If It's Tuesday...
Secretary of State Rice keeps up a record travel pace
THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND FEET OVER CHINA--Condoleezza Rice likes to say "the time for diplomacy is now." For George Bush's second-term secretary of state, now is also the time for travel.
As she approaches the halfway point of her first year in office, Rice has logged more miles (152,231) and alighted in more countries (35) than any previous secretary of state in the same period of time. Her four-nation swing through Asia, which ended last week, netted an elusive diplomatic goal: bringing North Korea back into six-nation talks to eliminate its nuclear-weapons programs. "It turned out," Rice remarked on the way home on her Air Force Boeing 757, "to be a very good time. . . to come to Asia."
Rice jetted off from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington at midday July 8, and over the next 124 hours, she flew 18,826 miles over 43 hours; made three refueling stops; took two helicopter rides; participated in meetings in China, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea; watched children sing and dance; and repeatedly performed the ritual grip-and-grin. If it was Tuesday, it must be Japan--and South Korea, too. The pace was felt by all. "The worst sleep I ever had," muttered one staffer after an overnight flight.
And yet, the sleep deprivation proved worthwhile. At the start, Rice said her trip aimed to "bring together all of these strands" of diplomatic activity to draw mercurial North Korea back to the negotiating table. As she arrived in Beijing on a Saturday night, Rice got word that an aide had just received Pyongyang's pledge to return to negotiations the week of July 25--with the avowed goal of complete denuclearization.
Checking in. Rice seems to have taken to heart the criticism of her friend and mentor, Colin Powell, who, some charge, stayed in Washington too much while relations with friends abroad frayed. She also enjoys a special advantage: Every foreign leader she meets knows she is Bush's close friend--and unquestionably speaks for him on foreign policy. Gone are the days of doubting State Department pre-eminence in foreign policy.
Once known as a foreign-affairs realist, Rice has absorbed her boss's more moralistic mission of spreading democracy and misses few chances to tout its blessings. In undemocratic China, she pointedly turned her reply to a question on U.S. troops in Afghanistan into a tribute to that country's young democracy. Advisers say that Rice's thinking evolved after 9/11 to see democracy as the antidote to violent extremism.
That's not all that's changed. As national security adviser, she was chided by some for keeping a low profile in policy battles between the State and Defense departments. Yet in her first six months as secretary, Rice has asserted herself not only on North Korea but on Iran's nuclear programs, Sudan's ethnic violence, and relations with Europe. By instinct a bit formal in public settings, Rice, 50, is now demonstrating that she can loosen up at times. In a sweltering Thai coastal village hit by last December's tsunami, the former professor led schoolchildren, some orphaned, in the "ABC" song, swinging her arms to keep them in sync.
The visit to Ban Bang Sak lasted only 41 minutes, but it allowed her to project a softer image of America than the one that has fueled anti-Americanism through the Bush years. "That's what America is all about," she proclaimed, referring to the American volunteers and donations restoring the village and school. "I'm here in Thailand to show how much the United States cares about Southeast Asia."
She won't have to wait long to show she cares about other areas, too. This week, she hits sub-Saharan Africa. Then it's on to the Middle East. Too bad the Air Force doesn't give frequent-flier points.
This story appears in the July 25, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.