Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story (28 page)

The summary of this study states that the post-Cold War era offers more opportunities for women in diplomacy and defense in areas such as human rights, law, humanitarian relief, trade, the environment, and the media. The study also reiterates the importance of Madeleine Albright in this trend. “The appointment of Madeleine Albright to serve as sixty-fourth Secretary of State dramatically symbolized the changes underway in the profession. . . . As recently as 1970, women constituted only 4.8 percent of U.S. Foreign Service officers. . . . By 1997, women comprised 18 percent of the career senior foreign service, 24 percent of career senior executive service, 22 percent of ambassadors . . . 40 percent of under secretaries . . . 28 percent of assistant secretaries . . . and 31 percent of deputy assistant secretaries.

With input from nearly 600 women, the WFPG study reveals the characteristics that these women claim have helped them succeed in the field. The findings could be a summary of Condoleezza Rice’s own experience:

High self-esteem and confidence went hand-in-hand with a third characteristic the women mentioned as important to their professional success: consistently exceeding performance expectations (95 percent). There was a definite sense that women must work harder than male colleagues to earn the same levels of respect, trust and salary. Eighty percent of women agreed that gaining international experience was important to advancing one’s career. Seventy-four percent of women agreed that “developing a style with which male colleagues are comfortable” was important.

Although Condi and Madeleine Albright have had very different careers in international relations, their lives do share a few common themes; for one, they both admired and emulated their fathers. Madeleine ascended in the field of international relations in the hopes of mirroring the career of her father, Josef Korbel. “I tried to pattern myself after him,” she said. “A good deal of what I did, I did because I wanted to be like my father.” Condi followed in her father’s footsteps as well. Like him, her career in academia spanned both teaching and administration. She also relives John Rice’s commitment to underprivileged youth, as in her cofounding of the Center for a New Generation in California. Also like her father, she places her faith at the center of her life.

Additional similarities in Condi and Madeleine’s youth were their parents’ protectiveness and zealous commitment to their education. Madeleine described her parents as overly protective, and her father went to great lengths to oversee her education. “He corrected her essays . . . fretted about whether she would get into the best schools, plotted her future,” wrote Dobbs. Condi’s parents went to great extremes to shield her from the horrors of segregation and devoted themselves to her education, providing nearly as much instruction at home as she ever got in a classroom.

Another comparison can be drawn in terms of Condi and Madeleine’s “outsider” status in their early years. Madeleine came to the United States at age eleven, a Czech who spoke English with a British accent and “spent a lot of time worrying, trying to make sure that I would fit in.” Condi’s situation was more dramatic, of course—a black child growing up in the most segregated city in the nation—but her upbringing was carefully guided to ensure that she would not only fit in, but succeed exceptionally in the culture at large.

As scholars, Condi and Madeleine both concentrated on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and although they are both major figures in foreign affairs, they resemble each other least in the political arena. Madeleine, who knew of Condi for many years as her father’s protégée at the University of Denver, discovered this in 1988 when she called Condi to ask if she would like to help her with Democrat Michael Dukakis’s presidential campaign. After an awkward silence on the phone, Condi said, “Madeleine, I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m a Republican.”

Condi states that in spite of their differences, she and Madeleine share important common ground. “I know and like Madeleine very much,” she said. “You can have the same intellectual father and different outcomes. . . . On issues of how you use power we probably don’t agree . . . but there are some powerful core values that we share.”

Other women stars of foreign policy include Jeane Kirkpatrick, America’s first woman ambassador to the United Nations, appointed by President Reagan. A political scientist with a career in both academia and government service, Kirkpatrick worked in the defense department for many years and, like Condi, served as a foreign policy advisor to a presidential candidate (Reagan). Another prominent women in the field is Swanee Hunt, who served as ambassador to Austria during four years of the Clinton administration. She is widely praised for the peacekeeping work she did in Bosnia during the war, and she currently teaches at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

When Condi moved to Washington to start her term as NSA, she bought an apartment at the Watergate, the luxury residence on the Potomac that is home to Supreme Court justices and other Washington luminaries. The grand piano that her parents bought her when she was thirteen came along, as well as her treadmill and piles of Ferragamo shoes. She doesn’t have as much time to practice as she did at Stanford, but on occasion she works up a few pieces for informal gatherings. In April 2002, she was surprised to get a call to do a “command performance” at a ceremony that would present a number of performers with the National Medal of the Arts.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, one of the award recipients, requested that Condi accompany him on a piece at the ceremony. One of the world’s most famous classical musicians, Yo-Yo Ma enjoys collaborating with serious amateurs, partly to expose them to the large audiences he feels they deserve. He had heard that the national security advisor was a pianist, and he asked her if she had time to work something up for the ceremony at Constitution Hall on April 24. She was able to squeeze him in—the afternoon of the performance. He chose a piece by Brahms—Condi’s favorite composer—the Adagio movement from his Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor (arranged for cello).

When President Bush presented Yo-Yo with his medal that night, he described him as a “world-renowned cellist who represents the very best in classical music.” He hinted at his advisor’s upcoming appearance when he said, “Later on this great American figure will be performing with another world-renowned figure.” When the time came, First Lady Laura Bush introduced the pair. She revealed her West Texas roots when she told the audience that Condoleezza Rice would be performing on the “pi-AN-ah,” and one critic was notably touched by the First Lady’s “down-home and unabashed” appreciation of the artists. Laura loves classical music and Condi appreciates having another classical music fan in the White House.

The lush, solemn duet went beautifully and they were given a rousing standing ovation. “It’s my great pleasure to say that she’s very good,” reported Greg Sandow in
The Wall Street Journal
a few days later. “Ms. Rice . . . was all music.” He continued:

Her touch was authoritative, her rhythm firm, her phrasing thoughtful. Or at least this was true in places where she just accompanied Mr. Ma. When she had to step out a little more, she didn’t find the focus a professional would have, and seemed reticent, or even shy. But my heart went out to her. Afterward, I thought, she looked as if this had been a peak moment in her life, and who could blame her? She seemed thrilled, and had every right to be. She did herself, the arts and her country proud.

Yo-Yo Ma understands how gratifying it is for serious amateur musicians to show their stuff to their colleagues and peers and prove to them that their music is more than a hobby. Condi did this during an interview with a visiting journalist one day at Stanford, popping a cassette into the player when they hopped into her Mercedes. The speakers blasted out her recording of the lightning-quick scherzo movement of the Brahms Piano Quintet she had prepared so diligently with the Muir Quartet. “I thought you’d like to hear me play,” she told Ann Reilly Dowd of
George
magazine.

Before September 11, the National Security Council met twice a month. After the attacks, it began to meet three times per week. The hunt for Osama bin Laden, bombing strikes in Afghanistan, anthrax assaults, airport security concerns, and threats of more terrorist attacks put the Council in high gear. Before the attacks, Condi said her job was “to help make sure the government is speaking with one voice.” She reiterated that after September 11, stating, “I probe to see if there is a consensus. I don’t see any reason to continually take split decisions to the president if that’s not necessary,” adding that it was sometimes necessary to present a range of split opinions. But the goals of the administration came into sharper focus, to a degree, after the attacks. Condi said that the administration’s aim was “to leave the world not just safer . . . but better.”

The president’s primary advisors on foreign policy are Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. As referee between these three—as well as between other members of National Security Council—Condi is sandwiched between the widely differing views of a team of powerful Washington veterans. On one side, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, are hard-line, conservative hawks who promote military strength and intervention. Cheney and Rumsfeld have been linked since the Ford administration, in which Rumsfeld was secretary of defense and Cheney, his protégée, served as White House chief of staff. Rumsfeld has been described as “a bureaucratic infighter without equal,” and is famous for foiling Kissinger’s SALT II plans during the Ford years. In his memoirs, Kissinger describes him as “a special Washington phenomenon: the skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability and substance fuse seamlessly.”

On the other side stands General Powell, a centrist who advises against military intervention and, like Condi, does not believe the nation’s role is that of global policeman. During the first Bush administration, Cheney, then secretary of defense, was at constant odds with Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Now the jockeying has picked up where it left off a decade ago,” wrote Lawrence Kaplan in the
New Republic
after George W.’s election. The president anticipated these clashes of philosophy when he made his Cabinet appointments. Colliding egos and ideologies go with the territory and they’re worth it, as the end result is a broad perspective from which he can make his own decisions. “There’s going to be disagreements,” the newly elected president said. “I hope there is disagreement.”

Although Condi’s views coincide more closely to Powell’s than to Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s, this did not guarantee an instant cozy alliance. “According to several Bush advisers,” wrote Kaplan, “Powell has demanded, and been assured, that Rice’s duties won’t impede his ability to guide U.S. foreign policy. Rather, members of the Bush team predict, Rice will manage the day-to-day interagency paper flow and keep the trains running on time.” Former Secretary of State George Shultz, one of the conservatives who has promoted Condi’s career and worked with her at the Hoover Institution, sees Rice and Powell as two strong-willed people who work well together. “They have a very nice, easy, friendly style [together] and a lot of mutual respect,” he said. “But they are both strong people. Neither one is a pushover.”

Eighteen months into her term, Condi has managed more than “keeping the trains running on time.” She has run a tight ship, keeping the egos at bay as the administration works through one crisis to the next. That’s her job. And whatever she lacks in experience, compared to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell, she makes up for with her own power-alliance—her bond with the president. “She not only spends the most time with the President, but in the pantheon of foreign policy advisors, his comfort level is highest with her,” said a
Business Week
source.

In the aftermath of the Chinese fighter jet/U.S. spy plane collision in early April 2001—the administration’s first crisis—Condi took on the customary NSA role of coordinating information for the president. The State Department was primarily responsible for negotiating with the Chinese and getting the crew home. During this period she fulfilled other, more policy-oriented duties, however, such as meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. And four months later, it was clear that she would be a foreign policy operator as well as manager with her trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Condi’s trip preceded President Bush’s European visit, paving the way for his talks with Putin about missile defense. One of the president’s top priorities is a missile defense shield in the tradition of the Star Wars program, a plan that Russia vehemently opposes. Bush chose Condi to make the trip because of her expertise in arms as well as in Russia. She was the first senior foreign policy person in the administration to visit Moscow, a significant event in the history of national security advisors. “Her mission to Moscow was unprecedented,” said Brookings Institution fellow Ivo Daalder, author of several books about foreign policy. Not since Kissinger had a national security advisor made a “routine diplomatic mission to Moscow,” he said.