PENGUIN BOOKS
TALKING BACK
Andrea Mitchell has been chief foreign correspondent for NBC since 1994, reporting for NBC Nightly News, Today, Meet the Press, and Hardball. Before that she was the network’s White House correspondent and chief congressional correspondent. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Alan Greenspan.
Andrea Mitchell
Talking Back
…to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2005
Published in Penguin Books 2007
Copyright © Andrea Mitchell, 2005
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Mitchell, Andrea.
Talking Back…to presidents, dictators, and assorted scoundrels / Andrea Mitchell.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-1012-0135-0
1. Mitchell, Andrea. 2. Television journalists—United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN4874.M538A3 2005
070'.92—dc22 2005042279
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For Alan
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When Viking Penguin president, Clare Ferraro, and vice president Pam Dorman, my editor, first suggested that I write a book about my experiences, I didn’t realize how challenging it would be. For one thing, reporters don’t know how to use the first-person singular. Being personal is not what we do. I am indebted to them and to Penguin Group (USA) president, Susan Petersen Kennedy, for believing in me from beginning to end, and for their patience as the story evolved through two wars, one election, and an abundance of breaking news. I could never have found my “voice” without Pam, a deft editor and kindred spirit. I am grateful to her for coaxing and prodding me out of my reluctance to dig deeper and be more reflective. I owe a great deal to Patricia Mulcahy, whose editorial expertise was invaluable in helping me organize and shape four decades of experiences into a narrative. Bob Barnett has been a counselor in every sense of the word and friend throughout my professional life, for which I am grateful. Chris Donovan turned research into an art form, finding anecdotes and facts that had long slipped my memory. His tireless work, through times of great personal travail, is a tribute to his skill and dedication. I am also forever grateful to him for being a painstaking and indefatigable fact-checker, with an able assist from Andrew Horesh. At every step, the first-class team at Viking Penguin has been generous with time and advice in all ways imaginable: Carolyn Coleburn, Judi Powers, Nancy Sheppard, Paul Buckley, Herbert Thornby, Carla Bolte, Julie Shiroishi, Leigh Butler, Sabila Khan, Tricia Conley, Victoria Klose, and Erica Rose, and of course Dick Heffernan and his outstanding sales group. I am grateful to Lucia Watson and Rakia Clark for always being so responsive to my many queries.
None of this could have been written without the support and encouragement of my colleagues at NBC News. I am thankful for Neal Shapiro, Bill Wheatley, David McCormick, Steve Capus, John Reiss, ML Flynn, Bob Windrem, and Albert Oetgen, among many others, for giving me the opportunity to do what I love. Tim Russert has been a mentor, advocate, and cheerleader all in one. Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams have shared their wisdom and always made me sound smarter than I am. In the Washington bureau, I have been blessed with the very best researchers and producers over the years including Gena Fitzgerald, Susan Lasalla, John Holland, Tammy Kupperman Thorpe, and Alicia Jennings. Marcie Rickun was a fount of knowledge on every aspect of presidential history. Libby Leist has shared in every adventure and been the best of partners and friends throughout these years, in addition to providing incomparable support as researcher and associate producer. Sarah Greenberg is an ally in everything I do, able to anticipate problems and solve them all at the same time. Tammy Haddad has given me opportunities to expand the reach of daily reporting into other broadcasts. Mary Murray helped me navigate the terrain of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
I am blessed in my friends, including many accomplished authors who encouraged me to think that I could join their ranks. Early and often, Kate and Jim Lehrer warned that this wouldn’t get done unless I placed “bottom in chair” and wrote something, no matter how little, every day. Victoria Pope read an early draft of the opening chapters and offered valuable advice. Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn gave me safe haven and much love in Wyoming when I needed to escape Washington. Marylouise Oates and Bob Shrum didn’t let me give up. Bob Woodward’s groundbreaking reporting on the Bush administration’s councils of war deepened my understanding of those years, and is separately acknowledged at appropriate places in the text. In particular, Michael Beschloss and Jon Meacham exceeded the normal bounds of friendship by reading and commenting on the manuscript at several key stages, as did Susan Greenstein, my sister, whose involvement in this book was an unparalleled act of love. Each was kind enough not to discourage me, despite some rough passages. I owe them a debt of gratitude for their expert advice that is not easily repaid. Sharing this adventure with my sister was joyful, deepening the companionship that has enriched both our lives.
I thank my brother-in-law Lewis Greenstein for his patience and many kindnesses throughout this project. To my parents, Cecile and Sydney Mitchell, and brother, Arthur, I am grateful for their tireless support, and for their forgiveness if I have miscast our shared history in any way.
Finally, there is Alan, whose love and indulgence gave me the confidence to continue long past the point where I was prepared to give up. He endured countless missed dinners, canceled vacations, forgotten holidays, and lonely evenings while I struggled to find the right words for this personal history. His enthusiasm for this venture never flagged. His patience seemed infinite, no matter how sorely he was provoked. I rely on his judgment on all things. He is my partner in life. Without his love, I could not have prevailed.
Andrea Mitchell
Was
hington, D.C.
April 2005
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION
Writing a new chapter for this expanded paperback edition of Talking Back was a challenge: the past year has hardly been uneventful. How to find a focus that would encompass the tumultuous foreign policy of George W. Bush’s second term in office? And, as I followed Condoleezza Rice around the world, when would I get off her airplane long enough to sit down and write? Wendy Wolf, executive editor at Viking Penguin, gave me the idea of how to narrow the field, and dig deeper, and so I did. I’m grateful to Wendy for her extraordinary patience, enthusiasm, and amazing good humor throughout this adventure. In addition to all of the wonderful NBC colleagues mentioned above, the paperback edition would also not have been possible without the terrific research of Michelle Perry, a great addition to the team.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the Paperback Edition
Preface
1 Copyboy
2 Understudy
3 Designated Shouter
4 Of Arms and Men
5 Scandal on the Hill
6 “White House Pit Bull”—The Clinton Years
7 Foreign Correspondent
8 Peace on Earth
9 Red/Blue Nation?
Afterthoughts
Index
INTRODUCTION TO THE
PAPERBACK EDITION
As I write this, I am flying with the secretary of state as she wades into the Lebanon conflict. It is the last week of July 2006, but there is no summer respite from war or other crises. Critics say the administration has already waited too long to become engaged: for almost two weeks, Condoleezza Rice has resisted pressure to leap into shuttle diplomacy. Will it end as she hopes, in a grand reshaping of ancient rivalries? Or will this be another pragmatic retreat to what she derisively, and repeatedly, calls the “status quo ante”?
I have come to this point after forty years as a journalist, from the days when young women with my ambitions were literally barred from politics and newsrooms to an era in which women anchor network news and cover female secretaries of state. This book is the story of all of us, as seen through a kaleidoscope of adventures in local and state politics, presidential campaigns, the energy beat, Congress, the White House, and now, foreign policy.
It is also a behind-the-scenes tale of politicians and policy makers, from city ward heelers to presidents and kings. My profession has permitted me to follow the sweep of history from the Vietnam War protests to 9/11. Nothing has been more challenging than my current assignment, covering national security and foreign policy, in these stormy times. Reporting on a secretary of state as uniquely positioned to change policy as this one has opened yet another chapter.
An academic by training, Dr. Rice fashions herself a historian first—in other words, a deeper thinker than most professional diplomats. She does not want to settle for short-range solutions. Rather than urging an immediate cease-fire for Lebanon, she counsels a longer view, saying this is nothing less than the “birth pangs of a new Middle East,” paraphrasing former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. To many Arabs, Rice sounds at best naïve, at worst arrogant—especially after the administration’s miscalculations in Iraq.
We lift off from Andrews Air Force Base late on a Sunday afternoon. I have no idea where we will land. The official schedule says Tel Aviv, but the plane is buzzing with rumors of a detour to Cyprus, where thousands of Americans have been evacuated from the war zone. The Israelis began bombing twelve days earlier, and the State Department has been widely criticized for not extracting Americans more quickly once the war started. Are Rice’s image makers planning a surprise photo opportunity with grateful evacuees as they transit back to the United States—timed fourteen hours from now, just in time for the morning television shows? This would be a dramatic way to counteract criticism that she had waited too long to get involved.
Or perhaps she would go to Beirut? Stopping first in Lebanon would reinforce her strategic goal of propping up that country’s beleaguered government. Rice’s aides won’t confirm anything. The element of surprise is crucial to her security.
I wonder, am I being too cynical? That is always the risk we journalists take, of crossing the line from appropriately skeptical to suspicious or just plain jaded. In this case, the world has been screaming for American intervention. But unlike many diplomatic missions, nothing has been precooked. I’ve been on many high-stakes trips in forty years of reporting, accompanying five presidents and nine secretaries of state. Few were as perilous diplomatically as this one. And the risks for Rice are enormous. Her professional reputation is on the line. By far the most popular figure in the Bush cabinet, she has largely escaped criticism for the Iraq war—even though she was national security advisor when the decision to invade was made.
But now critics are questioning policies that are squarely in her domain. Hezbollah did rise in the vacuum created when Syria was forced out of Lebanon by a popular uprising in 2005; America refused to deal with Iran and Syria, Hezbollah’s chief sponsors, and the Arab world and Europe had begun to sense that the administration was treating the Middle East with benign neglect and was now giving Israel a green light to fight the terror group.
Rice comes back to brief us shortly after liftoff. She is perfectly coifed and stylishly dressed, but there are dark circles under her eyes. She has just come from a meeting at the White House with the Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, accompanied by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the legendary former Saudi ambassador to the United States. They want an immediate cease-fire. Rice tells them what will become a familiar, and seemingly contradictory, refrain on this trip: getting a cease-fire is urgent, but it is even more important to get one that lasts.
When the war began, Sunni Arab leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan criticized Hezbollah and resisted denouncing Israel, reflecting their own worries about Hezbollah’s Shiite patrons in Iran. But now, as Israel continues to deliver punishing blows to Lebanon’s infrastructure and people, moderate Arabs are distancing themselves from Israel, and from Rice’s strategy. In fact, Rice was forced to move this week’s crisis summit from Egypt to Rome: Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, no longer wanted to play host, and knowing his views, the United States didn’t want to give him the international platform to shape the agenda.
Flying across the Atlantic, shortly after what had clearly been a tense send-off from the Saudis, I ask Rice about the widening gulf between the administration and its Arab allies. Her response is uncharacteristically edgy, even snappish: “Gee, Andrea, I thought it was more important what came out of a meeting than where you had it.” She does not like us pointing out how isolated the administration is from its Arab allies.
In this crisis, and for months before, the administration’s strategy has been to separate Syria’s interests from Iran’s by getting the Saudis and Egyptians to pressure Syria to control Hezbollah. But so far, Syria’s president Bashar al Assad has not listened to appeals from his own Arab brothers. A veteran ambassador tells me Assad hasn’t even answered phone messages from Egypt’s Mubarak. And, although the Saudis share the administration’s concerns about the growing power of both Hezbollah and the Shiite regime in Iran, politically, the level of destruction in Lebanon has become intolerable. Rice plans to warn Israel that it risks alienating the moderate Arab world, and the American public. She needs to learn more about their military endgame. The administration likely encouraged Israel to engage Hezbollah, but Israel’s offensive is meeting unexpectedly tough resistance. Clearly, the United States is not comfortable with a bombing campaign that may continue indefinitely.
The administration’s unequivocal support for Israel has other unintended consequences: most obviously, it has exacerbated existing anger toward the United States in the Arab and Muslim world. And the U.S. strategy of trying to isolate Syria and Iran could backfire, giving them more leverage over the eventual outcome. In particular Iran, a charter m
ember of George Bush’s “axis of evil,” is increasingly defiant under its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. United States troops are overextended and vulnerable on both of Iran’s borders, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of Hezbollah, Iran’s client, being blamed for the devastation of Lebanon, the radical world—and some not so radical—are pillorying Israel and the United States.
I wonder whether this was the inevitable result of the administration’s decision to focus more on regime change in Iraq than resolving the main conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush had pulled back from mediating a peace plan when he decided he didn’t trust Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader. Talks never got back on track. Some of his father’s friends and advisors told me the son relied more on gut instinct than reasoned judgment. He didn’t self correct. “I’m a decider,” the president liked to say, even if his policies weren’t working. And Condoleezza Rice had long since decided to support the president’s instincts, rather than challenge them. It is no accident that even America’s Arab allies thought Rice had come reluctantly to this conflict.
We refuel in Shannon, Ireland, and settle down to try to sleep, our only opportunity before we are expecting to land in Israel, when we will have to get right to work reporting. Suddenly, Rice’s top Middle East advisors come back to our crowded press area in the back of the plane. We are not going to Jerusalem, at least not right away. Instead, the first stop will be Beirut. The secretary of state will chopper into the heart of the conflict, right as the Today show goes on the air—and I have no way to alert my producers where she is going.
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