foreign Service. The Rogers Act merged the diplomatic and consular services under the same terms of appointment by merit examination and promotion by rating. The Foreign Service Acts of 1946 and 1980 further reorganized the service. Also in 1946, the Foreign Service Institute was created to give continuous on-the-job training to Foreign Service officers.

See also Diplomacy.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain