PERSPECTIVES ON THE AMBASSADOR CORPS : Diplomacy Is No Job for Amateurs : Giving ambassadorships to political donors is an anachronism; America’s interests deserve quality and accountability.

The process by which our political leadership selects people to head the 162 U.S. diplomatic missions around the world is one of the last vestiges of the 19th-Century spoils system. It all too often serves not the country’s need for effective representation abroad, but rather politicians’ needs to reward supporters for hard work or financial generosity, while passing over professionals with enormous knowledge and unique experience.

No educational institution, no corporation, no charity would use such irrelevant criteria to select its leadership. Yet the world’s only superpower, facing an immensely complex, disorderly and dangerous world, regularly sends abroad as ambassadors people whose backgrounds bear little trace of the knowledge and experience that meeting such challenges demands. The ambassadorial selection process should have one objective and one objective only--to produce the individual best qualified to do the job, whether it is in Switzerland or Swaziland. The current system fails that test.

There is nothing wrong, in principle, with appointing a limited number of non-professionals as American ambassadors. Our country and the Foreign Service itself benefit from the infusion of different talents and perspectives into U.S. diplomacy, be it from the worlds of business, academia or politics. In fact, some of this country’s most distinguished and respected diplomats of the modern era have come from outside the career service--the records of Averell Harriman, David Bruce, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Burns and Mike Mansfield, to name a few, come readily to mind. But the overriding principle guiding the ambassadorial selection process must be: “Why not the best?”

The Foreign Service Act of 1980 has it right: An ambassador “should possess clearly demonstrated competence to perform the duties of a chief of mission, including . . . a useful knowledge of the language . . . and understanding of the history, the culture, the economic and political institutions and the interests of that country and its people . . . . Contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor.”

Nevertheless, we all know that too many people are nominated as ambassadors only because they, their spouses, their children and their friends have made or raised lavish financial contributions to political campaigns. A particularly egregious example is the nomination now before the Senate of San Diego hotelier M. Larry Lawrence, a major Democratic Party fund-raiser with little relevant international experience, as ambassador to Switzerland.

The Clinton Administration is embarked on a major campaign to reinvent the federal government. The foreign-affairs agencies are hard at work to streamline operations, eliminate excessive bureaucracy, prioritize programs and do our most important tasks better with less. But while the reinventing-government agenda is being conscientiously addressed within the agencies, when it comes to selecting those who lead our missions abroad, it’s business as usual.

At least three elements of contemporary diplomacy render the appointment of inexperienced and unqualified ambassadors harmful to our national interests.

* Complexity. The vast reach of our international concerns, amplified by instant communications, has made the job of an ambassador more complex than ever. In virtually every country, we have significant interests and objectives, from trade promotion and military assistance to human rights and environmental protection. That’s a full plate for even the most seasoned professional; for an amateur, even a talented and successful businessman, it’s well-nigh indigestible.

* Efficiency . In times past, when our missions abroad were relatively few and more generously staffed, career diplomats could afford to carry a neophyte envoy for a year or more while he or she learned the ropes. No more. In a two-year period when the United States has opened 20 new embassies abroad, the State Department’s budget has been cut by 10%, with more cuts to come. No longer can our embassies be like a palanquin, in which the ambassador is carried through his tour of duty by a team of professionals. Today’s embassy must be an eight-oar shell, in which the ambassador not only calls the stroke, but also pulls his or her weight.

* Accountability. For every Harriman or Bruce the spoils system has produced, it has sent abroad many envoys who have truly been disasters: no-shows, drunks, playboys, sexual athletes, even drug abusers. One was notorious for sailing his boat around the Caribbean while projecting pornographic movies onto the sail.

Between these extremes are two large categories of political ambassadors: those whose intellectual and interpersonal skills allow them to absorb the retraining adequately enough to do a creditable job--eventually; and those who effectively fail but “stay out of the way.” There has to be a system of performance accountability for both career and political appointees. We can’t afford the marginal performers who are now protected by the spoils system.

The core question of how American leadership abroad is chosen should be high on the “reinventing government” agenda. Our leaders must be able to say that they have changed the way they choose our ambassadors--and that they are choosing the best.