On his first day in President Bush's new administration, Boucher had to shift 180 degrees from the Clinton policy he and others had worked on for eight years to help hundreds of millions of people seeking to control their family size. Now Boucher had to defend the Reagan-era Mexico City rules on family planning, newly restored by Bush, which bar U.S. aid to overseas organizations that discuss or counsel on abortion with their clients, or lobby to remove bans on abortion.

Like Boucher, scores of Foreign Service staffers have had to reverse course on a dime. In the nonproliferation bureau, staffers worked for eight years for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, but the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress declared open season on that agreement. "A lot of people are disheartened because the people in this administration don't really believe in the mission," said one State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But State Department officials are hired to carry out policy, even when that means mouthing new party lines. And that policy is decreed from on high, higher even than the seventh-floor office of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Even he admitted that he was against the Mexico City rules. (In his autobiography and elsewhere he has said he favors abortion rights.) But just as Powell is a good soldier carrying out the orders of his boss, so are Boucher and everyone else at State required to go along with the policies of the new administration.

Yet despite this jerk in foreign policy by the new administration, one thing has changed drastically for the better at State -- under Powell, morale has increased dramatically. Since he took over, say many at State, the closed-door snobbery that prevailed under Albright has given way to a feeling that the leadership is open to the views and expertise of its staff, and is no longer a closed group of people shut off from Foreign Service professionals.

The biggest boost to State morale has been Powell's own personality and style, especially his pledge to rely on the rank-and-file experts in the department for higher-profile roles, rather than simply the anonymous drafting of papers that bigwigs deliver at hearings and conferences.

Many cite the briefing on Mexico policy given to President Bush before his trip to Mexican President Vicente Fox's ranch -- it was delivered by the desk officer for the country, a humble toiler in the department who probably knows more about his assigned country than the assistant secretaries who as a rule get to make speeches and negotiate. Desk officers also briefed Powell prior to his Balkans trip last month.

It's too soon to tell, say most officials, if the consultations with lower-level staffers will continue and if morale will remain high, given all the disappointments State Department staffers are having to endure.

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