The United States Foreign Service is a component of the United States federal government under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of approximately 11,500 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding U.S. citizens abroad.
Created in 1924 by the Rogers Act, the Foreign Service combined all consular and diplomatic services of the U.S. government into one administrative unit. In addition to the unit's function, the Rogers Act defined a personnel system under which the United States Secretary of State is authorized to assign diplomats abroad.
Members of the Foreign Service are selected through a series of written and oral examinations. They serve at any of the 265 United States diplomatic missions around the world, including embassies, consulates, and other facilities. Members of the Foreign Service also staff the headquarters of the four foreign affairs agencies: the Department of State, headquartered at Harry S Truman Building in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.; the Department of Agriculture; the Department of Commerce; and the United States Agency for International Development.
Read more about United States Foreign Service: Historical Background, Rogers Act, Foreign Service Act of 1946, Foreign Service Act of 1980, Members of The Foreign Service, Foreign Affairs Agencies, Foreign Service Size, Employment, Service Terms and Conditions, Foreign Service Career System, Directors General of The United States Foreign Service
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“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)