Condoleezza Rice

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Condoleezza Rice (2005)
Signature of Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice (* 14. November 1954 in Birmingham , Alabama ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . From 2005 to 2009 she was the United States Secretary of State under George W. Bush and the first African-American woman to hold this post. From 2001 to 2005 she was its national security advisor .

Life

origin

Rice was born to a pastor and music teacher in Birmingham, Alabama, when racial laws were still in effect there . The name “Condoleezza” is derived from the musical instruction “con dolcezza” (Italian, “with a lovely performance”). Here Condoleezza Rice grew up and learned figure skating and playing the piano . According to her own statement, she was able to read music earlier than writing and at the age of ten became one of the first African-American students at the Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music in Birmingham. The Rice family were also friends with the Colin Powells family.

On September 15, 1963, white racists from the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Baptist Church on 16th Street . Four girls, including a friend of Rice's, died.

Rice with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Washington, DC , 2002
C. Rice in 2006 with the then Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński

After the family moved to Denver, she won several music competitions there. At the age of 16 - she had skipped two grades - she went to the University of Denver , initially with the aim of studying music and becoming a concert pianist. However, after two years she decided that her talent would not be enough for a great career. She switched subjects and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1974 . She was a member of the student honor Connection ( academic honor society ) Phi Beta Kappa .

Political career

Her interest in foreign policy resulted from her meeting with Professor Josef Korbel , who came from Czechoslovakia and who later became the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright . 1975 followed the master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend ( Indiana ) and 1981 the doctorate from the University of Denver. From 1993 to 1999 Rice was Provost at Stanford University .

From 1991 to 2000 she was a member of the board of directors of the oil company Chevron Corporation , where she was responsible for the Kazakhstan and Pakistan locations . The oil tanker "Condoleezza Rice", which was renamed "Altair Voyager" in 2001, was named after her . From 1991 to 1997 she worked for the RAND Corporation . In 1997 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Further stations in her career included a. Worked for the investment company Charles Schwab Corporation , the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation , a foundation owned by the Hewlett-Packard co- founder and his wife with social and environmental goals, the insurance group Transamerica and the investment bank JP Morgan . She also served on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for a long time, which still includes Charles Schwab's wife .

As an adviser to President George HW Bush and his Foreign Minister James Baker , she advocated the reunification of Germany in 1990 when it was still met with considerable reservations by other victorious powers of World War II such as France and Great Britain . At that time she was a simple member of the National Security Council as a Russian- speaking expert on relations with the Soviet Union . In the controversial issue regarding the assessment of the collapse of the Soviet Union , Condoleezza Rice and James Baker initially pleaded for the Soviet Union to be preserved as a state structure. Following this advice, the President called on Ukraine to remain in the Soviet Union.

In the Bush administration's first term , she was National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005 . In July 2001, two months before the 9/11 attacks , CIA chief George Tenet, together with the head of the CIA's anti-terrorism department, Cofer Black, advised them that an al-Qaeda attack on the United States was taking place imminent.

During the first term of office she was a close ally and probably the most important advisor to the President and, on the occasion of the transatlantic rifts because of the Iraq war started by the USA and a “ coalition of the willing ” without the approval of the UN Security Council , she used sentences like “Punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia “especially in Europe not friends everywhere. Immediately before the war she had argued that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

At the hearing for her inauguration, Rice proclaimed the successor doctrine of the " Axis of Evil " by declaring six states to be " outposts of tyranny ." This expression was criticized not only by the representatives of the states concerned, but also by other diplomats.

In late March 2004, the White House wanted to prevent her from testifying before the 9/11 Commission . On March 30, 2004, the White House gave in to public pressure and allowed a testimony. Rice commented before the Senate committee on grave allegations made by former government advisor Richard Clarke , who accused the government of neglecting warnings for months.

Towards the end of George W. Bush's reign, Rice was repeatedly listed as the Republican Party candidate for the 2008 presidential election in the United States , but turned down a candidacy.

After the political career

Since 2009 Rice has been teaching political science at Stanford University again . In November 2011, her memoir , entitled No Higher Honor. A Memoir of My Years, was published in Washington. On April 9, 2014, Dropbox announced that it would add Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors.

Controversy

In April 2014, Condoleezza Rice's appointment to the Dropbox Board of Directors sparked fierce criticism, as she was jointly responsible for the expansion of the state surveillance apparatus after the terrorist attacks on September 11, prior to her time as Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration as National Security Advisor 2001 was. Rice allowed US government torture. Rice later stated that she was ashamed of her actions.

Private

Once at the beginning of the series 30 Rock always an affair between the series character Jack Donaghy, that of Alec Baldwin has been suggested is played, and Condoleezza Rice, viewed Rice played within the broadcast 28 April 2011 episode Everything Sunny All the Time Always self as Donaghy's former lover.

Condoleezza Rice is single.

Publications

  • Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity. Twelve, New York 2018, ISBN 978-1455542352 .
  • Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom. Hachette Book Group, New York NY 2017, ISBN 978-1455540181 .
  • No Higher Honor. A Memoir of My Years in Washington. Crown Publishers, New York NY 2011, ISBN 978-0-307-58786-2 .
  • The making of soviet strategy. In: Peter Paret (Ed.): Makers of Modern Strategy. From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1986, ISBN 0-691-09235-4 , pp. 648-676.

literature

Web links

Commons : Condoleezza Rice  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Article on Tenet's warning in the Washington Post
  2. Why we know Iraq is lying Article in the New York Times by Rice
  3. Responses to the term "outpost of tyranny"
  4. ^ Memories of a model student. In: journal21.ch of November 10, 2011
  5. Woman among Bush warriors. In: Spiegel Online from November 4, 2011
  6. The Dropbox Blog: Growing our leadership team ( April 13, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive )
  7. Leo Becker (lbe): Dropbox users outraged about the appointment of Condoleezza Rice. In: Heise online . April 10, 2014, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  8. US Secret Service: Rice allowed torture . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed November 30, 2018]).
  9. "I feel shame" . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2010, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed November 30, 2018]).
  10. Condoleezza Rice Heads to '30 Rock ' hollywoodreporter.com, accessed February 26, 2018.