Condoleezza Rice (born November 14, 1954) is the 66th and current United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush. Rice is the first African American woman, second African American (after Colin Powell), and second woman (after Madeleine Albright) to serve as Secretary of State.

Condoleezza Rice was previously Bush’s National Security Advisor during his first term (2001-2005). Before joining the Bush administration, she was a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999.

Early Life and Education

Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and is the only child of Angelena Rice and the Reverend John Wesley Rice (Jr.). Her father was an African-American minister at Westminster Presbyterian Church, and her mother was a music teacher. The name “Condoleezza” is derived from the Italian music-related expression, “Con dolcezza”, meaning “with sweetness”.

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 15th, 1963. Rice states that growing up during Racial segregation taught her determination against adversity, and the need to be “twice as good” as non-minorities. Segregation also hardened her stance on the right to bear arms; Rice has said in interviews that if gun registration had been mandatory, her father’s weapons would have been confiscated, leaving them defenseless against Ku Klux Klan “Night Riders”.

Rice started learning French, music, figure skating and ballet at age three. At age 15, she began classes with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. Her plans changed when she realized that she did not play well enough to support herself through music alone. She said that her playing was “pretty good but not great” and that she did not have enough time to devote to practice. (She would later make 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 for the National Medal of Arts Awards.

In 1967, the family moved to Denver When her father accepted an administrative position at the University of Denver. She attended St. Mary’s Academy High School, a small all girls Catholic High school.

After studying piano at the Aspen Music Festival and School, 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”.

Rice 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 made her call Korbel “one of the most central figures in my life.”

Rice graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in the class of 1970. In 1974, at age 19, Rice earned her B.A. in political science and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver. In 1975, she obtained her master’s Degree in political science 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, at the age of 26, she received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate School of International Studies at Denver. In addition to English, she speaks Russian, French, German, and Spanish.

Academic Career

She was hired for her first academic position by Stanford University as an Assistant Professor in political science (1981-1987). She was granted tenure and promoted, first to Associate Professor (1987-1993), and then (she was off-campus from 1989-1991) to Provost (the chief budget and academic officer of the university) and full Professor (1993-July 2000). She was also named a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution.

Rice was a Democrat until 1982 when she changed her political affiliation to Republican after growing averse to former President Carter’s foreign policy. She was a specialist on the former Soviet Union and gave lectures on the subject for the Berkeley-Stanford joint program led by UC Berkley Professor George Breslauer in the mid-1980s. She also was an avid reader of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and once told a friend she leaned toward the latter in her world view. She was quietly cerebral, friendly but decorous, and popular among students. They often saw her exercising in the gym or serving breakfast to undergraduates at Midnight Breakfast, a Stanford tradition during final exams. Yet, as Provost she managed to maintain friendly contact with various student associations, such as the Venezuelan Student Organization. After departing to enter government service, she returned to Stanford in June 2002 to deliver the commencement address. In addition to being the first woman and the first African-American to be Provost of Stanford, she was also the youngest Provost in the university’s history.

Dr. 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, Michigan State University in 2004, and Boston College Law School in 2006.

She has written or collaborated on several books, including Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995), The Gorbachev Era (1986), and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).

Business Career

Rice has served on the board of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, The Carnegie Corporation, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.

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.

She also headed Chevron’s committee on public policy until she resigned on January 15, 2001, to become National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush. Chevron honored Rice by naming an oil tanker Condoleezza Rice after her.

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, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as the Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and the Urban Coalition.

Political Career

In 1986, 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.

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 Bush’s and Secretary of State James Baker’s policies in favor of German reunification. She impressed Bush, who later introduced her to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the one who “tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union.”

In 1989 she served as director for Soviet and East European Affairs at the National Security Council and reported directly to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. In 1990 she became George H.W. Bush principal advisor on the Soviet Union and was named a special assistant to the president for national security affairs.

In 1991 Rice returned to her teaching position at Stanford, although she continued to serve as a consultant on the former Soviet Bloc for numerous clients in both the public and private sectors. Late that year, California Governor Pete Wilson appointed her to a bipartisan committee that had been formed to draw new state legislative and congressional districts in the state. A similar committee made up of retired judges (Proposition 77) was rejected by California voters in 2005.

In 1997, she sat on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military.

During George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, Rice took a one-year leave of absence from Stanford University to help work as his foreign policy adviser. The group she led called itself “The Vulcans” in honour of the huge statue of the Roman god of fire and metalworking.

National Security Advisor (2001-2005)

On December 17, 2000, Condoleezza was picked to serve as National Security Advisor and stepped down from her position at Stanford. She was the first woman to occupy the post.Leading up to the 2004 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.

Secretary of State

On November 16, 2004, Bush nominated Rice to be Secretary of State, replacing 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 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. During her hearing, Boxer questioned Rice on issues about her personal life, which was deemed, by some, as irrelevant. 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.” All negative votes came from either Democratic or independent senators. Their reasoning was that Rice had acted irresponsibly in equating Hussein’s regime with Islamic terrorism and some could not accept her previous record.

Bush and Rice purportedly have a very close relationship. They met in the 1990’s after Rice had served as former President George H. W. Bush’s top Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor. It has been argued that their shared love of sports, physical fitness, and religion have made them close friends, politically and personally. Some analysts argue that Rice’s relationship with Bush is the closest President/Secretary of State relationship since that of former President Richard Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the early 1970’s.

2005-Present

On October 30, 2005, Rice attended a memorial service in Montgomery, Alabama, in Rice’s home state, for Rosa Parks, an inspiration for the American Civil Rights Movement. Rice stated, that she and others who grew up in Alabama during the height of Parks’ activism might not have realized her impact on their lives at the time, “but I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here today as secretary of state.”

On January 18, 2006, Rice announced plans for a substantial reorganization of the State Department. Goals include the relocation of hundreds of American diplomats, as well as strengthening requirements for language skills and knowledge of foreign cultures as a prerequisite for professional advancement. Dr. Rice has given this new initiative the name “Transformational Diplomacy”.

Future Prospects

Rice has risen to become one of the most powerful female (and African-American) political figures in US history. For example, in August 2004 and again in August 2005, Forbes magazine named Dr. Rice the world’s most powerful woman. Rice is also fourth in line to succeed the President. This is a higher ranking in the presidential line of succession than any other woman has ever achieved. (Madeleine Albright is a naturalized U.S. citizen and was therefore ineligible to become President during her tenure as Secretary of State). Her supporters have touted a future Vice Presidential or Presidential candidacy as a possibility.

Currently, dozens of websites and organizations exist, seeking to draft Rice and make her candidacy a reality. The most noteworthy of these groups, “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 for her part has repeatedly said she has no desire or interest in becoming President. Interviewed on the subject by Tim Russert on March 14, 2005, Rice declared, “I will not run for president of the United States. How is that? I don’t know how many ways to say ‘no’ in this town.”

However, in May 2005, several of Rice’s associates claimed that she would be willing to run for the presidency if she were drafted into the race. On October 16, 2005, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Rice again denied she would run for President in 2008. While she says she is flattered that many people want her to run, she says it is not what she wants to do with her life. Rice told Fox News Sunday host, Chris Wallace: “I’m quite certain that there are going to be really fine candidates for president from our party, and I’m looking forward to seeing them and perhaps supporting them.” Interviewed on BBC television’s The Politics Show on October 23, she again stated her decision not to run, although she avoided stating that she would not run under any circumstances. Rice has never said that she would not accept the Republican nomination were it to be offered to her.

Certain high-profile political figures, including Laura Bush, Former White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, and world leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister John Howard have also voiced encouragement. Laura Bush has perhaps been the strongest proponent of Rice’s candidacy. On CNN’s The Situation Room on January 17, 2006, Mrs. Bush implicated Rice when asked if she thought the United States would soon have a female President, stating: “I’d love to see her run. She’s terrific.” Mrs. Bush then turned to advocacy during an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live on March 24, 2006, in which she stated that Dr. Rice would make an “excellent president,” and that she wished Americans could “talk her into running.” Even in spite of Rice’s denials of any presidential aspirations, many recent polls show her as the number one or number two most desired Republican nominee, including prominent ones like Marist, Ramussen, and Zogby. In fact, a recent Zogby American poll showed Rice defeating Democratic potentials Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Mark Warner.

Rice has publicly expressed aspirations to become the next commissioner of the National Football League and following the announcement of Paul Tagliabue’s retirement, she was widely believed to be a serious contender for the post. If appointed to the office, she would have been both the first African American and the first female commissioner of any North American major sports league. However, Rice, a Cleveland Browns fan, declined to take the post, stating that she preferred to remain as Secretary of State.

Personal Life

Rice is unmarried, though she has dated before and was even temporarily engaged to Denver Broncos receiver Rick Upchurch who, in 2000, was named one of the 300 best NFL players of all time.

Rice currently resides at the famous Watergate Apartments in Washington, DC, where many famous leaders live and have lived, including Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet members, and Senators.

Dr. Rice continues to be the dream candidate of many Republicans (draft Condi groups formed almost the day that the 2004 election concluded) who envision her as transformative Presidential candidate that would be able to break the Democratic stranglehold on the African-American vote.

It has even been suggested by many, including political pundit Dick Morris, that Dr. Rice is would be an invincible Presidential candidate.

Dr. Rice is not an invincible candidate due to many factors; first among them being the fact that she has never run for political office in her lifetime.

First time office seekers make notoriously bad candidates (although her performance thus far a Secretary of State suggests that Dr. Rice would be an exception to this rule).

She also has no geographic base. Most candidates bring a region of the country with them as “in the bag” upon nomination. Dr. Rice is not really from Alabama, not really from Colorado, and not really from California. Geography has always been a major factor in deciding U.S. Presidential elections and there is no reason to believe it will not in 2008.

Although Dr. Rice does possess significant weaknesses as a candidate, she also brings formidable strengths to the race as well.

No one in the 2008 race (from either party) will bring her foreign policy/national defense credentials to the table. Political pundits have always speculated that these two issues are the main roadblocks in the path of a female Presidential candidate. They are Dr. Rice’s strengths.

Secondly, Dr. Rice has a great life story to tell. It’s is easy to envision tears in the eyes of a television audience as Dr. Rice tells them of her visit as a small child to the White House, where her and her parent’s were barred from touring due to their race. When Dr. Rice recalls that she told her now deceased parents that someday she would be in that house, it will hit the audience like a sledgehammer.

Perhaps no other GOP candidate would benefit from the nomination of Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket as Dr. Rice. As Dick Morris described in his book “Condi vs. Hillary”, when contrasted with Dr. Rice, Hillary would be hurt tremendously by someone who was able to accomplish so much with so many barriers standing in her way- all the time standing on her own two feet.

Dr. Rice has insisted that she will not run for President in 2008. However her future may lie as the uncontested frontrunner for the Vice-Presidential slot on the 2008 GOP ticket. It is hard to imagine that she will not be the first choice of whoever is able to secure the Republican nomination.

She would certainly then be able to take her shot as the uncontested frontrunner for the next open GOP ticket.

Biography Source: Wikipedia

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