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Condoleezza Rice

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Order 66th Secretary of State
Term of Office January 26, 2005 -
Predecessor Colin Powell
Date of Birth November 14, 1954
Place of Birth Birmingham, Alabama
Profession University Professor
Political Party Republican

Condoleezza Rice, Ph.D. (sometimes referred to as Condi Rice) (born November 14 1954), is the current United States Secretary of State. She is the first African American woman, the second African American (after Colin Powell), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright) to serve in that post.

Rice served as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush during his first term. She is the second African American and the first female to have been appointed National Security Advisor.

In November 2004, Bush nominated Rice to succeed Colin Powell as Secretary of State. On January 26 2005, the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 85-13, and she was sworn in later that day.

Childhood

Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the only child of Angelena Rice and the Reverend John Wesley Rice, Jr. Her father became a minister at Westminster Presbyterian Church and her mother was a music teacher. In an article for the New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, writes, [1] "Birmingham had one notably rich black family, the Gastons, who were in the insurance business. Occupying the next rung down was Alma Powell's family;her father and her uncle were the principals of two black high schools in town. Rice's father, John Wesley Rice, Jr., worked for Alma Powell's uncle as a high-school guidance counsellor, and was an ordained minister who preached on weekends; Rice's mother, Angelena, was a teacher." (Alma Powell is married to Colin Powell.) In 1967, the family moved to Denver when her father accepted an administrative position at the University of Denver. Her name is a variation on the Italian musical term "con dolcezza" which is a direction to play "with sweetness". [2]

She was born the same year as the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Rice was eight when her schoolmate Denise McNair was killed in the bombing of the primarily African-American Sixteenth Street Baptist Church by white supremacists on September 15, 1963. Rice states that growing up during segregation taught her determination against adversity, and the need to be "twice as good" as non-minorities [3].

Education

After studying piano at an Aspen music camp, Rice enrolled at the University of Denver, where her father both served as an assistant dean and taught a class called "The Black Experience in America." [4] At age 15, Rice began classes with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. Her plans changed when she attended a course on international politics taught by Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. This experience sparked her interest in the Soviet Union and international relations and led her to call Korbel "one of the most central figures in my life" [5].

In 1974, at age 19, Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver. In 1975, she obtained her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame. She first worked in the State Department in 1977, during the Carter administration, as an intern in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In 1981 she received her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. In addition to English, she speaks Russian, French, and Spanish.

Academic career

At Stanford University, Rice is a tenured Professor of Political Science, Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. From 1993 to July 1, 1999 she served as the Stanford Provost, the chief budget and academic officer of the university. After departing to enter government service, she returned to Stanford in June 2003 to deliver the commencement address.

File:Rice f.jpg
Condoleezza Rice speaks after being nominated to be Secretary of State by President George W. Bush (background).

Rice is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004.

Political career

In the George H. W. Bush Administration

From 1989 through March 1991 (the period of the fall of Berlin wall and the final days of the Soviet Union), she served in the George H. W. Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In this position, Rice helped develop the strategy of Bush and Secretary of State James Baker in favor of German reunification. She so impressed Bush that he introduced her to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the one who "tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union."[6]

In 1996, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she sat on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military.

During George W. Bush's election campaign in 2000, Rice took a one-year leave of absence from Stanford to work as his foreign policy advisor. On December 17, 2000, Rice was picked to serve as National Security Advisor and stepped down from her position at Stanford.

In the George W. Bush Administration

In 2003, Rice was drawn into the debate over the affirmative action admissions policy at the University of Michigan. On January 18, 2003, the Washington Post reported that she was involved in crafting Bush's position against race-based preferences. On the same day, Rice released a statement that somewhat contradicted this, saying that she believes race "can be a factor" in university admissions policies [7].

File:RicePowellBushRumsfeld.jpg
Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listen to President George W. Bush speak about the Middle East on June 24, 2002.

Rice has also been one of the most outspoken supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. After Iraq delivered its declaration of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations on December 8, 2002, it was Rice who wrote and submitted an editorial to The New York Times entitled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying".

In March 2004, Rice was involved in a controversy over her initial refusal to publicly testify under oath before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission). The White House claimed executive privilege under constitutional separation of powers and cited past tradition in refusing requests for her public testimony. Debate on her role in counter-terrorism policy increased after testimony and the release of Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies. Under pressure, Bush agreed to allow her to publicly testify so long as it did not create a precedent of Presidential staff being required to appear before Congress when so requested. In the end, her appearance before the commission on April 8, 2004 was deemed acceptable in part because she was not actually appearing before Congress. She thus became the first sitting National Security Advisor to testify on matters of policy.

In August 2004, Forbes magazine named Rice the world's most powerful woman. [8]

Leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Rice became the first National Security Advisor to campaign for an incumbent president. She used this occasion to express her belief that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq contributed to circumstances that produced terrorism like the 9/11 Attacks on America. At a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania campaign rally she said: "While Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the actual attacks on America, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a part of the Middle East that was festering and unstable, [and] was part of the circumstances that created the problem on September 11." [9] Evidence does exist that suggests Hussein supported and endorsed terrorism, but others claim that a connection between Islamic extremism and Saddam's mostly secular Baath party is unfounded.

On November 16, 2004, Bush nominated Rice to be Secretary of State replacing Colin Powell, whose resignation was made public the day before. Bush named Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, to replace her as National Security Advisor. On January 7, 2005 Bush nominated U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick to be Rice's deputy at the Department of State. On January 19, 2005, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted by 16-2 margin to approve the forwarding of Rice's nomination to the full Senate for approval, with Democrats John Kerry and Barbara Boxer voting against Rice. On January 26, 2005, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 85-13. The negative votes, the most cast against any nomination for Secretary of State since 1825, came from Senators who, according to Boxer, wanted "to hold Dr. Rice and the Bush Administration accountable for their failures in Iraq and in the war on terrorism."

In January 2005, during Bush's second inaugural ceremonies, Rice first used the term "outposts of tyranny", referring to countries felt to threaten world peace and human rights. This term is a descendant of Bush's phrase "Axis of Evil". She identified six such "outposts", in which she said the United States has a duty to foster freedom: Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma and Belarus, as well as Iran and North Korea, two members of the "Axis of Evil".

Business career

Rice has served on the board of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She was also on the Board of Trustees of the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan, and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors.

Chevron honored Rice by naming an oil tanker Condoleezza Rice after her, but controversy led to its being renamed Altair Voyager [10], [11]. She also headed Chevron's committee on public policy until she resigned on January 15, 2001 to become National Security Advisor.

Rice has also been active in community affairs. She was a founding board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.

In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.

Future prospects

After the November 2004 election, a prominent Republican radio host advocated Rice's candidacy for President in the 2008 election. Political Consultant Dick Morris, who worked for Bill Clinton, also advocated Condoleezza Rice's candidacy for President. Americans for Dr. Rice is a 527 group, not approved by any candidate or party, dedicated to the candidacy, and election, of Rice in the 2008 presidential race.

Rice has also stated that one of her ambitions is to become Commissioner of the NFL.

Trivia

  • Rice has stated several times in interviews that she has aspirations of becoming the Commissioner of the National Football League.
  • Rice is unmarried.
  • Rice made use of her pianist training to accompany cellist Yo-Yo Ma for Brahms's Violin Sonata in D minor at Constitution Hall in April 2002 [12].
  • In November 2004, Rice had surgery to remove a non-cancerous fibroid tumor on her uterus.

Sources

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Condoleezza Rice.
Preceded by National Security Advisor
2001–2005 		Succeeded by
Preceded by United States Secretary of State
2005– 		Succeeded by
Current incumbent
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