John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; WGBH Forum Network; Condoleezza Rice: Extraordinary, Ordinary People

We are honored to have Condoleezza Rice with us today to discuss her new book Extraordinary Ordinary People A Memoir of Family as the title suggests this is a book about her family especially her extraordinary past. Parents John and Angelina. She writes of their bravery. Their sacrifice their love for one another. And their love for her. But this is more than a book about family. It's also a book about a young black girl in the Deep South. Coming of Age in the 1960s. Her description. Of her childhood in Birmingham Alabama. Is pointedly recalled as she writes We found a. We found a way to live normally in highly abnormal circumstances. She describes the summer of 1963. As one of quote. Police dogs and fire hoses. And she asked at one point how could it be that so much hatred and prejudice had been lodged in one place.

It's also clear from her writing that the Kennedy family represented a powerful beacon of hope for her and her family. As she puts it. We felt our fate. Was completely in the hands of the Kennedys. The book is also part autobiography. Some reviewers have complained that we don't learn enough about Dr. Rice. But I learned a lot. I learned for instance that at age six she had a crush on Mozart. I'd learned that she was a football fanatic. She occasionally watches sumo wrestling on TV. And whenever she buys a new car she seems to name it after some. Russian political or cultural figure. But what you also learn is that she is an enormously thoughtful and compassionate person. And she's tough. Condoleezza Rice was the second woman to serve as secretary of state and the first African-American woman. She was also the first woman to serve as national security adviser. Prior to joining the Bush administration. Dr. Rice was a

professor of political science and later provost at Stanford University. She's currently the Thomas and Barbara Stevenson senior fellow member of the task force on energy policy at the Hoover Institution. To moderate today's discussion is Dr. Rice's friend and former colleague Ambassador Nicholas Burns. Ambassador Burns served in the United States foreign service for 27 years. He was undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. U.S. ambassador to NATO U.S. ambassador to Greece. State Department spokesman and member of the National Security Council Special Assistant to the press to President Clinton and director for Soviet affairs in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. He's currently professor of practice of the practice of diplomacy and international politics. At the Harvard Kennedy School. Please join me in welcoming Condoleezza Rice and Nick Burns. Well good morning everybody. I'm Nick Burns is a pleasure to welcome all of you to the Kennedy Library on this

beautiful day. I want to thank Tom Putnam the library director Dave McCain CEO of a John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and all of you for being here. And please join me again in welcoming this remarkable individual talking to Condoleezza Rice. She has written. An extraordinary book that Dave just talked about. I hope you'll read it. I read it over the last couple of days. I could not conduct this session without reading the entire book. I finished it this morning. I recommend it to everybody. It is currently number nine on the New York Times bestseller list that's saying something in our very partisan era. This is a non partisan book. And I think it's going to rise in that list in the next couple of weeks. We're very proud about that. And I'm not going to be a neutral interviewer this morning because I'm an unabashed admirer of Dr. Connelly's rice. I'm a friend. Of hers. I counted up this morning Condi we worked together for more than 10 years in the U.S. government. I'd say three things about her but you should know. She's highly intelligent. You know that because she was a very young tenured professor at

Stanford She's an author of many books. She's very accomplished. As secretary of state and as national security adviser as provost at Stanford. She's an athlete. So she was a skater when she was young for the kids who are here. She was a tennis player. She's trying to be a good golfer I know that right now. A lot tougher. And she is she is a sports enthusiast. She roots rabidly for the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals. I've been trying to figure out in my 20 year friendship with Condi Rice is there any flaw. I think I've found that. She's not yet a member of Red Sox nation. And let me tell you a story. In the many many days and years that we worked together of course I'm a member of Red Sox Nation Patriots Nation Celtics nation. She was even known on occasion to root for a team called the New York Yankees. So my first question to Dr. Rice is do you believe in redemption.

I believe in forgiveness and redemption. And I want to recall Connie this is to get this interview started. When the Red Sox after 86 years finally won the World Series in 2004. I was the American ambassador to NATO and we had a Red Sox party at Nido in the middle of the party. My secretary came in with a telegram from the National Security Advisor. I didn't know if we'd declared war on anybody what had happened. Connie could you tell us about that. Oh yes. Well Nick is a very devoted member of Red Sox Nation. I seem to attract them around me for some reason and I did send him a telegram. I said congratulations to the Red Sox on winning the World Series. Of course I wish to point out that in the time since the last time the Red Sox won the World Series the Soviet Union was born occupied Europe and died. Touché Dr..

Connie let's talk about your book. I know that you had this book in mind for a long time. You have an extraordinary extended family and you had particular extraordinary parents and what struck me about this book it's a book about faith. A book about family. As Dave said a book through. The American South. At a tortured time in our history. Your parents were a supreme guide for you through all these troubles. Well as I was trying to decide what to write about after I left government as I went through each extraordinary event in my own experiences standing in front of an airplane that said the United States of America are negotiating with Israelis and Palestinians. The question that I'm often asked How did you get to be who you are kept burning in my mind and I thought the answer is that of course you had to know John and Angelina Rice and so I thought I wanted to write my story. But really their story and John and Angelina Rice were ordinary people just the ordinary in the title My mom was this school teacher a high school teacher taught English and then science is a matter of

fact one of her first students was the legendary Willie Mays. And David O. My mother never picked up a ball or bat of any kind because the ladies didn't do that in the south. She knew that Willie Mays was special and he told me that she said Now son you're going to be a ballplayer so if you need to leave class a little early you go right ahead and do that. My mother therefore was a teacher. She believed in the democratization of the arts. She gave operettas for her kids in these very poor schools and what she taught did of a wonderful performance once of Porgy and Bess with the kids in the opera. But she was an ordinary person. My father was an ordinary person. He was a guidance counselor in a high school president. A Presbyterian minister later a university administrator an absolute lover of sports. It's where I get my love of sports. He's been a football coach who had played semi pro football and just loved sports but I doubt between them that my parents ever made $60000.

And yet the extraordinary part relates both to what they did for me. And there was never any opportunity particularly one that could remotely be called educational. That I didn't have. And they did it in the circumstances of Birmingham Alabama. By far the most segregated big city in the country a place where you couldn't go to a restaurant couldn't stay in a hotel where families really should have been lacking and optimism lacking in vision. And yet despite the nature of Birmingham my parents had me convinced and our community had the kids convinced that you might not be able to have a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter but you could be president of the United States if you wanted to. So. That's the extraordinary part. In extraordinary ordinary people. County you write in the book that your parents were educational evangelists. You've been somewhat of an educational advantages weren't role from your earliest days in education play

in finding a way in our society in this very difficult time. Well my parents believed as did their parents and our entire community that education was a kind of armor against prejudice. We were told constantly You will have to be twice as good. And that was said by the way not as a matter for debate but as a matter of fact excellence was demanded of the kids. But we were told we're going to give you everything you need to succeed. But there are no victims. In fact. Our parents really believe my parents and others you might not be able to control your circumstances but you could control your response to your circumstances. And the best way to control your response to these circumstances of Birmingham was to be able to do it with education with perfectly spoken English with the ability to speak French with the ability to use the right fork. So we had etiquette lessons. I was glad of that by the way when I was at the White House dinners and I knew which to use. It was a place that was completely dedicated to

education. But what was wonderful for me. In doing this book is I had known vaguely how my parents took. The view that it wasn't just my education it was education of children in general and my father had a youth fellowship program at his church. Which was the drawing card from all around the city not just kids who went to his church but kids from all over the city not to be. To be fair he was a Presbyterian minister so he could have dances and the Baptists could. And so that might have had one of the reasons that it was so popular. But he also used it as an opportunity to bring tutoring to the church in French and algebra. He would go door to door in the government project that was located behind his little middle class church and he would say you know your daughter is smart. And she needs to go to college. And I've gotten her a scholarship at Tuskegee or your son is smart and he needs to go to college and I've gotten him a scholarship at Knoxville College. And.

That way he built really he and my mother like his father had. A whole generation of educated kids even kids who didn't have means in Birmingham. Right Connie two things really stood out. When you use the book to me. About her use. This phrase twice as good. So your parents were saying to you and. Other African-American kids you're going to be held to a higher standard in a racist and segregated society. That's right. So you need to be twice as good in everything you do in class in sports and you felt that from an early age we felt that from an early age and I've talked to so many kids with whom I grew up and we all felt that way in this little middle class enclave in in Birmingham I remember I didn't have a white classmate until we moved to Denver. When you were 30 when I was 13 we had one. White teacher. My last year at Drew in high school in Tuscaloosa so these schools were completely segregated. Board of Brown versus the Board of Education had

been passed in 1954. But the Birmingham schools were completely segregated within that segregated environment. Ironically. The teachers and the principals who were by the way the Giants of the community to be a teacher was to be at the height of your profession. Those people were able to demand more without racial overtones. So when they said to a kid you know you're not performing. There wasn't any issue Well it's that person prejudice against me. It was you know get over it. Do your work. The funny thing is I don't remember feeling either that these were Stepford parents. You know I didn't feel pressured and and downtrodden by it. We loved learning and they made it fun for us to learn but they were very clear that a lot was expected. The second thing that stands out is this issue of whether or not you are a victim when we were together in Aspen Colorado over this summer is now Dr. Rice and I did a similar interview with Secretary of State

Madeleine Albright and rehearsing some of the questions ahead of time not that people do that really. Never. I said you know should we talk about the fact that you were a victim of segregation and you said immediately I was the victim. That's why I talked about that a little bit. My parents believed and they passed on to me that the minute you begin to think of yourself as a victim. You have lost control of your situation. You also when you think of yourself as a victim are given to aggrievement. And you're given to its twin brother which is entitlement. And entitlement makes you say all right what are they not doing for me. Why haven't they given me this. And you lose your capacity and your drive to go and see it yourself. I. Had it really in many ways. I was very fortunate. I had loving parents in a nice middle class community. Yes it was a terrible city but a wonderful family. When I think about my parents generation and what they experienced or my

grandparents and what they experienced how dare I think of myself as a victim. My grandfather's on my father's side is in many ways one of our great family heroes and I tell his story in this book I'm not even by the way the first Ph.D. in my family because John Wesley Rice senior. Who was a sharecropper son when he was 19 years old decided he was going to get book learning in a college. So he asked how a colored man could go to college. They told him about little Stillman College. It was about 30 miles from where he lived. He saved up his cotton. He went off to Stillman. He got to his first year college. They said How are you going to pay for your second year. He said well I'm out of money. They said then you're out of luck. He said so how are those boys going to college. They said well you see they have what's called a scholarship. And if you wanted to be a Presbyterian minister then you could have a scholarship to. And my grandfather said you know that is exactly what I had in mind. And my family has been college educated and Presbyterian ever since.

Not only did John Wesley Rice educate himself but he educated my father and my aunt who was a one of the first black women to get a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Wisconsin. In 1952 she got it in Victorian literature. She wrote books on Dickens for goodness sakes. And so. That kind of drive from my grandparents my grandparents on my mother's side educated all five of their children. We used to laugh he had to get my grandparents educated a couple of their children twice because they left school. And when my my eldest uncle and my youngest aunt left school and went north to find their fame and fortune. My grandfather got on a train. Brought them physically back to Alabama and put them in college where they finished and became quite successful professionals. So these people didn't see themselves as victims. And I didn't see myself as one either.

Thank you. Dave mentioned the summer of 1963 may be the. Epicenter of the civil rights struggle. You were in the middle of it as a little girl. And you write in the book about the first time that you remember experiencing racism. And ironically a visit to Santa Claus. Yes. Yes. Well. We had our little enclave. But of course once in a while you had to cross into the larger world. And one such time you know the drill you go to the department store you line up to see Santa Claus Santa Claus takes little kid. What do you want for Christmas. Well this particular Santa was taking the little white kids and putting them on his knee and the little black kids and holding them out here. And I heard my father I was five years old. I heard my father say Angelina if he does that to Condoleezza I'm going to pull all that stuff off of him and show him to be the cracker that he is. Now as you might imagine little Condoleezza goes forward now with some trepidation to go out here. Is it Daddy. Is it Santa Claus is it Daddy is it Santa Claus but

Santa Claus must've felt my father's vibes. My father was six foot two and built like a football player and Santa when I got to him said Little girl what do you want to Christmas. But I remember thinking you know what a racially charged incident around of all things Santa Claus. But of course. It would get. More that way more intense. In 1962 in 1963 Birmingham became known as bombing Ham. It was a place where bombs went off in neighborhoods all the time. I can remember one night coming back from my grandparents house in the summer of 1962. And my father we heard a big thud. And in those days you knew it was a bomb. So my father turned the car around. My mother said where are you going. He said Oh well I'm going to the police and she said Oh they probably said it in the first place. And this was the day. These were the days of Eugene Bull Connor the public safety commissioner who was actually the police chief. So we

experienced this and then in September of 1963. September 15th the Sunday we were at church I had just arrived the church early. And again there was a huge thud. Now the 16th Street Baptist Church is about twenty two miles as the close as the crow flies from your father's church. And it was in the days before cell phones but a phone tree kind of started. And first we heard it had been 16th Street Baptist Church. Then we heard it had been in the basement then there had been four little girls there who had been killed preparing to go to Sunday school. And then finally the names of the little girls. And in our small black community everybody knew one or more of these girls and one of them was Denise McNair who had been in my father's kindergarten I play dolls with her. There's a picture in the book of my father handing Denise McNair her graduation certificate from kindergarten. So it came home then in a very personal way. And I remember we were seven or I was I was

eight years old. I remember going home that night and my father just sat on the front porch in the September heat with a shotgun on his lap. And the next couple of days the men of the community organized a watch where they got their guns and they patrolled the community. You mentioned the name Bull Connor one of the most reviled names in American history racist. Police chief. He shut down the parks in. The swimming pools and he didn't give you any access to recreation that's good. Well Eugene Bull Connor who I remember is a scowling ugly man who was always on TV talking about what the Negras wanted and what they didn't want in any of his really awful character. And one day in the summer my mother said you know we're not going to be able to go to swimming lessons this year and I said Why. Well Eugene Bull Connor had rather than integrate the pools under court order. Simply shut them down. All of them. White. Black. All of them.

And I've jokingly said you know I learned to swim when I was 25 when I moved to California. And I'll bet that's what this is because of this. You know I just never if you don't learn when you're six or seven or eight It sort of passes along. And I remember saying to somebody I'll bet there are a whole bunch of little white and black kids in Birmingham who can't swim. Thanks to two Bull Connor. Right. Everybody above a certain age in America remembers where we were on November 22nd 1963 we're in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. I imagine that our reactions. I was here in Boston you are in Birmingham. May have been a little bit different. We of course focus on the loss of this great charismatic president. I know how important he was to the African-American community. But you write about something else you really fear and your parents did. The southern president succeed. Yes. My parents my family loved the Kennedys. First President John F. Kennedy and later Bobby Kennedy were really our heroes. And. In June of 1963 President Kennedy had talked about

ending segregation and we had placed great hope in that. And then when the little girls were killed in September everybody sort of assumed that would give more impetus to the effort to end segregation. And I remember like yesterday sitting in Mrs. Ryle's geography class at Pineta see how Hill Elementary School. And we had a geography class followed by recess followed by history and Mrs. Ryle's taught both geography and history. And about midway through the geography class she said she had gone to the war and she said oh my god the president has been shot. And so she shut us out for recess and we sort of stood around not really knowing what to do and when we went back into the class for history she started the lesson and then she went to the door again and I heard her wail from the outside oh my god the president's dead. And there's a Southerner in the White House. What's going to become of us now. That was the immediate fear. That was the immediate reaction. That afternoon I was in the car with my uncle who taught at the school and would

always drive me home and he said How do you feel about the president. And I said well I was very sad. And then I said and scared. And I say in the book that while every American remembers how they felt on that day. I'm. Pretty sure that not too many people. Outside of the South would have had the reaction and scared. Right. You would have all these doors close to you for your entire life with him because of President Kennedy and President Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. And you write very movingly in the book about you and your parents going to a restaurant and being able to walk through those doors for the first time and know they couldn't throw you out. Right now it's 1964 July 1964 the Civil Rights Act passes that evening on the news our our favorite was Huntley-Brinkley. We watched the Huntley-Brinkley Report every night. And Chet Huntley said that the Civil Rights Act passed. President Johnson would sign it into law. Then the local anchor came on

and said the so-called Civil Rights Act had passed. So my parents and I decided to go check it out. So a couple of days later we went to a restaurant for the first time in a hotel not too far from us. We walked in the door and people literally just stopped eating. They looked up. They stopped eating and after a little while they went back. To eating. Because. They knew that it was now legal. It was quite empowering actually. And a few days later we were served by the way without incident. We ate our meal paid our bill and left. But a few days later we were going through one of those drive in hamburger place called Jacks hamburgers and I got my hamburger and it was dark. It was nighttime and I bit into it and I said to my father something tasted funny. And he turned on the light and it was onions. A burger bun just filled with onions. So it took a while. But I would go on to take advantage of desegregation and becoming the first black kid to study in the Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music.

My father would go on to spend the summer training to be the first counselor in the now integrated equal opportunity program for the state of Alabama. Little by little it took hold in very important ways and it shows. Changing laws doesn't matter even if the norms take a while to change. Right. You also reflect in the book a little bit on the legacy of racism in America. It's still with us. Yes. And I think we have to say here in Boston you do say in the book what's correct that Boston was a racially polarized city. Yes. Certainly in the 1970s during our busing crisis still is today in some ways. So. How do you think about racism. Looking back at your own personal experience at all that you've been through as. Well race I say in the book and I really believe this is like a birth defect for the United States that you will always have. Because we had the birth defect of slavery and then we had reconstruction and

Jim Crow and years of prejudice. Fortunately. I don't believe it's dispositive any longer in what you can achieve because we have gotten to the place that. For the most part when you you do see color when somebody walks in you see a black person but perhaps you don't immediately associate certain roles with that person you might by the way still associate certain feels with that person. That's something we've got to get over. But you will probably not associate certain roles. But. There are a lot of people who got trapped. In the witch's brew that is race and poverty. And that's a horrible place to be in our society. For my grandparents for my parents even for me. Education was a way to make certain that prejudice and racism however strong. Were not going to take control of our lives and determine who we're going to be. But today when I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether or not you're going to get a good education.

I think that way out is really not there for an awful lot of our kids. Thank you. I thought the part of the book about Birmingham and Tuscaloosa was riveting. And then your family moved to death where your father had an opportunity to become a university administrator and you still encountered a more insidious with you know racism. I think it's when you went to rent a house with your parent yes we got my parents and I moved to Denver. My dad had been going to Denver in the summers trying to finish a degree in student personnel administration who desperately wanted to get out of the active pastorate. And so he knew that university work was his calling. We went to Denver several summers by the way that's how I became an ice skater because when my parents would go to school in the summer they needed something to do with me and there was skating school which became kind of high priced childcare and so we moved. Finally when my dad decided he was never going to finish going in the summers we went for a year and never moved back.

We moved to Denver he was hired at the University of Denver but we were a couple of years after we had been in Denver. My parents wanted to rent a new house because the house that we were living in was the sort of short term faculty rental and after two years you had to leave. It was subsidized housing. We found a house that a friend had said was for rent. And I'll never forget the lady opened the door and she just sort of recoiled. And as we were walking around the house she started making excuses. She heard my mother mention that the piano would look very good in that corner. We had a grand piano and she said Oh you have a piano. She said Oh you can't have a piano in this neighborhood. She said yeah. She said you know it might disturb the neighbors. And you know when you've grown up in Birmingham you can spot it just like that. And my father said Oh really he said Do any people in this neighborhood have stereos and you telling me nobody in this neighborhood has a piano. He said the reason you don't want to rent is we're black he

said and now nothing that you can do will make me rent this house. However I hope you will enjoy the housing suit that we're just about to fall against you. And now she really wanted to rent it. Oh no no no. Your piano would be no problem and so forth and so on we went away. My father said he wasn't going to file suit she would never discriminate against anybody again. But he reminded us my mother and me that prejudice was not simply an artifact of the South. And that prejudice is in places that were supposedly integrated. We're in many ways more insidious than the brutal but frontal. Prejudice we have confronted in Alabama. Right. As this book continues I thought there was a lot in it when you talked about your life as a teenager especially when you went to university for the young people in the audience about how do you achieve your dream because you had a dream. Oh I did it to be a musician. And what happened to that.

Well I was studying piano at age three. My grandmother taught piano lessons 25 cents a lesson should charge. And I stayed at her house during the day so I would go bang at the piano. Finally she decided to teach me and so I started studying at age 3. I was always going to be a concert pianist. When I finished my sophomore year in college where I'd been majoring in piano. I went off to the Aspen music festival school in Aspen where Nick and I go in the summers and I met at the Aspen music festival school prodigy's. Who could play from sight everything had taken me all year to learn. And I thought oh I'm about to end up teaching piano which I don't want to do. Or maybe I'm going to end up playing at a piano bar some place or maybe at Nordstrom but I'm not playing Carnegie Hall that's very evident. So I went home and I had the conversation with my parents that maybe you've had with your parents or will have with your kids mom and dad. I'm changing my major. What do you change your major to. I don't know. You don't know what you want to do with your life. You're right it's my life.

Yeah but it's our money by nature. And so I went back to school and I was now a junior in college with no major. I tried English literature. And Teresa had been in English literature. I hated it. I tried state and local government. I thought well that's practical. My little task a little project was to interview the city water manager of Denver to this day the most boring man I've ever met. And so it was clearly not state and local government. And finally I wandered. Junior year spring quarter into a course in international politics taught by Joseph Corbell Madeleine Albright's father. And it was like finding love. Suddenly diplomacy international relations the Soviet Union Russian. I knew what I wanted to be and I went home and I said Mom and Dad I know what it is I want to be a Soviet specialist. And luckily they did say what in the world is a black girl from Birmingham Alabama talking about being a Soviet specialist. But there's an important lesson in that. It was for me my passion. There was

no reason really that a black girl from Birmingham Alabama ought to want to be a Soviet specialist. I was just interested in it and it's worked out pretty well for me. But had I. Had I been. Afraid to do it because well maybe that's not what I'm supposed to do as a black person or. Had I been waiting to find a role model who looked like me as a Soviet specialist particularly Soviet military specialist which is what I became. I would have been waiting a long time. And so I often say to young people your job over your college years is to find your passion. Find what it is you really love doing what is it that's going to make you get up every day and want to go do that and don't let it be limited. To things that somebody else that they look at you might say oh that's what you ought to be interested in. It only works if it's truly your passion. And by the way if you turn out to be pretty good

at it. So my first passion music remains a passion used today. I still play in July. I play with Aretha Franklin and in Philadelphia a few years ago I played with Yo-Yo Ma. Right. But let me be very clear I am not confused. I am not. I didn't play with Aretha Franklin or Yo-Yo Ma because I was a great great pianist. I played because I was national security advisor and former secretary of state so clearly I made a good decision to change my major. Even though I hung onto my piano. And the other lesson from these years that I was being nice to internes ya because you were an intern I remember in second when Connie made her first speech Secretary of State to the employees of the State Department she said I started here as an intern in 1977. Be nice to enter. Nice to everybody. I'm coming up that's right.

And the intern story is also a great story of mentoring. There was a black African American ambassador. Horst Dawson. Yes. One of the first black ambassadors in the Foreign Service quite well regarded. And he and my father had become friendly. My father was serving on a panel for Ambassador Dawson evaluating some programs at the state and he said to me you know you're interested in international politics and you should have an internship here at the State Department. I had no idea I was in graduate school. I had no idea that the internships were even available in the State Department and not only did Ambassador Dawson do that. He sent me the forms and then every week he called and said Have you filled out the forms have you filled out the forms and he remains a great friend to this day. But mentoring is really very important. Right. So. We have some questions from the audience. I'd like to ask and we have. A little over 60 minutes remaining. So I'll read the most interesting to you. Here's a good one. Because I wanted to turn to your

time in Washington. Secretary Rice is going to write another book. I am That's a spare fact I'm writing as we speak as we speak. But. This morning and when I get on the plane on your time is National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. Howard this question is how would you like history to record your time. In Washington. Well I'm a great believer that history has a long arc and history will. I hope remember us the people who cared. First and foremost that no man woman or child should have to live in tyranny. And believed that even people who had no experience with democracy no traditions of democracy still had a burning desire for those universal freedoms that we all enjoy. I hope that it would be remembered that we tried to take advantage of the compassion of America to take on the AIDS epidemic to increase foreign aid.

Threefold across the world and fourfold for Africa. I certainly hope that it will be remembered that after the horrors of September 11th. We tried to defend the country. That. We try to write a new script for how to do that when there really wasn't one to do it. But I really do believe that it's history will judge you know I said often and Nick heard me say today's headlines of history's judgment are rarely the same. And in order to remind myself of that you know I kept secretary of state's portraits near me who reminded me well everybody had Thomas Jefferson the first secretary of state everybody and George Marshall. But Dean Acheson because when he left office all the people remembered was who lost China. And now he's remembered as the founding father of Matto. I kept William Stewart because he bought Alaska. And when he returned it was. How could you have spent $7 million to the Czar of Russia for that icebox. Seward's Folly sorts

folly and a few years ago when I was meeting with the man who was then the defense minister of Russia certainly even if he said you know Condi I was just in Alaska he said it is so beautiful. He said it reminds me of Russia. Said Sergey. It's to be Russia. So we're awfully glad that sword bought Alaska. History's judgment. Today's headlines not the same. I'll let history judge some of these questions are about your time as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. And I wanted to go there to. You When I first worked together. In 1989 1991 last two those years at the White House. We were a team on Soviet affairs. We saw an empire collapse. We saw communism collapse. We saw hundreds of millions of people freed from tyranny. What lessons do you draw from that. For us today. Well we were lucky. You know we were in the White House for the end of the Cold War and frankly it hasn't get better than being the White House Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War. But as I was watching and experiencing the triumph of freedom in Eastern Europe the

unification of Germany completely on Western terms and the beginning of the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union I had to remember that it was absolutely it was it was actually great decisions that had been taken in 46 and 47 48 when things didn't look so great. Great decisions by President Kennedy to face down the Soviet Union in Cuba or to stand for Berliners in 1961. Those were the times that were tough. And you know if in 1948 at the time of the Berlin blockade or 1949 when the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule and the Chinese communist one. If you had told people. Here's what's going to happen in 1989 there will be a wave of democratic revolutions across Eastern Europe the Soviet Union will withdraw without a shot. In 1990 Germany will unify western Germany will win. Eastern Germany will be no more. And on December 25th 1991 the hammer and sickle will come down from above the Kremlin for the last

time. Communism never mind. If you'd said that in 48. 58 68 78 maybe even 88 people wouldn't believe people would have had you committed. And so what I learning is that history has a long arc. You take decisions not because they are popular today or because today they look good. But because over the long run. They allowed the triumph of these values that I believe are at the core of the triumph of progress in human history. And so when I was fortunate enough to be there for 11:9. And the end of a great historical epoch as the Berlin Wall came down when I was also there on 9 11. At the beginning of another big historical epoch. Facing an enemy that we didn't understand very well. Who had shocked us with the attack on American territory for the first time since the 18th war of 1812.

I tried to remember that it was going to be a long time before the outcomes were certain. But that our job was to try to pass on to the next set of leaders and the next set of leaders policies that would ultimately result in the victory of democratic values. Speaking of that. Of that theme there is a great Boston abolitionist Reverend Theodore Parker in the 1950s and 60s who wrote the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. Martin Luther King cited that Barack Obama did you. Think. Tell us about your thoughts about human freedom in China in the future in the Arab world where women do not have rights. Do you think the power of human freedom is such that we're going to see further successes in our life. I have no doubt that the power of human freedom is so great. That we will see a sweep. You wait a minute may not see it where there really is no more tyranny. It's being accelerated by technology. When the people in

Iran can twitter out what is happening in Iran. It makes the Iranian regime that much weaker. And yes you can with force and brutality. Keep an illegitimate regime in power for some time but not forever. I also believe that even the authoritarians in China who have an economic story that is the envy of the world. Unfortunately they're their own people and are so afraid of their own people that they are. Hacking into servers. To try to find that last human rights advocate who might be on the Internet. Is that country really capable of leading. The global knowledge revolution. Probably not. And in the Middle East many of our friends and allies. Are beginning to understand. I think that you cannot. Prosper with half of your population essentially enslaved. Now it may take some time but democracy. Look democracy is messy.

And it's cavernous and we yell at each other and it's noisy and it's not sometimes very efficient. But I still believe that it's more stable because every authoritarian fears what I call the Ceausescu moment. Right. The Ceausescu moment was in 1989 when the revolutions were sweeping across Eastern Europe. And Ceausescu the leader of Romania came into the square to to exhort the Romanian people in what he had done for them. And all of a sudden in the square of 250000 people one old lady yelled liar. Then 10 people. Then 10000 people. Then a hundred thousand people. And by the time a hundred and fifty thousand people were yelling liar he knew it was time to get out of there and so he turned to run. But a young military helicopter pilot who was supposed to take him away to safety returned the helicopter around and delivered Ceausescu and his wife Elena to the revolution instead.

And they were executed every authoritarian Thiers that moment because they don't have the fingertip feel for their people. They have no way of knowing what's going on out on out there and so they're terrified. And most importantly. However bad it gets in the United States or in Germany or in Mexico or any democratic state. We have peaceful ways to throw the bums out. Authoritarians know that there is no peaceful way to change power. Right. And that's why authoritarian regimes are ultimately unstable. And we worked together after 9/11. A lot of critics said certain peoples of the world are not ready for democracy. Afghans are not ready. They said. The Iraqis are not ready. It sounded fairly patronizing to me. We used to talk about too much about it. Yes. You don't. It. It's patronizing in the extreme and it's patronizing on two fronts. First of all think of all the people about whom it was said. Latin Americans well they just prefer deals.

They're never going to have democracies. Right. But Colombia and Chile and all of these great democracies. All by the way Africans they're too tribal. They're never going to have democracy. But you look at democracies in Ghana and Tanzania and South Africa for that matter. Oh by the way black people. There too childlike. They don't really care about the vote. Really. And so it's patronizing because we tend to assume. That people out there don't want the. Same things that we want. They don't want to be able to say what they think. They don't want to be able to worship as they please. They don't want to be able to select those who are going to govern them and they don't want to be free from the knock of the secret police at night. What human being doesn't want that. And more importantly we get impatient. With those who are trying to do it. So we get kind of huffy. Well why are they taking so long to form a government. Why can't they root out corruption. Well you know because it's hard. Democracy is hard. It's

not easy. And if this bill shows anything it shows that the United States of America of all people we should not be impatient with others. My father couldn't register to vote in 1952. Who are we to be so impatient. With people who are trying to find a way to make their new democratic institutions work. And so I think we serve ourselves best. When we speak for the universal values of human dignity which are best represented in democracy and choice. And once in a while as secretary of state I would see a glimpse of it that stays with me to this day. Now I was in Iraq once and I was meeting with a Shia cleric. This was a man who could not shake my hand because I was a woman and they can't touch women who are not in their families. And at the end of our meeting he said Oh you wait just a minute. Right here he said I want you to meet my 13 year old granddaughter. And out came this little covert

girl. Who said to me in. English. I want to be foreign minister too. And her grandfather beamed. And I thought this very prejudiced man who can't shake my hand because I'm a woman. See something different for his granddaughter. And so that to me says that those values reside deep within us. And when allowed free expression are not only. The morally right thing for which to stand. But the practical one. To. Right with a few more questions before we finish. What was your most courageous decision as secretary of state in your judgment. Well. I was. Fortunate to serve a president who made a lot of courageous decisions not all of them popular but many of them very courageous. I think that standing next to the prime minister of Lebanon during the Lebanon war. Someone that I respected and liked a great

deal. But having to say. Prime Minister we are going to be able to have an immediate cease fire because Hezbollah. Is simply going to do again what they just did. If we insist on a cease fire now we have got to get to the place that Hezbollah forces cannot again. Cross the blue line. Attack Israel and throw your country into disaster. That was really hard because I had enormous respect for what's in your. I never felt. Personally. Threatened. By going into places. But I do remember once when I in retrospect think back I think it was the right call. It was in my last visit to Lebanon in 2008. And as you know we always tried to keep the visits of high ranking officials secret until the last second because of security concerns. And Hezbollah in Lebanon owns the airport. And so it leaked that I was going to come to Lebanon and there were all kinds of

there all kinds of e-mail traffic. Hezbollah saying they would. Do something to me and so forth. And so the my detail my security detail suggested that we land the helicopter instead at the American embassy and I could ride from there. And I said no we're taking the American blue and white which is what the secretary of state's plane or the president's plane is called we're taking the American blue and white We're landing in Lebanon. We're going to show the people of Lebanon whether the Americans are not afraid of Hezbollah and that they shouldn't be either. And I said oh by the way I don't really think they want to kill the American secretary of state. And bring down those consequences. In retrospect I think. A. Little chancy but I'm glad I got a good decision. Yeah good decision. We have time for a couple of more questions. What do you think of President Obama and how he's conducted himself in office. You know look I as I have said before I'm I'm not going to chirp at the next administration. We had our eight years. It's a lot harder in there than it is out

here. And I used to think you know I was a while like Rita. I made an editorial in the newspaper it would say the Bush administration should get the world to have tougher sanctions on the Iranians and I would think why didn't I think of that. So when you're in there it's a lot tougher. And that's why I've been very careful. I am someone who had a great deal of pride the day that the president was elected. Pride for America that we'd overcome all that we've been through all that's represented in this book to elect a black man president of the United States. I don't agree with everything that he's done. But I also know that we have a tendency with our presidents you know the day that they are inaugurated. They're the smartest most wonderful human beings in the world. And a year and a half later how we possibly could have elected that person. We can understand it. We're tough on our presidents and yet it's the loneliest job in the world. I had the honor of being invited by President Obama a couple of weeks ago when I was in Washington to come and spend some time with him

talking about foreign policy. We did. I told him what I what I thought. And that's the way I'll choose to do it. And we hope he succeeds. Oh absolutely. Look we only have one president at a time. The United States of America is going through a really difficult time. And we need jobs. We need free trade to stimulate those jobs. We need certainty for businesses to be able to hire people. And there are a lot of tough things on his plate or the plate of any girls in the United States. And you know we all have to pray for him and wish him well. I fully agree. We have about a minute left. Three quick questions I have to add. I'm your friend. Yes but I have to ask the questions on the car. All right. Are you going to run for president. No. You ok. Easy. Here's another one that was I think this card. Do you want to be commissioner of the National Football League. All right. Right. You don't want the president of the commissioner of the NFL. Well I told Roger Goodell

about it. I'm a big fan of Roger Goodell by the way. And I said you know Roger when I was struggling with the Iranians and the Russians every day your job looked pretty good. But from Northern California your job doesn't look so good anymore so I think I'll let the commissioner do his job. I tell you one quick story though please. I was in Cleveland 10 days ago or so. The Browns game. Well I went to the Browns. Practice and I addressed the team. And they went out this one in five team and then they beat the world champion New Orleans Saints in New Orleans. OK. I'm. I'm for hire if the Patriots would like me to come in. I was going to get to that. You are in Patriots nation as well. The Patriots are 5 and 1. Yeah they're going to get to the AFC championship game and win the Super Bowl. They've got a very good chance of doing so particularly given the injuries to the Indianapolis Colts. And it would be fine by me. I'm a big

fan of Tom Brady's a son of California. Good. This has been an extraordinary pleasure to be able to talk to Condi Rice. This is a great book. I really recommend it. I want to thank you kindly and thank you for the lessons that your parents teachers make you. Thank you.