F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

2008 AFSA CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT AWARD WINNERS (Stories by Shawn Dorman)
While serving as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey
Feltman demonstrated exceptional intellectual courage,
integrity and leadership in challenging a decision by the
Department of State’s Office of Buildings Operations to proceed
with the construction of a new embassy compound on a site in
Beirut that he recognized would put the lives of American and
Lebanese employees at risk. For this, he has been selected as the
winner of the 2008 Herter Award for a senior-level officer.
Embassy Beirut’s tragic history includes more than 350 lives
lost through terrorism in the last 30 years. After the bombing of
the original chancery in West Beirut by Hezbollah elements in
1983, the embassy was moved to a “temporary” building in a
less hostile area in the eastern sector of the divided city that it
long since outgrew. Accordingly, plans for constructing a new
embassy became a priority in Washington and in Beirut.
In explaining why he took a stand against the new site, Amb.
Feltman says, “My concerns developed out of the devastating
2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, and were exacerbated in January
2007, when Hezbollah completely took over all access roads to
and from the proposed new embassy compound site. The
Marines who helped protect us during the war said that, had we
been at that new site during the war (with Hezbollah all around
us), the U.S. military would have come in exactly once: to
extract us.”
Amb. Feltman knew that the U.S. diplomatic presence was
key during that critical time, and the
work they were doing out of the
embassy — including running an
evacuation of over 15,000 Americans,
Secretary of State visits, delicate negotiations
over a cessation of violence,
delivery of humanitarian supplies, outreach
to the media, etc. — would have
been impossible had they been in the
new site. “But most of all,” says Amb.
Feltman, “I was concerned about the
security of our personnel: the war and
subsequent developments made me see
that we would have been in a part of
Beirut utterly at the mercy of
Hezbollah.” When the site was selected,
the Syrians still controlled Lebanon
and the security environment was far
different.
Christian A. Herter Award
FOR A SENIOR-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER
Jeffrey Feltman
On March 22, 2007, Amb. Feltman shows Lebanese Druse
leader Walid Jumblatt the memorial at Embassy Beirut honoring
all those Lebanese and American U.S. government
employees killed by terrorist acts in Lebanon. On that day,
Amb. Feltman planted an ancient olive tree from the Chouf
mountains (homeland of the Druse) on the embassy compound.
The tree was a gift from Jumblatt to the embassy to
symbolize U.S.-Lebanese friendship and to thank the U.S. for
its support of Lebanon.
Amb. Feltman with clerics
in a Druse religious shrine
outside the Lebanese
Chouf mountain town of
Baakline in August 2007,
following the announcement
that the Ambassador’s
Fund for Cultural
Preservation would help
fund renovation of that
important religious, historic
and cultural site.
A series of emergency action committee meetings at the
embassy, during which the ambassador asked members to comment
on the pros and cons of the selected site, led to a unanimous
recommendation from the country team in Beirut that the
new embassy compound was not a secure site and construction
there should be put on hold.
This recommendation, which Amb. Feltman sent to
Washington in September 2006, did not go over well in the
Overseas Buildings Office, which wanted to see the NEC project
completed expeditiously. Amb. Feltman invited then-Under
Secretary of State for Management Henrietta Fore to visit Beirut
and hear the embassy’s concerns, which she did. Later, Amb.
Feltman appealed directly to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The final decision in Washington was to postpone until 2012 a
decision on whether or not to use the
NEC site. This successful outcome
would not have been possible without
the persistent and courageous lobbying
of Amb. Feltman.
Jeffrey Feltman joined the Foreign
Service in 1986. Prior to serving as
ambassador to Lebanon, he headed the
Coalition Provisional Authority office
in the Irbil province of Iraq and simul-
taneously served as deputy regional
coordinator for the CPA’s northern
area. He previously served in Jerusalem,
Tunisia, Tel Aviv, Budapest, Portau-Prince
and Washington. Amb. Feltman
studied Arabic at the University of
Jordan and also speaks French and
Hungarian. He is married to FSO
Mary Draper.
JULY-AUGUST 2008/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 63
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