No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

by Condoleezza Rice

  The South and Central Asian Bureau would need a senior person to bring it into being and to fight off the many bureaucratic challenges to this new entity. Christina Rocca, the assistant secretary for South Asian affairs under Colin, worked diligently with me over the next year to facilitate this effort. To lead the reorganized bureau, I chose Richard Boucher, who’d been Colin’s spokesman but was also a senior Foreign Service officer with a concentration in economic affairs, reasoning that many of the early efforts at regional integration would be on the trade and economic fronts.

  Finally, I was stunned to learn that there was no independent Iran desk in the Department of State. It turned out that the department thought in terms of “relations” with countries. Since we had no “relations” with Iran, it didn’t warrant its own desk. Amazing. We created an Iran desk and later an outpost in Dubai to follow Iranian affairs from a place with geographic proximity to Tehran. The idea was borrowed from the 1920s, when the United States had maintained an outpost in Latvia to watch events in the Soviet Union prior to the establishment of diplomatic relations. Because the Dubai station processed visas for Iranians, for instance, we were able to learn about events in Iran from people coming through. The Iran desk reported directly to Nick Burns to give it stature and proximity to the seventh floor—the secretary’s floor.

  Shortly after 9/11, it had become clear that there were new threats and challenges such as terrorism that were not confined to any one geographic area. Coordinator positions have traditionally been established within the State Department to fill this void. These offices report directly to the secretary and draw on functional, as opposed to regional, expertise to manage the U.S. government’s response to a particular issue across agencies. To lead the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which directed the development and implementation of U.S. counterterrorism policy, I chose Henry “Hank” Crumpton, a former CIA officer who had led the Agency’s Afghanistan campaign in 2001 and 2002. In 2004, Colin Powell had established the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, which led efforts to institutionalize the U.S. government’s civilian capacity to rebuild post-conflict societies. Carlos Pascual was the Department’s first coordinator and did remarkable work in shaping the position at its inception. I selected former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst to succeed him in 2006. John’s leadership would prove instrumental in launching the Civilian Response Corps, a rapidly deployable force of civilian employees trained and equipped to assist in post-conflict reconstruction efforts. The Corps would allow the military to focus on security without the additional strains of fulfilling objectives more suitable for civilian specialists in the field.

  But the best personnel decision that I made was to bring the incomparable Liz Lineberry back to the State Department with me. Liz had been an assistant to James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Wanting a change, she’d come to work for me at the NSC and was with me practically every day. Liz just knew how to get things done. And she knew what I needed before I did. When I became secretary, Liz came back to Foggy Bottom. She kept my calendar and helped me keep my sanity, reminding me from time to time to have dinner with friends, call my family, or take a Sunday afternoon off to play golf or music.

  Liz and my executive assistant, Steve Beecroft, a wily senior Foreign Service officer with a wicked sense of humor, made sure that the front office had warm and open relations with the staff. That is absolutely critical, as the secretary is busy and operates under a good deal of stress. If the front office exacerbates the constant sense of crisis, everyone will feel it and efficiency will decline. Liz and Steve, and later Joe Macmanus when Steve left to become ambassador to Jordan, did just the opposite: they were calming influences. That was an indispensable contribution to me and to my work.

  MY FIRST days in the office were largely devoted to getting to know my “building,” as it is called, and getting used to being called “S.” It was as if I’d lost my proper name since I heard everyone refer to me that way. “S” says this. “S” needs that. I learned quickly not to think out loud lest I set off an entire bureaucratic process to deliver what “S” wanted.

  The organization also needed to be flatter. In both of my stints at the NSC I’d marveled at the bureaucratic hierarchy of the State Department. Everything took a long time because several people and offices had to approve even the simplest policy paper. As national security advisor I was always amused that our morning calls would often expose the fact that I knew what was going on in Don’s or Colin’s building before they did. My one special assistant for a given region would have given me a heads-up on a department’s position while it was still making its way step by step up to the secretary. I asked very simply if we could cut down the number of clearances, passing paper through the hands of only those who really needed to be in on a decision. “Of course,” everyone told me. But four years later I was still asking. When something was going to “S,” everyone with even a passing interest wanted to have a say in it. Eventually I took the step on certain occasions of asking to be briefed by the desk officer who had actually written the paper.

  There were also a number of immediate management problems that had come to my attention during the transition. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, for instance, was overseeing huge budget expenditures for the training of police in Afghanistan and Iraq. The recordkeeping, though, and thus the accountability for that work was less than adequate. The serving assistant secretary was resistant to the changes that needed to be made. That would have been fine, and I certainly would have allowed him to make his case. But when Brian, my chief of staff, walked into my office late one evening and told me that the gentleman had gone behind my back to complain to his patrons on the Hill, I decided that the bureau needed new leadership. The message had to be clear that I encouraged open disagreement but that this kind of behavior was unacceptable.

  Nancy Powell, a senior Foreign Service officer on leave between assignments, became the bureau’s acting head. Then I appointed Anne Patterson, an outstanding officer who would later become ambassador to Pakistan. There was no stronger manager and leader in the Foreign Service than Anne.

  She took over the bureau, which had inadequate processes to deal with the crushing workload of two huge simultaneous nation-building projects. Matching resources and responsibilities is critical to the success of any organization, and I paid personal attention to problems like that.

  Nothing, though, would take more time than trying to make the department’s personnel policies more flexible and responsive to our needs. From my position as national security advisor I’d watched the State Department struggle to deploy senior Foreign Service officers to Afghanistan and Iraq. The service is small, about eleven thousand officers globally. Bob Gates and I would later joke that there were as many people in military bands as in the Foreign Service. The numbers had at least improved, thanks to Colin’s initiative to hire more than a thousand new officers over the four years of his term. But we were still woefully short of the people we needed, particularly in hardship posts where families couldn’t accompany the officers. Since the State Department uses a system where people bid for posts, the least desirable ones often went unfilled—particularly at the midcareer level, where family considerations were salient.

  Moreover, the officers we did have were not properly apportioned to the tasks at hand. We had nearly as many officers in Germany, which had a population of 80 million, as in India, which had a population of 1 billion. That was, in large part, a legacy of the Cold War, when Europe had been at the center of the national security agenda. Bob Zoellick led an effort to look at redeployment of our personnel. I’d talked about transformational diplomacy in my confirmation hearings. By that term, I meant that the work of diplomacy was now active democracy promotion, AIDS relief, rebuilding failed states, and the like. The department’s most treasured function, political reporting through long cables, was simply less important in a world o
f instant communication. The Foreign Service needed to embrace new functions and perform them in more remote and sometimes highly volatile places.

  All this demonstrates the breadth of the secretary’s portfolio. Policy issues and crises dominate the agenda. But the department has to function properly if policy execution is to succeed. I well understood that I should not micromanage. Yet there is a level of knowledge about the details of what is going on in one’s building that is absolutely necessary. As I would experience several times, bureaucratic screw-ups usually reached my desk when it was already too late to do much about them. Playing catch-up with the press and Congress agitated and looking for answers is hard. At my first staff meeting I sent a message that I didn’t like mistakes but could understand them and that I’d work with people to find a solution. But I hated surprises. “Never fail to tell me something that I should know before people outside this building know,” I pleaded. Early warning is the key to good management, but it’s very hard to achieve.

  MY PREOCCUPATION with the daily work of the department occasionally gave way to the remarkable moments that reminded me of the incredible honor of being secretary of state. Attending the President’s State of the Union address in 2005 was one of those times.

  I stood just outside the chamber of the House of Representatives, peering in through the door at the assembled members of Congress. I’d always loved the State of the Union, rarely missing the televised annual spectacle that affirms the institutional legitimacy and stability of American democracy. “Mr. Speaker, the President’s Cabinet.”

  The doors flung open, and the bright lights of the press were suddenly and blindingly apparent. I started down toward the front, reaching out to shake the hands of members on both sides of the aisle. At the time of the establishment of the country only four Cabinet positions were created: secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, secretary of war, and attorney general. That order is used in all formal protocol settings. And the secretary of state is fourth in the line of presidential succession after the Vice President, speaker of the House, and president pro tempore of the Senate. As the senior member of the Cabinet, the secretary is always seated first and thus leads the processional of cabinet members just before the arrival of the President.

  When I reached the front row, I realized that I’d walked a bit quickly, not wanting to hold up the line. My colleague Treasury Secretary John Snow was well behind me, shaking hands and enjoying the moment. I made a mental note to walk more slowly the next year. After a few minutes the applause stopped, and there was a moment of silence and anticipation. “Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States.” As he passed, the President and I exchanged glances. Then he ascended the podium to wild applause. “Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States,” said Speaker Dennis Hastert. And so it went: my first State of the Union as secretary of state and a moment when I felt intensely the tradition and the history that attended my role.

  I came to relish every historical tidbit about the position, learning, for instance, that the secretary of state is the keeper of the Great Seal of the United States of America. One day I found myself signing hundreds of documents, including certificates commissioning other Cabinet officers. “Why am I signing these?” I asked.

  “You are the keeper of the Great Seal,” someone said.

  “And when did I become the keeper of the Great Seal?”

  “Thomas Jefferson was the keeper of the Great Seal,” I was told.

  One could imagine the founders deciding that an infant republic separated from great-power politics by vast oceans would have minimal foreign policy concerns. Tom Jefferson needed more to do. Why not give him that administrative function? I’d never understood why Henry Kissinger had been required to sign Richard Nixon’s resignation letter in 1974. Now I did. The secretary of state had to affix the Great Seal and sign any official document; I was the nation’s notary. I had the Great Seal—a mechanical device that imprints the stamp—prominently displayed in the State Department’s Exhibit Hall and created a traveling exhibition to commemorate its 225th anniversary.

  22

  PROMOTING AMERICA’S INTERESTS AND VALUES ABROAD

  THE DAY AFTER the State of the Union, I left on my first trip abroad.

  I’d been in office just a week, and by going on the road right away, I wanted to send a message of openness and outreach to our friends.

  I arrived at Andrews Air Force Base and boarded the plane that said simply, “The United States of America.” The “blue and white,” as it’s called, is a Boeing 757 with dated decor, circa 1980. But as I walked into my cabin at the front of the plane and sat at the desk for the first time, I felt a real sense of wonderment and pride. Before I could sink too far into my thoughts, my spokesman, Sean McCormack, came in and said that after takeoff I’d need to go back and brief the traveling press corps, most of whom were assigned permanently to the Department of State. It was a ritual event just after takeoff to try to set the tone for the trip through the initial press stories that the journalists would file upon landing. I dutifully went to the back of the plane, trying to stand up straight despite the slight turbulence that rocked us back and forth.

  The journalists were in a good mood, probably giving the new secretary a bit of a honeymoon. They were senior members of their profession who knew foreign policy issues inside out. Steve Weisman of the New York Times, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, Anne Gearan of the Associated Press, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News had all been around the block more than a few times. The State Department press corps had a reputation for being “foreign policy nerds,” as opposed to the generalists, who loved the spotlight of the White House beat. They were going to be my companions for four years in a quasi-adversarial relationship that I hoped would generate mutual respect. That would be in the best tradition of the “fourth estate.” We were going to be together a lot, so as a nice gesture I gave each one an atlas with which to track our travels.

  Jim Wilkinson, my senior advisor, Sean, and the rest of the team had carefully constructed the trip so that the first stop would be in Great Britain, “our closest friend.” I learned, by the way, never to say that because even though everyone understood the “special relationship,” it was not good to risk insulting other close friends. Indeed, I’d always use the construction “one of our closest friends.” That was safe.

  The Brits were anxious to help me get off to a good start. My day began with a solid interview with the venerable journalist Sir David Frost. I then met with Prime Minister Blair at Number 10 Downing Street. Walking into Winston Churchill’s former dwelling was pretty special. Yet I was struck once again (it was my third or so time there) by its modesty. It’s just a town house—but the pictures on the wall go back to the days of nineteenth-century Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. I felt very calm before that first encounter as secretary of state because, as national security advisor, I already knew the leaders of most countries well, and I knew Tony Blair best of all; the press availability with him was a comfortable way to begin my public engagement with the world.

  The meeting with Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, was also productive and friendly, followed by a formal, extensive press conference. There are two types of press encounters: the “availability,” where the participants will just walk out in front of the press, make a few extemporaneous remarks, and perhaps take one or two questions; and the “press conference,” with podiums in gilded halls, prepared remarks, and what can seem like an endless number of questions. As Jack and I walked out into the ornate gold-and-white room and onto the stage, I was somewhat taken aback by the huge number of press. Steady, I thought to myself. Posture. Stand up straight. You’ve done this a thousand times before. Well, maybe not a thousand but enough.

  Jack made his statement, and I made mine. Then the questions began. Much to my surprise, there was very little about Iraq. On January 30 millions of Iraqis had cast ballots in
a powerful demonstration of what the path to democracy could look like in the Middle East. Coupled with the breaking news about the involvement of UN personnel in the Oil for Food scandal, our decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein looked a bit better, even to critics, than it had a few months before. The press has a tendency to change the subject when the sense of crisis abates. The journalists’ attention had shifted to Iran and the perceived chasm between the United States and its allies on how to approach Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

  As I listened to the questions, it dawned on me that the Europeans somehow saw themselves as mediating between the United States and Iran. Washington was viewed as part of the problem, not a partner in finding the solution. How did we get into this situation? I wondered. Question after question probed for evidence that the United States was intending to initiate military action against Iran. Though Jack tried to moderate the perception of a split, he too seemed to think that Europe and the United States weren’t on the same page. The Iranians must be loving this, I thought. I resolved to talk to the President about that very troubling development by phone that night. He needed to know how much distance there was between our friends and us.

  That afternoon we were “wheels up” for Berlin. The German capital is one of my two favorite cities in Europe (the other is Rome) and one that provokes historical memories both good and bad. I’d been deeply involved in the unification of Germany and remembered long conversations in Bonn cafés about whether Berlin should again become the capital of Germany. Some thought the great city too irrevocably associated with militarism and two world wars. Fortunately, the Germans decided in favor of Berlin, a capital that is appropriate for a great power.

  But in truth, the unified Germany was still coming to terms with its role as the most populous and economically prosperous country in Europe. When one would say something about German “power,” an interlocutor would delicately remind you that “power” was not a word with which Germans were comfortable. The definition of Germany’s role was complicated, wedded to the European unification project meant to subsume Berlin’s “power” by integrating it into a larger, peaceful framework. The country’s relationship with the United States had sustained the divided Germany throughout the Cold War and helped to successfully overcome that division near the end of the century. Still, the new Germany was still defining its foreign policy identity. Gerhard Schroeder’s decision to link arms with Vladimir Putin in opposing intervention in Iraq was an echo of Germany’s historical tendency to sometimes swing eastward. I didn’t want to make too much of it, but I thought that our relationship with Germany, more than any other ally, had been seriously damaged by the split over Iraq. The unified Germany was still in the process of defining its policy orientation, and I didn’t like the early returns.