Extraordinary, Ordinary People

by Condoleezza Rice

  When I taught the course on the Soviet Union and the Third World, I spotted a black woman wearing a red, yellow, black, and green hat, symbolizing African liberation, and eyeing me suspiciously. A few weeks into the class the young sophomore, Jendayi Frazer, came to office hours. “I don’t like what you are saying,” she said, “but I think you know what you’re talking about and you can teach me a lot.” Jendayi would go on to complete her PhD under my direction at Stanford. She would eventually become the Africa specialist at the National Security Council, ambassador to South Africa, and assistant secretary for African affairs at the State Department—all during President Bush’s eight-year term. She is now a professor at Carnegie Mellon. I began to mentor students with whom I remain close, such as Kori Schake, who went on to work for me at the National Security Council and the State Department as well.

  On balance, my first year was satisfying but very hard. In addition to teaching, you’re expected to push ahead with your research agenda. With only three years to prove your worth before the crucial review, the pressures are immense on new faculty. It’s also not unusual for young faculty to start teaching before conferment of the PhD. I was somewhat ahead of many of my peers since I’d completed my dissertation and could now try to polish and publish it.

  I’d planned to spend the year revising my dissertation and sending it out to publishers for review. I asked John Lewis and Alexander George to read the manuscript and give me comments before I started to rework it. They both suggested that I send it out without revision. Though I thought that this was a risky strategy, I followed their advice and sent the manuscript to three university presses.

  Much to my surprise, Princeton University Press offered to publish my dissertation as a book. My editor, Sandy Thatcher, told me revisions would be necessary but they were prepared to offer a contract immediately. Princeton was the gold standard for university presses, and publishing a first book with them was a real coup.

  During my first year, I made a point of getting to know key leaders at Stanford, asking to visit with the president of the university, Donald Kennedy, and later Provost Jim Rosse. If they thought it odd that an assistant professor had asked out of the blue for an appointment, they didn’t say so. Both treated me as if I were their most important meeting of the day. Later, I’d advise young faculty to be aggressive in getting to know people in the university and seeking out mentors. My father had taught me how to do that by example. Even in segregated Birmingham, Clay Sheffield had been an important guide and counselor to my dad. Maurice Mitchell and John Blackburn were also keys to his success. I’ve never subscribed to the idea that you have to have role models who “look like you.” If that were the case, there would be no firsts. My friend and former neighbor Sally Ride never would have been an astronaut if she had waited to see a female in that role. Sure, it’s good to have female or minority role models. But the important thing is to have mentors who care about you, and they come in all colors. Thus, I made certain years later as provost that I always made time to see junior faculty who asked. And many did—including lots of white males.

  My work at the arms control center was also progressing well. I liked administrative work and found it a nice break from teaching and research. My social life revolved around the people at Galvez House, a somewhat odd collection of American experts on international security and visiting fellows from Asia. There were also colonels from the Japan Self-Defense Forces who became good friends and allowed me to gain remarkably good access to the Japanese military, an institution that was at the time very closed.

  But it was the fellows from the People’s Republic of China who were the most unusual and provided some of the most memorable moments at Galvez. Among them was an engineer who’d been involved in nuclear cooperation with the Soviet Union before the Sino-Soviet split. He loved to unnerve Russian visitors with his tales of working inside the Soviet military establishment, delivered in perfect Russian.

  Then there was Madam Zhou, who came to the center every day in her blue Mao jacket. We knew that she was really the party “commissar,” sent to keep tabs on the other Chinese fellows. She seemed at times to be quite put off by the whole California experience. One day she stopped by my office to say that she’d seen Gone with the Wind, which, she opined, was obviously about the oppression of black people by the capitalist classes. I didn’t counter that most people saw it as a love story between Rhett and Scarlett, asking instead whether she was interested in the history of black people in America. “Not particularly,” she answered as she walked away.

  There were dinners and parties almost monthly and “sings” at John Lewis’ house, where the assembled would croon old favorites such as the Depression-era anthem “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum.” As odd as the social outings were, the people were really genuine and gave me a tight-knit community to which I could belong. I made new friends easily, taking in concerts at the university and in San Francisco with Wendy Frieman, a young Asia specialist whom I had also met at Galvez.

  Stanford sports provided yet another touchstone. I bought season football tickets with Randy Bean, a journalism fellow at the university. Randy, like me, is a preacher’s kid, and her father, like mine, had raised her to be a rabid sports fan. We enjoyed afternoons at the Stanford stadium, where John Elway was then in his senior season. Season tickets for basketball followed. Randy would become one of my closest friends. I found time to play sports too, befriending Nancy Hubbell, a recent Stanford grad and fellow Soviet specialist, whose family had a tennis court. And I met a young assistant director in the Athletic Department, Gene Washington. Gene was a handsome former all-pro wide receiver who’d played at Stanford. One day he asked if I wanted to play tennis. I’ve told him and others that I let him win because I wanted him to ask me to dinner. He was a good tennis player and probably won outright. But he did ask me to dinner, and we dated for a while before becoming the fast friends that we remain to this day.

  I also reconnected with church life, though initially through the Baptists, not the Presbyterians. Frankly, with all the upheaval of the move I’d fallen away from the discipline of weekly church attendance. One Sunday morning (when I should have been in church) I was grocery shopping at Lucky’s. A black man named Dale Hamel walked up to me in the spice aisle and began to talk. There just aren’t that many black people in Palo Alto, so I was surprised to learn that he was buying food for a church picnic at Jerusalem Baptist Church, a long-standing black congregation. We chatted for a while and then he asked, “Do you play the piano? We need someone to play the piano.” I answered yes and within about a week began to play for the choir. Despite my marginal talent for gospel music, I served as the pianist at Jerusalem for about six months. But since the long arm of the Lord had reached all the way into the spice aisle at Lucky’s, I resolved to find a good Presbyterian church and get back to weekly attendance. I soon joined Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, which has been my church home ever since. Stanford and California were turning out to be very good for me.

  There were troubles back in Denver, however. Ironically, my mother, for whom Denver had never really been a comfortable fit, was doing quite well. Mother was teaching at Gove Middle School and was about to complete a master’s degree at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies, where I had done my PhD. The degree, through the Center for Teaching International Relations, prepared high school teachers to teach international subject matter. She loved the program, and the work brought her closer to my world. Her work was so good that her advisor, my former classmate Steve Lamy, encouraged her and her team to publish the curricular materials they had developed. It was fun to see her blossoming professionally. I went back to Denver for her graduation ceremony in the summer of 1982.

  For Daddy, though, life was turning sour. Sitting at my desk at Galvez House one fall morning in 1982, I received a call from him. He was obviously upset, saying that he’d been told that the university no longer had a job for him. When Ross Pritchard became ch
ancellor, Daddy had tried to find a place in the new administration by accepting the role of director of religious life. The truth was that Denver was not a particularly religious campus and there was little for him to do. He tried to organize the loose association of campus ministers and occasionally conducted church services during special events such as Parents’ Weekend. But Daddy was clearly being marginalized at Denver and this latest news didn’t really come as a surprise. Ross Pritchard had not even bothered to deliver the news himself, relying instead on the head of Human Resources to do so.

  “How long do you have?” I asked Daddy. He answered that he’d be terminated at the end of the school year, in about six months. He was particularly worried about the imminent loss of health insurance. Mother had health insurance through the Denver Public Schools, but it was expensive to add my father because of his significant preexisting conditions. I suggested that he ask to retire from the university, thereby retaining health coverage and his pension. We hired a lawyer who worked out a decent settlement, and though Daddy did not have enough years in service to retire, the university called it retirement rather than termination even though he had to pay for his health benefits.

  I was furious with the university. Many years had to pass and Ross Pritchard had to step down before I would again acknowledge my association with the University of Denver. When I was asked to accept the Evans Award for outstanding alumni, I did so only on the condition that my father be acknowledged too. Even to this day I’m a major supporter of the Graduate School of International Studies, which was renamed in honor of my advisor Dr. Korbel, but I don’t feel close ties to the broader university.

  Daddy’s situation threw everything into a tailspin. The house that my parents had bought in 1979 had been a stretch for them financially on two salaries. Now they simply couldn’t afford the mortgage. My father was too proud to call their banker, and so I did. He found a buyer for the house. That spring I went back to Denver and helped Mother and Daddy find a small but very nice condo not far from where they’d lived. It broke my heart to see their furniture, particularly the grand piano, jammed into the small living room. Mother had always wanted a house of her own and had finally gotten it, only to have to sell it a few years later. We all pretended that it was better since I was no longer at home and they didn’t really need the space. It was true that the old house was a lot to maintain, and Daddy was glad not to have to cope with the flight of stairs that made his knees ache. But losing the house was a bitter pill for Mother and a source of deep embarrassment for my dad. For me it was more evidence that my parents’ investment in me—skating, piano, St. Mary’s Academy—had cost them dearly in terms of their own financial security.

  Eventually, my parents adjusted to their new life. Mother continued to teach, carrying most of the financial burden. My father was able to piece together consulting work and became very active with a nonprofit that counseled troubled young men and helped them find work. He loved Colorado UpLift, but it paid him almost nothing. Daddy kept looking for new employment, but nothing materialized. Yet he maintained his dignity and sense of humor, saying that he was finally using the advice that he’d given so many unemployed people over the years. “They must have wanted to tell me to shut up,” he said. “Now I understand that.”

  I tried to help my parents financially when I could. They visited me in California each Thanksgiving between 1982 and 1984. I paid their way, calling it their early Christmas present so as not to embarrass them. Occasionally, if I received a little extra income from a speech or an honorarium for an article, I’d just pay a bill for them without saying so.

  But I too was under some financial strain since I’d decided to buy my first house in the fall of 1982. With my Princeton book contract in hand, I was pretty sure that I would make it through the three-year review and be reappointed to the faculty. I decided to take the home-ownership plunge. Stanford offered very generous assistance to young professors who wanted to buy in the insane housing market of northern California. When I needed to dip into my grandfather’s small trust to help with the down payment, I called Aunt Theresa, who was thrilled that I was doing the responsible thing and buying a house.

  “How much does it cost?” she asked.

  “A hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars,” I answered.

  “Don’t you think that’s a little above your means?” she huffed.

  Aunt Theresa was by this time living in Edwardsville, Illinois, and I am sure that her five-bedroom house was worth about half of what the two-bedroom, one-bath, walk-up condo on the Stanford campus was about to cost me. Fortunately, my father convinced her that it was a legitimate purchase, and I bought 74 Pearce Mitchell. I loved my little place, even though I could stand in the living room and see the entire condo. For several months I had to put my toothpaste purchases on my credit card, but in the long run the investment paid off.

  THE NEXT few years were certainly easier for me, and I continued to do well at Stanford. My first book, Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, was published. I was so happy to be able to give my mother the first advance copy for Christmas in 1984. The reviews of the book were pretty good, but the most important one in the discipline’s flagship journal, the American Political Science Review, was really good. That was the one that mattered most in the upcoming three-year evaluation.

  I was also receiving national recognition, including an invitation to attend the New Faces Conference in Bellagio, Italy. This was a real plum, in part because it was a one-week meeting at a spectacular villa overlooking Lake Como. I made sure to go into Milan, where I bought my mother a stunning Ferragamo purse. She said that she’d never been given anything so beautiful, and carried it everywhere. I was happy to be able to do something really special for her.

  Then, sitting at my desk as the end of the school year approached, I received a call from the president’s office. The assistant to the president, Jean Fetter, wanted me to know that I would receive the Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, the university’s highest honor. The award would be bestowed at commencement. She asked to know if my parents wanted to come at the university’s expense. I waited until I knew they would both be home and called with the news. Though I couldn’t see them, I knew that they were both crying. It was a thrilling moment for the three of us. Weeks later they attended the commencement ceremony held under bright blue skies at the Stanford baseball stadium. It was one of our happiest days together.

  After commencement I received many congratulatory comments from my colleagues, who seemed genuinely happy for me. But there’s always one sour apple. A senior professor, who shall remain nameless, said, “Congratulations on the Gores. Now you’ll never get tenure since you’re branded as just a good teacher.” I was a little stunned, then thought, What a stupid thing to say. I knew what he meant, however. The situation has changed somewhat over the years, but great research universities tenure their faculty first and foremost on their research prowess. When I was an assistant professor, good teaching was interpreted by some as a sign that you were not sufficiently devoted to research. A junior faculty member couldn’t possibly be good at both.

  Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to let this sourpuss rain on my parade. “Oh yes,” I said. “I expect the book contract from Princeton University Press will help on that score.” He didn’t say anything in response.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Darkest Moment of My Life

  I STARTED 1985 with growing confidence in the direction of my career. Many young faculty are still trying to find a publisher for their initial book at the time of the third-year review. I was ahead of the game, having already published my first book and being well on the way to designing a second research project. I was granted a sabbatical and applied for and received a prestigious National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution. I was particularly pleased that I could take my sabbatical just a few paces across campus and did not have to move. Feeling quite comfortable, professionally and even
—thanks to a couple of raises—financially, I bought a car with my own money: a little rocket ship of a Buick that I named Misha, the Russian nickname for Mikhail Gorbachev. I thought I deserved a little break, and for the first time in three years, I decided to go home for Easter.

  A day or so into my visit, I was watching television in the den when my mother came in with obvious bruises on her arm and leg.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I fell down the basement stairs on the way to do the laundry,” she answered. “I’m getting clumsy in my old age. This is the second time this month!”

  I didn’t think much about it, assuming that she had just been careless. She also had a penchant for wearing high heels even when doing chores around the house. Maybe that was the explanation. I returned to Palo Alto after a lovely Easter and finished the quarter, planning to visit again sometime in the summer.

  A few days before the Fourth of July, though, my father called. His usually deep booming voice was shaking. “I think I need to take your mother to the doctor,” he said. “She keeps falling and she seems really forgetful. The other day she asked our neighbor about a friend of ours from Alabama who’s been dead for ten years.”

  July 5 was one of the darkest days of my life. Daddy called to say that Dr. Hamilton had taken an X-ray and there was a large mass on Mother’s brain. The doctors were sure that it was inoperable and cancerous. Ever since Mother’s breast cancer diagnosis, I’d feared this moment. Mother had lived long past the five-year point at which she was considered cured, and had done remarkably well. True, there had been a scare the year before when she’d required surgery to remove a small tumor on her lung. But she’d undergone follow-up chemotherapy during the summer of 1984 and had tolerated it well. She’d returned to work in the fall, and though I worried that the cancer, having returned once, might do so again, I buried that thought deep in my subconscious. Now I was faced with the worst possible news.