State Dept. Assigns 300 Junior Envoys To Passport Duty

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 4, 2007; A03

Disbelieving laughter was the early reaction when a senior official told hundreds of junior U.S. diplomats gathered for an emergency State Department meeting yesterday that their country needed them to spend the summer in New Orleans and Portsmouth, N.H.

Smiles quickly faded as Patrick Kennedy, the department's director of management policy, assured them he was serious. They were all being placed on passport duty, detailed to help reduce a half-million backlog in applications that has left many Americans with ruined overseas travel plans this summer, he told them.

New regulations this year have led to an overwhelming demand for passports, extending the usual six-week turnaround time to many months. "We are mobilizing the State Department" to fulfill a responsibility it has held since 1789, Kennedy said.

More specifically, the State Department is mobilizing about 300 junior officials without the clout to say no. They include all the members of the prestigious Presidential Management Fellows program, the department's main entry portal for top-flight recruits with graduate degrees and leadership potential. Participation in the two-year program almost guarantees a diplomatic career. New hires in a separate career-entry program were also informed that they have been dragooned into passport duty.

According to Kennedy, there was little choice. "We have the physical capacity to produce the books," he said in an interview. "We have the presses and the facilities in Arkansas, New Hampshire, New Orleans and South Carolina. What we are short on . . . are adjudicators" -- the bureaucrats who examine birth certificates and other documents used to prove U.S. citizenship and passport eligibility. The job requires a college degree and a week of training.

"We are hiring new adjudicators but the workload keeps going up," he said. A recent call for volunteers had brought insufficient results. "We started thinking: Where can we find a significant pool of State Department-cleared employees with the right educational credentials? And we said . . . 'Aha!' "

For many of the fellows, however, Kennedy's eureka moment was a decided downer. "It came as quite a shock," said one of the many who were eager to discuss their disappointment anonymously yesterday. "Most of the people in the class are pretty ambitious. They were looking forward to doing something high-priority."

"This is pretty jarring for everybody," said another, adding that some of the fellows had already been assigned to relatively senior positions at headquarters, serving as country desk officers and regional specialists.

Others echoed the dashed plans of many passport-seekers. "My girlfriend moved to Washington for the summer," moaned a new civil service hire. "From the bigger perspective, I feel I should be happy to do it because I'm a public servant. But personally, I want to spend time with my girlfriend."

The eight-week deployments, to begin on July 13, include per diem and overtime payments, along with a guaranteed hotel room in Portsmouth or New Orleans.