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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 6, February 27-March 12, 2009

The Elusive Under Secretary

In an interview with the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman was asked, "Would you have wanted to stay in the job under Obama?" Glassman responded with an unequivocal "Yes."

Glassman revealed that he was never asked to continue in the role. "Did it ever come up, like, did I ever have a conversation with anybody about it? No." At press time the post continues to be vacant.

John Brown, writing for the Huffington Post, questions the need to fill the Under Secretary position. He notes that President Obama’s Al-Arabiya interview, a public diplomacy success, in addition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Asia, "were attained without a PD/PA Under Secretary yet having been chosen." Brown contends that the position "has little real influence or power."

Brown therefore suggests the creation of a new public diplomacy body. "To handle USG information, educational and cultural programs meant to engage, inform and influence key international audiences, create a small, flexible government agency, giving it a name that clearly describes what it does. And call the head of this new entity ‘Director.’ Everybody knows what a director is. It's a person who actually makes a difference," he argues.

Nevertheless, Brown takes to his own blog to voice his preferred candidate for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Given his previous skepticism towards the position, selecting the ideal person to fill the post "may seem like an oddity if not a contradiction… But I feel, as a former Foreign Service officer, that perhaps I should voice my preference."

Brown presents Ambassador William Rugh as the "ideal un-Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs," due to his distinguished 31-year Foreign Service career, his public diplomacy and international broadcasting experience and his knowledge of Arabic and the Arab world. Brown remarks, "How many recent Under Secretaries have such qualifications?...None."

Brown’s views are supported by Joshua Fouts at DIP’s Dispatches from the Imagination Age. Fouts describes Rugh as an "eminently wise and savvy professional with an entrepreneurial spirit." Rugh would "certainly be a great un-under-secretary…Right now, I’m more interested if they’re going to appoint anyone at all."

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