Tough Love

by Susan Rice

While Obama believed deeply in the utility of multilateral action, in truth he was not as enthusiastic about the U.N. as some perceived. When announcing my nomination, President-elect Obama signaled publicly his tough love approach to the U.N., stressing: “We need the United Nations to be more effective as a venue for collective action against terror and proliferation, climate change and genocide, poverty and disease.” No romantic in any policy context, the president was rightly impatient with the sprawling and constipated U.N. bureaucracy and its capacity for waste and abuse. As ardent a proponent of U.N. reform as any of the institution’s critics, Obama viewed America’s role as to pressure and support the U.N. to become leaner, increasingly efficient, and worthy of American taxpayer dollars. As his permanent representative, I often felt that President Obama tolerated the U.N. more than he appreciated it, but he allowed me to do the necessary work to advance American interests. At the same time, Obama rightly insisted that the U.S. pay its U.N. dues in full and on time and succeeded in working with Congress to ensure our commitments were fulfilled—something that had been far more difficult in the 1990s during President Clinton’s tenure.

  Throughout my time in New York, I benefited from being perceived as close to President Obama and a reliable and faithful representative of the White House. I had the advantage of being in the president’s cabinet and a member of the National Security Council Principals Committee (PC). This meant that I was not just spouting the president’s line; I was intimately involved in the decision making and fully understood the rationale behind our policies. I had an independent voice and a vote at the PC table, which I attended via secure videoconference from New York, or in person in Washington when I could.

  The inclusion of the U.N. ambassador in the cabinet is a tradition dating back to President Eisenhower when he appointed Henry Cabot Lodge. It endured, except under President George H. W. Bush, who had served as U.N. ambassador, and later George W. Bush, who both required the U.N. ambassador to report to the secretary of state through the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.

  It is a tricky balancing act to play the dual role of member of the cabinet and the PC, reporting to the president on the one hand, while serving (at least technically) as an instructed ambassador reporting to the secretary of state (like all other ambassadors) on the other hand. As was the custom with most of my predecessors, I had an office with a small staff in D.C. This team led by my highly capable and, if necessary, sharp-elbowed deputy, Erica Barks-Ruggles, and later by the unflappable, efficient Rexon Ryu, worked the State Department bureaucracy to ensure that the instructions I received were ones I could execute in good conscience. When, occasionally, there were significant policy differences to resolve, such as whether the U.S. should rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council, I could escalate the argument to the secretary of state or the White House if need be. It took some time and a bit of bureaucratic boxing to restore the U.N. ambassador’s position from its subordinated role during the Bush years.

  An early challenge was to establish my relationships with the other principals and, above all, with Secretary Clinton. Given the bruises of the primary season and my decision to join the Obama campaign, ours could have been a fraught, even contentious relationship. Initially, a couple of people on Clinton’s personal staff seemed intent on punishing me through selective leaks to the press about my leadership style or relationships within the State Department. But Hillary herself was always a good colleague and effective partner.

  We had a standing, half-hour, one-on-one Friday morning meeting in her office at State when we were both in town. Secretary Clinton would often begin the meetings by asking, “How’s your family doing?” We would then turn to hot topics in New York and whether I needed help, which she never failed to provide, if requested. On one occasion early in the administration, I asked for her view on a leading candidate for a senior U.N. position, a person she had known previously as a high-ranking foreign official. Caustically, Clinton joked that the prospective candidate “would be the last cockroach to crawl out from underground after nuclear winter.” I was impressed.

  In our weekly meetings, we would also discuss issues on the Principals Committee agenda as well as personnel matters, and compare our takes on consequential meetings. She was always down-to-earth and forthcoming, civil, and friendly. The secretary was good to me over our four years, and I always admired and appreciated her professionalism. Beyond that, she was generous personally—especially with her concern about my parents’ health challenges, how the kids were faring in my absence, and, later, how I was enduring after I came under attack for Benghazi.

  One inclement Monday morning in February 2009, roads and runways in D.C. were extremely icy, and my flight to New York was canceled. By this point, I had more or less adjusted to the demands of the commute, and knew, when I stepped out of my house, that my intrepid Diplomatic Security detail would have an alternate plan to get me to my job on time.

  As U.N. ambassador, the State Department assigned me a team of DS agents in New York and D.C. DS typically protects the secretary of state, visiting foreign ministers, and the U.N. ambassador, while Secret Service protects the president, vice president, their families, select White House personnel, the secretaries of treasury and homeland security, and visiting heads of state. Whether at work or at home, DS accompanied me everywhere. Doctors’ offices, kids’ schools, vacations. It could get awkward—particularly when the family was involved—to have extra people with us whether we wanted them there or not. After all, meting out discipline to a misbehaving child, getting annoyed with your spouse, or holding vigil at the hospital with a sick parent can be uncomfortable with an audience present. Yet the DS agents were always discreet, helpful, and supportive and, with time, they came to know my kids and parents well. Indeed, it became a too-frequent trauma when agents my kids loved were suddenly rotated off my detail—sometimes without the opportunity for a proper goodbye.

  Even though I grew close to my agents, at the start of my tenure my lead agent in Washington proved to be a challenge. Opposed to any familiarity, old-school, from the tradition of not speaking unless spoken to, he had a distant, business-only demeanor and, as I later found out, forbade all other agents to talk to me. That wasn’t going to work for me because, if I have to let unfamiliar men (or an occasional woman) into my most personal life, I want to know who they are, where they come from, and to engage with them as normal human beings. Early on, I realized this first lead agent in Washington was not a fit for me, but in that initial month I hadn’t yet figured out how to solve the problem without breaking a lot of crockery at State.

  On that February morning, when my flight was canceled, and I stepped outside, expecting to jump into the black Suburban, it was nowhere in sight. Instead, I spotted the lead agent gingerly walking down from the top of our street. When he reached me, he said, “Ma’am, because of the ice, we need to walk up to the intersection to meet the car.” I didn’t think twice about it, and we made our way to the car and off to Union Station for the nearly three-hour train ride to New York.

  Later that day, my New York press team alerted me that a local Fox News crew was on my block in D.C. filming the aftermath of an accident involving Diplomatic Security. “What accident?” I asked. Alex Wolff, along with the chief of security at the U.S. Mission, kept everything matter-of-fact and to-the-point as he gave me the whole story. The Washington lead agent had instructed the DS driver that morning to pick me up in front of the house as normal. Instead of driving up from the bottom of my one-block icy street, they drove down from the top. The heavy, armored SUV lost traction and slid at some pace down the hill, crashing into a neighbor’s Mercedes. The DS lead agent failed to tell me or my neighbors and took me to the train as if nothing happened. Somehow, Fox got wind, and it was a story before either I or Ian had even heard about it.

  Incredulous, I immediately wanted to know, “Are you telling me that the lead agent withheld important information from me, failed to info
rm the police and our neighbors, and now has implicated me in leaving the scene of a crime?” Apparently so.

  That was the last I had to deal with that lead agent, so one early problem was solved. When I returned from New York that Thursday night, I deposited a case of nice wine on my neighbor’s doorstep. DS paid for repairs to their car. End of that story.

  From then on, I never had anything but the best experiences with the dedicated DS agents, especially the only one, David Millet, who remained on my detail from the very start to the finish of my tenure.

  Aside from travel concerns and adapting to a full-time security detail that followed me everywhere, I also had to adjust to certain challenges of living in two cities—starting with the basics of having clothing and toiletries in both places. The U.N. ambassador’s residence for sixty-plus years was on the top (forty-second) floor of the Waldorf-Astoria Towers on Park Avenue, a fifteen-minute walk or five-minute drive to the U.N. When I first moved into the residence—known at the U.S. Mission as “the WAT”—I appreciated the impressive four-bedroom apartment, huge by New York standards, with soaring views, ornate high ceilings, a chef’s kitchen, a large foyer, an expansive living room, and a dining room suitable for entertaining forty at a sit-down event.

  As ambassador, I was able to give the residence my own touch by selecting beautiful works of art—thanks to the State Department’s “Art in Embassies” program and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, which place American artists’ work in U.S. embassies. I chose to feature the dramatic and colorful works of prominent African American artists, primarily from the New York area, such as Carrie Mae Weems, Mickalene Thomas, and Whitfield Lovell.

  The massive apartment was terrific for entertaining, accommodating over two hundred at a standing reception. As a single inhabitant away from my family, however, the place could feel empty and sometimes lonely. Most Mondays through Thursdays, I stayed overnight in New York. When I did not have a dinner engagement—something I tried to limit in order to manage both my weight and sanity—I would come home to the residence and eat a solitary but healthy meal, ably prepared by the residence chef, Stanton Thomas, and served by the evening household attendant, Ana Barahona. The residence manager Dorothy Burgess was a wonderful, no-fooling woman from Barbados, who had seen some dozen U.S. ambassadors and their families come and go. The lovely staff became friends who cared generously for me and who ran the ambassador’s residence with the utmost professionalism.

  With so much underused space, I gladly invited family and friends to visit. Often when I was home on weekends in D.C., administration colleagues conserved government resources by staying at the WAT apartment in comfort and security with their families—including Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, First Lady Michelle Obama and her girls, Valerie Jarrett, Denis McDonough, Ambassador Ron Kirk, and many others. I also welcomed my USUN colleagues to stay there as needed, including after Hurricane Sandy when many staff members who lived in lower Manhattan lost power for days.

  My own family visited New York on occasion, enjoying memorable gatherings at the Waldorf. In 2009, Dad came back east again for the holidays. At nearly ninety, he was in tolerable health, despite contending with high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and atrial fibrillation, which he managed with medication. He was still sharp, mobile, and self-sufficient. That first year, Dad and Mom joined our family for Thanksgiving in New York. We saw the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, a Broadway show, and took in the sights from the Empire State Building to the USS Intrepid. It was a great time for our kids and their grandparents, one which demonstrated the benefits of the détente my parents had reached years earlier.

  Beginning with my wedding, when they were compelled to collaborate on everything from the menu to music, Lois and Emmett managed to interact more civilly. By the time Jake arrived five years later, my parents had grown accustomed to engaging each other with only rare fireworks. Becoming grandparents provided the balm that truly soothed their relationship, enabling us all to enjoy their company without worrying that they would go at each other. It’s fair to say that they became friendly, if not quite friends.

  For that transformation, I remain forever grateful. Over the span of almost twenty years, at the end of their lives, my parents gave us back our unitary family. Johnny’s kids and mine have happy memories of their grandparents individually and together, with only historical knowledge of their previous antagonism. And Johnny and I finally experienced the peace and joy of many wonderful family occasions spent together with our parents.

  Even the warmth of family, however, could not obscure the many defects of the Waldorf apartment. If you didn’t live there, you would think it was the height of luxury. But the Waldorf-Astoria was an ancient and run-down hotel, as I would be reminded from time to time. Occasionally, I would turn on the tap in the morning and watch mud brown and foul-smelling water belch forth, precluding showering. After particularly fierce thunderstorms, because of the roof’s disrepair, sizable chunks of plaster from the ceiling would crash onto the living room floor. The window unit air conditioners could not withstand high winds, and rain could pour in when the flimsy casings blew out. Roaches were not uncommon, even massive ones of the tropical variety.

  The Waldorf charged the U.S. government a fortune in monthly rent for poor maintenance, so I eventually embarked on a search to purchase my successors a less expensive yet better residence. The Washington bureaucracy and the laborious appropriations process, which does not take into consideration basic financial concepts like net present value, reflexively stymied efforts to do American taxpayers a long-term favor. Only several years later, after the Chinese bought the hotel and the security implications of their ownership sank in, did the State Department allow my successor, Samantha Power, to sign a deal to move the U.S. out of the historic Waldorf-Astoria.

  One of my primary responsibilities in New York was to build relationships with other permanent representatives. With 193 U.N. member states, I could not meet formally with each one individually, but over time I came to know most of my colleagues—some very well. The most important were those we had to do frequent business with: the other four of the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council—the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia; the other nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) who rotated on and off the Council in two-year terms; and important allies like Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. I also prioritized knowing the African ambassadors, some fifty-plus who often voted en bloc in the General Assembly, and the Pacific Islanders—small nations that reliably supported the U.S. even on the toughest issues.

  As part of our carefully choreographed series of initial meetings for me as the brand-new U.S. ambassador, I met the permanent representative of Israel on Day One. Israel is the focus of outsize attention at the U.N.—most of it unfair and excessively negative. My responsibility, as is traditional, was to stand up for and protect Israel against attacks on its legitimacy and security. It was a role I embraced with passion and played aggressively throughout my tenure at the U.N. I loathe anti-Semitism and racism. For me, it’s personal. And too much of the anti-Israel vitriol at the U.N. stems from crass prejudice.

  In my early years, my work in defense of Israel was greatly aided by having a first-rate partner in Gabriela Shalev, Israel’s first and only female U.N. ambassador. An appointee of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (with whom I had become friends during the Bush years), Gabriela is a distinguished professor of law and a jurist. At our first meeting, she greeted me alone in her private office. In her heavy accent, Gabriela talked movingly about her love of Israel, the tragic loss of her husband in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and her two beloved children whom she raised alone. Gabriela is a strong but slight woman with close-cropped graying dark hair, powerful eyes, and a warm intensity that immediately captivated me. Old enough to be my mother, she and I became close—sharing perspectives with brutal honesty, plotting ways t
o serve our shared goals, and lamenting the forces that made Israel a perennial target at the U.N. and the Netanyahu policies that gave near daily fodder to Israel’s critics. To this day, Gabriela is my sister, a prized relationship forged as we fought together in the muddy trenches at the U.N.

  Our battles seemed never ending. Throughout 2009, I used my constructive relationship with Ban Ki-moon, the cautious but principled and pro-American secretary-general from South Korea, to push from behind the scenes to keep the notorious Goldstone Report out of active consideration by the Security Council. The report summarized the conclusions of a U.N. fact-finding mission, which harshly condemned Israel’s actions in the recent 2008-2009 Gaza War. Had the document been formally inserted on the Security Council’s agenda for debate, Israel’s opponents would have had a field day trying to censure Israel for what South African jurist Richard Goldstone alleged were potential war crimes.

  The next year, after Israel conducted a raid on a Turkish flotilla seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza that turned deadly in international waters, Turkey and the Palestinians forced an emergency meeting of the UNSC. Pressure was high to strongly condemn Israel, but with Alex Wolff and our team, I managed to achieve a more measured statement that expressed “regret for the loss of life,” condemned “those acts which resulted in the loss of life,” and called for an “impartial and… transparent investigation.”

  By the end of my tenure, I had fought many such defensive battles—from pulling the U.S. out of the World Conference on Racism due to its anti-Israel bent to protecting Israel in the U.N. Human Rights Council against that body’s deeply ingrained anti-Israel bias. I spearheaded efforts to prevent Palestine from being admitted prematurely to the U.N. as a full member state (a status it sought in order to bypass negotiations for a two-state solution), just as I worked to protect Israel from efforts to rebuke their nuclear program at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and led the annual losing charge in the General Assembly against a litany of anti-Israel resolutions.