>> My name is Rust Deming, I spent 38 years in the foreign service, retired in 2004
and now teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
Well, it's a very disciplined life.
When you join the foreign service you agree to serve anywhere in the world
that the foreign service sends you, not unlike, not unlike the military.
So you have no real control over where you're going to go.
Most people, after their training in Washington, go abroad as I did for a couple years
and then they usually come back to Washington for a few years to get used
to the Washington side of the job but you can expect to spend about half your year abroad,
half your year in Washington during a normal career.
An ambassador's main role is the President's personal representative to the foreign country
and in the Embassy there are five different sections.
The political section, where I spent most of my career, deals with foreign governments,
reports of what's going on in, in, in the country and it's really required
that you speak the language of the country.
Economic section deals with trade and economic issues.
The Counselor section serves the American citizens that live in the country
and gives visas to foreigners that want
to visit the U.S. Administrative Service keeps the lights on, makes the place run
and then Public Diplomacy, which is increasingly important part of our diplomacy reaching
out beyond governments to the people to try
to explain American policy and the American experience.
Some periods where things are quieter than other periods but you really are on duty all the time.
Another aspect of the Foreign Service life is you're representing the country
and you really are a public person and the standards
of behavior and conduct are very, very high.
Of course, you have to get a security clearance so it goes into every aspect of your life.
Which, for many young people, the privacy one is used to really disappears when you're
in the public service but it's a very rewarding career.
About 30% of the ambassadors go to political appointee, which is the way the system works,
the major posts in Europe, London, Paris, Rome,
generally go to people appointed by the President.
About 70% of the ambassadorships go to career people and when you get to senior rank,
the department puts together a list of people that they think are deserving
of being an ambassador and you have some say at that point of what you're being in,
but it's really the luck of the draw, being in the right place at the right time
and ambassador tours are three years so every three years about one third,
every year about one third of the posts come open so it depends
when you're eligible what posts are there that you're competitive for or interested in.
So it's a very hit or miss process, a little bit mysterious.
Interesting work.
I was, I found, first of all dealing
with American foreign policy was very interesting to me.
I found it important, I enjoyed it.
The stimulation of dealing with foreigners, trying to figure out what's going
on in a society and learning about new places and every three
or four years you were transferred to a new place.
And so you had a whole new learning experience and I found that very invigorating
to have a new experience coming up every three or four years.
On the downside, it's hard on family life sometimes.
You're moving kids in and out of schools.
They get a great benefit, I think, of growing up overseas and learning about different countries,
but when they have to leave friends every three or four years, it's not easy.
And one of the real challenges we have in the Foreign Service is trying
to find what we call spousal employment.
About one third of the Foreign Service officers are women so it applies to both men and women,
but men and women married to a Foreign Service Officer, you know,
are not going to stay home anymore.
They want to work and many, many countries are visa limitations on what diplomatic wives
or husbands can do to try to find productive work and or other outlets for professional men
and women is a big challenge for the Foreign Service.
First, I don't think you should enter the Foreign Service
with your goal being an ambassador.
That may or may not happen.
But devoting your career to that is not a very effective way to do things.
But general preparation, most people come
into Foreign Service have done something after the B.A. degree.
Very few come in with B.A's.
Either graduate school, working overseas, working in the U.S., doing something
and the average age now is probably 28, 29, 30, people coming in.
All sorts of backgrounds.
I think the basic skills are the ability to write, the ability to communicate,
and interest in the world and interest in trying to understand what's going on abroad and trying
to explain American perspective and the American experience.
So you need a good, good grasp of American history,
culture because you're representing the country and you need to be able to do that effectively
and you need to have good communications skills as I said.
You need to be write well, communicate well because that's an essential part of the job.
I went to Rollins and before that I went to prep school in New England, the [inaudible] school.
Spent four years at Rollins.
Political Science English major and enjoyed it and it benefited me a great deal.
And my father was a Foreign Service Officer and I was brought up overseas as much as I was
in the U.S. and so I was always very interested in international politics and the world
and always wanted to do something in that vein and I was, by the time I got to Rollins,
pretty much sure what direction I wanted to follow.
I went off to graduate school at American University for two years,
took the Foreign Service exam while I was a student there and passed it and left.
I completed all my coursework at American University but had not completed my thesis,
so I left without an M.A. and went in the State Department in 1966.
Entry level, two months of sort of general orientation with a class
of 22 other officers and then language training.
I had French, but I was assigned to a French speaking post and my French was college French,
not speaking French so I spent four months brushing up my French
and then I went off to my first assignment overseas.
I was in Tunisia in North Africa.
Small, very interesting country and just ten years out of [inaudible] to become independent.
And my wife and my daughter were accompanying me and while we were there we had twins
that were born, completing our family.
Well after two years in Tunisia, I went off to study Japanese for two years and then had,
over the next 25 years, four different assignments in Japan, sort of working my way up.
Not a planned career, but I kept getting pulled back there and in between I was in Washington
in various assignments, some related to East Asia, some related to other things.
But I ended up in Tokyo at the end of my career as a Deputy Chief of Mission Ambassador.
Walter Mondale was the ambassador political appointee and I spent three years there
as his deputy and then one year as acting ambassador before Tom Foley, the former Speaker
of the House came to become the ambassador.
And then I went back to Washington to become Principal Deputy Secretary of State
for East Asia and then went off to Tunisia again as Ambassador.
The process takes quite a while.
It's very frustrating.
You have to take a written exam, wait for the results of that, then take an oral exam,
wait for the results of that, and then if you pass that,
you have to go through a security clearance and a medical clearance.
And one of our challenges is that people sometimes have to wait 18 months,
24 months while they're out there, other opportunities are coming abroad,
so the Foreign Service State Department's really trying to speed of up the process,
so we can get the best and the brightest.
But don't be intimidated by the process either,
I mean the written exam is essentially a graduate record exam that focuses more
on American society and world than a normal GRE and the oral exam is interaction with a group
of people and it's not, you know, it's all doable so I urge people that are interested not
to be discouraged by the length of the process and not to be intimidated by what they see
as a very challenging exam process because it can be gotten through
and it's really worthwhile and it's a great career.