by Susan Rice
A grumpy but obliging civil servant, Mr. Michael Persons, met me at the passport office. He directed me to where I could get a photo taken and issued me a passport on the spot, demanding only, “Let me know how that do-or-die exam goes.” I am indebted to Mr. Persons but even more so to Mort and his wife, Sheppie, for saving my (academic) life.
I flew to London Sunday night, suffering a poor night’s sleep in a cramped coach seat, but made it back in time for the exam. Wearing my short black exam gown, I eventually found my desk among the scores arrayed in the large wood-paneled exam hall. Relieved just to be present, if not in top form, I did not ace the exam but scored well enough to continue toward my degree. Though I have always been a little uncomfortable with my mother’s readiness to importune the most powerful names in Washington, this time my mother’s chutzpah saved me. I could not help but admire her long tentacles and willingness to use them on my behalf. It was an object lesson in networking.
I completed my M.Phil. degree with no further drama. My first two years at Oxford were my favorites, giving me the chance to try rowing crew, join an African American–led gospel choir, and play on the Oxford women’s varsity basketball team. My game had improved considerably since high school—with more ball control and greater ability to see the whole court to set up plays. As the sole point guard, I started consistently and played throughout most games. Three of my teammates had been American college players, so we were pretty good, especially compared to the all-British teams.
I was pressed into performing in a major dramatic production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, produced by my good friend Terri Sewell. Terri convinced me I should play “The Lady in Blue.” A bad-ass role with a lot of lines, it allowed me to tap in to my dramatic side. The cast and crew became some of my best friends in Oxford. Terri has since taken her organizing talents to Congress where she represents the 7th District, known as the Black Belt, in Alabama. Bonnie St. John, a para-Olympian skier, parlayed her extraordinary resilience into a career as a motivational speaker and author, while Lisa Cook, an esteemed professor of economics, became another daughter to my parents and a devoted auntie to my children.
Back in the day, however, it was arguably Robyn Hadley who impressed me most with her total unabashedness. My favorite example was our dueling interest in a particularly attractive American guy. Robyn made it simple. In her North Carolina drawl, she laid down her terms: “I’m giving you FIVE weeks. If you ain’t on it, I’m ON it!” Appreciative of her grace, I suspected she probably knew she had me outmatched in guts. Sure enough, I was too reticent to hit on this man promptly and directly, and the weeks evaporated. Literally, five weeks to the day, Robyn was “on it,” and they dated for several months.
That small but tight-knit circle of African American women formed the closest thing I ever had to a sorority, which I otherwise shunned. For the first time, I became fully at ease with who I am as a black woman. Finding that core group of African American friends (men and women) at Oxford was gratifying and more than a little ironic, since England was also the place where I faced some of my most overt encounters with racism.
Racial animus in Britain then was bald, without the refinement and comparative subtlety of America’s version at the time. In this respect, living in England in the 1980s felt like the U.S. at least a generation prior. At New College where I lived and was a “member,” I was afforded full dining and library privileges, a tutor, and a single room cleaned daily by a “scout.” The “porters” manned the college gates and ensured that only members of the university and known guests were allowed to enter. Porters also handled mail, packages, and the pigeon post. In my early months, I had difficulty being deemed a rightful member of College. It was hard to discern the precise reason for this disparate treatment, because being black, female, or American alone could each test the reserve of the more snobbish Brits in Oxford. Representing all three rendered me a rare version of lower caste. The porters initially balked at handing me my mail, pretending that I did not (and could not) belong “to College.” The bursar (treasurer) was slow to allow me to charge items to my bill, known as “battles,” like any other member of College.
It was only after belatedly realizing I had to speak their English language—to harness the British class hierarchy to my benefit—that they stopped ignoring me and started treating me with respect. When next refused my mail, I finally spoke up in a clear, firm voice: “I am Susan Rice, a graduate member of this College. You will acknowledge my membership and ensure I get all my mail and other support from now on.” I did not add a “please” or “thank you,” because the implicit message I had to convey, however uncomfortable and unaccustomed, was “you are here to serve me.” It worked, and thereafter I never had difficulties at New College.
The outside world was another story. While most English people I encountered were pleasant, or at least civil, there were some notable exceptions, like the Oxford city bus driver who slapped my hand sharply and chastised me loudly for taking my coins out of what was apparently the wrong side of the till: “You wait until I move the coins to the other side,” he snapped. I was so surprised that I failed to react with appropriate indignation; yet I was sure he would not have struck a “typical” Oxford student.
Off the basketball court and outside the library, I stayed involved in the anti-apartheid movement. At Oxford, I had the great fortune of joining forces with black and white students from South Africa who had firsthand knowledge of the fight we were waging. Back home, over the summer, I brought my activism to my “other mother” Peggy Cooper Cafritz’s dinner table in the Hamptons. Peggy’s stimulating gatherings often included artists, actors, and other celebrities.
One night, Johnny and I joined her when she hosted the musician Paul Simon, who had recently released his album Graceland, which was partially recorded in South Africa. The album drew heavily on the musical talents of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and other black township artists who were relatively unknown in the U.S. Graceland was spectacular, and no one did more to expose Western audiences to South African musicians than Paul Simon.
At one point there was a lull in the conversation, and I dared to raise the issue of his decision to violate the cultural boycott, when many artists, performers, and companies of conscience were avoiding apartheid South Africa. With a hint of indignation, I asked, “Why did you have to record inside South Africa and bring tax revenue and legitimacy to the Boers?” Obviously sick of this critique, he responded civilly but impatiently, stressing the prominence he brought to South African artists.
I persisted, “Why couldn’t you have flown the same South African artists abroad to record the whole album outside the country?” My willingness to provoke a debate and readiness to stand up for what I believe in, without regard for the consequences, made for an uncomfortable patch in the dinner, though nothing irreparable. Not persuaded by his argument, I still love that album.
From Oxford, I traveled widely throughout the U.K. and to Spain, Portugal, and Greece. In June 1987, a small group of Oxford friends and I also visited Moscow and Leningrad. The Soviet Union was still classically communist, and student trips were highly regulated, circumscribed experiences. We saw the Kremlin, Lenin’s tomb, Red Square, Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, and enjoyed the Hermitage and the midnight sun in Leningrad. On the streets, we bought old-style Stalinist posters and comrade clothing. It was a fascinating glimpse of the ruthless Soviet system before it collapsed.
Later that same summer, Ian and I backpacked through China for a month, which had barely begun opening to the West, the only tangible evidence being an inaugural Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant off Tiananmen Square. There were few cars. Bikes and Mao suits were omnipresent. Little kids peed on the streets, squatting effortlessly in their bottom-less pants, and adults blew their snot onto the sidewalks as they speed-walked.
We began our low-budget journey in Hong Kong, flew to Beijing, and then made our way thro
ugh much of the country by train, bus, plane, and boat. Arriving late at night at Beijing’s airport without a hotel reservation, we were saved by puzzled Chinese eager to practice snippets of English and tell us where we could sleep. In Beijing, we visited the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, Mao’s mausoleum, and the Great Wall. Staying in cheap guesthouses and hostels, we traveled to Xi’an, Shanghai, Guilin, and Guangzhou.
With only a few words of poor Chinese to deploy, Ian and I patiently managed with gestures, our fascination with the country far outweighing our frustration. We came across numerous Chinese whose English was passable and were eager to engage an unusual short brown person coupled with a giant, skinny white guy. In this way, we encountered the Beijing Work Unit women’s basketball team, who invited us to shoot hoops, discuss education, and take photographs. We found rural residents eager to show us around their villages. Naively, I wrote to my dad in a postcard, “Everything seems so open. It’s very easy to forget you are in a communist country—no omnipresent military or police. People are open and helpful.”
After four weeks, Ian had to leave, and I spent my final week visiting my close friend from National Cathedral School, Andrea Worden, who was teaching English in Changsha, Hunan province. Accustomed to few U.S. visitors, Andrea was delighted to welcome me to her small apartment, to play basketball with her students, and show me “normal” Chinese life off the beaten tourist path.
Our China trip was eye-opening, exposing us to rural and urban poverty of the sort we had not before seen, to China’s profound history and culture, and to its seemingly long distance from achieving its evident potential. Ian and I proved that our relationship could endure the stress and intensity of a challenging trip and that, after years apart, we still enjoyed being together. Traveling rough in a deeply unfamiliar place with no language facility and little money was invaluable for building my confidence that I could go almost anywhere, adapt, and even thrive in very foreign lands.
Back at Oxford for my second year, Ian came to study for his master’s degree in international relations at the London School of Economics, getting to know my Oxford friends. My return visits enabled us to explore London together. My Oxford years marked a significant chapter in my intellectual and social development. Had Ian and I not been able to share considerable portions of that experience, I wonder if our relationship would have endured.
At the end of my second year, I faced a major decision: should I return to the U.S. and attend law school, as planned; or stay at Oxford and convert my master’s thesis into a doctoral dissertation on the role of the Commonwealth in the transition of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe? I was interested in doing more primary research, interviewing as many of the living protagonists as possible, and learning about how majority rule can emerge through peaceful means after a long, armed struggle, mindful of Zimbabwe’s potential lessons for South Africa. I had taken the LSAT and still envisioned becoming an advocate for racial, social, or economic justice in the U.S. International relations was meant to broaden me, not become my destination.
“How many black lawyers do you know?”
“Tons,” I replied, as I looked over my plate at Eleanor Holmes Norton. I was fortunate to be having lunch with Eleanor, who was then professor of Law at Georgetown University and since has been D.C.’s delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She pressed on: “And how many black PhDs in international relations do you know?” I couldn’t come up with any on the spot.
She continued to march me methodically through her logic. “How much do you enjoy your research?” Swiftly, I replied, “I love the topic and would welcome the chance to go to Zimbabwe to pursue field research.”
“And, how old would you be when you are done with your dissertation?”
“Twenty-five,” I said, expecting to be able to complete it within two more years.
“Well,” Eleanor concluded, “if you love it, you should do it. Black PhDs in your field are rare. Black lawyers are a dime a dozen. If you finish your doctorate and still want to go to law school, you will only be twenty-five and have plenty of time to do so. I’d recommend you stay and get your degree.”
Sold. I would get my doctorate in international relations. It seemed a minor deviation on my path at the time. But it turned out to be consequential.
At Oxford, I encountered plenty of ambitious Americans, several of whom wanted political careers. Though admiring their chutzpah, with time for self-examination I realized that I was not among them. Despite caring deeply about policy, I didn’t have the patience or obsequiousness to run for office and was not keen on compromising my principles. Already disgusted by the growing role of money in politics and not good at asking others for help, I could not see constantly fundraising for myself rather than for a good cause.
Nonetheless, I took a few months’ break from Oxford to work on the 1988 Democratic presidential campaign. Having completed my master’s degree, I contacted Madeleine Albright, who had been kind to me since childhood. In the intervening years, she had obtained her PhD, worked for Senator Edmund Muskie, and served in the Carter White House on the NSC staff. Now a senior foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, Albright helped me get a job as a foreign policy aide on the campaign’s Issues Staff, covering Africa, Latin America, Ireland, parts of Asia, and aspects of international trade. My role was to liaise with outside experts, write policy papers and press guidance, fill out questionnaires from interest groups, and draft briefing memos for the candidate.
It was on the Michael Dukakis–Lloyd Bentsen campaign that I first worked with friends who would remain colleagues for the next twenty-five years: Gene Sperling, who later became national economic advisor; Sylvia Mathews (now Burwell), a close Oxford friend who rose to director of the Office of Management and Budget and secretary of health and human services; Michael Barr, another Oxford buddy who served as an assistant secretary of Treasury; and Nancy Soderberg, who went on to be staff director of the Clinton National Security Council and later alternate representative at the U.S. Mission to the U.N.
Together, we suffered through a depressing campaign marked by the racist Willie Horton ads run by Vice President George H. W. Bush and by a Democratic nominee who made memorable mistakes like riding as a short man in a tank with an oversized combat helmet. As November approached, it became clear we were going to lose badly. The campaign manager cleared out the headquarters, sending almost all of us away to get out the vote. I stumped in Prince George’s County, Maryland, near home, enduring my first, but not last, soul-crushing losing campaign. While laid up in bed with a vicious flu for almost three weeks after our defeat, I cemented my view that electoral politics were not my thing. I would do policy.
After the campaign, I returned to Oxford and completed my PhD within two years, in December 1990. I delved into rich archival collections in Oxford and London and spent over a month doing field research in Zimbabwe, interviewing protagonists from both the government and opposition. I loved Zimbabwe, a spectacularly beautiful country with its red Flamboyant and lavender Jacaranda trees, impossibly balancing rocks, and a near perfect climate. In 1989, Zimbabwe was still comparatively prosperous and well-run, as its venal president Robert Mugabe had not yet become a complete autocrat who ruined the economy through extreme corruption and by seizing land from white farmers.
I was fortunate to have a fantastic thesis advisor, a renowned Oxford historian of Africa named Anthony Kirk-Greene. He was expert especially on Nigeria but had served as a British election official in Zimbabwe during the period I was studying. He guided me deftly through the dissertation process, which was leavened by his friendship, good wine, and convivial dinners at home with his lovely wife, Helen.
The advice Eleanor Holmes Norton gave me was excellent. Completing my dissertation is still the closest thing to giving birth I have experienced. Carrying the baby is often harder than the delivery, but the sense of joy and accomplishment
when it comes is enormous. To add to the gratification, my thesis, “The Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979–1980: Implications for International Peacekeeping,” won the 1991 Chatham House–British International Studies Association Award for the most distinguished doctoral dissertation in international relations in the U.K. Once finished with my PhD, I was ready to be done with academia, including law school. I often wonder where I would have ended up had I continued on my original path. Sometimes I still think I missed my calling as a litigator.
My research trip to Zimbabwe, my first to Sub-Saharan Africa, whetted my appetite for more. After defending my dissertation, Ian and I set off in January 1991 on a month-long trip to Senegal, Niger, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. As in China, we backpacked on a limited budget, but the infrastructure and accommodations in West Africa were far more rudimentary. The exception was Niger, where we stayed with my cousin, Valerie Dickson-Horton, who was the mission director for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Niger—the arid land of the mysterious indigo-dyed, turbaned Tuareg traders—was fascinating. In Senegal, we traveled from Dakar and Goree Island to the Casamance in the south and to the Parc des Oiseaux on the northern border with Mauritania, where we were when the Gulf War began. Travel, which was mainly by bush taxi, was rough, and the poverty in Saint-Louis, the major city of the north, still stands out as among the worst I’ve seen. Raw sewage poured through trash-clogged streets, and most houses were made only of rickety sticks and mud.
In colorful, vibrant Ghana, we visited Accra, the slave castles on the Gold Coast, as well as the Ashanti heartland in Kumasi. Then the crown jewel of the former French West African empire, Côte d’Ivoire’s economic capital, Abidjan, boasted fresh baguettes, the fancy Hotel Ivoire with its indoor ice-skating rink, and wealthy Frenchmen. Throughout our travels, we bought art that still adorns our house—batiks, metal and wooden sculpture, kente clothe, and Tuareg silver. The trip was the most interesting and taxing we have taken and reaffirmed that Ian and I could still manage together in challenging and unfamiliar circumstances.