Tough Love

by Susan Rice

  After taping Brian Williams’s show and finishing a couple more press calls at the Mission, I rushed to La Guardia Airport to catch the last shuttle to Washington. With my good friend and former deputy chief of staff Meridith Webster and a DS agent, we hurried through the airport to reach our gate. We arrived to find the US Airways gate agent slow-rolling the final boarding process to give us a few extra minutes. As we boarded, the flight attendant greeted us with a warm smile that said, I’ve got your back. My window seat was halfway to the back of the plane. As I made my way down the aisle, several people looked up. When I sat down, the passengers broke out into spontaneous applause. They had heard the news. Wow, I thought. To make it even better, shortly after takeoff, the flight attendant brought me a minibottle of red wine as a gift.

  Once I made the decision to withdraw, I knew it was right—a weight off my shoulders. The extraordinary outpouring of support that flooded in from every corner of my personal and professional life moved me beyond words. The hundreds of emails, notes, and calls were overwhelming and left me feeling comforted and strengthened. The messages that meant the most came from scores of foreign service officers from the most senior to very junior expressing their admiration and disappointment that I would not be their secretary.

  I truly had no idea I had so many supporters in their ranks. Thinking back to my earlier years as assistant secretary of state and the feathers I had unintentionally ruffled, I was deeply gratified to see that I had corrected course sufficiently to overcome much of the skepticism and hostility that I generated in my first year or two at State. With time and personal growth, I had apparently earned the respect and even affection of many with whom I was serving. That knowledge, above all, helped me to persevere. I was content to remain at USUN where I had a great team, lots of freedom, and the issues were never boring.

  I also knew that I might still be asked to serve President Obama in another capacity that I would love, such as national security advisor. In any event, I could now focus fully on my family, my staff, and my job in New York. I would take stock and learn as much as I could from this shattering experience.

  Just over a week later, President Obama announced he was nominating John Kerry to be secretary of state, a choice that was met with widespread and bipartisan approval in the Senate. I issued a statement saying: “America is fortunate that Senator John Kerry will be our next secretary of state.… Senator Kerry has served extremely ably and demonstrated selfless commitment to our country.… I have been honored to work with him in the past, and I look forward to working closely with him again on President Obama’s national security team.” Graciously, Kerry emailed me the next day to say, “Thanks so much for your tremendous statement yesterday… it bowled me over. Very generous and hugely appreciated.” I felt confident that I could work at least as well with Kerry as I had with Secretary Clinton, despite the awkwardness of being publicly portrayed as rivals for the same job.

  Before Christmas in 2012, Secretary Clinton hosted a festive party at her Washington home for scores of senior State Department officials. Knowing that she would depart once her successor was confirmed, it was also something of a farewell party. Since the 2008 campaign, I encountered President Clinton only intermittently, and he was often cold to me upon initial contact. Once the conversation got going, however, he typically warmed up and seemed to forget that he bore a (hopefully) receding grudge against me. On this evening, at Hillary’s party, he was right away his old self—voluble, intense, and warm.

  President Clinton pulled me aside to commiserate kindly about Benghazi and its aftermath. He told me, in effect, “That was tough stuff, and you held strong under fire. You handled it very well.” I was truly touched by his expression of concern and empathy. It meant even more coming from someone who had endured far worse. At the same party, Chelsea Clinton, who has always been lovely, engaged me in a more intimate conversation about how my kids were doing. She knew all too well how the politics of personal attack affect the families of those targeted, especially kids. I will forever be grateful for her sensitivity and warmth.

  I always wondered—Why me? Why was I the one the GOP went after when I was a comparatively bit player in the actual Benghazi drama? Why not White House spokesperson Jay Carney? After all, Carney spoke about the Benghazi attacks almost daily from September 11 onward. He made more categorical statements than I—over a period of weeks. Like me, he was careful to rely on the Intelligence Community’s assessment and not to make independent personal judgments. When the assessments changed, he updated his characterizations. Yet for some reason, I, not Jay, became the right-wing caricature of mendacity.

  Why not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (until later)? CIA director David Petraeus, whose agency had produced the talking points to begin with? Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta? National Security Advisor Tom Donilon? How was it that I became the bogey(wo)man of Benghazi?

  To begin to answer that question, after I left government in 2017, I consulted a former producer at Fox News who worked there throughout the Benghazi period. He gave it to me straight.

  My Fox friend explained that individuals make great villains, not organizations or institutions like the State Department. Individuals put a face on an issue for the audience and provide “a ratings bonanza.” In going on five Sunday shows, I provided Fox “an opportunity to introduce a new villain” plus tons of video which provided “tremendous fodder” they could play over and over. They could not make Obama the perpetual target. They needed someone “fresh, unpredictable,” and Jay Carney was not interesting. As a spokesman, the public expected him to be “a lying flack” (which he decidedly is not). My Fox friend argued that, if someone else had gone on those Sunday shows and said the same thing, that person would have become the fresh villain. When I asked pointedly, he maintained that it really wasn’t about me personally or even about my race or gender. To bolster that point, he noted that “Bill Clinton was the original Fox villain” and later Barney Frank.

  Secondly, he explained, Fox viewers were offended that I did not blame the attack on “radical Islamic terrorists” but rather appeared to be crediting a video created by an American, thus blaming America. By stoking the perception that I failed to blame Islam, Fox could grab and energize their audience. They also could use me to hammer Obama and make the case that we were misleading the public or withholding information for political purposes. All that was “red meat for our audience.” Fox, he said, has an “unbreakable bond” with its viewers. They know what their audience gravitates toward, and Benghazi was perfect bait.

  When I asked why Fox kept going after me once the election was over, he explained that there were “no other good scandals,” and Fox and its viewers still objected to the fact that Obama would not use the term “radical Islamic terror.” All they needed to do was continue to play the audio and video of me to get an angry reaction from the audience. Fox’s goal, he said, is to wind up the audience every night and make them angry. Anger = ratings.

  Finally, he elaborated, now that I am a “familiar villain,” Fox will continue to use me. Any simple, quick sound bites “re-hit a raw nerve,” and it’s easy to brand me a “liar” or a “leaker” in perpetuity. A recyclable bogeyman.

  This explanation about “why me” sounds logical (from the Fox News point of view), though I find it somewhat hard to believe that neither my race, my gender, nor my perceived closeness to the president made me a more attractive villain. Fundamentally, my Fox friend’s insights underscore my mother’s wisdom—I never should have gone on those Sunday shows that day.

  After a much needed winter break with the family, I returned home in January 2013 to find that the dust had settled, and the spotlight had moved off me. Maris gradually improved. Eventually, after about a year, the episodes stopped entirely. My mom and the rest of my family moved on.

  I too recovered. Painful as the whole experience was, I knew that I really only had two options—walk away or soldier on. To me, it wasn’t really a choice.
I never considered quitting, not least because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I would never give my detractors that satisfaction. As long as my family hung tough, I knew I could endure. My main coping mechanism was just to power through—by doing my job to the best of my ability, supporting my extraordinary USUN team who had suffered alongside me, and making jokes at my own expense. I lampooned myself at the U.N. Correspondents’ Dinner just before Christmas and, later, in the spring of 2013, went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I needed to laugh more than almost anything.

  At the same time, I did some serious introspection about what went wrong and why. My team and I spent many hours in postmortem. I also consulted with Ian, Johnny, and outside allies who had deep experience with crisis management and could help me extract the leadership lessons I should take from this experience.

  I realized several things.

  First, again, my mother was right. It was a mistake to agree to appear on the Sunday shows, particularly in campaign season, even though my motives in doing so were selfless. In retrospect, while I don’t think—as some have suggested (including my mom)—that I was set up, I do believe that Hillary Clinton and Tom Donilon appreciated what I did not. The first person to tell the public about a highly political tragedy was likely to pay a price. The opposition typically wants a scapegoat. Early information is almost inevitably wrong. That is not the Intelligence Community’s fault or anyone else’s. It’s just that we learn more and gain better insight as time passes after a crisis.

  I also acknowledge that there were some words and phrases I uttered on Sunday, September 16, that I wish I could restate with more precision, less certitude, or not have said at all. None of them materially changed the substance of what I said, but they offered fodder for my critics to pick at. Going forward, I have tried to avoid doing all five Sunday shows, the so-called “full Ginsburg,” named after Monica Lewinsky’s lawyer, William Ginsburg, the first to appear on all five. I learned the hard way that the more interviews you do, the more your comments are parsed, and the more likely you are to make a mistake.

  In truth, had I refused to go on the shows, I would have felt guilty and selfish. Someone else would have had to go out. I am a team player, and I don’t like shunting off on others what I am capable of doing. By deferring to that instinct, by putting the cause and the team first, I did myself a disservice.

  My brother, Johnny, one of my closest confidantes, fiercest supporters, and bluntest critics, shared with me several additional insights. Sometimes Johnny’s advice feels pedantic, but he knows me better than anyone and sees me in ways that I can’t.

  Johnny gave it to me straight: during Benghazi, I had “acted like a girl.” (Ouch.) He meant that I put everyone else’s interests above my own and that, after the election, I didn’t promote or campaign for myself the way a guy would have. “With you,” Johnny complained, “it’s always mission first. That’s your greatest strength, but it can also work against you.”

  I countered that it was inconsistent with my principles to gin up public pressure on the president to nominate me by generating carefully timed positive press coverage or encouraging constituency groups to lobby on my behalf. Johnny retorted that Senator Kerry, for example, had made it plain that he did not wish to be considered for secretary of defense, only state, thus denying Obama one way to have his cake and eat it too. I explained to Johnny that, girly or not, I would never be comfortable trying to box in the president.

  Next, Johnny insisted that I needed to learn that being good and right is not enough. Up until Benghazi, I had always succeeded on the basis of merit, but “sometimes, merit isn’t enough,” my brother cautioned. “This lesson has come to you late, since really you have not had any major professional failures before.”

  “You need people who will go the extra mile for you,” he continued. In reality, if there was a truth to be told or a fight to be had, I had never been afraid to stand up for what I believed. But as Johnny reminded me, I have always had difficulty asking others to do anything for me—even when I need it most. Johnny insisted: “You have to cultivate sponsors, champions, and ‘rabbis’ in advance.” He explained that, “When people see that you are under fire, you need them to jump in fast and be willing to battle on your behalf.” His comments made me realize that, on some level, I may also have suffered from lingering resentment among some career veterans in the State Department who recalled my assertiveness and relentlessness as a young assistant secretary for Africa. Maybe, had I more enthusiastic advocates among their ranks at the early stage of the Benghazi onslaught, they might have helped to quietly blunt some of the most unfair characterizations of my motives. While I am deeply grateful for all those who ultimately came to my defense, their support came late, after months of public pummeling. Still, that was on me for not having asked earlier, or at all.

  Johnny, Ian, and many others also stressed that I had not spent enough time building relationships with the media and other D.C. playmakers who earlier on could have shot down a fabricated narrative before it spiraled out of control. They were right; I had neglected over the years to cultivate the press sufficiently. I needed friends and allies in the media—not for Holbrooke-style self-promotion, which I loathed—but to earn the courtesy of the benefit of the doubt. Before someone writes a nasty story about me, it is helpful if they bother to ask me to respond to the charge against me. Despite being married to a journalist and having a number of press acquaintances, I had few close contacts or friends in the press and appeared to them aloof and standoffish. I had to change that. I was not going to be a “source”—that’s not my style. I despise leaks to the press and would not traffic in them. Yet, I could be more accessible, enjoy drinks or a meal, build relationships, and even make friends with journalists without giving away more than my time and candor. It was a realization I came to far too late, but this is a case of better late than never. Throughout the remainder of my time in government, I tried to engage more openly with the press, particularly the White House press corps when we traveled abroad, and through the occasional lunch or dinner in New York and Washington.

  Finally, I also resolved to build stronger relationships with members of Congress, who I discovered belatedly can make a big difference with their support or silence. Most of my friends and interlocutors on the Hill are Democrats, but there are a few good Republicans who have been supportive since Benghazi. I won’t out them, but they know who they are, and I am grateful to them.

  In the years ahead, eight congressional committees investigated Benghazi. Appropriately, I was never called to testify publicly, since even Congress eventually came to understand that I was not a central player in the Benghazi tragedy. And, not one inquiry, even the longest and most politicized investigation chaired by Representative Trey Gowdy, concluded that I had deliberately misled the American people or acted improperly. Not one.

  While the experience of being publicly pilloried was painful and temporarily knocked me off course, I came out of it stronger, tougher, and wiser. I emerged with an even fiercer resolve to never again let others define me. In a different context, Hillary Clinton once advised me, “Remember, revenge is best served cold.” My revenge was simple: to continue serving my country undaunted and unbound.

  PART FOUR Coming Back

  17 Running the Table

  “Let’s try that again,” called Tim Lea, the very fit Secret Service lead agent, after a mediocre practice throw I’d just let loose while warming up in the tunnel underneath the Washington Nationals’ baseball stadium. It was minutes before the start of the Nats game against the New York Mets on Saturday, July 27, 2013.

  For the last month I had been back at the White House in my new role as national security advisor. On Day One, I found myself smack in the middle of a maelstrom of crisis that would presage the next two years of nonstop crazy pressure. In just six months, we would grapple with Egypt, Edward Snowden, Syria, a wholesale internal review of our Middle East policy, the launch of secret negotiations with
Cuba, and private talks with Iran, among other challenges.

  Yet none of those critical issues and all-consuming demands caused me more stress than when I was slated to throw out the ceremonial opening pitch at Nationals Park before a capacity crowd.

  For well over a month, I had been practicing sporadically with several agents, first from Diplomatic Security, and then from the Secret Service, which took over my detail when I moved from USUN to the White House. When the big day arrived, before it was time to head out to the field, Tim Lea and I made sure to warm up in the tunnel—where the two of us tossed long balls back and forth, and I fought back nerves.

  Tim took my baseball debut very seriously. Like a brother, he had worried aloud that I could not afford to embarrass myself. I appreciated that he seemed almost as keen on protecting me from public humiliation as from any potential physical threat. Normally crowds don’t faze me. I can easily give a major speech to a stadium-size audience, as I had done at the Ohio State University and Stanford commencements. Somehow, this felt different.

  When I walked out into the massive stadium, my stomach flipped over. Ian, Jake, and Maris, along with Johnny and Andrea, my niece Kiki and nephew Mateo, all joined me on the first base line, offering last-minute encouragement. Johnny, typically less diplomatic than the others, warned, “Don’t mess this up, Spo,” employing the high school nickname given me by my basketball teammates.

  I took the mound. The stadium erupted with a lot of friendly cheers but also some audible boos. Benghazi was not far in the past. Still a tomboy jock in my own self-image, I refused to take the girly way out by throwing from in front of the mound. I would try to throw the whole distance. The time between when the umpire told me to head to the mound and I had to pitch felt like a nanosecond. The pressure to throw immediately felt intense. Through my terror, I wound up and let it rip. It felt like it was going high, but the umpire yelled “Striiike!” and the catcher Wilson Ramos nodded with smug satisfaction.