Daily Inspiration Quote by Lawrence Eagleburger

“Now” does a lot of work here. Eagleburger isn’t describing culture as a slow weather pattern; he’s declaring an inflection point, the kind bureaucracies only admit to when the old operating system is already failing. In the Foreign Service, “cultural change” is rarely about office vibes. It’s code for power: who gets promoted, what kind of judgment is rewarded, how risk is priced, and whether the institution sees itself as an elite guild or a tool of elected leadership.

Eagleburger came up in a Cold War diplomatic world that prized discretion, long memory, and a certain patrician confidence in expertise. By the late 20th century, that model was under pressure from multiple directions: post-Vietnam skepticism about government, the rise of media scrutiny and congressional oversight, the managerial turn toward metrics and “accountability,” and a more interventionist, faster-moving national security apparatus that often privileged the Pentagon and the NSC over Foggy Bottom. Saying a change is “under way” signals both inevitability and containment: it’s happening, but it’s being managed.

The subtext is a warning and an invitation. A warning to career officers that the old rules of professional identity may no longer protect them; an invitation (or concession) to political appointees and reformers that diplomacy must justify itself in new terms. Eagleburger’s choice of the measured, institutional phrase “Foreign Service” over “State Department” narrows the target: this is about the cadre, the ethos, the people. He’s naming a quiet upheaval without giving opponents an easy slogan to fight.