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Overview
John Yochelson was seventeen when he first heard President Kennedy’s call, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Responding to the call to public service, he had a front-row seat from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, when the power game in Washington was played across party lines. Loving and Leaving Washington is his inside account of the lives of public servants from the perspective of a lifelong moderate. The Center for Strategic and International Studies brought Yochelson into close contact with such heavyweights as Henry Kissinger and Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker; work with the Council on Competitiveness kept him at the center of action. But the rise of bare-knuckled partisanship soured him on DC. In 2001 he left power politics to fight for a cause that he believed in, launching a San Diego–based nonprofit to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. Funding realities and family ties, however, drew him back to the Beltway. The bittersweet experience of disengaging from and returning to Washington prompted Yochelson’s candid look at the loss of middle ground in U.S. politics and the decline of public trust in government. In this illuminating memoir, he reflects on the current generation’s dedication to their country and considers the rewards, limitations, and uncertain future of public service.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781612348247 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Potomac Books |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2016 |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
John Yochelson has served as the president of Building Engineering and Science Talent since establishing it in 2001 and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as president of the Washington DC–based Council on Competitiveness, as well as senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun.
Read an Excerpt
Loving and Leaving Washington
Reflections on Public Service
By John Yochelson
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2016 John YochelsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61234-835-3
CHAPTER 1
Call to Action
Every family has a defining narrative. I grew up on the story of my parents' hard-earned success. The children of immigrants, they lived the American dream in a single generation. Their only son got all the advantages they never had. The edge they provided made me grateful. I wanted to give back.
The youngest U.S. president put my feelings into words. I had just turned seventeen when John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in January 1961. I watched him on the grainy black-and-white screen in the den of our home in upstate New York. Near the end of his inaugural address, standing without a coat outside the snow-covered Capitol, he moved millions with an elegant turn of phrase: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."
The messenger gripped me as much as the message. The handsome war hero brought a glamorous First Lady, wit, and intellect into public life. JFK had written two best sellers, one in college and the other as a U.S. senator. He looked and lived like a Boston Brahman. He also spoke with a Beantown twang and never forgot that his family had crossed the Atlantic to the New World just a few decades before mine.
Kennedy's short, stirring speech wrapped his call to action in the flag. He addressed a global audience, not just the American people. With a finger now on the nuclear trigger, he wanted friend and foe alike to know where he stood in a divided world. The next generation of Americans, he declared, would pay any price to ensure the survival of liberty. We would check Communist aggression, shore up old European allies, and fight Third World poverty. The leadership of the Free World demanded personal sacrifice and engagement.
The president didn't need to elaborate. My generation knew that Soviet power threatened our way of life. The Russians occupied Eastern Europe. They backed their massive army with a growing atomic arsenal. They led the space race. In the spring of 1960 they shot down a U-2, the most advanced U.S. spy plane at that time. A few months later their crude premier, Nikita Khrushchev, banged his shoe on the table at the United Nations and vowed to bury us. His peasant bravado evoked bad memories. Pogroms had driven my grandparents out of the Russian empire before communism.
Kennedy's appeal to serve won me over instantly. My family owed everything to the land of opportunity. Of course, the national interest counted more than self-interest. I would head off to college in the fall. Nothing I could do with my future could match serving the public good. That meant winning the Cold War. I'd probably end up working for the U.S. government, which led the struggle against the Russians.
More than a half century later I heard a former cabinet officer discuss the impact of global warming on worldwide food production. Crisply, she outlined the problems and possible solutions. Her concise analysis reflected years of accomplished public service.
I asked her afterward about channeling the energy of young people to crack the challenges she had laid out. I half-expected her blunt response but still found it jarring. "It's really difficult to advise young Americans to go into government," she said matter-of-factly. "Times have changed. Washington doesn't work the way it used to. Congress is impossible. Don't get me started."
The encounter turned my clock back to the world of 1961. A shift in my father's career led our family to relocate to the nation's capital when I finished high school. Dad became a federal employee. The new neighbor who beat me regularly in Ping-Pong had a big job in the space program. A close family friend told stories about bringing electricity to rural America. The daughter of the secretary of agriculture came over to babysit my sister. Washington seemed full of capable people doing important work. Seven out of ten Americans trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. I saw the human face behind the statistics. Public service was an easy sell.
The calling I felt didn't have a set career path. I studied U.S. and European history at Yale. Junior year in France kindled my interest in transatlantic relations, the field in which I decided to specialize. A master's degree in public affairs from Princeton honed my skills but left me with little grasp of what public service really meant.
Good fortune smiled. The army sent me to Europe at the height of the Vietnam War. Following my release from active duty, I caught another break. Jean Monnet, one of the architects of the European Common Market, asked me to draft a monograph for him. The celebrated visionary, frustrated that Europe was moving too slowly, wanted to jump-start the process of political integration. His friend the British prime minister might help. Perhaps a paper on the American experience of balancing a strong central government with states' rights would point the way forward.
To my astonishment Monnet treated me like a colleague when we met periodically in his office near the Arc de Triomphe. He never let me hold a door for him. Deference, he said, was for old people. He liked what I wrote and published it to make one final push in his twilight years.
A decade later I began to assist Henry Kissinger at his Washington base, a think tank called the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The Harvard professor who restored the heights of American diplomacy kept an office there. Twice a year he met privately under the CSIS banner with a small group of international business leaders. They hung on every word of the former national security advisor and secretary of state. He invited newcomers to call him Henry, disarming them with humor at his own expense. His ever-present security detail and packed schedule radiated power. I suggested topics and speakers, scripted introductions, and intervened as needed to keep the discussion flowing. My bit part conferred status. All it took was being at the table with a name tent.
Opportunity knocked again. Paul Volcker, the most respected career government official of his time, agreed to chair the CSIS Advisory Board. He made his name as chairman of the Federal Reserve by breaking the back of inflation during the Carter and Reagan administrations. He had moved into investment banking in New York when I served as his go-to person for keeping current on policy issues. Rainmaking on Wall Street didn't interest him much. He loved teaching about the global economy at his alma mater, Princeton, though he worried that the university was allowing costs to get out of hand. Public service was his passion — with fishing not too far behind.
The greats handled fame differently. Monnet wanted nothing more than to continue his life's work. His cause, unifying Europe, gave him all the recognition he needed. Kissinger yearned for the spotlight. He used his achievements as a platform to build his reputation as a living legend. Volcker resisted the high life. His no-frills style sent a message of uncompromising integrity. Reaching the pinnacle of success didn't change these men. It simply brought out who they were.
My chance to interact with all three icons stemmed from where I was, not who I was. I had a desk over the garage of the Atlantic Institute in Paris when Monnet asked the director for help. I had a real office at CSIS when I drew the assignment of working with Kissinger and Volcker. Like me, they were drawn to a public policy nonprofit that excelled in high-level networking. I was part of their support package.
I came to CSIS from the State Department in the late 1970s to escape being pigeonholed as a European security analyst. The Iron Curtain looked like it would divide East from West indefinitely. I'd be hemmed in if that happened. I was doing well at State but chafed in a bureaucracy that limited my options. The go-getter culture of the think tank at the center of action appealed to me more than the government route. I'd try to serve the public interest by stationing myself at a place that brokered dialogue between high-level policy makers, scholars, and business leaders.
The cofounder of CSIS, David Abshire, took a chance on me. A graduate of West Point, he liked my army experience and ease with French. I won his confidence on a mission to Japan that clinched an endowment from Toyota. He was looking for a point man to engage the corporate community on its concerns in the fast-changing global economy. He let me leave politico-military affairs behind to reinvent myself as CSIS director of international business and economics. I didn't have to be a PhD economist as long as I framed the issues well and expanded the funding base.
I learned how connections build careers. The paper for Monnet put me on the track to State. That job opened the door to CSIS, where my portfolio made it possible to work with the U.S. trade representative and congressional leaders. Supporting Kissinger paved the way for outside consulting with European bigwigs. The clout of CSIS led to a spot on the President's Export Council. I climbed the ladder in the think tank world as the consummate organization man — traveling a lot, managing meetings, cultivating donors, and getting by on op-eds rather than scholarship.
Volcker brought my seventeen years at CSIS to an end in 1995 with a promotion. He recommended me for the presidency of the Council on Competitiveness, a small DC-based forum of high-powered CEOs and research university presidents, plus a few labor leaders. Their Team America approach to strengthening the U.S. economy fit me like a glove. The council offered me my first leadership opportunity, heading a staff of fifteen. In my excitement I accepted the offer before asking about the salary.
The council pushed a bipartisan policy agenda to strengthen the U.S. economy as a whole. My marching orders were to develop recommendations that would enable U.S. products to win in world markets while keeping wages high at home. Council members gave me an open field to look at federal spending, taxes, trade, regulations, and workforce development.
We hit upon building the U.S. capacity to innovate as a signature issue. The council had made its name in the 1980s calling for a let's-pull-together response to the rise of Japan. We needed a fresher theme that reflected the new realities of globalization. The rest of the world was catching up fast at the high end of the value chain. The United States had to dominate that space in order to maintain the world's highest standard of living.
The council ran with innovation. My top hire drafted a groundbreaking report on the global forces at work in key industry sectors. The world's best-known authority on economic competitiveness, Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School, designed an innovation index to compare national capabilities. A summit hosted by the president of MIT engaged the White House and high-ranking elected officials from both parties. Behind the scenes I chased down the private email of Vice President Al Gore to persuade him to keynote. The event made the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
I rode the crest of the council's success to retool again — this time as a way to leave Washington. I decided to check my advanced degree in big ego management. The DC power game was getting rougher and more partisan. My wife wanted a change of scene. I had signed up at the council for a cause, not tenure. After giving everything I had, I couldn't imagine what came after the race to innovate. Like scholar Francis Fukuyama, I felt as if I had reached the end of history.
The opportunity to disengage grew out of an impromptu conversation with Rita Colwell, the director of the National Science Foundation. Her agency invested billions each year in basic research. Second-class treatment in graduate school gave her a passion for broadening the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. She wondered if the influential Council on Competitiveness might consider getting involved. I jumped at the chance to submit an unsolicited proposal, alerting her that I planned to relocate to the West Coast if the endeavor were funded. My board gave me backing to launch my own 501(c)(3), Building Engineering & Science Talent, or BEST.
BEST received $2 million in federal seed money in 2001 to spearhead a national diversity campaign. I got the okay to set up shop in San Diego, where my four-person operation had solid local support. Armed with a congressional mandate, BEST convened over one hundred experts to scour the country for effective programs to deepen the pool of domestic talent in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The two-year search turned up incredible personal stories and scattered pockets of excellence. The STEM education system as a whole, however, failed to develop the potential of two-thirds of the population. The diversity challenge exposed the soft underbelly of American education. This fight would take a generation or more to win.
My strategy to sustain BEST misfired. As federal seed funding ran out, I approached private foundations to help us move the needle. One after another they patted me on the back and said their priorities lay elsewhere. BEST teetered on the brink.
The Department of Defense saved the day. DoD employed more scientists and engineers than any other federal agency. A deputy undersecretary at DoD, John Hopps Jr., wanted to expand the supply of homegrown talent rather than simply drawing it down. BEST's body of work and friends in high places impressed him, so I recast BEST as a government contractor. We competed successfully for a grant to help ramp up DoD-sponsored educational activities across the country.
Thus my old stomping ground drew me back, not to weigh in on policy but to produce videos, fund robotics competitions, pay teacher stipends, and provide management advice. Stable funding and direct contact with volunteers in the field offset the constraints of working within a large, layered bureaucracy. I couldn't, however, meet the needs of the Pentagon by staying full-time in San Diego. The bicoastal commute that started in 2007 continues to this day.
I never expected to answer President Kennedy's call to public service outside the government. Unwittingly, I moved into the fast-growing nonprofit sector just as the federal workforce came under relentless fire. That shift gave me a front row seat at the dividing line between public interest and self-interest. I kept my eyes open and learned how to make my way in a DC arena brimming with ambition.
Despite serving on a presidential advisory panel, I never punched the tickets that bestow the highest status in Washington. A reputation for competence wasn't enough to win me a White House job or a Senate-confirmed political appointment. By holding partisan politics at arm's length, I marked myself as a niche player.
But the niches I found were more varied and absorbing than I had ever thought possible. Changing fields from European security to economic policy to education on my own timetable ranked as a proud achievement. Each change allowed me to immerse myself in a different content area. My experience ran counter to conventional wisdom. I moved up by downsizing. Moving to smaller organizations with reduced management burdens freed me to work on substance. Along the way I crossed paths with many remarkable people while doing what I believed in. Who could ask for more than that?
Still, jumping forced me to prove myself every time. My wife and daughters lived with the strain. I took pride in clear thinking at work yet found it difficult to explain my career at home. I struggled to describe how and why I spent my day networking, writing, and raising money. It pained me to see that my girls weren't sure when teachers asked what their father did. I saw colleagues dig deep and grow. Some wrote books of enduring importance as they moved in and out of government. Others stayed in federal service and rose to the top. I missed out on this kind of success.
Like many others, I tried to balance ambition, family commitments, and public service. The trade-offs I made were typical, not exceptional. They raise three questions that aren't mine alone.
Where do you focus to make an impact? I felt the difference between trying to change a policy and trying to change a life.
At the Council on Competitiveness, for example, my chairman, Ray Gilmartin, and I called on the majority leader of the Senate to make the case for increasing the $80 billion federal investment in basic research. The door knock gave us a half hour with Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi. Gilmartin, the CEO of Merck, explained that companies like his were in the business of creating new products, not new knowledge. The private sector built off government-funded pure research by throwing its resources into applications. Federally funded R&D was indispensable. Lott understood perfectly. He told us about his friendship with a professor of materials science at Mississippi State University who received federal grants. We could count on the majority leader's support. The council scored a policy win.
In contrast, at BEST I paid for a seventeen-hour bus ride for a robotics team made up of low-income, minority kids to compete in a national championship in St. Louis. A rookie team from East Orange, New Jersey, the students were the first participants to come from their school. Coached by DoD volunteers, they won an invitation by placing well in a regional tournament. No big policy issues were at stake. BEST's mission to expand the talent pool justified cutting a check for a few thousand dollars. There was no other way to give ten high-needs high school students the opportunity. A colleague and I cheered them on. Their touching thank-you video summed up the trip in a word. Unforgettable.
The Senate meeting and the bus ride would be easy to compare if all that mattered were personal satisfaction. But BEST couldn't have intervened in East Orange without a congressionally funded DoD program. Success on the front lines required policy-level support. The choice between walking the corridors of power and taking direct action in the field was deceptively difficult.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Loving and Leaving Washington by John Yochelson. Copyright © 2016 John Yochelson. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Preface Acknowledgments
1. Call to Action
2. Surrounded by Strivers
3. Pegged as Average
4. French Connections
5. Path of Choice
6. Call of Duty
7. Tour in Germany
8. The Club
9. Breakup
10. Swallowed
11. Recovery
12. Transitions
13. Center of the Action
14. Think Tank Entrepreneur
15. Time to Step Up
16. Topped Our
17. Turnaround
18. Stress
19. Coast to Coast
20. Shifting Ground
21. Reality Check
22. Talent Search
Sources Index