No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

27 KATRINA

I’D BEEN TO FORTY-SIX COUNTRIES and traveled 171,628 miles in nine months. I just wanted a vacation and took my annual trip to the Greenbrier, but it wasn’t much of a vacation, given the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which kept me on the phone day and night. I did, though, pick up a golf club seriously for the first time that summer when my cousin’s husband, a very good golfer, insisted that Lativia and I learn to play. I loved it, especially just being outside, and vowed to keep the ball moving forward while I was in Washington. Really learning to play would have to await my return to California. Fortunately, I would find Alan Burton, the pro at Andrews Air Force Base, who’d help me learn the game far faster than I ever thought possible. I’ll always remember that August for discovering a new passion, not for the vacation, which signaled how hard it would be to get away as secretary of state.

Since any opportunity to break away from the daily grind was appealing, when friends asked if I’d like to join them in New York for the US Open tennis championships the last few days in August, I readily agreed. As I’d done a couple of years before, I planned to spend a few days in New York City, take in a show, shop, and then go out to Arthur Ashe Stadium for the championships. Mariann Byerwalter and Randy Bean, two of my closest friends from California, were coming out to join me.

I didn’t think much about the dire warnings of an approaching hurricane called Katrina. My under secretary for management, Henrietta Fore, was on top of the State Department issues. The State Department had a passport office in New Orleans, and we made backup arrangements for our people in Houston. I attended a Homeland Security principals meeting on Thursday, August 30, and returned to the State Department to check once more on plans for securing our offices in the Gulf of Mexico. Then I flew to New York.

That evening, upon arriving at the Palace Hotel, I flipped on the television. Indeed, the hurricane had hit New Orleans. I called Henrietta, who said that the main issue was making sure our people were safe. She’d also convened a departmental task force because offers of foreign assistance were pouring in. I called Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff, inquiring if there was anything I could do. “It’s pretty bad,” he said. We discussed the question of foreign help briefly, but Mike was clearly in a hurry. He said he’d call if he needed me. I hung up, got dressed, and went to see Spamalot.

The next morning, I went shopping at the Ferragamo shoe store down the block from my hotel, returned to the Palace to await Randy and Mariann’s arrival, and again turned on the television. The airwaves were filled with devastating pictures from New Orleans. And the faces of most of the people in distress were black. I knew right away that I should never have left Washington. I called my chief of staff, Brian Gunderson. “I’m coming home,” I said.

“Yeah. You’d better do that,” he answered.

Then I called the President. “Mr. President, I’m coming back. I don’t know how much I can do, but we clearly have a race problem,” I said.

“Yeah. Why don’t you come on back?” he answered.

I actually hadn’t expected that from the President. That’s odd, I thought. He’d been so insistent that I go and get some rest. He’s really worried. “Maybe I can go to Houston to represent you,” I said.

“Well, just come on back, and we can talk about it then,” he replied.

A few minutes later, my senior advisor, Jim Wilkinson, walked into my suite. “Boss, I should have seen this coming,” he said. He showed me the day’s Drudge Report headline on the Web: “Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it up at ‘Spamalot’ while Gulf Coast lays in tatter.” “Get a plane up here to take me home,” I said. I called Mariann and Randy and apologized and then sat there kicking myself for having been so tone-deaf. I wasn’t just the secretary of state with responsibility for foreign affairs; I was the highest-ranking black in the administration and a key advisor to the President. What had I been thinking?

When we landed in Washington, I went directly to the State Department, where Henrietta had convened the members of the task force. We needed to be gracious in accepting the many offers that were coming in from around the world, touching expressions of concern such as the $100,000 donation from Afghanistan. Self-sufficiency was one thing; haughtiness was quite another.

When we were asked by the press about aid from foreign countries, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, responded, “Secretary Rice, after consulting with the White House, has made it clear that we will accept all offers of foreign assistance. Anything that can be of help to alleviate the difficult situation, the tragic situation of the people of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted.” Forty-four countries would eventually send aid, some of it useful and some of it not. But the principle was the important thing; the United States of America would not close its doors to the generosity and good wishes gushing forth from around the world.

On the Friday morning after my return to Washington, the President convened the National Security Council. It reminded me just a little of the days in the aftermath of 9/11. The President was clearly distressed by the inability of the federal government to deal with the unfolding chaos. We focused on the horrible scene at the Superdome, where order had completely broken down. The Defense Department seemed uncertain of the laws concerning the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which did not allow active-duty military to carry out law enforcement within the United States.

Don opined that the American people would be shocked to see the military in the street and might react badly. I’d been silent in the meeting but now decided to speak up. “Mr. President, the American people want to see something different in the streets. They need to believe that their government is on top of this. They’ll welcome the sight of the military.” Josh Bolten, now chief of staff, supported the point. Indeed, the face of the reestablishment of order would become Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, a native of Louisiana, who took command of military relief efforts under Joint Task Force Katrina. It was a godsend that he was also black.

The President still had a serious race issue, however. Many self-described black leaders were accusing him of all manner of venality and prejudice because of the impact the hurricane had on the African American population. People who had means, including several of my friends and relatives of friends, had evacuated as the hurricane approached. Those left behind were the least capable of helping themselves. It was a sad picture with an overwhelmingly black face.

I asked the President if we could speak alone after the meeting, and I proposed two things. I would go see the displaced in Houston (the travel of a high-ranking official to New Orleans might disrupt the relief efforts) to show the flag for the administration as well as to express my personal concern for the people affected. I would also reach out to the new president of the NAACP, Bruce Gordon, and suggest a meeting between the President and him. Bruce could not have been more gracious and, despite some criticism, made the trip to the White House to sit down with the President. Later, the administration would also reach out to Donna Brazile, an influential Democratic activist, who was a native of New Orleans and who to this day acknowledges the President’s generosity toward her hometown.

We ultimately decided that I’d go to Mobile in my home state of Alabama instead of Houston. It was a Sunday, so I’d have to go to church before visiting the victims of the hurricane. I attended the 10:30 A.M. service at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion Church, a black Methodist church where the preacher had to cut his sermon short due to my presence. I wanted to sink underneath the pew as he repeatedly informed the congregation that he had to move things along because “the secretary has to get out of here in two hours.” I wasn’t sure how I’d be received, but the parishioners were wonderful, responding with an enthusiastic amen to my entreaty that “The Lord is going to come on time—if we just wait.” A minister’s daughter has a genetic disposition to know what to say in church.

My visit concluded in Mobile, consoling Southeast Asian shrimpers who’d lost everything. The cases of these immigrants were particularly sad. They had left in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and started new lives, only to see their small businesses wiped out by Katrina.

There’s never much opportunity at the time to reflect on a crisis like Katrina. In retrospect, the hurricane’s aftermath was the first in a spiral of negative events that would almost engulf the Bush presidency. Clearly the response of the federal government was slower than the President himself wanted it to be, and there were many missteps, both in perception and in reality. I’m still mad at myself for only belatedly understanding my own role and responsibilities in the crisis.

Yet for me the lingering wound of Katrina is that some used the explosive “race card” to paint the President as a prejudiced, uncaring man. It was so unfair, cynical, and irresponsible. At the end of my visit to Mobile, I told the press, “Nobody, especially the President, would have left people unattended on the basis of race.” I am to this day appalled that it was necessary to say it.

KATRINA RECEDED into the background as my attention turned to the upcoming UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. Every year the world quite literally comes to Manhattan. Heads of government and foreign ministers from almost every country attend at least some part of the two-week event. Though I grumbled each year about having to move into the stately Waldorf-Astoria for fourteen days, there was also considerable benefit in taking up residence there since the crazy schedule began with early breakfasts and ended with very late dinners. The point was to cram as many meetings into the allotted time as possible. At least it saved me some travel. Meetings with heads of state and ministers of small states paid dividends. They left satisfied that they’d seen the U.S. secretary of state, and there was no need for me to visit yet another country. It was a fair trade.

The annual gathering afforded an opportunity for nongovernmental organizations to command the world’s attention too. President Bill Clinton launched the Clinton Global Initiative in New York at the same time. The forty-second President called and asked if I would join Prime Minister Blair and King Abdullah II of Jordan in a panel discussion on global issues and poverty. It was a chance to showcase the administration’s considerable commitment to development assistance in general and Africa in particular. And I wanted to be responsive to President Clinton. In my years as secretary he was unfailingly supportive of me, calling to offer thoughts on some of our challenges and always checking in before and after foreign travel. He did so without fanfare; I never saw a reference to those calls in the media unless the two of us agreed that it would be useful to publicize our contact.

The UN General Assembly also allowed me to gather foreign ministers together in regional or functional groupings. Over the years I would meet the P5+1, which had responsibility for Iran; the ASEAN foreign ministers; the Haiti contact group—well, you get the picture. At this first UNGA, I met the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Everyone read talking points, and despite the unfolding events in the Middle East, absolutely nothing interesting was said. I resolved at that moment to change the dynamics of the group, suggesting that the next time we should invite Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. They weren’t quite ready for the Iraqis, but our meetings would evolve significantly and the GCC would become critical to coordination with our allies in the Middle East.

That September, the other major breaking news was the resumption of the Six-Party Talks on September 13. Surprisingly, by the time we arrived in New York the Six-Party delegates in Beijing were making real progress. Chris Hill, our assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, called late on the evening of the eighteenth to say that he was close to getting agreement on the Joint Statement that would set a framework for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. When the talks stalled, I took advantage of the presence of the foreign ministers in New York to call together the other four participants in the talks, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. The Chinese liked to say that they were just convening the talks, meaning that they had no responsibility for making them succeed.

Then, in the presence of his counterparts, Li Zhaoxing was considerably more accepting of China’s responsibilities. He sent a message back to Beijing and apparently to the North Koreans. The delegates made further progress. But at midnight Chris called to say that the North Koreans were demanding the construction of a new light-water reactor before abandoning its nuclear weapons program. I called Minister Li, waking the poor jet-lagged man out of a deep sleep, and negotiated new language sitting on my bed in the Waldorf. It was one time I was very glad to have the President’s confidence (and the flexibility that that afforded me). We decided that the Chinese would offer a compromise proposal allowing the North Koreans to keep the nonthreatening elements of their current infrastructure that were clearly related to peaceful nuclear energy purposes. The statement would mention—only mention—the possibility of the North receiving a light-water reactor at some point, but only after it satisfactorily (meaning satisfying the United States) abandoned its nuclear weapons efforts.

I called Steve Hadley and told him about the compromise, which represented a significant shift in U.S. policy. We had always refused to discuss, even mention, a light-water reactor. Though it cannot theoretically be used to build nuclear weapons, there was concern that the North might be able to adapt it to that use.

“I’ll tell the President about the proposal in the morning and call you if there’s a problem,” he said.

“Steve, there can’t be a problem,” I said. “I’ve committed us to the language.”

I could hear Steve swallow hard. “Okay,” he said. Steve had my back on that one.

The next morning the headlines stated, “North Korea Says It Will Abandon Nuclear Efforts” and “North Korea Vows to Quit Arms Program; Nuclear Agreement Set at 6-Nation Talks.” Unfortunately, the North Korean issue would soon settle into a kind of predictable pattern: cooperation from Pyongyang and progress in negotiations followed by misdeeds and stalemate. In November, the talks stalled once again, and they would lie fallow for more than a year as North Korea probed for division among the parties and an opportunity to walk back past agreements. Still, the Joint Statement from September was a breakthrough document that would govern the Six-Party Talks for the next three years. And within a couple of days the Iranians signaled to the Europeans that they wanted to restart talks. Good things on the proliferation front often seemed to come in pairs.

AFTER TWO WEEKS at the UNGA, I returned to the road with a trip to troubled Haiti. Colin’s visit ten months before had been accompanied by violence and gunfights, and my own visit could be equally risky. But I knew that it was important for the administration to show its support for the struggling political process of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Haiti’s elections were scheduled for November (they would be delayed until February of the next year), and I went to the country to encourage the National Election Commission to finalize its work on the rules to ensure fairness.

Driving into Port-au-Prince, I was struck by the extreme poverty—and I’d been in some pretty terrible places. The nature of poverty in the developing world is different than it is in pockets of the developed world; I always noticed in particular that the children weren’t playing. In Haiti, as in other impoverished, underdeveloped countries I’d visited, the children were just standing around. It was as if the seriousness of their surroundings—the poverty and violence—had robbed them of their youth.

The commission members sitting in the dilapidated Presidential Palace said all the right things about elections and governance, but there was a surreal character to the whole encounter. Despite all of Haiti’s best efforts, the country has been locked in a cycle of intractable poverty, conflict, and natural disasters. No matter how hard they, and the international community, try to transform the country, instability plagues the people of Haiti. I went back to Washington determined to focus my personal attention on the country and began holding periodic teleconferences with the members of the contact group for Haiti.

A contact group is a diplomatic device to unite key countries to handle a crisis or to support a nation in crisis such as Haiti. The group comprised Brazil, which was commanding the UN peacekeeping force; Canada, which was responsible for training the police; the United States; France; the UN Special Representative for Haiti; and the Organization of American States (OAS). We worked together seamlessly, and Haiti was finally able to hold its first presidential elections since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from office two years before. While there was some balloting contestation and a few protests, the elections were marked by high turnout and much lower violence than had been expected. Three months later René Préval was sworn into office. It was one of those small diplomatic successes that rarely grabs headlines but would have garnered much attention had it failed. Unfortunately, the country was unable to capitalize on that rare moment of success. Haiti remains unstable and poor, having experienced repeated setbacks, most recently in the devastating earthquake of 2010.

But as troubled as Haiti was (and is), working in the rest of the Americas, through the OAS, was both challenging and rewarding. In June, the OAS met for the first time in the United States in thirty-one years, and I noted that of the twenty-three member states in 1974, ten had been military dictatorships. By contrast, the majority of the Latin American countries in the OAS now firmly believe that political and economic liberty is the only road to success. Furthermore, the central divide in the region was not between “Left” and “Right” but between freedom and tyranny.

Early on, I’d backed the election of José Miguel Insulza, a Chilean diplomat, to the post of secretary-general of the OAS. The United States had earlier refused to support Insulza because he was thought to be a bit too leftist. Instead, Washington had encouraged a Mexican, Luis Ernesto Derbez, to challenge Insulza. But the Chilean had the backing of most of the region, and our continuing to oppose him would have been an embarrassment for our friends in Santiago, particularly President Ricardo Lagos, who’d championed his candidacy.

At the April meeting of the Community of Democracies in Santiago, Chile, I changed our position and negotiated a solution, with the unhappy Derbez withdrawing and Insulza being elected by acclamation. I asked my good friend the capable and strong foreign minister of Colombia, Carolina Barco, to make the announcement.

I tell this story because it illustrates several perennials of diplomacy relating to events offstage that take enormous effort and are rarely reported. First, the lobbying for international diplomatic positions is intense, with countries putting forth candidates who then organize sophisticated campaigns. The United States has to be careful to throw its weight at the right time: too soon, and the person is branded as “Washington’s guy”; too late, and the logrolling might bring someone to office that is unacceptable. Second, other countries appreciate a U.S. approach to those elections that isn’t heavy-handed: the decision to switch to Insulza would buy goodwill for me as the incoming secretary. Third, the gratitude doesn’t last very long. Though I liked José Miguel personally and we maintained good relations, he was extremely cautious about his left flank. That made it difficult to mobilize the OAS on troublesome places such as Venezuela and Cuba. The principles of the OAS Democratic Charter were too often forgotten amid a mushy consensus and reflexive silence about dictators in the region. But the organization was at least neutral rather than supportive of the region’s bad boys, and on issues such as Haiti it played a very useful role.

By the way, the OAS General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale also led to an embarrassing moment as secretary. As the U.S. secretary of state, I was the chair of the event, but due to multiple crises in Washington I had to leave the meeting early. At lunch I thanked the delegates for their attendance and said that I was sorry to leave but I had to “return to the United States.” The laughter in the room confused me until Carolina told me what I’d said. When you travel as much as I did, sometimes you forget where you are.