Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story by Antonia Felix

Author:Antonia Felix [Felix, Antonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Artists; Architects; Photographers, Cultural Heritage, Military, Political, Women
ISBN: 9781439196786
Google: jcOE_Cx6NI0C
Amazon: 1439196788
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Published: 2010-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Room at the Top

“I tell my students, ‘If you find yourself in the company of people who agree with you, you’re in the wrong company.’”

—Condoleezza Rice, 1993

BY the spring of 1991, when German unification was complete, Condi had proven herself to Scowcroft and he asked her to continue in her post. The Gulf War ended on March 1, closing another chapter in the Bush administration, and Condi decided it was time to leave Washington and return to academic life. She didn’t want to reach burnout in what she called an “all-consuming” job, and according to Scowcroft, she was listening to her biological clock. At thirty-six, she wanted to settle down and have a family. Condi did not confirm this explanation, but said rather that her teaching career took precedence over everything. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” she said. “I felt that it’s hard to keep an academic career intact if you don’t come back in about two years.” She recognized the importance of her senior-level job with the National Security Council, but she felt she needed to put academics and public service in balance. “We’re fortunate in the U.S. that we can go in and out,” she said. “But I think of myself as an academic first. That means that you want to keep some coherence and integrity in your career.” The fact that she had not been available to her upper-level students for two years ground away at her conscience. “I tried to keep up with my graduate students but it was hard,” she said. “You can’t be away from that for too long.”

The prospect of staying on at the NSC for another two years conjured up images of seemingly endless fourteen-hour days and no time for the small, normal things that make up a balanced lifestyle. “I wanted a life,” she said. She felt she had been extremely fortunate in being in the NSC during one of the most amazing, transforming periods in European political history, and it was time to return to the pleasures and routines of teaching, doing research, playing the piano, and going to the grocery store. She had worked hard to achieve her academic status and didn’t think it was necessary to risk it all for one job, no matter how prestigious. “When the time came and I was asked to stay,” she said, “I thought if I stayed, I should stay to the end of the term and I didn’t think I was prepared to do that. I was getting tired—it is a very demanding job. The real stress of White House jobs is that it’s a really small staff—forty people in the whole NSC staff. It’s a burn-out job.”

Condi moved out of Watergate and returned to the West Coast, eager to leap into academia and share her experiences with her students. Her recent experience gave her much more to offer, especially regarding the “story behind the story” element of world events. In her classes she had always stressed the importance of the

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