Page 204 - Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton

LEADERSHIP SECRETS IN ACTION

Ensuring that our State Department is functioning at
its best will be absolutely essential to America’s success.
This is a top priority of mine, of my colleagues’ on the
national security team, and of the president-elect’s. He
believes strongly that we need to invest in our civilian
capacity to conduct vigorous American diplomacy, provide
the kind of foreign assistance I’ve mentioned, reach out to
the world, and operate effectively alongside our military.
I realize that the entire State Department bureaucracy
in Thomas Jefferson’s day consisted of a chief clerk, three
regular clerks, and a messenger—and his entire budget was
$56,000 a year.
But over the past 219 years the world, and the times,
have certainly changed. Now the department consists of
foreign service officers, the civil service, and locally
engaged staff working at Foggy Bottom, in offices across
our country, and at some 260 posts around the world. And
today, USAID carries out a critical development mission
that is essential to representing our values across the globe.
These public servants are too often unsung heroes. They
are in the trenches putting our policies and values to work
in an increasingly complicated and dangerous world. Many
risk their lives, and some lose their lives, in service to our
nation. And they need and deserve the resources, training,
and support to succeed.
I know this committee, and I hope the American public,
understand that right now foreign service officers, civil

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