Condi by Antonia Felix

Author:Antonia Felix [Felix, Antonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Newmarket Press
Published: 2010-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

Others who have worked with Condi agree that her dynamic personality, combined with her intellect, make up a formidable package that contributes to her success. George Brinkley, her Notre Dame professor, summed it up when he said, “She’s not only a person with extraordinary ambition and intellectual abilities, she has quite a remarkable personality that has played a role in her advancement.”

For Condi, those two years in the Bush administration were a life experience that she knew she could never repeat. “It was an exciting time,” she said. “You could go to bed one night and wake up with some country having changed its social system overnight, with a new democracy to deal with.” She felt gratified to be part of an administration that helped make Germany’s transition a smooth and positive one for the United States and its allies. “Was it inevitable that Germany unified on completely Western terms, within NATO,” she said, “that Soviet troops went home, with dignity and without incident; that American troops stayed; that all of Eastern Europe was liberated and joined the Western bloc? No, it was not inevitable—and that leaves a lot of room for statecraft.”

She was also grateful for the people with whom she practiced that statecraft. “My colleagues were the smartest people I had ever met, and we all hit the ground together with resolution of the issues that I had been taught were the most important in the international policy field on the table,” she said in 1995. “I ask myself if I would ever have that constellation of forces, events and personalities again . . . [including] a president I adored . . . George Bush, for whom the great issues at the end of the Cold War were priority number one.”

Overall, working with her immediate boss stood out as the personal highlight of the job. “The most personally satisfying was working with Brent Scowcroft,” she said.

Condi knew she had been spoiled by working in Washington during one of the most eventful periods in political history—and having such a vital role in the process—and she didn’t expect to return to the White House any time soon. In a speech given several years later, President Bush reiterated his admiration for his staff during that turbulent and exciting time, a staff that included his good friend Condoleezza Rice: Excellence describes the people that I had at my side, and it was a joy, a blessing to work with each of them.

Make no mistake, they were good and decent people, but they were tough, too, with strong views, and they were mature men and women who understood that power had a purpose. And moreover, seeing them work together it was clear that they respected one another.

As we debated one issue or another, they would often argue views very forcefully. But once the decision, once the President made the decision, we closed up the ranks. That’s the way it ought to be.

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