F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

AFSANEWS
American Foreign Service Association • July-August 2008
2008 DISSENT AND PERFORMANCE AWARD WINNERS
Dissenters Honored with AFSA Awards
AFSA is proud to honor the winners
of the 2008 Constructive Dissent and
Outstanding Performance Awards.
The awards were presented on Thursday,
June 19 at a ceremony in the Benjamin
Franklin Diplomatic Reception Room at the
Department of State.
This ceremony marks the 40th anniversary
of AFSA’s dissent awards program,
which began in 1968 with the William R.
Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent (see
below).
Ambassador (Ret.) Thomas Boyatt
was selected for the annual Award for
Lifetime Contributions to American
Diplomacy, and the award was presented
by Ambassador (Ret.) Thomas Pickering.
Previous recipients include U. Alexis
Our father, William R. Rivkin, died
suddenly in Dakar on March 19,
1967, while serving as ambassador
to Senegal. Upon the news of his death,
dozens of friends, colleagues and admirers
spontaneously offered to donate in his name
to the cause of our mother Enid’s choosing.
After attending to the difficult task of
adjusting herself and four young children
to a new life stateside, Enid began to focus
on how to best memorialize her husband.
In conjunction with our uncle, Donald
Rivkin, Enid decided that the most appropriate
legacy would be to encourage
Johnson, Frank Carlucci, George H.W.
Bush, Lawrence Eagleburger, Cyrus Vance,
David Newsom, Lee Hamilton, Thomas
Pickering, George Shultz, Richard Parker,
Senator Richard Lugar, Morton Abramowitz
and Joan Clark.
During a distinguished 26-year Foreign
Service career, Amb. Boyatt served as ambassador
to Cyprus and Colombia. He
received a Meritorious Honor Award in
1969 for heroism during the hijacking of
a TWA plane, and earned both the
William R. Rivkin and Christian A. Herter
Awards for constructive dissent. Amb.
Boyatt served as president of AFSA, and
continues to devote countless hours to
strengthening the Foreign Service in retire-
ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WILLIAM R. RIVKIN AWARD
Telling Truth to Power
BY ROBERT AND CHARLES RIVKIN
Continued on page 72
Foreign Service officers to tell truth to
power.
Bill Rivkin, like President John F.
Kennedy who first appointed him ambassador,
relished open, respectful debate as
the best path to sound decisionmaking. A
former national collegiate debating champion,
Bill had no use for “yes men” —
bureaucrats whose narrow conception of
duty and lack of courage incline them to
agree reflexively with any opinion expressed
by their boss. He was delighted to find in
the Foreign Service many fine professionals
willing to speak up when they felt their
Inside This Issue:
BRIEFS: AGGELER’S LIFE IN THE
FOREIGN SERVICE .....................................60
VP STATE: OPEN SEASON
FOR CHEAP SHOTS....................................61
HERTER AWARD: AMBASSADOR
JEFFREY FELTMAN......................................63
RIVKIN AWARD: RACHEL SCHNELLER...........64
HARRIMAN AWARD: LUKE ZAHNER.........65
POST REP OF THE YEAR: JULIE EADEH ....66
GUESS AWARD: CRAIG GERARD...............66
DELAVAN AWARD: VIRGINIA GREGORY ...67
BOHLEN AWARD: VICTOR WILLIAMS.......67
AFSA 2008 MERIT SCHOLARS ..................68
WINNING SCHOLAR ESSAY .......................70
ISSUE BRIEF: FS RESOURCE NEEDS..........71
CLASSIFIEDS ..........................................72
Amb. and Mrs. William Rivkin with Pres. John
F. Kennedy.
chief of mission was mistaken. Bill was concerned,
however, that unless the Foreign
Service as an institution encouraged these
officers’ best instincts and let them know
Continued on page 62
JULY-AUGUST 2008/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 59