by Jonathan Rickert
A compendium of State Department awards, as listed in Wikipedia, exceeds 40 in number. Though most are granted in recognition of outstanding performance, they cover a wide range of activities and achievements. The best known among them, to most FSOs at least, are the Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards. Nowhere in the aforementioned or any other such list, however, will one find mention of the now discontinued, and always unofficial, Donhauser Award. And therein lies a tale.
The Context
After returning to the State Department from Bulgaria in the summer of 1988, I served for the next two years as chief of the European Assignments Division in the Office of Career Development and Assignments (PER/FCA). Our main task was to ensure that as many as possible of the European Bureau’s Foreign Service candidates were assigned to the positions overseas and in Washington that EUR wanted them to fill. We also were responsible for the International Organizations Affairs Bureau’s much less numerous assignments.
“Panels,” composed of assignment officers (AOs) from the various geographic assignments divisions and the career development officers (CDOs), who represented the interests of those seeking the positions, made the assignment decisions. A full panel, called the inter-functional panel and held most Fridays, was responsible for filling political, economic, consular, and administrative officer positions, with smaller panels handling various “specialists.” The Friday panels were the main arena for PER/FCA’s work, and each panel member had one vote. The majority ruled whenever a proposal was contested.
In general, each geographic bureau’s representatives had a list of proposed candidates for assignments for the Friday panel to consider. Most were uncontroversial and received quick approval, usually unanimously, provided that the candidate’s grade and “cone” matched those of the job. By “cone” was meant the officer’s professional designation, i.e., political, economic, consular, administrative, etc.
In some cases, however, two candidates might be competing for the same position, one supported by the relevant geographic bureau, the other not. Then the AO would present arguments in favor of his or her bureau’s preferred candidate, while the CDO would make the case for the challenger. It was a bit like a civil court proceeding, with each side giving its position and the panel, or jurors, rendering a decision. This was known as a “shoot-out.”
The Birth of the “Dolly” and the Genesis of the Award
Panel discussions became lively, and sometimes heated, when an AO, often yours truly, presented a proposal on behalf of his or her bureau for a candidate who was unqualified for the job based on grade, “cone,” or both. The European Bureau considered itself to be nothing less, and often more, than the first among equals and didn’t always believe that the rules should apply to it. EUR could not understand why, for example, its favored FO-3 economic officer would not be universally accepted as the best conceivable candidate for an FO-2 political officer position in Paris (such placements, when they were made, were referred to as out-of-cone “stretch assignments”).
As EUR’s official advocate, I was required to argue the case for such postings, even when the objective merits of the proposal were difficult to discern –- in the above example, my colleagues might well ask whether or not there existed somewhere in the vast reaches of the Foreign Service an available, interested FO-2 political officer who might be a better choice for the Paris job. In some such cases I “won,” in others I “lost,” but in most I garnered a significant amount of opprobrium, regardless of the outcome.
The Friday panels always concluded with the presentation of what was known as the Donhauser Award. FSO Robert J. Donhauser, after whom the award was named, had served in a predecessor office to PER/FCA in the early 1970s. The current holder of the award designated the next recipient, who held it until the following Friday panel and passed it on to the next honoree, after a speech or other, often humorous, presentation. The “honor” was accompanied by a small plastic figurine of a boy or young man who looked vaguely like Alfred E. Neumann of Mad Comics fame. The inscription on the base of “the dolly,” as it was known, said simply “Up Yours!”
Although I no longer remember the exact criteria for the award, which were written out in lawyerly detail in the accompanying folder, it was intended to recognize sustained excellence each week of a panel member in the fields of contentiousness, irascibility, irrationality, unpreparedness, or general outrageousness, either on his or her own account or on behalf of the Bureau or person being represented. The main purpose of the award, at least as I saw it, was to conclude the panel with a few moments of shared levity after what sometimes had been bruising and acerbic arguments.
The “Dolly” Finds a Home and the Award Succumbs to Political Correctness
I had the misfortune to receive the Donhauser Award nine times during my two years in PER/FCA. (Sadly, no mention of those achievements appears in my Performance Evaluations or my official Foreign Service Personnel Audit Report.) Though that fell well short of former deputy director Jim Tull’s fourteen awards, garnered over two tours in FCA, I certainly was “honored” much more often than any of my contemporary colleagues. According to the bylaws governing the Award, anyone who received the dolly four times could keep it. I never elected to do so. However, when Jim Tull retired toward the end of my time in the office, we presented it to him at his retirement party as a sort of lifetime achievement award.
With the dolly gone, presumably to a place of honor on Jim’s mantelpiece, there ensued a debate about what should replace it. There was no agreement among several competing proposals before my departure from the office (a rejected one, I recall, was a carved wooden fist, with the middle finger vertically extended). The whole question became moot, however, when, as I heard, subsequent leadership of PER/FCA decided that the award was somehow inappropriate in the context of the office’s serious responsibilities. Though I can understand the thinking behind that decision in general, it is a shame, in my view, that an enjoyable and morale-enhancing tradition was discarded. I suspect that if the late Mr. Donhauser were still around, he would be disappointed as well.
Retired Senior Foreign Service officer Jonathan B. Rickert spent over 35 years of his career in London, Moscow, Vienna, Port of Spain, Sofia, and Bucharest (twice), as well as in Washington. His last two overseas assignments were as deputy chief of mission in Bulgaria and Romania. Mr. Rickert holds a B.A. degree in history from Princeton University and an M.A. in international relations from the George Washington University.