Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir

by Christopher R. Hill

  I arrived in Kwangju that day to attend the opening of a small American culture center within the local university (the rector of the university wanted to keep the announcement low-key). I then spent two hours at Kwangju’s art “Biennale” admiring modern sculpture and multimedia painting, but I was thinking about the cemetery and hoping that the secret had held. At about 5 P.M., accompanied by a single police car, we drove to the cemetery.

  The embassy staff assistant, Matthew Cenzer, was waiting at the entrance and had told the cemetery director to expect me. When we arrived, the sun was fast setting behind the hills, and no one else was there. I took a tour of the cemetery, paid respect at the main memorial, and in the visitor book left a message: “I am here with great respect—and great sorrow—for the memory of these brave victims. May they always be remembered and may their memory inspire us all.”

  Well, almost no one else was there. A “citizen reporter” from the leftist online news outlet Ohmy Daily had followed our car and learned of our destination by monitoring the police radio. He had a small digital camera.

  The next day, Ohmy had the scoop, and by Saturday morning all Korea’s major dailies had Ohmy’s pictures of an American ambassador paying respect to the victims whose deaths are remembered by many in Korea as part of the crucible of democracy. Many other factors had helped put the United States on the right side of history in Korea’s democratic transition, but this example of what would later be called by the much-hackneyed phrase “public diplomacy” helped. Mike Sohn told me, “I think this has helped Korea and the United States turn an important corner.”

  • • •

  Several months later, in early December 2004, I stood in a narrow West Wing hallway waiting to meet with Steve Hadley, the incoming national security advisor, who would soon be moving to the office previously held by Condi Rice. I was visiting from Korea, and Washington was in the midst of its quadrennial changing of the guard known as a presidential transition. It was a transition between terms but there was a sense that the second term would be very unlike the Bush first term, perhaps as dramatic as from one president to another. The administration was adrift in a sea of crises that seemed to offer no respite. There was an understanding that despite the supposed mandate President Bush had won over John Kerry a month before in a bruising campaign, the administration might have taken on in that first term more than it could chew. The Iraq War was proving to be a far more difficult undertaking than its supporters and cheerleaders had suggested. And while the Afghan War seemed to be going as well as could be expected, our continued investment there in blood and treasure and more blood had failed to bag Osama bin Laden, much less put Afghanistan on a better path.

  Iraq was foremost on everyone’s minds. The “historic” (a favorite word of any administration) elections there had gone reasonably well. Pictures of smiling voters holding up their ink-stained index fingers were supposed to attest to that. But in fact, these iconic images of nascent democracy were inspiring only to those who did not understand what was actually going on or where the true fault lines in Iraq lay. Iraq was on its way to becoming a thoroughly divided society. Those who understood those forces knew well what was in store during the second term.

  Steve Hadley emerged from his office and explained that we would have the meeting in Condoleezza Rice’s office, because she wanted to join us when she returned from another appointment. I was in Washington doing what many of my ambassadorial colleagues were doing during the lull after an election. I was to give an update on the fast-changing scene in South Korea, and to offer some thoughts and perhaps advice about the desultory pace of the North Korean negotiations from the point of view of Seoul. I was planning to share my ideas of how the negotiations could be improved. I had no idea that the incoming secretary of state wanted to take part in such a routine meeting with a visiting ambassador. I soon learned.

  As Steve and I sat down on the couch and side chair, Rice entered the office, apologizing for being late (the apology rather unnecessary, I thought, as I had never expected to see her in the first place), and sat across from me. She got quickly to the point:

  “This administration has fought two wars, and now we are looking for a few diplomats.”

  What a nice way to start a meeting, I thought, my mind racing ahead to try to figure out what this was all about.

  Within about thirty seconds she slipped into her first sports metaphor. Given what I knew about her love of sports, I was surprised it took that long. I enjoy sports metaphors, with the understanding they have to be buried when one is overseas. Expressions like “can’t get around on a fastball anymore” don’t really work with a Kosovo insurgent. But I was back in Washington, and understood quickly what she was getting at when she deployed an expression from the NFL draft day.

  “We are looking to draft and sign the best athletes regardless of their position,” Hadley added, though I had the impression that Rice knew a lot more about the NFL draft than he did.

  Condi then asked, “So what would you think about becoming assistant secretary of East Asia and being the U.S. negotiator to the Six Party Talks?” Assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs is one of the best jobs in Washington. The pictures that adorned the front office of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau in the State Department, showing the thoughtful officials who have held the job since it was created in 1908—Averell Harriman, Dean Rusk, Philip Habib, Richard Holbrooke, Winston Lord—were a who’s who of superb diplomats whose work had been instrumental in defining America’s relations with that part of the world. What an honor to be thought of in such terms.

  In a perfect world, I like to think overnight about job offers. But sitting with the incoming secretary of state and incoming national security advisor didn’t seem like a good time to say I needed time to think about it.

  “I’d be very honored to serve in that position,” I said, my heart momentarily sinking as I thought about all the friends and contacts I was making during my first few months in South Korea. Seoul is one of the most vibrant cities in the world, full of political and economic life, and fast developing a cultural life that is the envy of Asia. My family and I loved living there, but I knew that sooner or later I would leave anyway. The beautiful residence wasn’t my own home, and though pleasant, it was a little like living in a hotel suite. My mind quickly moved from life in Seoul back to the conversation with Rice and Hadley.

  I told them, “We have paid a price among the South Koreans for what is perceived as a reluctance to negotiate. I’m a huge supporter of the Six Party approach, but in that framework we need to be willing to sit down and talk with the North Koreans. It is not all about our relations with North Korea; I doubt we’ll ever have one or even need to have one. It is about our other relationships in the region, especially with the South Koreans, where based on what I was seeing in Seoul, it could use a little refreshing.” I stopped to gauge the reaction.

  “That won’t be a problem,” Condi said. “The president understands that and understands that we also need to develop some more effective patterns of cooperation in the region.”

  She had me at “patterns of cooperation.” It was an expression that summarized for me much of what diplomacy was about. I loved the idea of sitting with these two key figures in the Bush administration, a presidency that for many critics symbolized what was wrong with our country, still heady from the triumphalism that followed the victory over the Soviet Union, and more recently engaging in what to many critics was a classic case of imperial overreach. Both Hadley and Rice were warm, modest, extremely well mannered, and thoroughly committed to diplomacy as the way forward. I could definitely sign on to this new term, I thought.

  Importantly, it seemed even then in December 2004 that the era of the neoconservatives, the aggressive, America-as-empire group of foreign policy specialists, led by John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz, was receding with every policy failure. Wolfowitz himself, a cerebral policy maven who had a reputation as an expert on the Midd
le East, was the author of the fantasy that an imposed democracy in Shia-majority Iraq (the only Shia-controlled country in the Middle East) would start a democratic brushfire across the region, eventually creating a benign environment for Israel. He had help in creating these fantasies. The number three at the Pentagon, Doug Feith (famously dubbed by U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM] commander General Tommy Franks as the stupidest person in the world), was another card-carrying neocon. I had met Feith in Dayton during the final days of the negotiations, when he interceded as a consultant to the Bosnian government negotiating team, cheerfully advising the Bosnians to hold out for more military assistance before they signed. Feith was replaced early in the Bush second term by Eric Edelman, a former Foreign Service officer who while working in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office arranged to be named as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, where his ideological opinionating appeared to do little to endear himself to that difficult regime.

  The neocons were aided and abetted by Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, neither of whom was known to have an ideological cast, but believing as the neocons did in a U.S. manifest destiny. Rumsfeld seemed to me to be an old-fashioned Midwestern conservative, with one huge difference: he had an ego the size of Mount Rushmore.

  I had seen Rumsfeld in action when he came to Poland. First, he told his advance staff he didn’t want the ambassador to greet him at the airport, a normal courtesy that an ambassador would dispense with at some personal peril. When I told his advance team that I did indeed plan to meet him at the airport, I could see the looks of panic descend over their faces: “But, sir, he doesn’t want you there,” a formulation that could have used some refinement.

  “But I must be there,” I responded. “Did you know,” I continued to the three advance persons as I sat behind my desk on the top floor of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, “that as the president’s representative I actually outrank the secretary of defense so long as he is in Poland?” I could see their looks of panic as it began to dawn on them that I might in fact be as arrogant as their boss. “If I want to be at the airport to greet the secretary, I’ll be there. It’s as simple as that,” I said, trying to remove from them any thought that they had the power to convince me otherwise.

  “Now that we have resolved that,” I went on, “could you tell me what the plan is for lunch?” In fact, Rumsfeld’s entire visit to Poland, one of America’s only fighting allies in the Iraq War, would take less than twenty hours, from late-night arrival to early evening departure.

  “Sir, we have five scenarios for him to choose from.”

  “Five?! Name ’em!” I had met many advance teams for senior official visits, including presidents, but never one that was unable to limit the number of options for lunch to some reasonable number, such as two. It was pure fear on their part. Either that, or Rumsfeld sure cared a lot about how he had lunch.

  “Well, sir,” the advance staffer said, glancing at his notes, “he has the option of having lunch alone in his suite. He might also enjoy lunch with his senior staff. Or he might have a private lunch with the Polish defense minister. That’s number three. Alternatively, he might make a visit to a Warsaw restaurant. We have several places in mind that we have identified as suitable. And finally, there might be a large early evening banquet hosted by the Poles.” I tried to think of a sixth or seventh option, but I left it at that. (Rumsfeld eventually chose to have lunch in his suite with his senior staff.)

  • • •

  Condi and Steve were cut from entirely different cloth, and I could see that the second term would consist of a far more pragmatic group of officials, starting with them. There would continue to be neocon dead-enders, but their day was very much over. Little did I know then how hard they would continue to fight. With Iraq and Afghanistan policy largely shifted over to finding the pragmatic identifying endgame strategies for getting out, they would essentially try to make North Korea their final battle.

  I left the West Wing realizing that I hadn’t nailed down the next steps. Would they call me? Was I supposed to call someone? I decided to let things run their course. It is never good to look unctuous or anxious. I had indicated my willingness to serve in any position they wanted, and that was the impression I wanted to leave with them. Besides, if I stayed in Korea, that would have been fine as well. I walked from Seventeenth Street over to the State Department on Twenty-First Street, where I had a string of appointments starting with Secretary Colin Powell.

  At the State Department, already feeling bludgeoned by the first term of the Bush administration, there was a fear and foreboding that the worst was yet to come with the departure of Colin Powell and the arrival of Condi Rice and an expected retinue of staff from her National Security Council.

  During his four years at State, Secretary Powell had endeared himself to the Foreign Service as few before him. He knew how to earn loyalty and respect with an easygoing manner, walking around the building and casually dropping in on stunned but delighted desk officers, as well as venturing down to the first floor to stand in the cafeteria line and, in army tradition, making jokes about the food. Foreign visitors were in for a treat when they visited Secretary Powell. He welcomed them like long-lost friends he had been anxiously waiting to meet again (when in fact he sometimes barely had had a second to glance at the briefing materials ahead of time). Powell often exceeded the time allotted for a meeting (visitors enjoyed recording that fact, since running long suggested Powell had enjoyed the meeting), and then he would personally escort the foreign visitor down the elevator to the C Street ceremonial exit of the building, the way most foreign ministers would treat their own guests, but which until then was done only for very special senior visitors to the State Department.

  Powell worked budget issues in the Congress with briefing skills that he had honed through his decades of military and public service. He looked after the “troops,” personally taking it upon himself to make sure everyone had access to the Internet on their own desks, a technological breakthrough in the State Department. It may have been on its way to being done anyway, but he got the credit for it, and why not? He seemed to care. Apart from a few friends he brought with him from military days, he made sure he signed up the best and the brightest—and placed some of the most operationally gifted of Foreign Service officers in key positions. He also unfailingly found time to meet with visiting U.S. ambassadors in from their far-flung posts. That was the reason I was there.

  Despite his enormous popularity, there was a perception among many senior Foreign Service officers that Powell was not as influential with President Bush as his experience and talent should have made him. In turf battles with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld he often seemed to come out second best and was viciously attacked in the conservative press. The liberal media liked him but damned him with faint praise by bemoaning that he was outnumbered and outflanked. I had noticed during visits back from Poland that Powell seemed frustrated and felt marginalized with the president and his team. Once I saw Powell in private conversation with the president defending Assistant Secretary Jim Kelly, his North Korea negotiator, against accusations that he had somehow been too soft in his dealings with the North Koreans. Kelly was still in the field and was already being criticized for the work he was doing. I thoroughly admired Powell for sticking up for him (not every senior official always does in Washington), but I had to reflect on the fact that he felt he had to do so directly with the president.

  Two years before, in 2002, when I was back from Poland with President Kwasniewski, I told Powell that Kwasniewski planned to use some of his precious time with the president in the Oval Office to warn him about the dangers of the planned invasion of Iraq. I sat next to Powell in his car as we made our way over to the White House for the meeting. Powell made clear his own strong misgivings about the war and in particular his disgust at the war fever then raging in Washington. This was a man with an understanding of something most people in Washington have no idea about, but on Kwasniewski he could only offer the somewh
at cynical observation that many come to the Oval Office with plans to be bold, but once in front of the president they behave quite differently. I felt while listening to Powell that there was also a note of his own frustrations dealing with elements of the government busily applying war paint. When Kwasniewski actually followed through I looked over to Powell during the meeting. The Polish president expressed friendship and solidarity with the president, but forcefully laid out his concerns about the plethora of logistical issues our troops would encounter after the inevitable military triumph. Powell’s only postmeeting comment was to remark that the Polish president had indeed followed through, but that it would do no good anyway.

  Later, I could not help but recall his strong view that the war in Iraq would be a mistake, against the light of his February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council, in which he used his extraordinary communication skills to make the case for war as he held up a vial of anthrax. He had deployed his persuasive powers to make the case for something I knew he did not believe in. I wondered if I could do such a thing with such persuasiveness. I hoped not. Powell would later explain that he had rejected 85 percent of what he had been told by the briefers preparing him for the United Nations appearance. It is a useful reminder that when someone tells you something that you know is already 85 percent inaccurate, there is not much reason to be confident in the remaining 15 percent, either.