Rice attended
Stanford University, where she received a
Truman Scholarship, and graduated with a
B.A. in history in 1986. She was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa.
[6][7]
Awarded a
Rhodes Scholarship, Rice attended
New College, Oxford, where she earned a
M.Phil. in 1988 and
D.Phil. in 1990. The
Chatham House-British International Studies Association honored her dissertation entitled, "Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979-1980: Implication for International Peacekeeping" as the UK's most distinguished in
international relations.
[1][8]
Rice's classmates and professors at Oxford included advocates of the role of the
United Nations and
international law (
Sir Adam Roberts,
Benedict Kingsbury),
[9] of global economic governance and international economic cooperation (
Ngaire Woods,
Donald Markwell),
[10] and of a firm stance against Russian authoritarianism (
Michael McFaul).
[11]
Clinton administration roles
Rice served in the
Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997; as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995; and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997.
At the time of the 1994
Rwandan Genocide, Rice reportedly said, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the
November [congressional] election?" Rice subsequently acknowledged the mistakes made at the time and felt that a debt needed repaying.
[19] The inability or failure of the Clinton administration to do anything about the genocide would inform her later views on possible military interventions.
[20] She would later say of the experience: "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."
[21]
Rice supported the
multinational force that invaded
Zaire from
Rwanda in 1996 and overthrew dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko, saying privately that "Anything's better than Mobutu." Others[
who?] criticized the U.S. complicity in the violation of the Congo's borders as destabilizing and dangerous.
[22]
In a 2002 op-ed piece in the
Washington Post, former
Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney and news contributor
Mansoor Ijaz implicated Rice and counter-terrorism czar
Richard Clarke in missing an opportunity to neutralize
Osama bin Laden while he was still in Sudan in 1996. They write that Sudan and Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright were ready to cooperate on intelligence potentially leading to Bin Laden, but that Rice and Clarke persuaded National Security Advisor
Sandy Berger to overrule Albright.
[23] Similar allegations were made by
Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose
[24] and
Richard Miniter, author of
Losing Bin Laden, in a November 2003 interview with
World.
[25]
While the writings of Carney, Ijaz, Rose and Miniter each claim that Sudan offered to turn Bin Laden over to the US and that Rice was central in the decision not to accept the offer,
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (the
9-11 Commission) concluded in part "Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."
[26]
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been a longtime mentor and family friend to Rice. Albright urged Clinton to appoint Rice as
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in 1997.
[1] Rice was not the first choice of
Congressional Black Caucus leaders, who considered Rice a member of "Washington's assimilationist black elite".
[1] At a
confirmation hearing chaired by Senator
Jesse Helms, Rice, who attended the hearing along with her infant son, whom she was then
nursing, made a great impression on Senators from both parties and "sailed through the confirmation process".
[1]
On July 7, 1998, while serving as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Rice was a member of an American delegation to visit detained Nigerian President-Elect Basorun
M.K.O. Abiola. During this meeting, Abiola suffered a fatal heart attack.
[27]
According to
Washington Post columnist
Dana Milbank, at one point Rice gave the
"Rockefeller Gesture" to
Richard Holbrooke during a meeting with senior staff.
[28]
Rice continued to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs until the end of Clinton's term in January 2001.
Business and think-tank activities
Rice was
managing director and principal at
Intellibridge from 2001 to 2002.
[29][30] In 2002, she joined the
Brookings Institution as
senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program. At Brookings, she focused on U.S. foreign policy,
weak and failing states, the implications of
global poverty, and transnational threats to
security.
During the
2004 presidential campaign, Rice served as a foreign policy adviser to
John Kerry.
Rice went on leave from the
Brookings Institution to serve as a senior foreign policy advisor to
Senator Barack Obama in his
2008 presidential campaign.
Rice took a disparaging view of Obama's Republican opponent in the campaign, John McCain, calling his policies "reckless" and dismissing the Arizona Senator's trip to Iraq as "strolling around the market in a flak jacket."[28]
On November 5, 2008, Rice was named to the advisory board of the
Obama-Biden Transition Project.
[31]
