Weekly Mind Dump: Dishonoring the Fallen - the Trump Administration Trashes Its Diplomats

And - an American who spied for Cuba for 30 years has died; he was one of several such turncoats who betrayed me and colleagues who served in that communist nation.

(On the way back from two exciting weeks in Central and South America, I contracted COVID, which accounts for my less than prolific output of late. The illness just saps every ounce of energy and concentration is difficult. I’m now well on the mend and am able to think straight again. Thanks for your patience.)

Suckers & Losers

Imagine if the president of the United States announced, “We’re canceling Memorial Day starting this year. Giving a day off to all Americans just so they can honor a bunch of suckers and losers makes no sense.”

It would be like dumping tons of animal excrement upon the graves of the 9388 Americans buried at Normandy (and 1557 whose remains were never recovered); or bulldozing Arlington National Cemetery to make way for a sprawling Trump golf course replete with a gaudy gilded club house for oligarchs. Of course, the American people would be beyond outraged (I think).

May 1 is U.S. Foreign Service Day — little known to most Americans because the total number of U.S. diplomats is tiny — there are way more members of our military marching bands than there are U.S. diplomats. For the past 52 years on Foreign Service Day, a brief memorial service has been held in the State Department’s main lobby containing plaques honoring the 321 diplomats who have given their lives in service to their country.

Until now.

The American Foreign Service Association, the Foreign Service’s union and official caretaker of the memorial plaques, was denied permission by State Department management to hold the memorial service this month. No reason was given. Just a de facto “F— you.” Undeterred, AFSA held the ceremony at its nearby headquarters. But it went further. Through a series of statements and press attention, it shamed the State Department, depicting it as heartless and uncaring of its employees. Caught flat-footed with embarrassment, the Department hastily organized a quickie event days after the anniversary, but barred AFSA’s attendance.

Why do this? Why refuse to honor the ultimate sacrifice of patriotic Americans selflessly serving their country? Many of us knew some of the people whose names appear on the plaques. And all of us feel a slight chill while passing by those plaques knowing our name could easily be among them. “There but for the grace of God…” During my 23-years in the Foreign Service, 78 of my colleagues died in the line of duty, most the victims of terrorist attacks. I had at least two very close calls in my career which could have resulted in my name being etched on the wall. The thought of my agency not giving a crap had I died while serving my country makes my blood boil. At the height of the reign of terror known as “DOGE,” a Foreign Service Officer died of natural causes while serving in one of our overseas embassies. The bureaucracy at first didn’t lift a finger to repatriate his remains — 1) because the folks who performed that service had been summarily fired; and 2) Trump officials just didn’t give a crap. Again, the system had to undergo public shame before taking the necessary humanitarian action.

“Cruelty was always the point. And it’s working,” writes Maryum Saifee, fired last week along with 246 fellow FSO’s for no cause. “We’ve seen mass waves of early resignations, and for those still on the inside, a mad scramble to prove fidelity in a performance evaluation system that is more hunger games than meritocracy,” she adds. These senseless firings came on the heels of 1353 employee dismissals taken last year. Gone are thousands of man-years of knowledge and skills, from foreign languages to negotiation to difficult-to-replace abilities such as arms control negotiating to countering cyber-attacks to specialized management skills.

Russell Vought, Trump’s sadism-obsessed OMB director, a man who cries out for psychiatric intervention, was very up front at the beginning of Trump’s second term:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down.

Cruelty is the point. It’s the driving force behind the conspiracy-obsessed MAGA movement.

The cost to the nation of their twisted policies is incalculable.

In recent decades, about 70 percent of American ambassadors were career diplomats (though the most desirable postings, mainly in Europe, are sold to political campaign contributors). Under Trump, more than 90 percent of ambassadors are political cronies. Last year, without explanation, the State Department recalled 30 career ambassadors from overseas assignments only to let them languish until separated. Today, more than 80 embassies are without an ambassador.

The administration’s hostile policies are both shrinking and politicizing the Foreign Service. Over the past year and a half, up to a quarter of Foreign Service members have left. A new wave of early retirements is now taking place. The administration’s goal is to politicize the Foreign Service and State Department by basing recruitment on ideology, with emphasis on attracting conservative White males. It even has its very own Vichyite collaborators inside State in the form of the so-called Ben Franklin Fellowship. It replicates its Vichy French predecessors to the extent of calling on snitches to turn in fellow employees who leak to the media.

Here’s the upshot: Iran. Sideline the experts, disregard solid analyses and shoot from the hip and — voila! — you’re stuck in a foreign quagmire. Then shove experienced diplomats aside and give the negotiating lead to two grifting real estate cronies with no deep experience in diplomacy. It’s a recipe for disaster and plays out embarrassingly in the daily news while costing billions and making the United States an international pariah.

So, go ahead Mr. Trump and MAGA pilot fish — trash diplomats and diplomacy, refuse to honor their sacrifices to the nation at your own risk. Then try to hide your embarrassment when you’re humiliated daily by a hostile nation which plays you like a fiddle.

Traitors!

Kendall Myers died in March. Most of you don’t know his name. He was a State Department official who, along with his wife, spied for Cuba for 30 years, finally caught in 2009 and slapped with a life sentence. He died in prison at 88.

When I served in Cuba as a diplomat in 1995-1996, at least four treasonous U.S. officials were passing troves of our government’s secrets to Havana’s spymasters, presumably including the classified reports I was sending to Washington. Two of the four were arrested before I left the State Department. One fled the country. The fourth, whom I’d met in Havana, was nabbed in 2023. Every time a Cuban spy op is busted, I feel elation — but also pain. And their dying in prison gives me at least a little satisfaction. May Kendall Myers’ soul burn in hell.

Yours truly greeting a Cuban general on “The Line” at GTMO

Based in Washington, I traveled to Guantanamo Naval Base (GTMO) to attend monthly meetings, as the State Department’s representative, between U.S. and Cuban military officers. The meetings took place on “The Line” (boundary) separating our naval base from Castro’s Cuba. Think of the movie, A Few Good Men minus the melodrama. Our talks were always constructive and convivial. Upon return to Washington, I participated in meetings at the White House organized by the National Security Council staff. My other duties involved flying to Havana and traveling the length and breadth of the island with another diplomat from our then Interests Section to monitor the human rights conditions of Cubans who had been repatriated after unsuccessfully attempting to flee to the United States by sea. We were followed at all times by the secret police who at one point slashed the tires of our car as a message of intimidation.

I had met turncoat Victor Manuel Rocha in the Interests Section offices during this period. A genial fellow, he wanted to touch base with me regarding my activities at GTMO as well as human rights monitoring. I recall our short encounter as routine and pleasant. As deputy chief of our small diplomatic mission, he was, in retrospect, an ideally placed mole for the Castro regime, for which he had spied for 41 years. Sentenced to 15 years at age 74, his chances of also dying in prison are definitely on the high side. I wish him no well and hope incarceration drives him mad. The Justice Department just initiated denaturalization proceedings against Colombia-born Rocha to strip him of his U.S. citizenship.

Finally, Ana Montes, who spied for Havana for 17 years — ten of those while working as a top analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency — is, unfortunately, foot-loose and fancy-free, residing in Puerto Rico. Arrested in 2001, she served 20 years of a 25 year sentence. She is 69.

A friend of mine who knew her at DIA described Montes as “highly competent, but cool and detached.” I have little doubt that the many classified cables I sent from GTMO and Havana, and my debriefs at the State Department and the White House were fed by Montes to the Cuban spy service — Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI).

Thus are the risks and sacrifices we diplomats endure in a unique career which keeps us on our toes at all times.

Do pay us a little respect on U.S. Foreign Service Day, May 1 — even if our government will not.

The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.