by Susan Rice
I started yelling to the kids and Ian to come into our bedroom. They came fast. When the news broke, we all started screaming, yelling, and hollering with joy. I quickly hit the music and blasted a family favorite, “All Right Now!,” the Stanford victory song as played by the Stanford Band.
The four of us danced with abandon, jumping as high as we could at the appropriate points, a move typically used to celebrate a touchdown. “All right now, baby it’s all right NOW…” Perfectly appropriate song for the occasion. And, if I had a tinge of guilt about encouraging my kids to dance on someone’s grave, it was instantly replaced by joyous relief that the man who had blown up our East African embassies and killed three thousand souls on 9/11 was at the bottom of the sea.
Even as the bin Laden raid and Libya drama unfolded, upheaval in other parts of the Arab world kept spreading—notably to Syria. In mid-March 2011, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s security forces fired repeatedly on unarmed civilian demonstrators, and what began as a popular uprising in four cities swiftly morphed into a rebellion that engulfed the capital, Damascus, and much of the country. After many months of rebellion and repression, as the regime relentlessly tortured, imprisoned, and killed its opponents, the violence in Syria escalated into full-fledged civil war, with the government employing helicopter gunships, barrel bombs, and chemical weapons to snuff out the increasingly pervasive opposition. Politically divided and operationally fractious, the opposition consisted of fighters ranging from bakers and doctors turned rebels to violent Islamist extremists, including some with ties to ISIS and Al Qaeda.
At the U.N., the U.S. and our Arab and Western partners labored for years to condemn the Assad regime’s actions, impose sanctions, broker cease-fires, spur a political transition to a Syria without Assad, and investigate and punish the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. At every turn, from April 2011 to my departure from the U.N. at the end of June 2013, and for the entirety of the Obama administration, our efforts were consistently and callously thwarted by Russia (and its sidekick China). Russia had long-standing military bases in Syria and a broad strategic relationship with Assad and his principal backer, Iran. Particularly after Vladimir Putin returned as president in May 2012, Russia was determined to do everything possible to protect Assad diplomatically and ensure he eluded U.N. Security Council condemnation, sanctions, or significant pressure of any sort. The debates over Syria in the Security Council, both in public and behind closed doors, were the most acrimonious I experienced, with Russia (and to a lesser extent China) pitted against increasingly outraged U.S., U.K., and French delegations.
Russian ambassador Churkin frequently alleged that the West’s aim in Syria was “a policy of regime change,” citing Libya as a precedent. My rejoinder was that the Libya analogy was bogus and a cheap ruse by countries that wanted to continue selling arms to Syria. In the Security Council, declaring it a “dark day” in Turtle Bay, the neighborhood in New York City in which the U.N. is located, I made clear, “The U.S. is disgusted” by Russia and China’s behavior, and lamented how “a couple members of this Council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant.”
Three times during my tenure, and twice more before President Trump took office, Russia and China “double-vetoed” relatively mild U.K.- and French-drafted resolutions to condemn Assad, maintaining disingenuously that they were “imbalanced,” unhelpful, or designed to be the camel’s nose under the tent for regime change. Russia argued conveniently (and falsely) that it got snookered on Libya and that the NATO operations there, which resulted in Qaddafi’s death, far exceeded the U.N. mandate. Russia insisted that never again would it allow Western military intervention in the Middle East, and least of all in Russia’s client state, Syria.
Though battles with Churkin were never more heated than over Syria, Vitaly was in some ways my closest colleague. We admired each other’s skills and intellect, and we made each other laugh. Behind closed doors, when the cameras were gone and voyeuristic members of the Security Council absent, Vitaly often worked to find common ground, including on North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I know he agonized privately over Syria and tried within the P5 to broach compromises, which he sought to sell to Moscow to avoid yet another Russian veto. To his obvious disappointment, he repeatedly failed to win over his bosses.
At the end of my tenure in New York, Vitaly was one of the only foreign ambassadors I asked to speak at my farewell party. Why him? Because I knew he would make me and everyone else laugh raucously (at my expense). I had gotten him good some years prior, when in a December 2010 closed-door Security Council session, I put up on the screen a picture of his face photoshopped into an image of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. (They bore a striking resemblance.) It was the perfect takedown of Vitaly, who had stolen Christmas from so many U.N. diplomats every day of the year, not to mention millions of suffering people around the world. At my farewell party, Vitaly’s roasting of me did not disappoint. He recalled our many verbal battles, reprising his choice line that some of my most favored language “could not be found in the Oxford dictionary.” He also left me with some gaudy Russia gear promoting the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
From the moment Ian met Vitaly’s lovely and kind wife, Irina, the two struck up a warm rapport. After I left New York for Washington, Vitaly and I kept in touch, if infrequently. Ian and I hosted Vitaly and Irina for a private dinner at an elegant Washington restaurant in December 2015, as we had done occasionally in New York. But on this rare visit to Washington for them, it was bittersweet. The U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship had hit bottom over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, invasion of Ukraine, military intervention in Syria, and U.S. and E.U. sanctions against Russia. I highly doubt Moscow would have approved of our meeting, since we were no longer colleagues and had no need to see one another. Instead, this was a social occasion, indicative of our enduring friendship and even mutual affection. I had no idea that would be our last meeting.
Over two years later, sitting at my kitchen table in Washington, I struggled to reread the February 20, 2017, tweet, making sure I understood it correctly: “BREAKING: Russian officials say their Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, has died in New York City at 64.” The tears flowed and flowed. Vitaly and I had a love/hate relationship like no other. And, I miss him.
In August 2011, during a relatively calm couple of days, I bared my comedy soul on The Colbert Report. Asked to describe the U.N., for the first time I acknowledged publicly that, “Sometimes it feels a little bit like the Star Wars bar scene where some of the most colorful dictators of the world will come and give their speeches.” Stephen Colbert laughed, before I quickly added, “But most of the year it’s actually a pretty serious place.”
During my first year in New York, I became acquainted with the distinct rituals that had been adopted, in part, I imagine, to promote civility among diplomats from vastly different backgrounds. For starters, each month, one of the fifteen U.N. Security Council members assumes the rotating presidency of the Council on the basis of alphabetical order. For the permanent members, however, the Council presidency arrives like clockwork every fifteen months.
During my tenure, the U.S. chaired the Council three times, when it was my responsibility to set the month’s agenda (in consultation with the U.N. Secretariat), preside over both formal and informal meetings, brief the press after each session of significance, and craft any special sessions, policy initiatives, or resolutions we wished to pursue. In addition, there is a social aspect to the role wherein the month’s president hosts a start-of-the-month breakfast, a working luncheon meeting with the secretary-general, and an end-of-the-month cocktail reception. The president also presents each member of the Council with a gift unique to his or her country, and the president’s spouse hosts a lunch for the other fourteen spouses and the secretary-general’s wife. Ian took his duties as a U.N. spouse seriously and came up to New York each month for these lunches and other
events, building a great deal of goodwill for his willingness to participate actively, despite being one of few men in the group.
Whenever possible, I used the U.S. rotating presidencies to lighten the mood and build camaraderie among Council members. I twice took the whole Security Council to New York Knicks games where they met former players and watched from the owners’ box. I hosted the P5 ambassadors at the U.S. Open tennis tournament. And, during my first presidency, my gift to the Council was two tickets for each delegation to an Aretha Franklin concert at Radio City Music Hall. Spectacularly generous, Aretha hosted us backstage after the concert for Chinese food and photos with her. The ambassadors and their spouses loved it.
In 2009, the U.S. turn at the Council’s presidency coincided with the annual opening of the General Assembly (UNGA) in September—when heads of state and foreign ministers converge for two weeks in New York City. Each head of state addresses the entire membership of the General Assembly from the green marble podium in the massive wooden chamber. The General Assembly hall is constructed as a gently sloping amphitheater containing almost two hundred three-person desks (and three chairs behind) with country placards prominently displayed. Each member state’s physical placement in the General Assembly shifts over time but remains in alphabetical order by the countries’ formal names.
Traditionally, the U.S. president always delivers the second speech on opening day, after Brazil. Visiting U.S. presidents also typically greet the staff of the U.S. Mission, host a large reception for the other heads of delegation, meet with the secretary-general and president of the General Assembly, and conduct a number of bilateral meetings. In addition, the president often convenes thematic meetings with selected countries to advance the U.S. agenda on issues of concern. During his tenure, President Obama hosted such meetings on U.N. peacekeeping reform, Sudan and South Sudan, refugees, the campaign against ISIS and violent extremism, and the Open Government Partnership.
For eight years, President Obama upheld every aspect of these customs, even when the annual ritual came to feel more like an ordeal. He took his UNGA speech very seriously and spent hours refining his themes and the final draft. That first year he chose to stay in New York for several days, which enabled him to add to his schedule a number of additional “side events.” The centerpiece of his inaugural visit was chairing a first-ever presidential-
level summit meeting of the UNSC on nuclear nonproliferation.
All of the P5 leaders attended the summit, and each of the fifteen countries was invited to speak for no more than five minutes. I was nervous about the time limits, knowing that: a) President Obama had a hard stop and would have to leave the session after two hours; and b) most presidents and prime ministers speak at length and generally can’t be controlled when they’re in front of a microphone, especially on the world stage. When Obama would have to leave the chair, Secretary Clinton would take his place, but it would be considered impolite for heads of state to have to speak with a lower-ranking official (even a foreign minister) presiding. I agonized over the time limits, concocting with my team an unusual timer and lighting system to signal to the heads of state when their time was up.
My biggest concern, though, was totally out of my control: that year Libya was a nonpermanent member of the Security Council, and Muammar Qaddafi (still in his dictatorial heyday), who would represent Libya at the summit, normally spoke literally for hours. The day before the summit, Qaddafi gave a legendary performance at the General Assembly, extending his fifteen minutes to one hundred minutes of vitriol and almost comical nonsense. That was when I was first struck by the theatrics of the U.N. Between Qaddafi and Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s offensive rants, the national costumes and diverse customs, the U.N., especially at General Assembly time, conjured for me the Star Wars cantina, where creatures of every type consorted unconstrained.
My fear was that Qaddafi would reprise that rant in front of the Security Council, with Obama as chair unable to cut him off politely, thus overshadowing an otherwise successful event. The evening before the summit I called my Libyan counterpart, Ambassador Shalgham. I pleaded with him to do whatever he possibly could to ensure that Qaddafi stayed on script and on time.
Shalgham calmly assured me, “It will be all right.”
“How can you be so confident?” I asked.
He said, “Trust me. I promise we will stay within the time limits.”
I thanked him for his assurances and pledged to deliver a very nice bottle of champagne if he succeeded. Usually a good sleeper even when under stress, I did not sleep well at all that night. The next morning, as the session began, I realized why Shalgham had been so confident. He had somehow managed to persuade Qaddafi that the summit was not worth his time, and Shalgham represented Libya in the meeting as the only non–head of state at the table. Enormously relieved and appreciative, I sent over to the Libyan mission that afternoon a bottle of my favorite, Veuve Clicquot.
Obama’s UNGA visits involved certain rituals. The reception for heads of delegation usually occurred the evening before his major speech to the General Assembly. After the reception at about 9:30 p.m., the president, the national security advisor, secretary of state, speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, senior director for the U.N. on the NSC staff, a few others, and I would decamp to the spacious living room in my apartment atop the Waldorf Towers. Stanton Thomas, our jovial chef, would prepare a copious spread of cheese, tortilla chips and homemade guacamole, salmon, and other hors d’oeuvres. He would also put out plenty of wine, beer, and liquor, and produce a single carefully crafted Grey Goose martini for the Boss. We would then review the UNGA speech, debating its contents, and hash out other issues, such as how to approach upcoming bilaterals with Netanyahu and Abbas on the Middle East peace process. These gatherings could go long, but with the speech in the morning and often major rewrites pending, Ben and the president (both night owls) prepared for an even later night.
After one such UNGA evening in 2011, Obama lingered behind after the others left, which indicated to me that he wanted to talk privately. As he often did, he asked how I was doing, how my family was bearing my absence, if the White House team was being supportive, and how I was holding up after the fairly recent loss of my father.
“Everything’s fine,” I answered, thanking him. “I do miss Ian and the kids.”
He nodded with understanding, and then shifted gears. “Have you ever thought about being World Bank president? Would you be interested in that role?”
Somewhat caught off-guard, I did know it was time for the administration to put forward its candidate to succeed Bush’s appointee, Robert Zoellick. In fact, I had been told by friends in the White House that Tom Donilon was floating my name for the position, perhaps, they said, in a bid to sideline me as a potential candidate for secretary of state or national security advisor in an Obama second term. If it were such a gambit, it was a clever one. The World Bank presidency is a coveted position, with great ability to influence global development efforts, and it would allow me to return home to Washington. Still, I was surprised and could only think about my late father, a former World Bank acting executive director and real expert in development economics. He would roll over in his grave if I accepted such an important role without further preparation and qualification. Apart from my knowledge of Africa and my more recent experience steeped in a complex multilateral institution, I was not then very well matched to the role. Another concern was not wanting to jump out of the national security realm, where I thought my skills and training were best utilized.
After a pause, I answered, “I appreciate you thinking of me. But if the United States can’t come up with someone more qualified than me to run the World Bank, we ought to give up the presidency of the Bank.”
Whether he was just checking the box to say he knew I was not interested, or if he really thought I might be intrigued, I couldn’t tell. Obama just smiled, changed the subject, and never raised it again.
> I was in no hurry to leave the U.N., which for all its serious intensity and sometimes feigned camaraderie was exceptionally rewarding. For what would ultimately be four and a half years, I enjoyed enormous freedom. So long as my great team and I took care of business at the U.N., and I responded when needed by email or phone, no one in Washington was breathing down my neck or tracking my every move. I loved running the U.S. Mission of 150 civil servants, foreign service officers, and handful of political appointees. It was an intimate enough staff that I knew most everyone, ties that were enhanced by annual basketball games at Chelsea Piers, where the U.S. Mission staff took on the U.N. security guards, and by righteous dance parties I loved to throw (with a party playlist my staff perfected over time). We twice hosted our annual Fourth of July party at the Central Park Zoo, bringing the beasts of the U.N. together with their caged counterparts. It was good fun.
Toward the end of my time at the U.N., the family and I joined with Johnny and his family for a trip to Mexico. With a third family, we rented a lovely house overlooking the ocean north of Puerto Vallarta. For the first several days, I had a relaxing time, lounging by the pool or on the beach, playing tennis, drinking margaritas, and chilling.
One afternoon, when most of the others were down the cliff on the beach, I stayed back at the house. My twelve-year-old nephew, Teo, Johnny’s eldest and an excellent athlete like his parents, asked if I felt like tossing the football. Since my early tomboy years, throwing a football was one of my favorite things to do, and I prided myself on having a strong arm, good spiral, and never throwing “like a girl.” We took the ball out onto the expansive lawn overlooking the landscaped gardens on top of the cliffs.
I was wearing a dress-length cotton cover-up over my bathing suit, flip-flops, and sunglasses—perfectly comfortable gear for a game of catch. After about ten minutes, we were well warmed up, and we each backed up to elongate our passes. Teo moved up the slope a bit, and I moved down. Teo threw a strong ball off to my right, which I assessed was within reach. To catch it, I jumped and laid out almost horizontally. I managed to snag it, sating my competitive instincts and demonstrating to my nephew that I still had game.
