Every Day Is Extra

by John Kerry

  The world we live in today doesn’t leave you much choice anyway. It’s vastly more complicated because change comes at us faster than ever before. It’s more crowded, more interdependent, less hierarchical, more influenced by nonstate actors, and filled with connections between economic issues and social, political and security concerns. Technology has brought the world closer together, while also empowering anyone and everyone to spread messages of hate far and wide with the click of a button.

  Conflicts are fought using an eclectic mix of weapons and often by combatants who wear no uniforms and have no permanent address. The world is more prosperous than it has ever been, but the overall picture matters little to those left outside the prosperity: the debate over income inequality is overdue and rages in almost every country. Each day, there are more people in the world, putting additional pressure on limited natural resources. Big chunks of the Middle East, Central America and Africa are torn by violence, creating a record flow of refugees. The age-old problems of nationalist ambition and religious extremism are testing the resilience of the rule of law. And the devil’s marriage of technology and terror means thirteenth-century battles are fought with twenty-first-century weapons.

  My inbox was always full. The world wouldn’t wait just because we were busy with one negotiation or another. Managing the agenda required a fast-moving, skilled team. Diplomacy done right—whether it’s strategic or crisis-driven—requires groundwork: research, briefings, the right talking points, the appropriate coordination of messages and actions—from the sequencing of first interventions by ambassadors and trips by assistant secretaries all the way through the call or visit by a secretary of state.

  The administration put all hands on deck to tackle simultaneously an extraordinary number of problems: whether it was Ebola ravaging Africa, counterterrorism in the Horn of Africa, holding reluctant feet to the fire on free and fair elections from Nigeria to Sri Lanka or talking to an African president about the dangers of his appeals to anti-gay bigotry, there was always some intervention needed. If a country didn’t hear it from the secretary of state, they could dismiss it as a lower-order priority—a pet issue of someone, somewhere, rather than the government of the United States. So I’d find myself on the phone at two in the morning from Europe asking China’s foreign minister to consider contributing more—to fight Ebola. As my colleague from Canada, the conservative foreign minister John Baird, once told me: “If the United States doesn’t lead on this, no one will.”

  Christmas 2013 was supposed to be a break after a year of intense travel and hands-on diplomacy. I delayed and delayed joining my family, but finally met up with them on Christmas Eve morning—and proceeded to spend the next seven days largely working out of the shed behind my house that Diplomatic Security had equipped with state-of-the-art, secure video technology. The State Department’s mobile communications technology paid off: a security crisis was reaching a boiling point in South Sudan, and we would need to spend our holidays deciding whether it was safe to keep our embassy open or whether we had to evacuate to protect our people.

  South Sudan was a profound disappointment. I had invested hundreds of hours as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee trying to help the country become independent and secure. I’d missed my chief of staff’s wedding on a November 2010 emergency trip to deliver a private letter from President Obama to the stakeholders. Despite all the United States had done to prepare the way for a peaceful, successful referendum on independence, and after all the world had done to invest in this new democracy, within two years it was hanging on for dear life. After the referendum in 2011, I had received a text from George Clooney, who was passionate about South Sudan: “So, now the hard part begins.” He was right. South Sudan was showing the world that one vote doesn’t make a country.

  President Salva Kiir, whom I had gotten to know well, appeared distracted from his duties. The politics of South Sudan had become more and more tribal—a different kind of sectarianism. Kiir dismissed his vice president, Riek Machar. Neither man evinced the slightest quality of statesmanship. As Christmas 2013 approached, violence was breaking out—all because of petty squabbles among politicians. At the State Department, we had cobbled together temporary agreements and broader efforts to at least provide a framework for a political reconciliation, but not every young democracy has a Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton—people who may disagree vehemently but are patriots above all.

  So here we were at Christmas: every couple of hours, I was talking to our embassy in Juba and the White House as we tracked militias and fighters we worried were advancing on the capital city. If they reached Juba, and if the fighting devolved into chaos, we would have to evacuate, with tragic consequences. When the United States pulls out of a country, others follow. The country could descend into civil war. We did not want to leave unless we absolutely had to, but neither were we going to put American lives in jeopardy if South Sudan’s politicians weren’t willing or able to protect their own capital. It was touch-and-go. I pressed both Kiir and Machar in phone call after phone call to understand that if things went to hell over their squabbling, we would hold them each responsible. On Christmas morning, I called to reach Kiir and was told he was unavailable, busy celebrating the holiday. I was incredulous. “If I’m working on Christmas because of his security situation, he better be working too,” I said, and asked that the message be passed on. He called back—grudgingly—and insisted there was nothing to fear. We made it through the holiday week with only a few more scares in Juba. Insurgencies don’t pause for Christmas and they don’t pop champagne corks on New Year’s Eve, but we woke up in 2014 knowing a major crisis had been averted and, for now, this country we had helped midwife into existence would not have to be abandoned in its cradle. There were moments that week when I was tempted to call certain members of Congress who had attacked us over Benghazi and ask whether they too were working on South Sudan. The entire State Department was forgoing the holidays to do the work of protecting America’s diplomatic family.

  There was no time to waste complaining. Our jobs were a privilege. The work mattered to millions of people.When I look back at the diplomacy that didn’t always occupy center stage, from Bogotá to Kiev, I know our work saved lives in a complicated, fractious, troubled world. I know that we used every minute we had, exhausted every option available to us.

  • • •

  AS I’VE SAID, the roller-coaster ride of high public office demands a lot from families. It’s hard to wall off family life from a global crisis. But on Fourth of July weekend 2013, it wasn’t a crisis on the other end of the world—it was a far more personal and frightening close call in our house on a quiet afternoon.

  After months of nonstop travel, our family had looked forward to celebrating Independence Day together in rare quiet on Nantucket. It was the place where Teresa and I had been married, and always provides a picturesque getaway on Independence Day when the fireworks illuminate the harbor. My grandson Alexander would be joining me for his first sail, a rite of passage especially anticipated given how much I had been away from home.

  Instead, I spent most of my time on the phone. Egypt under President Mohamed Morsi was coming apart at the seams. Tahrir Square was filled once more with thousands of frustrated Egyptians, teeming crowds, just as it had been two years earlier under Hosni Mubarak. I was working the phones, pressing my counterparts in the Gulf and teaming with the United States embassy in Cairo to do what we could to mitigate a slow-motion disaster still unfolding and at least avoid a bloodbath. I feared Morsi could be killed, or that the capital could descend into chaos. We were trying to keep a lid on the situation, while countries opposed to Morsi and those who supported him pushed their own agendas, jockeying for influence. We were working feverishly to try to keep our finger in the dike. By July 3, Morsi was in military custody.

  Too quickly, Vanessa and her family went home to Boston. The time had raced by. Teresa was upstairs. I was on the phone, again, when I heard
a panicked voice.

  “Mr. Secretary—can you come up quickly. Your wife is very sick.”

  I raced upstairs to our bedroom. Teresa was writhing in the throes of a massive seizure. Our aide called Diplomatic Security and 911. I jumped on the bed, grabbed Teresa’s arms to keep her from hurting herself. She was straining for breath. For a moment, I was really scared she had stopped breathing altogether.

  I whispered to her “Hang in there—stay with us,” as she seemed to drift further and further away. It was a matter of minutes, but it felt like hours before the convulsing stopped. She lay still, barely conscious. The medics arrived, and soon we were riding to the hospital by ambulance—a cavalcade of state police cars, local police, Diplomatic Security and ambulance as we raced through the tiny streets of Nantucket to Cottage Hospital.

  The hospital attendants did a terrific job of getting Teresa stabilized. Dr. Timothy Lepore, who knew most of the members of our family through a tick bite or fever or other malady, supervised. He decided we needed to get her to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We hastily made arrangements for a plane to leave immediately.

  When we finally arrived in an ambulance at MGH, where Vanessa and her husband were practicing physicians, we had a team of experts ready to evaluate Teresa’s condition. We began a long road of tests, rehabilitation, diagnosis, more tests and more evaluations and varied medications.

  The afternoon felt eerily, ominously like it did five summers before, rushing back from western Massachusetts to see Vicki Kennedy right after she had received the worst possible diagnosis about Teddy. Thank God, the doctors quickly eliminated the potential of Teresa having a tumor or a stroke. Those were our most immediate fears. How blessed we were and how unfair life is for so many.

  The doctors told us it was just too early to draw many conclusions about Teresa’s long-term prognosis. While there was no sign of brain damage, there was an impact on her balance and the speed with which she could process things. It would take time before one could ascertain how it would all settle out.

  There was no explanation for what caused the seizure, but life was not the same as it had been. As I sat holding Teresa’s hand, my mind drifted back to our lunch with Secretary George Shultz months before, during the time I was awaiting Senate confirmation. Teresa knew George well from the Reagan years. She left our lunch excited for the possibilities of traveling with me during my years as secretary, as George’s late wife, Obie, had done on many of George’s diplomatic missions. Obie was to this day revered inside the State Department, remembered for her dedication not just to her husband but to the institution. For Teresa, who spoke five languages and had studied to be a translator at the United Nations, it had been a hopeful time. She was invested in the work ahead. Now, that aspiration would be deferred.

  While we were in the hospital, an aide showed me an article online. Glenn Beck speculated that Teresa’s “illness” had been staged—a “Wag the Dog” moment to distract from what was happening in Egypt. I wanted for a moment to have him sitting there watching a worried family grasping for answers. Even at life’s most private, difficult moments, some always seemed to find room for the vilest of politics. But we didn’t have time to dwell on Glenn Beck. The compassion of the doctors and nurses, and the supportive messages and calls from our administration family—President Obama, Michelle, Joe and Jill Biden, Chuck and Lilibet Hagel—were what really mattered, and what buoyed our spirits. That kind of human reaction was a complete contrast to the filth circulating in the fever swamps of the right-wing blogosphere.

  For the time being, the seizure changed life for Teresa. For the duration of my time as secretary, she was not able to travel with me. In the beginning, she had someone around her twenty-four hours a day to help prevent falls. For the next four years Teresa underwent her own aggressive physical exercise and rehab efforts. She took anti-seizure medication despite the side effects, which would slow anyone down. She stayed at it and finally, just last fall, she got off the anti-seizure pills altogether, which has made a huge difference. Our whole family remains in awe of her discipline, her pluck, her determination not to throw in the towel but to fight back. Through it all she has shown great good humor and courage, and through it all she encouraged me to press on, cheering me on from afar in a way that is always tender and touching. It wasn’t the life she’d planned, but determination to overcome it and her strong spirit helped her navigate the road ahead as she did so many of life’s sad, sudden turns.

  • • •

  WHEN I ARRIVED at Foggy Bottom, it was logical that I’d end up being the principal interlocutor for Afghanistan, to use a terrible piece of diplo-speak jargon. It’s also safe to say that no one was especially jealous that the assignment was headed my way!

  I had a strong relationship with Hamid Karzai, particularly after the role I’d played as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee resolving the 2009 election crisis. I also had strong relationships on the other side of the border in Pakistan.

  Afghanistan presented tricky choices for President Obama’s second term. The Bush administration had turned its attention to Iraq to the exclusion of implementing or even developing a strategy for success in Afghanistan. In 2008, then candidate Obama had run pledging to put Afghanistan back on course and win what many came to call “the good war,” in contrast to the disastrous war of choice in Iraq. The first term had marked both a surge of troops and a surge of diplomacy to jump-start the progress, some of it successful, some notably less so. My friend Richard Holbrooke had died trying to break the political gridlock, trying to get somewhere, somehow—his big heart literally just gave out.

  By 2013, to many Americans, Afghanistan had simply become the “endless” war. Every year as we moved further and further away from fresh memories of September 11, it was easier for citizens and for members of Congress themselves to wonder whether it was worthwhile to be there at all. I wouldn’t be candid if I didn’t acknowledge that many war-weary members of the president’s national security team had the same sense about Afghanistan: they were increasingly tired of the emotional ups and downs of life with Karzai. Furthermore, twelve years after we’d invaded and overthrown the Taliban, we were still spending unbelievable amounts of money—and still losing lives. We were doing so in a country where our strategic interest was principally eliminating a platform for terrorism, not building a Jeffersonian democracy. We were spending infinitely more than we were in countries where our interests were more urgent.

  All of this was true, but it didn’t change the fact that in Afghanistan we had a big presence—diplomatically and militarily—and that the last time we wound down our commitment to Afghanistan too quickly, too precipitously, we ended up with the Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps and sanctuary for the world’s worst terrorists. My view coming into the administration was that, yes, we had to transition in Afghanistan from a war footing and a permanent dependency to a country and a government that could stand on their own. That would demand more work at the State Department, not less, with less leverage than in the days when Afghanistan was a cause uniting the world.

  I plunged into the work on Afghanistan right away. One of my first calls was to President Karzai in February 2013. My experience with Karzai taught me that it was important to call and listen even when you didn’t have something specific to ask of him. By turns charming, volatile and emotional, Karzai had previously made the point to me that too many Americans simply dictate terms and lecture. He was sometimes maddening to deal with, but he was a patriot first and foremost. He wanted his country to remain together as a country—something seared into him by his father’s assassination and his own exile and journey home from Pakistan, as well as his work with the Afghan Northern Alliance. We started talking right away about the hard work it would require to see another successful democratic transition in Afghanistan. I found that if I stayed in close touch with him, that helped modulate the public comments he’d make, which were sometimes quite unhelpful. More importa
nt, I knew that even as Karzai accepted that Afghanistan’s 2014 elections would mark his exit as president, he was still going to be a player in the country with influence both behind the scenes and publicly.

  Karzai warned me: 2013 wasn’t going to be an easy year. Negotiations were gridlocked over joint status of forces agreements to allow the United States to keep troops on Afghan soil, having become particularly volatile after some incidents where civilians had been killed. Karzai was always convinced (and, frankly, not without some justification) that whatever trouble he faced was the work of Pakistan and its intelligence services.

  I decided to make a surprise trip to Kabul less than a month after I was sworn in. I wanted to try to finesse some of those issues one-on-one with Karzai and also lay the groundwork for a more collaborative relationship in the run-up to the 2014 Afghan presidential election.

  I landed in Kabul aboard a C-130, having come straight from Jordan and, before that, Baghdad. I was greeted by Ambassador Jim Cunningham and the bright twenty-five-year-old diplomat Jim had assigned to be my control officer—the tour guide for matters both substantive and mundane who shepherded me through the entire visit. She was idealistic, outgoing and energetic. Her name was Anne Smedinghoff. She had grown up in the suburbs of Chicago. After Johns Hopkins, she’d joined the Foreign Service. She was just four months from her next assignment and was working hard on her Arabic. She reminded me of my own daughters. I was struck by her curiosity about the country in which she was serving and could tell that, even while serving in a country where security was a constant challenge, she was immersing herself in Afghan life and culture—always a sign of a promising diplomat. Two weeks later, Anne was killed delivering books to schoolchildren in Zabul Province, a victim of a suicide vest blast detonated by a Taliban terrorist. Three soldiers, their interpreter and Anne were lost in the blast—and another State Department diplomat was terribly injured and medevacked out of Afghanistan. I got the news early that Saturday morning as I prepared to leave for Asia, and was sick that someone I’d met and been so impressed by was suddenly gone. I flashed back to the calls I’d placed to families in Massachusetts as a senator when they’d lost a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan. Here we were at Andrews Air Force Base, ready to fly to Japan, and yet our hearts were back in Afghanistan. I asked for the phone number to connect with Anne’s family. The State Department Operations Center—our central clearinghouse for all kinds of information—swung into action and an alert appeared on my senior staff’s BlackBerrys: “S is Connected on NOK Call.” NOK—next of kin.