New US secretary of state Mike Pompeo tells employees he’ll bring back department’s ‘swagger’

Newly confirmed secretary of state Mike Pompeo sought to reassure a disheartened diplomatic corps during his first visit to State Department headquarters, vowing to restore “our swagger”.

“I know that you chose to be a foreign service officer or a civil servant or to come work here in many other capacities and to do so because you’re patriots and great Americans and because you want to be an important part of America’s face to the world”, Mr Pompeo told assembled employees. “My mission will be to lead you and allow you to do that”.

In his introductory remarks Mr Pompeo heralded the expertise of state department employees, saying he knew from his travel abroad while in Congress that they worked hard “doing great work on behalf of America”, and emphasised the importance of their mission in vowing to get “back our swagger”.

“The United States diplomatic corps needs to be in every corner, every stretch of the world executing missions on behalf of this country and it is my humble, noble undertaking to help you achieve that”, he said.

In replacing former secretary Rex Tillerson as America’s top diplomat, Mr Pompeo is widely seen as inheriting a State Department adrift. Mr Tillerson’s cloistered leadership style and lack of outreach to career experts is said to have broadly damaged morale.

But Mr Pompeo developed a better reputation among rank-and-file employees at the CIA, where he served as director until he was tabbed to become secretary of state. That standing was one of the reasons senators cited in supporting Mr Pompeo’s nomination.

“We know the state department has tremendous issues right now with culture”, Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican said, but Mr Pompeo had built the kind of culture at CIA where “the employees at the state department are anxious to have him there”.

Some critics had expressed alarm about Mr Pompeo’s nomination given his support for military intervention and his criticism of a nuclear agreement with Iran, the Obama administration’s landmark diplomatic achievement. Mr Pompeo’s foreign policy views are largely aligned with Mr Trump’s - particularly their shared disdain for the Iran deal - which has fuelled concerns he will not challenge the president.

But their shared worldview, and Mr Trump’s trust in Mr Pompeo, have also fed hopes that Mr Pompeo will avoid the kind of public disjuncture between the White House and the state department that marred Mr Tillerson’s tenure. The former secretary repeatedly offered public statements that Mr Trump contradicted.