 In 1968, Harrop left the Congo after being assigned to do graduate work for a year at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University as part of a "Mid Career Program" sabbatical.Harrop returned in Washington, D.C. to become director of Regional African Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research, serving there from 1969 to 1971, under Ray S. Cline, then the assistant secretary for intelligence and research.Harrop also became involved in State Department personnel matters; he was elected to a position on the board of the American Foreign Service Association, and later became chairman, taking a yearlong leave without pay from the State Department in the year 1971.