Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice is the 66th of United States Secretary of State, and the first African-American woman to hold the post. Prior to assuming her duties as Secretary of State, she served as President Bush's national security advisor.

Earlier Life and Education

Dr. Rice earned her B. A. in political science from the University of Denver in 1974 at age 19. The following year, she recieved her M.A. from the University of Notre Dame. She returned to the University of Denver, where she was awarded the Ph.D. in 1981. She speaks Russian, French, German, and the Spanish as well as of course English.

While in Denver she dated a pro baller, but they did not marry. Some people claim she is of involved with Canadian Foreign Minister Peter McKay.[1]

Career In Academia

Condoleeza was first an Assistant Professor at Stanford(1981–1987). She eventually earned tenure, becoming an Associate Professor (1987–1993), then Professor, and later Provost.[2] She was the first black, first woman and the youngest person to be Provost.[3] She was also a Hoover Institute fellow. Her primary expertise was the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations.

As Provost, Dr. Rice was to make the University's budget level, although because the deficet was so large it was said it was impossible, a prediction which Condoleeza happily broke not only but over balanced it so there was profit. [4]

Her books are:

• Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995) *The Gorbachev Era (1986)
• The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain *Allegiance (1984).

Business

• Carnegie Corporation
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Charles Schwab Corporation
• Chevron Corporation
• Hewlett Packard
• Rand Corporation
• Transamerica Corporation
• William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
• KQED
• J.P. Morgan Chase
• University of Notre Dame
• San Francisco Symphony
• Center for New Generation
• California and East Menlo Park
• Vice President Boys and Girls Clubs of America of San Francisco
• National Council for Soviet and East European Studies
• Stanford Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition
• Woodrow Wilson Center

She was very involved with Chevron before becoming George W. Bush's. Chevron honored Rice by naming an oil tanker Condoleezza Rice after her, but it was controversial that this was so so as a result Altair Voyager became its name.[5]

Career in Joint Chiefs and National Security Council

In 1986, she was a fellow of Councils on Foreign Relations Rice served as Special Assistant of the Joint Chiefs. After 1989 when the Berlin wall fell to March 1991 when the Soviets were vanquished, she directed and also directed in a senior position, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council. She was also Special Assistant to the President of National Security Affairs. Rice was instrumental to help with developing Bush's and James Baker's policies to make a full reunification of the German. She was very impressed to the President Bush, and he said to Gorbechev she "tells me everything I know about the Soviet."[6]

By 1990 she was already George H. W. Bush's principal advisor on the Soviet Union and special to the president for national security affairs. She was the highest ranking black woman in the administration.

After the communists were defeated in 1991, Rice victoriously returned to her being a teaching position at Stanford, although she consulted on the former USSR for many. Pete Wilson made her to a bipartisan committee that had been formed to draw new lines for voting. She was also in a Federal Advisory Committee on men and woman training in the Military.

She was helping George W. Bush for his victorious campaign for President in 2000, a thing for which she became later a key advisor. She said in departure from the failed Clinton policies of the 1990s and an articulation of a new Bush plan at the convention speach “...America's armed forces are not a global police force. They are not the world's 911.”[7]

Advising of National Security

On 2000, Rice was made National Security Advisor and no longer served in Stanford. She was the first woman ever there. Over 2001, Rice worked on CIA Director George Tenet almost daily trying to stop the upcoming Spetember 11th which was not yet happened but might have in the future, and did. Rice asked Tenet to give a presentation for the matter to Secretary Rumsfeld and General Attorney John Ashcroft, but they did nothing, absolving Ric of the blame but some have therefore been critical of Rumsfeld.[8]

Rice was out on front in terms of the 2003 invasion of Iraq to removal brutal tyrant Saddam from power. She famously editorialized how there was a lying Iraq in The New York Times entitled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying."[9]

Rice in 2004 initially decided not to publicly testify at the 9/11 commission. Bush said executive privilege under constitutional separation of powers and said she would not testify. Under pressure, Bush eventually said she would testify [3http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/] as long as this meant that it wasn't done again neccesarily and that others might not testify. She thusly was first of sitting National Security Advisor to testify.

Leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Rice became the first National Security Advisor to campaing for an incumbent president. She used this moment to state her belief that Saddam's government in Iraq made for terrorist circumstances that produced terrorism like the 9/11 attacks on America. At a Pittsburgh, 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."

She also supported Bush's attempt to end the unfair affirmative action policies at the University of Minnesota. Famously she said once "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."[10]

Although some have criticized this as fearmongering she was herself only warning about the need for caution and the consequences of error, and because it was shown that Saddam could have gotten WMDs if he had wanted to the critics generally say that this position has been vindicated.^{[Citation Needed]}