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On April 7, Lew Olowski, the freshly appointed head of the Bureau of Global Talent Management, the State Department’s H.R. department, got up to address the new foreign service specialists he was about to swear in. Assembled there at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington were people who would be doing much of the grunt work of running America’s overseas presence: the I.T. specialists, security guards, people doing payroll and building maintenance, the nurses and the diplomatic couriers. Turning to them, Olowski proceeded to deliver a speech that has quickly become legendary among America’s diplomats.
