I was in Boston when United States Secretary of State Rice delivered the commencement address at Boston University last month where dozens of students and professors turned their backs on her.
One must admit – as her archrivals and critics do – the power that she wields. Her biography, Condi, The Condoleezza Rice Story written by Antonia Felix, several other books, and stories about her on the Internet, reveal her mental acuity, political savvy, passion for academic excellence, and expertise on Soviet and Middle East affairs that have endeared her to the leader of the world’s largest superpower.
She is the first African-American woman to become US Secretary of State, and has also served two other US presidents – George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
She was appointed to the Cabinet position by George the son, January 26, 2005, after a four-year role as national security adviser wherein she played a key behind-the-scenes role in all of Bush’s major decisions. "During the last four years, I’ve relied on her counsel, benefited from her great experience and appreciated her sound and steady judgment," Bush said when announcing Rice’s promotion.
Condi joined George W.’s presidential campaign as his foreign policy advisor, six years before she was named his national security advisor. At 40, Condi had already become a major figure in her field and those who followed her career anticipated that she would one day appear on the national political stage. She would not disappoint, wrote Antonia Felix.
Earlier, at age 36, she was President George H. W. Bush’s top advisor on the Soviet Union, helping write US policy through the unification of Germany and the end of the Cold War. The senior Bush, who was very impressed with Condi, insisted that she meet his son, and she did, and they became close friends.
When George W. Bush, wrote Felix, began pulling together his presidential campaign, Condi was invited to put her expertise to work for him. She became head tutor among the candidate’s foreign policy experts, head writer of the nuclear strategy speech, and front-and-center figure in the ‘W is for Women’ campaign. "By the time it was all over, George W. went a step further. He asked her to stay at his side as his national security advisor. He pulled her all the way into the West Wing, just around the corner and down the hall from the Oval Office." Last year, he made her his Secretary of State, a position previously held by another woman, Madeleine Albright.
According to writer Tatiana Serain, "Bush needs her (Rice) now more than ever, as his approval ratings and credibility sag, his domestic agenda is stalled, and the country grows more bitterly divided over the war in Iraq.
"With her steely nerve and delicate manners (she has been called the ‘Warrior Princess’), Rice lately has reinvigorated her position with diplomatic activism, whether it’s promoting Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to ease the Palestinian conflict, or encouraging weapons, or trying to stop Sudan’s genocide – to the point where her diplomatic party was recently roughed up by Sudan’s strongmen. Rice also has close relationships with world leaders, having accompanied the president on numerous trips to Europe and Iraq."
From time to time, Condi ran into problems as a black/female minority within the foreign policy ranks, writes Antonia Felix. When the Russian leader Gorbachev made his first visit across the US in June 1990, for example, Condi was chosen to lead the American delegation that escorted him to various cities. At the airport in San Francisco, a secret service agent tried to prevent her from stepping out onto the tarmac with the rest of the group. "He was right in my face in a confrontational way," Condi said. "And that provokes a confrontational attitude from me." She later said she is "no shrinking violet."
Another episode that illustrates the sexism that any woman is likely to face in the world of international relations came years later when Condi went on an official visit to Israel. Ariel Sharon, then a candidate for prime minister, told journalists, "I have to confess, it was hard for me to concentrate in the conversation with Condoleezza Rice because she has very nice legs."
Condi was born on Nov. 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, which in the 1950s and 1960s was the most segregated city in the South and a focal point of the Civil Rights movement. Her father, a Presbyterian minister, instilled in his precocious daughter a passionate love for learning (Condi was reading at age 5) and a striving for excellence not because she was black but to excel as her own person. Her mother (who was always smartly dressed and beautiful) was a pianist. Condi became an excellent pianist (as well as a tennis player), performing in the White House with celebrated chamber musicians in spite of her numerous, sensitive tasks.
At first she wanted to become a pianist but she shifted to specializing in Soviet studies in which her unquestioned expertise led to her White House appointments. She has a bachelor’s in political science cum laude and Phi Betta Kappa from the University of Denver in 1974; a master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been given honorary doctorates by a number of colleges and universities.
Her involvements extend beyond foreign policy-making. From 1993 to 1999, she was Stanford University’s provost, during which she was the institution’s chief budget officer and academic officer. As provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1.400 faculty members and 14,000 students. Also at Stanford, she served as political science professor and was conferred the highest teaching honors there.
She has published books on the Soviet Union and the transformation of Europe, and has served as a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European and the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition, and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco, among many others.
That Condoleeza Rice is a figure to contend with is evident in the proposition of several organizations that she run for the US presidency. An unofficial website proclaims: "Condoleezza Rice for President 2008, which might not be a long-shot idea. But a run by Rice for the presidency would make history in the US."
A friend of mine from Harvard told me Rice "has mixed reviews because she is so tied to the Bush administration." The war in Iraq, she said, has resulted in Bush’s 35 percent rating at the polls, and Rice’s having been the National Security Adviser at the outbreak of the war and her position as Secretary of State make her "complicit in politics that have misguided the American public regarding the reasons for the conduct of the war."
"In a recent interview with several highly-credentialed African women, the phrase ‘anxious identification’ was used," my friend continued. "They were delighted seeing the first African American woman as Secretary of State, but they are against what she represents. She and the rest of her cohorts will be retired and writing their misbegotten memoirs while this war in the Middle East will haunt the country for many more years, like Vietnam. At the present time, soldiers have been killed, more are being killed, more than 18,000 have been wounded, and trillions of dollars will be spent at a time when the national debt is sinking the country."