Condi

by Antonia Felix

  This grueling exchange marked the beginning of Condi’s long-term relationship with George W. as his closest foreign policy advisor.

  In late 1999, when George W.’s campaign began to take shape, he enlisted Condi as his primary tutor on foreign policy. She had stepped down from her job as provost of Stanford University and had been contemplating a variety of options at the time. She figured she could keep exploring those options while coaching the candidate on foreign affairs.

  When Condi started out on the campaign, she assumed it would be part-time and, apart from her tutoring sessions, limited to a few appearances here and there. Her friend, Deborah Carson, who had worked on Clinton’s campaign in 1992, soon set her straight. “When we talked about it, she thought she would just be giving a few speeches on national security,” Deborah said. “Condi told me, ‘I’m not really going to be part of the campaign.’ She thought they’d just fly her out and she’d give a few speeches on national security! I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, you don’t know campaigns. You’re going to be at every chicken dinner—it’s not going to happen right away, but as that thing gets going, they’re going to pull you in. You’re not going to be talking about national security, you’re going to talk about whatever they need you to talk about at the time.’ And so as the campaign progressed, we were talking and she said, ‘You know, you were right.’”

  Not only did Condi take charge of George W.’s foreign policy advisory group and work with him as his main tutor, she eventually got called out to make other appearances not related to foreign policy. The campaign needed her as a woman—to help get the female vote—and as a black person—to emphasize the candidate’s intent to place minorities in his new administration.

  From early on in the campaign, it was obvious that Condi had the candidate’s ear and had the closest affinity to him. They shared an obsession for fitness and sports, and it appeared that only she could temper the complexities of foreign policy with the clarity Bush appreciated. And perhaps most importantly, they had chemistry. “I like to be around her,” the governor said. “She’s fun to be with. I like lighthearted people, not people who take themselves so seriously that they are hard to be around. Besides, she’s really smart!” He revealed the depths of their working relationship when he described Condi as “a close confidant and a good soul.” And from the start, the admiration was mutual. “I’ve respected him from the first time we talked,” said Condi, “because he has the kind of intellect that goes straight to the point. You can get a bunch of academics in a room and they can talk for three hours and never actually get to the point.”

  George W.’s cadre of foreign policy advisors included eminent veterans of previous administrations (including his father’s) such as Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Blackwill, and Richard Perle. As coordinator of the group, Condi caught George W.’s bug for nicknaming and set out to find a label for the group. She chose the name of her hometown’s most famous mascot, Vulcan, the Roman god who created thunderbolts and hammered metal into tools for the gods, loomed over Birmingham, Alabama, when Condi was a child. The colossal statue, which stood on the crest of Red Mountain, had been built by the steel town for an exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. When Vulcan returned to his hometown he was placed on top of the mountain, far enough from view so that his scantily clad physique wouldn’t offend anyone. The Jaycees even gave him a job, placing a neon torch in his left hand that normally glowed green but switched to bright red whenever a fatal traffic accident occurred in the city.

  “I grew up right there in Birmingham with Vulcan,” said Condi. “I remember as a little girl that it was red if there was an accident or green if everything was clear.”

  The candidate’s foreign policy advisory group was committed to forging the candidate’s grasp of world affairs and proving to the world that he was presidential material. Condi, who has a fondness for football metaphors, described herself as a “quarterback” for the Vulcans. “I don’t try to do it all myself,” she said. “Like a quarterback, I can hand off or throw downfield.” She fielded this key position because George W. valued her ability to decipher complex policy issues into easy-to-digest, nuts-and-bolts language. He described her as someone who “can explain to me foreign policy matters in a way I can understand.”

  Whether Condi’s talent for clarity is natural or has been gleaned from years of teaching political science to undergraduates, it is one of her most highly respected qualities in Washington. “She has an extraordinary ability to be clear,” one European diplomat in Washington stated in a Vogue profile of Rice. “Her powers of exposition on a very wide range of complicated topics are extraordinarily strong.” That point was also made by Philip Zelikow, a former colleague who worked with Condi in the first Bush administration. “One of the things that is appealing to Bush is that she can be very down to earth in cutting right to the heart of matters,” he said. “People in the foreign policy world are generally not good at that.”

  In her role as director of Bush’s foreign policy advisory team, Rice took the lead in what has traditionally been an all-male domain. She was not intimidated; rather, she approached the job with the confidence of past experience—having served in the elder Bush’s administration —and with a sense of control gleaned from years of teaching at Stanford. “She is a novel commodity,” observed Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council member. “Here is a highly accomplished African-American woman . . . being part of what is and always has been [a] boys’ club.”

  Part of Condi’s responsibilities with the Vulcans involved working with Paul Wolfowitz to set up intensive half-day training seminars for George W. that covered defense, weapons proliferation, Europe, and other topics. The chemistry between Condi and George W. allowed this process to run smoothly, and she remarked that they had a similar approach to confronting the material. When the press questioned the governor about his lack of experience in foreign affairs, he assured them that he had strong resources behind him. “I may not be able to tell you exactly the nuance of the East Timorian situation, but I’ll ask people who’ve had experience, like Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, or Dick Cheney. I am smart enough to know what I don’t know, and I have good judgment about who will either be telling me the truth, or has got some agenda that is not the right agenda.”

  Condi strenuously backed the governor during these press sessions. She explained that any executive, including a governor, is accustomed to facing issues about which he or she has minimal previous experience. Gathering information and making important decisions on items as they come up is a natural part of the territory, even for a president in training. Condi’s executive experience came from her role as provost at Stanford, the number-two post just beneath the president, responsible for the $1.5 billion budget and administrative decisions. George’s executive experience came from his years in the oil industry in West Texas, as a managing partner of a very profitable baseball team, and as governor of Texas. “As an executive,” said Condi, “you’re always asked to make important decisions about which your knowledge base is relatively slim. Someone might ask me to support a million-dollar physics telescope. I don’t know a lot about that, but I can ask hard questions and get a sense about whether it’s important, and prioritize it against other issues.”

  When the press pointed out the candidate’s inability to name heads of state and his slips in vocabulary, Condi dismissed the attacks as a “parlor game” played by Washington pundits. She stressed the experience he had gained in both business and politics and reminded them that every president relies upon a team of advisors and experts. “Governor Bush has not spent the last ten years of his life at Council on Foreign Relations meetings,” she said. “He’s spent the last ten years of his life building a business and being governor of a state.”

  She also had to discuss her own limitations and admitted that the candidate was not the only one with much to learn. Condi’s career as a Soviet scholar gave her vast insight into that part of
the world but little background in the political histories of other regions. She did not have a strong grasp of America’s policies in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or other non-European nations, and had to undergo her own crash course in those areas. “I’ve been pressed to understand parts of the world that have not been part of my scope,” she said. “I’m really a Europeanist.”

  Because George W. did not like to read prepared manuals about policy or national security, Condoleezza had to devise a more interpersonal approach to his tutoring sessions. She set up question-and-answer roundtables for him and the advisors. Another of her primary tasks was drafting a clear-cut nuclear weapons policy for the candidate. The Vulcans worked for a year on this issue at specially arranged policy retreats, and their efforts culminated in Bush’s nuclear policy speech delivered on May 23, 2000.

  The speech was Condoleezza’s baby. In addition to reviewing it with the Vulcans, she sought feedback from her former White House boss Brent Scowcroft, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, General Colin Powell, and others. Once she felt the content was as precise as possible, she spent hour after hour going over every line with Bush. A crucial part of her job was to ensure that he understood every facet of the policy and the background of every issue contained in the speech. Condoleezza and Paul Wolfowitz created a companion document containing questions and answers about topics in the speech for Bush’s study. But George W. didn’t like to work in isolation, reading and integrating facts on his own, so they scheduled verbal question-and-answer sessions.

  The heart of the nuclear policy speech recommended reducing America’s nuclear arsenal; removing more weapons from high-alert, “hair-trigger” status; and immediately building a missile defense system. “America must build effective missile defenses,” Bush stated, “based on the best available options, at the earliest possible date. Our missile defense must be designed to protect all fifty states—and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas—from missile attacks by rogue nations, or accidental launches.” The Vulcans’ policy stressed the need to erase the Cold War mind-set and face facts about new types of threats. “The Cold War era is history,” Bush continued in the speech. “Our nation must recognize new threats, not fixate on old ones. On the issue of nuclear weapons, the United States has an opportunity to lead to a safer world—both to defend against nuclear threats and reduce nuclear tensions.”

  As the campaign progressed, George W. and Condi’s smooth-running, efficient working style solidified their friendship and further enhanced their respect for each other. As a result, George W. felt confident about bringing Condi into other areas of the campaign. Just as her friend Deborah predicted, she was called upon to make appearances that she had not anticipated. Most of these involved the “W is for Women” program. A major goal of the Bush campaign was to lure women voters from the Democratic party, and the “W is for Women” tour featured George W.’s mother, Barbara; his wife, Laura; and Richard Cheney’s wife, Lynne. Condi joined the troupe in mid-October 2000 as the trip wound through Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

  “W is for Women” was one part of a calculated move to undo what previous Republican campaigns and National Conventions had done—create a gender gap between the parties. Barbara Bush and her group sought to portray George W. as the face of a new and improved Republican party committed to education and women’s health—a far cry from the angry, warrior-like tone of the pro-gun, anti-abortion, macho-white-male party of past GOP conventions. Things would be different, Barbara Bush stressed, because George W. is comfortable with tough and capable women. “He’s always been surrounded by strong, smart women,” Barbara said at a stop in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. “Sometimes by choice, sometimes by birth.”

  The “W is for Women” theme was also in full force at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where keynote speakers included Laura Bush, Elizabeth Dole, Lynne Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. In her speech, laced with personal anecdotes, Condi talked about her family’s proud legacy of college education, her father’s decision to join the Republican Party, and the integrity of the candidate she had come to know well. “George W. Bush, the George W. Bush that I know,” she said, “is a man of uncommonly good judgment. He is focused and consistent. He believes that we Americans are at our best when we exercise power without fanfare and arrogance. He speaks plainly and with a positive spirit.”

  Throughout the campaign, political commentators discussed where Condoleezza Rice would be placed in the new Bush administration. The two positions mentioned most often were national security advisor and secretary of state. When asked about this herself, Condi always deflected the debate and said that her dream job was to be commissioner of the National Football League. She wasn’t joking. “Anybody who really knows me knows that that’s absolutely true,” she told one interviewer, “and that if the NFL job comes up, the governor is on his own.” With a football coach for a father, she had learned more about football by age ten than most fans discover in a lifetime. She loves to talk about football and to describe where it fits in the bigger picture as a vital part of the culture. “I actually think football, with all due respect to baseball, is a kind of national pastime that brings people together across social lines, across racial lines. And I think it’s an important American institution.” On another level, she is fascinated with the comparisons between military and football history. “Military history has swung back and forth between advantage to the offense and advantage to the defense,” she explained. “Football has that kind of pattern, too.”

  Like other women in Bush’s inner political circle, including his long-time advisor Karen Hughes, Condi is a strong personality who is fully capable of holding her own in a male-dominated field. Although Colin Powell has remarked that she was “raised first and foremost to be a lady,” Condi cannot be stereotyped as a Southern belle who depends upon her Southern charm to smooth over difficult situations. In an article written in the last weeks of the campaign, The New York Times’ Elaine Sciolino wrote that members of the foreign-policy team did not dare speak a word to reporters without getting Condi’s permission first. “‘You make me sound like a tyrant!’ she exclaimed, then added with a smile, ‘We are disciplined, we are disciplined.’”

  Her former boss Brent Scowcroft has remarked that while Condi is on the whole a pleasant person, she also has a tough side. “She’s got this quiet demeanor,” he said, but anyone who “thought they could push her around learned you could only try that once. She’s tough as nails.” In the same article, former CIA Chief Robert Gates recalled a dramatic moment during Condi’s first post at the White House as a director of the national security staff. An official from the treasury department attempted to undermine her authority, and “with a smile on her face she sliced and diced him,” said Gates. “He was a walking dead man after that.”

  Paul Brest, a friend of Condi’s who was dean of Stanford Law School when she was provost of the university, describes her as “both very upbeat and very down to business. You have a sense that she’s having fun with what she does as long as other people are behaving themselves. The only time I have ever seen her be curt, because she’s an extremely gracious person, is when somebody was rude or clearly out of line. When somebody’s out of line with Condi, she lets them know very quickly.”

  Being a woman in the high echelons of foreign policy is unique in itself, but being single added an even rarer dimension to Condi’s role as George W.’s top foreign policy tutor during his presidential campaign. During her two-year stint in the first Bush administration, she elicited hordes of marriage proposals, and rumor had it in the White House that she had talked about returning to Stanford because she wanted to settle down and get married. Now, like then, her high profile job brings her plenty of attention from the opposite sex, but as of yet she has not found her soul mate.

  There’s still a possibility that the right proposal will come along one day, of course. She was engaged once (as we will see in Ch
apter Five) and has dated several famous men, including NFL football players. Her football boyfriends brought her into another uniquely American inner circle—NFL wives (and girlfriends)—a group that socializes and sits together at the games. But other than her one close call with marriage, she has not made long-term plans with any of her boyfriends. “I am a very deeply religious person,” she said in October 2001, “and I have assumed that if I’m meant to get married that God is going to find somebody that I can live with.” (Condi’s single status allows her to devote all of her energy to her job, something that undoubtedly crossed the president’s mind in mid-2002 when Karen Hughes resigned and returned with her family to Dallas. Without a husband or children vying for her energies and attention, Condi is perhaps more apt to stay with the job.)

  Shortly after the thirty-three-day post-election debacle of 2000, Bush began announcing his choices for senior staff positions. On December 18, he held a press conference to name three positions: White House counsel (Al Gonzales), counselor to the president (Karen Hughes), and national security advisor—Condoleezza Rice. “Dr. Rice is not only a brilliant person,” he told the press, “she is an experienced person. She is a good manager. I trust her judgment. America will find that she is a wise person, and I’m so honored [she is] joining the administration.” George W. asked Condi to make a few remarks, which included the following:This is an extraordinary time for America because our values are being affirmed, and it’s important to always remember what those values are at home. And I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. I did not go to integrated schools until I was in tenth grade and we moved to Denver, Colorado. And there’s very often a lot said about whether we’ve made any progress as one America. I think that you will see in the presidency of George W. Bush recognition of how important it is that we continue the last 30-plus years of progress toward one America; that he will have an administration that is inclusive, an administration that is bipartisan, and perhaps most importantly, an administration that affirms that united we stand and divided we fall, and I’m very proud to have a chance to be a part of it.