Extraordinary, Ordinary People

by Condoleezza Rice

  Later that day as I was moving boxes into my room, a nice young man asked if I needed help. I was immediately attracted to Wayne Bullock, the Notre Dame fullback. When I asked what I could do for him, he said he wanted chocolate chip cookies. Some time later, I was standing in the kitchen of Lewis Hall, the convent that doubled as the graduate women’s dormitory on campus, trying to make sense of a Toll House cookie recipe, when I encountered a PhD student named Jane Robinett who seemed to know what to do. Jane became my big sister and my best friend at Notre Dame, and we have remained close ever since.

  Wayne and I began to see each other though I knew that he had a “hometown honey.” He was a bruising fullback with a heart of gold whose greatest desire was to play pro football and start a family so that he could have lots of kids. When my parents came to visit South Bend that fall, my father fell in love with Wayne. He was my dad’s kind of running back, tough and relentless. And he was my dad’s kind of guy, sweet and solid. It seemed that every time I called home, Daddy asked about Wayne and was sorely disappointed to learn that the relationship wasn’t progressing. When my parents came back in the spring, Daddy was disturbed to find that Wayne was no longer on the scene. I’d dated Randy Payne, another nice guy, for a while, but my new love was a six-foot-five middle linebacker who wore a bandanna around his head and an earring in his ear. “He looks like a thug,” Daddy said.

  Not surprisingly, I took offense, reminding my father that he shouldn’t judge people by how they looked. After all, I was experimenting with bell-bottoms and platform shoes. Daddy didn’t say much after that, but he clearly hoped that I’d find “a nice boy.” It was obvious by then that we didn’t share the same criteria for a mate. My mother gently reminded Daddy that the young John Wesley Rice Jr. had been a bit of a rogue too—dancing and playing cards, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey. “And you were a preacher,” she added.

  All in all, Notre Dame turned out to be a terrific fit for me, providing the typical college experience that I never quite captured at Denver. Many of my friends were undergraduates and my peer group finally caught up with me.

  Graduate school was challenging enough but not really difficult. The work in the Government Department confirmed my interest in Soviet studies, but I found the classes in economics more exciting. I liked my advisor, George Brinkley, the head of the Government Department, but thought Kremlinology too amorphous and not very rigorous. Many years later I’d take up the study of military affairs because it was more concrete. Militaries have weapons that you can see, budgets that you can quantify, and doctrine that you can read. Studying the politics of the Soviet Union meant trying to divine what Leonid Brezhnev might have said to Alexei Kosygin from little clues in Russian newspapers. It was not for me.

  Fortunately, Roger Skurski took me under his wing in the Economics Department and helped me understand the power (and limitations) of quantitative methods in the study of political and economic phenomena. I was pretty good at math and found econometrics and statistics useful. It was akin to doing the complicated theory problems that I’d encountered in music. I received all A’s at Notre Dame but despite the faculty’s encouragement, I decided not to pursue a PhD in economics. I thoroughly enjoyed South Bend but wanted to return to Denver. I thought that I should, for the first time in my life, get a job!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A New Start

  I RETURNED TO Denver late in the summer of 1975, full of expectations that my new master’s degree would help me land an interesting job. As you would expect, my parents were delighted to have me back home. I accepted their invitation to redecorate my room and did so in the style of the mid-1970s, complete with a gauzy red and pink Indian print bedspread and lots of candles purchased from Pier 1 Imports. Nonetheless, I told my folks that I intended to stay for only a year or so until I could afford my own place.

  A friend from Notre Dame, Michelle James, called to say that her boyfriend, Eric Penick, who’d been drafted by the Denver Broncos, was planning to go out after the Broncos’ first exhibition game with some of his friends. He wondered if I’d be willing to come along. Clearly, Michelle was trying to round up some girls, and I was a little worried because Eric had a reputation as a “bad boy.” But I agreed to go.

  After the Broncos game, we met up with several of Eric’s rookie friends. The night was a disaster. The players that Eric assembled were a bit loud for my taste—and cheap. We went dancing at a bar, but they ran out of money, leaving the girls to pay for the third and fourth round of drinks. Michelle did note that they seemed to find money for a stop at McDonald’s on the way home, however. The evening seemed to go on forever, and I was really glad to finally get home well after two in the morning.

  The next day Michelle called to say that Eric had another friend who’d seen me the evening before and wanted to meet me. “Michelle,” I said, “you and Eric are lucky that I’m speaking to you.” She persisted, saying that Rick Upchurch hadn’t been among the offending group and was really nice. I agreed to give Eric another chance. The four of us went out, and I found myself very attracted to the fourth-round draft choice from the University of Minnesota. The next day I ran to the grocery store to look up his name in Street & Smith’s pro football guide. Frankly, I wanted to see if he was likely to make the team and stick around for a while.

  As I was returning home from the grocery store, Rick drove up in his new blue and white Chevy. He entered the house and met my parents, who were very impressed with his politeness. We started seeing each other regularly, almost every day.

  Soon I was leading the life of a football “wife.” On Sundays I would go to church and sing in the Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church choir. If the Broncos were away, I would join other “wives” to watch the game on TV. When the team was playing at home, my parents would drop me off at the football game. I’d sit in the wives’ section with women who would become, and still are, some of my best friends: Vicki Wright, Diana Carter, and Joyce Moses. The section was always tense with the ever-present possibility of career-ending and even life-threatening injury. It was tense also because every woman there was attentive to any signal that her husband was “stepping out.” Whenever there was an unidentified girl in the section, someone endeavored to find out who she was and who had given her the ticket. Strangers were not welcome. The spectacle of visiting players meeting up with women who were not their wives after the game reminded all of us that there was indeed something to worry about. I’d always been a very confident person. But I found myself incredibly insecure when it came to the women who always seemed to be around after the game.

  Rick was a good guy and I thought for the first time that I’d found the man I wanted to marry. We were so in sync and he loved my parents. I came home one evening to find Rick in the basement playing pool with my father. It wasn’t uncommon for Rick to visit my dad even when I was not there. My personal life was very satisfying, but I couldn’t find a job. The economy was in recession in 1975, and I quickly learned that my Soviet studies expertise wasn’t very much in demand in Denver. I considered moving to Washington, D.C., but I didn’t want to leave Rick and my very happy life in Denver. There was a near miss with Honeywell, which reorganized before I could grab what had seemed to be a promising opportunity. The university purchasing department offered me my old clerical job, but that seemed a huge step backward. I decided to teach piano, the one thing for which there was demand. The irony was not lost on me, or my parents, that the very thing I’d feared had come to pass: I was a piano teacher.

  One evening my father came into my room where I was listening to sad songs and feeling very much the failure. He told me that he was sure the setback was temporary but wondered if I’d acquired enough education to do what I wanted to do. He knew that I’d applied to law school and been accepted at several, including Denver. “Do you want to be a lawyer?” he asked. I answered no but I was sure that a law degree would mean something in the workplace. I certainly didn’t want to chase a PhD. I
could have added, And end up like Aunt Theresa, reading the same book twenty-five times. “Well,” Daddy said, “your mother and I are ready to help you in whatever you decide to do.” He didn’t have to say it, but I was glad that he did.

  Then, one day shortly before Christmas, I went by to say hello to Dr. Korbel. I hadn’t done so since returning from Notre Dame. The afternoon was snowy and cold, and Dr. Korbel was sitting in his corner office in his cardigan sweater, smoking the pipe that he almost always seemed to have with him. He asked what I was doing, and in an instant I poured out everything to him. I wanted to be a Soviet specialist, but I didn’t want to take on PhD work. Maybe I would go to law school, but I didn’t want to be a lawyer. “Frankly,” I told him. “I don’t know what I want to do.”

  Over the years I’ve seen so many of my students go through this crisis of confidence. It’s helped me to be a better advisor to have been through it myself. And I have told countless students what both my father and Dr. Korbel told me. “If you don’t want to be a lawyer, don’t go to law school.”

  So I didn’t. Dr. Korbel helpfully suggested that I just take a few courses starting that winter quarter. I wouldn’t have to commit to a PhD program but could see if I still liked the idea of more graduate work. I learned that there was a master’s degree in public administration, which sounded practical, and I thought I might enter that program in the spring. I started classes and was so happy to be back in school.

  That winter Aunt Theresa came to visit. We were sitting in the living room just before dusk, waiting for my parents to return home. She asked if I was happy doing graduate work, adding that I seemed to be even if it wasn’t leading anywhere. We weren’t particularly close and I resented her tone as well as her recounting of her trials, tribulations, and triumphs in achieving her doctorate at Wisconsin. She related the ups and downs of her journey, including her experience as an exchange professor at the University of Liberia in 1961. It started to occur to me that she had indeed had an interesting career. And then something that she said had a lasting impact on me: “Condoleezza, if you don’t do the PhD you’ll always wonder how far you could have gone.”

  I thought hard about it, consulted Dr. Korbel again, and before the spring quarter ended was admitted to the PhD program at the Graduate School of International Studies at Denver. And oh yes, I continued to teach piano, but with a new purpose: it helped pay my graduate school bills.

  RICK UPCHURCH went back to the University of Minnesota to finish college after the football season. He was therefore away when I resumed my academic career. When he returned for training camp in the summer it was clear that things had changed. We started dating again, still speaking of commitment to each other. But Rick had complications in his life—certain obligations that he needed to take care of. He was and still is one of the best human beings I’ve ever known, but as a friend of ours put it, he had “too many irons in the fire.” Our relationship ended gently and we remained friends.

  In fact, I continued to socialize with the Broncos and their wives, as did my parents. My father befriended several players, counseling them and acting as a surrogate father for these young men, many of whom had never experienced that kind of relationship. John Rice’s appeal to young people never ceased to amaze me.

  Throughout the next year, I threw myself into the curriculum at Denver and thoroughly enjoyed my new colleagues. Denver’s student body was very international, and many of my classmates went on to important careers in international politics. One of my best friends there was a young man who was in exile from Pinochet’s Chile. Heraldo Muñoz and I would reconnect many years later when as the Chilean ambassador to the United Nations he helped me, as national security advisor, to keep relations between Santiago and Washington calm in the early months of the Iraq War.

  My best friend was Cristann Gibson, who’d also gone to Denver as an undergraduate. She’d come early to the study of the Soviet Union, was already fluent in Russian, and was working with Dr. Korbel. Cris was a character—an only child like me—but with platinum-blond hair and four-inch fingernails. We often laughed that it was a good thing we had not known each other as undergraduates because we would have hated each other. Cris was given to torn blue jeans and turquoise jewelry and she managed rock bands. I liked Pappagallo shoes, pearls, and matching skirts and sweaters. We did share a love of hard, acid rock bands such as Led Zeppelin. But as graduate students, we found that we had a lot more in common and she became my best buddy.

  In the fall of 1976, Ambassador Horace Dawson, one of the highest-ranking blacks in the Foreign Service, asked my father to serve on an external review of the United States Information Agency. We decided that this would provide me with good exposure to Washington. So my mother and I accompanied my father for the six-week assignment. Since Denver didn’t start until late September, I missed only two weeks of school. It was worth it because Horace Dawson became a mentor and friend and remains so to this day. He insisted that I apply for an internship at the State Department for the coming summer. I did and would soon receive my first paying job in international relations.

  In general, things could not have been better at Denver. I began to prepare for doctoral qualifying exams, and to satisfy the requirement of a thesis-length research paper, I wrote on politics and music in the Soviet Union, exploring the impact of the totalitarian policies of Josef Stalin on composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich. I had finally found a way to unite my interests in music and politics.

  Then, early in the spring quarter of 1977, Dr. Korbel asked to see me. He looked awful, and I noticed that his usually ruddy complexion had an undeniably yellow cast. Dr. Korbel said that he would be going into the hospital that afternoon and wondered if I’d take over his undergraduate course. The quarter had just begun, and I told him that of course I would take the class until he could return. He said that he didn’t know when that would be. The conversation really unnerved me. As it turned out, the class was a lot of work and I didn’t really love the teaching. But I did a creditable job and was pleased to have the experience on my resume.

  Soon after, I left for my internship at the State Department. It was so exciting to move into my first apartment, a little studio in Michelle Towers, a building on 21st and F not far from the Department that has since been torn down for new George Washington University housing. I realize now that it was pretty dumpy, but it was my first apartment and I loved it. Many young Foreign Service officers who were on temporary duty in Washington lived there and I befriended several. One woman, a secretary named Elizabeth, had been in the U.S. embassy during the fall of Saigon in 1975. She had amazing stories of burning classified documents and then escaping on one of the last helicopters as Vietnamese citizens hung from the doors during liftoff. Four years later I was watching television coverage of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the Iranian revolution. There was Elizabeth, fleeing the building with the other women who had been allowed to leave by the Revolutionary Guard. I made a mental note to avoid any embassy where Elizabeth was working: she clearly had bad karma.

  The internship itself was pretty boring. I was assigned to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, working on a project examining Soviet cultural programs in the Third World. The concept seems rather quaint today, but there was great concern that Moscow was making strides with young people throughout Africa and Latin America by sending the Bolshoi Ballet and the Moscow Symphony to these countries to perform. Toward the end I worked on the somewhat more pressing issue of the education of Cuban soldiers in the Soviet Union.

  On balance, the internship was a good experience largely because the people for whom I worked took an interest in me and exposed me to the life of diplomats. I liked Washington and would go every Saturday morning to the Watergate bakery for a sweet roll and coffee. It was about all I could afford at the Watergate. But it’s funny how those memories imprint. I could almost smell those sticky buns years later when, as national security advisor and secretary of state, I
lived at the Watergate for eight years.

  Although I became convinced during those months I was interning that I did not want to join the Foreign Service, I appreciated the mentoring. I was especially impressed that Warren Christopher, then the deputy secretary of state, came to speak to us. As secretary of state, I always made a point to engage the interns. “I tell people to be good to their interns,” I would say to them. “You never know where they might end up.”

  With only a few weeks to go in my internship, I received a call from Cris. Dr. Korbel was gravely ill and likely would not last through the night. I was stunned. I thought that he had been diagnosed with hepatitis, but apparently that was the secondary condition. He had liver disease and it had progressed very rapidly. His daughter, Madeleine, called to see if I could come home for the funeral. I declined, explaining that I had a big end-of-the-summer presentation to make to the assistant secretary. Madeleine said that she understood. I sent flowers but felt incredibly guilty for not having made the trip back to Denver. I still do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A Lost Year

  RETURNING TO Denver without Dr. Korbel to guide me was disorienting. I’d served on the search committee for the new dean of the school and had gotten to know Michael Fry well. He took an interest in my academic work and was immensely helpful, guiding me through my doctoral qualifying exams in the spring of 1978. Back on campus I reconnected with Professor Charles “Mike” Beall, whose courses on Soviet affairs I’d enjoyed as an undergraduate. The university had also hired Catherine Kelleher, a highly regarded specialist in international security affairs from the University of Maryland. I took a tutorial with her and began to gravitate toward military affairs. In addition, Jonathan Adelman, a young Soviet specialist, had come onto the faculty and would eventually become an important mentor.