Washington Post, DC
June 9 2005
Association Withdraws Award to U.S. Envoy
Ambassador Was to Be Honored for Dissent
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A19
The American Foreign Service Association recently announced that John
M. Evans, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, was to receive a
prestigious award for “constructive dissent” for characterizing as
genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the waning days of
the Ottoman Empire in 1915. His comments stirred such a diplomatic
tempest that Evans not only had to retract his remarks but also had
to later clarify his retraction.
Earlier this week, however, the selection committee met again and
decided to withdraw the honor, known as the Christian A. Herter
Award. They decided not to offer any award in the category, reserved
for a senior foreign service officer. Other awards are issued for
officers at lower levels.
The timing of the association’s decision appeared curious, given it
came just before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived
in Washington for a meeting with President Bush to bolster strained
U.S.-Turkish relations. John W. Limbert, president of the
association, said that no one at the organization can remember an
award being withdrawn after it had been announced.
“It is not something we do easily,” he said.
The award is intended to foster creative thinking and intellectual
courage within the State Department bureaucracy, and the secretary of
state usually attends the award ceremony. One of last year’s awards,
for instance, went to a mid-level foreign service officer who sent a
cable challenging the administration’s policy in Iraq. “Dissent is
supposed to be controversial,” Limbert said.
Speaking to an Armenian group in California, Evans referred to the
“Armenian genocide” and said that the U.S. government owes “you, our
fellow citizens, a more frank and honest way of discussing the
problem.” He added that “there is no doubt in my mind what happened”
and it was “unbecoming of us, as Americans, to play word games here.”
Armenian groups hailed his comment, noting Evans was the first U.S.
official since President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to refer to the
Armenian deaths as genocide. But the comments infuriated Turkey.
Evans issued a statement saying U.S. policy, in which the United
States “acknowledges the tragedy” and encourages “scholarly, civil
society and diplomatic discussion” of the event, had not changed.
Evans said he used the term “genocide” in “my personal capacity”
during “informal meetings” and “this was inappropriate.” After more
complaints from Turkey, Evans corrected the statement a day later and
removed a reference to genocide, instead calling it “the Armenian
tragedy.”
Limbert said the committee, made up of current and former State
Department officials, concluded that the award to Evans did not meet
the selection criteria. He declined to comment further, saying State
Department officials would have to explain their concerns.
L. Bruce Laingen, who chaired the selection committee, said “very
serious people from the State Department in particular” expressed
concern about the award to Evans. But he said they did not raise
political issues. Instead, he said, they focused on the fact that the
award criteria specifically says the actions must be taken while
“working in the system”; Evans made his comments in speeches.
“Dissent has to be within the system,” Laingen said. He said the
committee did not focus on that fact until it was reminded by the
State Department.
But when the committee decided to withdraw the award, it was faced
with a dilemma. The committee had received only two nominations, and
it had already concluded the other nominee did not meet the criteria.
So no award could be offered.
Laingen said the committee generally receives few examples of dissent
at senior levels of the agency. “That is regrettable,” he said. “It
does not reflect well on the foreign service broadly at that level
for dissent within the system.”
From: Baghdasarian