Dissent Channel
The Dissent Channel is a messaging framework open to Foreign Service Officers, and other U.S. citizens employed by the United States Department of State and Agency for International Development, through which they are invited to express constructive criticism of government policy.
Established in 1971, the Dissent Channel was used 123 times in its first four decades. In modern times, about four or five dissent cables are sent each year. U.S. foreign policies that have been the subject of dissent cables have varied widely. The 1971 Blood telegram, named for its author Archer Blood, condemned the U.S. policy of support for Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan, who oversaw a genocide in East Pakistan. Other dissent cables have criticized U.S. support for various authoritarian leaders, dissented from U.S. inaction in crises and genocides, or criticized U.S. involvement in various military conflicts. For example, a 1992 dissent cable protesting the U.S. failure to act during the Bosnian genocide is credited with helping lead to the Dayton Accords. The dissent cable with the largest number of signatories, by far, was a 2017 dissent cable condemning Donald Trump's executive order imposed a travel and immigration ban on the nationals of seven majority-Muslim countries; about a thousand diplomats signed on to that cable.
Dissent cables circulate to senior State Department officials, and messages receive a response from the department's Policy Planning Staff. Under department regulations, diplomats who submit dissent cables are supposed to be protected from retaliation or reprisal. Nevertheless, some U.S. diplomats are hesitant to use the Dissent Channel for fear that it could impede their career progress.
History and uses
The Dissent Channel was established in 1971, as a response to concerns that dissenting opinions and constructive criticism were suppressed or ignored during the Vietnam War. Secretary of State William P. Rogers created the system. In February 1971, the right of Foreign Service officers to dissent was explicitly codified in the Foreign Affairs Manual.The Dissent Channel is reserved for "...consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues that cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels or procedures." Use of the channel is reserved for dissenting or alternative views on policy concerns; views on "management, administrative, or personnel issues that are not significantly related to matters of substantive foreign policy may not be communicated through the Dissent Channel." Messages sent to the Dissent Channel are distributed to senior members of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, must be acknowledged within 2 days, and must receive a response within 30–60 days.
Diplomats who write such dissent cables are supposed to be protected from retaliation or reprisal. The Foreign Affairs Manual provides that "reedom from reprisal for Dissent Channel users is strictly enforced." Nevertheless, many U.S. diplomats fear to use the channel for fear of retaliation.
From 1971 to 2011, there were 123 dissent cables. The most dissent cables sent in a single year came in 1977, when 28 dissent cables were filed "under the Carter Administration, which everyone agrees created an atmosphere in which use of the channel was encouraged—or at least not stigmatized." After Ronald Reagan became president, the number of dissent cables declined sharply, to 15 in 1981 and just five in 1982. This decline was due to a feeling in "U.S. embassies around the world... that the Reagan White House and State Department were not receptive to viewpoints that diverged from the ambassadors' assessments," and that dissenting cables was likely to damage a diplomat's career. For example, some diplomats feel that using the Dissent Cable reduces their chance of appointment to an ambassadorial post. In the 2010s, about four or five dissent cables were sent each year.
Some notable uses of the Dissent Channel include:
- In March 1971, Archer Blood, the U.S. consul-general in Dhaka, joined by 28 other U.S. diplomats, sent the famous Blood telegram. The cable condemned the U.S. policy of support for Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan, who oversaw a genocide in East Pakistan.
- In 1972, a dissent cable strongly criticized the U.S. bombing of Haiphong Harbor, arguing that this constituted "a breach of the spirit if not the letter of our stated policy to disengage from the Indo-China conflict."
- Also in 1972, a dissent cable criticized the U.S. "policy of non-intervention in Burundi during massive murdering of Hutu tribesmen" and argued that a genocide was occurring in Burundi.
- In a July 1972 dissent cable, diplomat Alexander Peaslee wrote that he was retiring from the Foreign Service in disgust over the My Lai Massacre and other atrocities in Vietnam, writing: "One of the reasons for retiring at the age of 50 after 29 years of government service is that I do not want to be associated with the actions of an executive branch that takes no effective steps against atrocities too similar to those of the Nazis."
- In 1978, a dissent cable criticized U.S. support for the dictatorial Somoza regime in Nicaragua.
- In 1982, a dissent cable urged the U.S. government not to give unconditional recognition to the regime of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who had seized power in Guatemala in a coup.
- In 1992, several Foreign Service officers used the channel to protest U.S. failure to act during the Bosnian genocide. The cable is credited with helping lead to the Dayton Accords.
- In 1994, four career diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin sent a dissent memorandum questioning the decision of U.S. Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to grant a U.S. visa to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. Two of the four signatories received career-damaging performance appraisals from Smith and were "excluded from Embassy functions relevant to their jobs." This led to a yearlong investigation by the State Department Inspector General's office, which issued a "scathingly critical" report that found "inescapable evidence" that Smith had retaliated against the two diplomats.
- In early 2003, Ann Wright, the chargé d'affaires in Mongolia, used the channel to protest the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq. John Brady Kiesling, another U.S. diplomat, also used the dissent cable to express opposition to the war. In 2004, diplomat Keith W. Mines, then posted to Budapest, sent a dissent cable arguing that the United Nations should be given charge over the political transition in Iraq.
- In June 2016, 51 Foreign Service officers used the channel to protest the U.S.'s failure to intervene in Syria, a record number at the time. The cable—a draft copy of which was obtained by The New York Times—called for limited military strikes against the Assad regime.
- In January 2017, about 1,000 Foreign Service officers signed a dissent cable condemning Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769, which imposed a travel and immigration ban on the nationals of seven majority-Muslim countries. This is by far the largest number to ever sign on to a dissent cable.
- In July 2017, State Department officials sent a dissent cable accusing Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson of violating federal law by failing to designate Myanmar, Iraq and Afghanistan as countries that recruit, use, or fund child soldiers on the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Countries designated as involved with child soldiers are barred from receiving certain U.S. "security assistance and commercial licensing of military equipment" unless a presidential waiver based on the national interest is issued. The officials who signed onto the memo wrote that the choice to exclude Myanmar, Iraq, and Afghanistan from the child-soldier list was harmful to the State Department's credibility, sent a message that "that minimal efforts are enough," and signaled that the U.S. was "not interested in holding countries accountable" for abuses. The dissent cable became public in November 2017, after Reuters obtained a copy.
Public disclosure of dissent cables
The National Security Archive at George Washington University has used FOIA to obtain dissent cables. The Archive's requests to the State Department for cables from the 1970s and the 1980s were initially denied, with the department citing FOIA Exemption 5, which allows agencies to refuse FOIA requests for "predecisional" documents. However, the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 prohibited agencies from using this exemption for documents more than 25 years old. As a result, the Archive re-requested the dissent cables, and following a lawsuit, the State Department began turning them over to the Archives. In 2018, the Archives publicly posted the dissent cables that it had received, along with responses by the State Department Policy Planning Staff, including Anthony Lake, Warren Christopher, and Paul Wolfowitz.
Constructive Dissent Award
Foreign service members who make constructive use of the Dissent Channel may be eligible to receive the American Foreign Service Association's Constructive Dissent Awards.Similar mechanisms
USAID also has a similar channel, the Direct Channel, established in 2011. Unlike the Dissent Channel, this is open to foreign national employees of USAID, and contractors.The Central Intelligence Agency has "red teams" of intelligence officers and analysts "dedicated to arguing against the intelligence community's conventional wisdom and spotting flaws in logic and analysis." Neal Katyal writes that the State Department's Dissent Channel is analogous, and argues that the federal government needs more such intra-agency checks in order to institutionalize the practice of dissent.