by Susan Rice
During the flight, I’d catch whatever rest I could on the only couch available to staff—in the hallway just outside our cabin. There was an unspoken hierarchy governing access to the couch. As the senior staffer on most foreign trips, it was mine. Occasionally, however, if someone who outranked me joined the trip, like the White House chief of staff, I’d tacitly relinquish the couch. I also deferred to White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett when rarely she traveled with us. I’m not sure why I honored that convention, since on these foreign trips the demands on me far exceeded those on her, except that she is slightly older and a friend. Plus, she had owned the couch since the beginning of the administration, and I was a second-term late arrival. When I had no couch, I joined the other senior staff on the floor, each of us on a two-inch-thick, firm foam mat with pillow and blanket.
Inevitably, we arrived exhausted. The toughest trips for me were to Europe, because they were too short to enable me to complete my work and get anything close to enough sleep. Worse, we would usually leave early evening D.C. time and arrive in the wee hours of the morning to face a full day of meetings and a working dinner without any opportunity to do more than shower and, if lucky, exercise before the schedule began. Longer trips to Asia were better, because we usually landed at night and could get a full night’s sleep after arrival, plus whatever we had snagged on the plane.
The trips themselves were intensely packed, as Obama would often complain, blaming me but to a far greater extent, Ben Rhodes, who planned most elements of the schedule beyond the obligatory official meetings and meals. Everywhere we went, the president would “meet and greet” U.S. embassy staff. He often sat down with private sector leaders and almost always with civil society activists to show U.S. support for democracy and human rights. Where possible, he held a town hall with selected young leaders from across the region. When time permitted, Obama liked to visit important historical or cultural sights like the Parthenon in Athens, the Panama Canal, Bob Marley’s house in Jamaica, the historic city of Luang Prabang in Laos, the impossibly tiny bones of Ethiopia’s “Lucy”—believed to be the first humanoid—or World War II cemeteries in Belgium or the Philippines.
By day three, the president was almost always irritable. You could set your watches by the onset of his grumpy mood, due to a lack of sleep, jet lag, and his relentless schedule. By the fifth or sixth day of a long trip, as we could begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the president’s mood usually lightened, and the trip home was like galloping back to the stables.
Despite the intensity, these trips had fun aspects. Ben, other senior staff, and I had a bounty of unscripted time with the president where we could joke, banter, or absorb his philosophical reflections, which he shared much more readily on long trips when we had a surplus of time in planes, helicopters, and automobiles. We enjoyed occasional drinks in his suite and regular meals prepared by his military valets, typically of salmon, chicken, or beef with broccoli and brown rice.
On the road, I was often asked to ride with President Obama in his limousine known as “the Beast.” The large, armored car had two backseats separated by a console with a secure phone and the presidential seal; these seats faced two other seats, allowing four people comfortably in the back, while two Secret Service agents manned the front. On these many car rides, I would sometimes brief him on important developments or late-breaking changes to the program, but more often we would talk about random subjects—our kids, politics, history, whatever he was reading, gossip from the staff’s escapades the night before, or reflections from our youth. Just as often, we would sit quietly looking out the window, occasionally waving to people lining the streets, and absorbing the street scenes of Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Panama City, Nairobi, or Havana. Obama would often play electronic scrabble, scour articles on his iPad, and frequently check his phone, while I read intelligence or paperwork and caught up on news and emails. Neither of us felt the need to fill the void; the silence between us was just as comfortable as conversation.
Occasionally, the trips got more interesting than planned.
When Nelson Mandela passed away in December 2013, President and Mrs. Obama led the U.S. delegation to the memorial service in Johannesburg. The whole visit was something of a circus. The attendees constituted a who’s who of global leaders, plus a massive U.S. congressional delegation, which flew on its own plane to South Africa, and the official U.S. party, which included two former presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, accompanied by Laura Bush and former secretary Hillary Clinton.
The Bushes, along with Hillary, flew seventeen hours with us to and from South Africa. The plane was unusually full, so most of the bigwigs shared the conference room during their waking hours. On the way down to South Africa, President George W. Bush (who turns out to be one of the funniest people I have ever met) regaled us with stories of his new passion as a painter and gave an iPad exhibition of his work, mostly colorful and commendable portraits of figures public and private. The rapport between the two Bushes and two Obamas is extremely friendly and relaxed, and with George Bush and Michelle Obama (who is also one of the funniest people I know) riffing off each other altogether unplugged, it made for a memorable flight.
Our time on the ground was less than twelve hours, just enough to get from the airport to the hotel (to shower and change) and then to the stadium, where Mandela’s interminable memorial service was held in torrential rain. This brief stop in Johannesburg was a security nightmare. Rather than a normally smooth motorcade ride with streets blocked, police escort, and fast, unimpeded movement along the highways, we crawled in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The president’s motorcade was stuck among cramped bush taxis, buses, and civilian cars. The drive into town was stressful, if ultimately uneventful for Secret Service, but it was only the beginning of a very long day.
While waiting hours at the hotel because the ceremony started late, we learned that the South African authorities had decided to let the massive crowds of citizens enter the stadium without the usual magnetic screening. In other words, Obama was going to be on stage in a football stadium with dozens of other heads of state surrounded by tens of thousands of people who could have been armed with anything, in a country known for having one of the highest crime rates in the world. Complicating matters, President Obama did not bring shirts or a suit that was sized to allow him to conceal a flak jacket underneath. The Secret Service wanted him to wear one; but having only a regularly sized suit in the clammy, humid rain, Obama demurred.
For several hours, the press focused on the sign language interpreter who mimed strangely behind Obama (and was later discovered to be a fraud), Obama’s historic handshake with Cuban president Raúl Castro, the selfie taken by Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the very attractive blond prime minister of Denmark, of herself and the president laughing, and, to a far lesser extent, on Obama’s truly moving tribute to Mandela. Meanwhile, those of us in the know worried that the president of the United States could be shot on the world’s stage at Madiba’s funeral.
Even though Africa was hardly the most dangerous place the president traveled, especially compared to Afghanistan or Iraq, it somehow accounted for a disproportionate share of our security-related stress. In July 2015, Obama visited Kenya for the first time as president. Predictably, the crowds were enormous, often pressing in on his motorcade as they densely lined the streets of Nairobi. The masses of people were uniformly friendly, but the enthusiastic crowds understandably concerned Secret Service. Once out of Kenya and on to Ethiopia, I assumed the collective blood pressure of the agents on the trip would drop precipitously.
So I was surprised to be summoned late in the evening to the Secret Service command post at the hotel just after I had returned to my room from the state dinner in Addis Ababa (still in my formal gown). I arrived to find the president’s head of detail, several senior agents, and security officials from the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia all huddled in a secure tent talking anxiously. They reported that they had credible
information that Al Shabab, a dangerous East African terrorist group, which had carried out successful attacks inside Ethiopia in the past, appeared to be planning to attack President Obama before he left the capital. Ethiopian security officials, who are both skilled and ruthless, claimed to have the plotters under surveillance and assured us that they had the threat in hand. Suffice it to say, these assurances did not assuage Secret Service (nor I, though I knew better how capable they were).
We talked through the information. I called back to Lisa Monaco in Washington to ensure that we were putting every effort into chasing down this plot and its alleged perpetrators. I also swiftly enlisted my old friend Gayle Smith, who was traveling with us in her role as a senior NSC staffer. Gayle knows Ethiopia as well as any (non-Ethiopian) American, so I grabbed her to work with me and the Secret Service late into the night, review their contingency plans, and ensure we were communicating with the Ethiopians at the highest level of government.
The plot was due to be executed the next day, reportedly, as the president’s motorcade made its way from the African Union, where he was giving the final speech of his trip, to the airport. Only a very small handful of White House staff, in addition to Secret Service, knew about the plot. When the speech ended, the president was spirited into a holding room. Irritated and ready to go home, he kept asking what was delaying our departure for the airport. Anita Decker Breckenridge, his deputy chief of staff, and I explained that Secret Service was working through some security concerns related to a threat, and Gayle was trying to get the latest. The president waited, growing increasingly impatient.
I returned to Gayle, who was huddled in a closet-sized anteroom off the main hall of the new, Chinese-built African Union headquarters. With her were Ben Rhodes and Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, whom we had flagged down right after the president’s speech ended. “Mr. Prime Minister, we have a problem,” I explained. “Our information indicates that the bad guy is still on the loose and is now positioned between here and the airport. Secret Service can’t move the president until this is sorted out.” Hailemariam took out his cell phone and called his chief of intelligence, Getachew Assefa. After a short conversation, he handed the phone to Gayle, who reiterated, “We have a real problem, here.”
Getachew reassured her in half Tigrinya, half English, “Gayley, it’s not a problem.”
Gayle repeated, “No, it is a problem.”
“Don’t worry. There is not a problem.”
Puzzled, Gayle explained that Secret Service can’t rely on vague assurances that “there is no problem.”
“No, it’s not a problem,” he said yet again.
Gayle said, “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes,” Getachew replied. “He is with me. He is with me.”
“Huh?” she said.
Getachew explained, “At the airport. I have him with me in the car.”
“Okay. You’ve got him? Very good. Thanks.” Gayle ended the call.
Images of a man stuffed in a trunk came to mind, but I didn’t want to dwell on the details. After a Secret Service agent at the airport verified that the suspect was in custody, the president (still unaware) was hustled into the motorcade, and we sped to the airport. On the tarmac, we thanked the Ethiopian prime minister for his hospitality and the efficiency of his security forces. We took off on the steepest and most accelerated ascent I can recall on Air Force One (or on any military plane outside of a war zone).
Once airborne, Gayle, Anita, Ben, and I explained the whole story to the president, and we all had a good, if slightly nervous, laugh. Secret Service thanked me, and especially Gayle, for her critical assistance. There was no public evidence of the drama in Addis Ababa but perhaps some extra alcohol for the long ride home.
Foreign visits tended to be easier when the president was the host and the venue was the White House. There were some exceptions, such as the Chinese paranoia over protests targeting President Xi (which were in fact audible in the Rose Garden), the entitled Saudis, provocative Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, and the prickly Pakistanis. Generally, however, most foreign visits to the White House went according to our script.
State visits were a set-piece tradition, and Obama held thirteen during his presidency. Invitations were reserved for close partners or critical players, such as India, China, and our NATO or Asian allies. They followed a standard format beginning with a morning arrival ceremony on the South Lawn (notwithstanding sweltering heat or freezing cold) with full delegations on both sides ranging from the vice president and cabinet members to the mayor of Washington. This ceremony is one of my favorites, because of its unique pageantry, complete with a review of the troops, the military’s fife and drum band in Revolutionary War costume playing “Yankee Doodle,” and a twenty-one-gun salute.
Following the arrival ceremony, the president and visiting leader introduce each delegation to the other and then settle in for their intimate meeting in the Oval Office on more sensitive topics, often followed by an expanded meeting including more cabinet members and a broader set of issues in the Cabinet Room. Then there is the joint press conference in the Rose Garden or East Room, a luncheon hosted by the secretary of state in the ceremonial Benjamin Franklin Room on the top floor of the State Department and, later that evening, the state dinner.
Other rituals were equally obligatory but less fun. In particular, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was an annual root canal for cabinet officials and senior White House staff. On one level it is an important celebration of the free press and its crucial role in holding government accountable. At the same time, it is a pretentious mass gathering of the press, celebrities, current and former administration officials, members of Congress, and ambassadors, which traditionally featured a stand-up routine by a famous comedian that too often ended badly, and a carefully scripted, comedic speech by the president, which when Obama was in office was reliably funny as hell.
Nonetheless, the Correspondents’ Dinner bequeathed me some of my least favorite memories. These included a night during which Charlie Rose, seated next to me, took every opportunity to put his hands all over my bare shoulders.
Worse, however, was at the next year’s dinner, in 2015. During a break when people were mingling and moving around, I remained seated at my table. From behind me came a large and unexpected man. He summoned me from my chair. I looked for my husband, but Ian was engrossed in conversation some distance away and was oblivious to what was happening. Once I stood up, it was too late. It was Donald Trump who was looming. He surprised me by giving me an unsolicited hug.
Even though the hug was not too close, I was taken aback, given that I had never met him before. While holding me, Trump whispered in my ear that I had been “very unfairly treated” over Benghazi and was “doing a great job for the country.” He then posed for a picture with his arm around me, in which we were both smiling too broadly, and left.
At the time, I was rattled and told White House correspondent April Ryan, who had snapped the photo of me and Trump, that I felt almost as if I had been molested. She asked if she could write that, and I said “please, no.” Her blog post the next day skirted this characterization, reporting that she watched Trump “swarm” me “in an overly gregarious manner and hold a conversation. She [Rice] seemed shocked but said their conversation was pleasant and lasted several minutes.”
I told my mother and family the story the next day, noting that I had not been this grossed out since the 2014 D-Day anniversary in Normandy when, in Obama’s absence, Vladimir Putin puckered his lips and blew me a faux kiss while telling his colleague how good I looked, especially for a national security advisor.
I thought frequently during the 2016 campaign about making Trump’s words public. He had accosted me just six weeks before he launched his presidential campaign, and I figured his praise of me would not sit well with Benghazi-crazed, Republican primary voters. Yet I resisted the urge, because I didn’t want to be even a tangential part of anot
her campaign-related story, however briefly.
Now, I kick myself.
19 Point Guard
My first meeting with the United States Secret Service came shortly before I began as national security advisor. In a high-ceilinged, spacious transitional office in the Old Executive Office Building, I sat down with my lead-agent-to-be, Tim Lea, and the head of the president’s protective detail, Robert Buster. They explained how their team would support me, shared a binder containing key information and protocols, and then asked me what I would like my call sign to be. This is the code name that the agents would use to identify me over radio and other communications and distinguish me from other protectees, each of whom has a unique moniker. In considering my answer, I knew I did not want to take on my predecessor’s moniker, as is sometimes customary. “Iron Hand” struck me as too hard. But I couldn’t keep my Diplomatic Security call sign, which I quite liked but was reserved for the U.N. ambassador and passed down irrespective of the incumbent. So I asked if we could use “Point Guard,” reflecting both the position I played in basketball and my view of the job I was about to begin. My request was granted.
The role of national security advisor is, in fact, much like that of point guard on a basketball team. Your job is to see the whole court, call the plays, execute the offense, pass to the big shooters, and lead the team to perform optimally as a unit. It’s not the glory position. The point guard is rarely the showboat or high scorer (unless you’re Steph Curry or Magic Johnson) but is essential to the cohesion and efficacy of the team. It’s a position that requires strategic vision, leadership skills, effective ball-handling, and lots of selfless assists. Point guard is the position I played in high school and at Oxford. Far from the best basketball player, I was still well-suited to the role.
