“Foreigners saw that the people were generous and cheerful in spite of their poverty,” he added. “After that, foreigners began to visit the city, and many Moscow people saw blacks for the first time. In the 1960s you could see black people being followed down the street by curious Russians who would touch them to be sure they were real; they couldn’t believe their eyes. This was done with a sense of innocent curiosity. We students in the 1970s and 1980s were so hungry for another culture that we went out of our way to talk to foreigners, to try to make them feel comfortable in our culture and to learn about their lives and where they came from. The capitalist countries were of real interest to people. Our people didn’t know anything about life in America or other democratic countries.”
Reflecting on the five-year period in the late 1970s and early 1980s in which Condi traveled to Moscow for her dissertation research, Gerasamenko said, “A black student from a prestigious American university who could speak Russian would have been treated with much hospitality and respect,” he said. “In the first place, the Russians were so grateful to meet people who spoke Russian, even if it was just ‘Hi’ or ‘How are you,’ any attempt was met with great delight. I would assume that Rice’s knowledge and unique American experience must have been fascinating to the Russians who met her during those years.”
In the summer of 1977, Condi went on a domestic trip as part of her research, which gave her a glimpse into the U.S. military complex for the first time. She went to Washington to work as an intern at the Department of State, spending weeks inside the Pentagon. Later in her program she took on another summer internship at the Rand Corporation, the policy research organization that had been founded by the military airpower supplier, Douglas Aircraft, after World War II. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and Arlington, Virginia, Rand was a perfect fit for a student focusing on international security. Its research areas include world political, military, and economic trends; sources of potential regional conflict; and emerging threats to U.S. security.
Back home in Denver, Condi’s social life continued to revolve around football—but with an added dimension. During those years she dated a member of the Denver Broncos and their romance turned into a very serious relationship. Condi’s boyfriend was a “very major player,” according to her friend Deborah Carson, and the couple got engaged. Condi socialized with NFL wives, sat in the good seats at games with them and became a well-loved member of that intimate inner circle of the NFL. She picked out her wedding gown and started to work with her mother on all the arrangements, but the couple broke up before the wedding. “She was seriously going to marry him,” said Carson, “and I really don’t know what happened. It wasn’t anything like a major blowup; I think they just got to the point where they didn’t get along.”
When Condi finished her doctoral program at Denver, she was twenty-six years old. She would date more football players, as well as men in other lines of work, but she did not get engaged again (up to the time of this writing in 2002).
The final product of Condi’s work was a dissertation entitled The Politics of Client Command: The Case of Czechoslovakia 1948-1975. This would become the basis for her first book, Uncertain Alliance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1963, which was published by Princeton University Press in 1984.
On the morning of August 14, 1981, she joined her graduating colleagues in the outdoor commencement ceremony on the University of Denver’s Margery Reed Quadrangle. With a Ph.D. in international studies and a post-doctoral position at Stanford in the wings, twenty-six-year-old Condi was set to embark upon a distinguished academic career. Although her parents and other family members stood proudly by, the absence of one person made the day bittersweet. Josef Korbel had died of cancer in 1977. He did not live to see his star pupil or his daughter become prominent world figures. “He died of stomach cancer, and he had a tough time at the end,” said Karen Feste, “but he was active to the last minute.” On his sickbed, Korbel continued working on a new manuscript about Czech soldiers in World War I.
From the mentoring she received from Korbel to the stimulating challenges of her research topic, Condi’s experience at Denver was extremely positive, and she remembers it warmly. “Because of the small, interactive faculty in the GSIS, I received solid training in political philosophy and methodology,” she said. “I liked the interdisciplinary curriculum and unrestricted choices.” Receiving her diploma that summer morning, Condi completed her college years in a field that she had not even heard of when she first began taking undergraduate music courses at the university. Later, she would recommend her students to make an active search for a field that ignites their passion, as she did. “I tell students, ‘If you don’t know what you want, start exploring. Find a class you like and a professor with whom you have a rapport. ’” The life-altering switch from music to Soviet studies had taught her a lesson in flexibility, in the virtues of not limiting yourself with a rigid plan. “[For years] I structured my life to be a concert musician,” she said. “That was all I wanted to do. And it fell apart on me. I’m never going to do that again.” This realization appeared to affect her career significantly—from that point on, she committed herself to working diligently on the job at hand while staying open to whatever might come.
The GSIS faculty attending commencement that day knew that they would hear much more from Condoleezza Rice. “I think we all knew that she was going to do something quite superior to the average student,” said Arthur Gilbert, another professor who reviewed Condi’s dissertation. Karen Feste echoed that prediction. “We always thought Condi would be successful,” recalled Karen Feste. “Over the years we have had some excellent students in our program who stand out during their time at Denver, and with each of them we know it’s going to happen—we don’t know when, but we know it’s going to happen.” With Condi, it all began to happen in California.
SIX
Professor Rice
“The understanding of arms control, the respective views and needs of all the nations, is fundamental to our very existence. Blacks should be part of this understanding, as they should be in every other field of American thought and progress. It would be a shame to leave such a vital national concern in the hands of white males over forty!”
—Condoleezza Rice, 1983
ON the morning of December 1, 1989, a light rain put a sheen on the deck of the USS Belknap, a guided-missile cruiser docked with the Sixth Fleet in Valletta Harbor at Malta. The weather outlook for the Mediterranean islands was not good that week, and by nightfall gale force winds created sixteen-foot swells that jerked the massive ship up and down like a toy. President Bush settled into the comfortable admiral’s quarters and tried to get some rest before the momentous conference to come. At the Malta Summit the president would meet Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and present U.S. positions on several issues as well as express support for Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms. The Malta summit—dubbed by the press as the “seasick summit”—was the first superpower meeting ever held on a ship, and the opening talks had to be postponed for a day because of the choppy waters.
The U.S. delegation to the summit included Secretary of State James A. Baker III, White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. Joining Scowcroft was the National Security Council’s Soviet expert, thirty-five-year-old Condoleezza Rice. When Bush introduced Rice to Gorbachev, he described her as the woman who “tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union.” Others in the room watched as Gorbachev, looking surprised and skeptical, turned to Condi and said, “I hope you know a lot.”
One of the reasons Condi had become a Soviet expert was the fact that it was a hands-on, ever-changing field in which history was being rewritten every day. As an undergraduate taking her first courses in international relations, little did she know that one day she would be front-and-center at one of the most historic scenes in modern political history—the end of the Cold War. The first day of talks took pla
ce in a book-lined room of the Soviet cruiser Maxim Gorky, the only ship in the harbor heavy enough to withstand the rolling waves. In eight hours of talks held over two days, Bush and Gorbachev discussed arms control, trade policies, Soviet emigration laws, military conventional forces in Europe, and other issues. The most profound outcome was the two leaders’ agreement that the old rivalry between their nations was history. “[The] characteristics of the Cold War should be abandoned,” said Gorbachev at the end of the Malta Summit. “The arms race, mistrust, psychological and ideological struggle, all these things should be of the past.” President Bush agreed, stating that the world was on the “threshold of a brand new era of U.S.-Soviet relations.” At Malta, Bush and Gorbachev opened up a new age of cooperation between the superpowers. And Condi Rice was there.
Condi’s career as both an academic and a policy maker had begun eight years previously at Stanford University. Following graduation at Denver at age twenty-six, she received a post-doctorate fellowship to continue her research at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, part of the university’s Institute for International Studies. Stanford, about thirty-five miles south of San Francisco, boasted a renowned faculty of Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners and offered one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. The cluster of California Mission-style buildings with their red-tiled roofs, surrounded by thousands of oak, palm, and eucalyptus trees, formed the oldest section of the colossal campus situated on 8,000 acres of land in sight of San Francisco Bay.
The fellowship gave Condi a stipend of about $30,000, an office, and access to all of Stanford’s libraries, research facilities, and department faculty. As a Soviet scholar, she joined policymakers, business people, security specialists, and other experts at the Center to study contemporary issues of international security. It was the only department to offer “a fully disciplinary course in arms control in the whole nation,” and students who took its courses were training to become arms control and security specialists. Most graduates went on to hold a variety of government arms-control positions. (The department is now called the Center for International Security and Cooperation.)
The fellowship was to last for one academic year, but a few months after she arrived, Condi made such a big impression at a talk she presented to the political science department that she was asked to join the faculty. The department was seeking qualified minorities and Condi fit the bill for affirmative action not only as a black person, but also as a woman in a field dominated by men. Once she got in, however, there would be no guarantees that her position would be renewed unless she proved herself worthy of the job. “They didn’t need another Soviet specialist,” said Condi, “but they asked themselves, ‘How often does a black female who could diversify our ranks come along?’” The department chair explained his position: “We have a three-year period here,” he told her, “and then you have to be renewed. And nobody’s going to look at race, nobody’s going to look at gender; and you don’t get any special breaks; and you surely don’t get any special breaks when you come up for tenure.” Condi thought, “Well, yeah, that seems perfectly fair.”
In the fall of 1981 Condi began the semester as an assistant professor of political science. She was also named assistant director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control. At twenty-six, her scholarship, knack for teaching, and personality stood out and earned her respect from faculty and students. “I think what struck people at the time was a combination of all the personal stuff—charm and very gracious personality . . . a kind of intellectual agility mixed with velvet-glove forcefulness,” said Coit Blacker, one of her fellow professors. “She’s a steel magnolia,” he continued, adding that her Southern graciousness is mixed with “a very steely inner core” and extreme self-discipline.
John Ferejohn, who joined Stanford’s political science department as a professor in 1983, recalled that Condi was the only black person on the faculty at the time. He recognized her qualities of leadership and persuasiveness—traits that she has carried throughout her career. “She got along well with everybody,” he said, “and even when she was just an assistant professor she exhibited a lot of what you see now—a very effective leader, decisive, clear-headed. Even when you disagree with her about something, she has good reasons. She’s effective when she’s opposing you—she often wins.”
Over the next decade she taught several classes, most of which she called “applied” political science that dealt with the military, national security, and foreign policy. Her courses included:
“Soviet Bloc and the Third World”: an exploration of the political, military, and economic activities of the Soviet Union and its allies in the Third World.
“The Role of the Military in Politics”: a survey of the interaction between military and political leaders in three types of governments: Western-industrial, communist, and that of developing countries. Condi used examples of leaders in the United States, the USSR, China, Brazil, and Nigeria.
“The Politics of Alliances”: this class examined NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and other nineteenth and twentieth century military-political alliances in the international system.
“Political Elites”: a seminar on the recruitment and behavior of political decision-makers in the legislative, administrative, executive, and military departments of government.
“U.S. and Soviet National Security Policies: The Responsibilities of Empire in the Nuclear Age”: a comparison of how the two superpowers balance domestic and international responsibilities with a close look at their national security systems
“The Institutions of Violence”: a seminar on revolutionary change, the role of the military and the police.
“The Transformation of Europe”: explored through the eyes of decision-makers in Washington, Bonn, Moscow, Paris, and London, this course discussed the changes in Europe between 1989 and 1990.
One of her favorite teaching methods was to have her students re-create major foreign policy decisions in a series of role-playing sessions. After the students researched and wrote papers about the event, they were each assigned to play a particular figure. She felt that this gave the students a broader understanding of what actually goes on in decision-making situations and provided more insight than simply reading a text. “It is increasingly difficult to generate in students a sense of the complexity involved in foreign policy with the methods available in the literature of political science and history,” she said. She felt that role-playing helped students grasp the importance of the key players’ personalities and emotional reactions as well as the roles played by members of Congress, the press, bureaucrats, and special interest groups. She explained that the “orderly, post hoc recreations that we teach” in textbooks leave out many important aspects of the story. While re-enacting an event, students were often shocked at their own behavior. “It’s interesting to watch students come to terms with how they behave,” said Condi. “They will say, ‘I never thought I could behave that way.’”
One student, Troy Eid, recalled the drama of a role-playing session in which he played a Soviet defense minister, complete with a Russian Army officer’s coat. The reenactment lasted an entire week, and at one point he fell asleep, exhausted, in Condi’s office. She woke him up and gave him coffee so he could keep with the program. “It is still the most intense week I’ve ever had,” he said, which is saying a lot from a man who went on to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, become chief counsel to Colorado Governor Bill Owens, and subsequently CEO of a large Internet systems development company.
As a Republican, Condi did not fit the traditionally liberal mold of academia. And she did not try to keep her conservative views under wraps. One student recalled that she was known as “Condi the Hawk,” and John Ferejohn stated that her Republican Party affiliation “wasn’t a surprise, it was commonly known about her. She was active in the community. She doesn’t hide her light under a bushel. She’s very straightforward.”
I
n her classes on military topics, Condi often opened her first lecture with a football analogy. Anyone who knew her understood that one of her favorite topics was the comparison of football to war. Paul Brest, former dean of Stanford Law School and current president of the Hewlett Foundation, recalled going to a Stanford Cardinal’s game with Condi. He had scheduled an event at the law school for the head of the San Francisco 49ers. “Condi heard about it,” he said, “and told me, ‘I’m not going to let you embarrass the university because I know you don’t know anything about football, so I’m going to take you to a Stanford football game.” She sat down between Paul and his wife and gave them a crash course in the game. “The first thing she said was, ‘Football is like war, it’s about taking territory,’” Paul said.
Condi is not the first to make this analogy. Stephen Crane, author of the Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), was asked how he could write so convincingly about a war that he had not experienced. “I believe that I got my sense of the rage of the conflict on the football field,” he answered. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don’t foul and don’t shirk, but hit the line hard.” And Walter Camp (1859-1925), the man who created American football, described a “remarkable and interesting likeness between the theories which underlie great battles and the miniature contests of the gridiron.”
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