Historical Figure
Condoleezza Rice
b. 1954
American diplomat and political scientist (born 1954)
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Biography
Condoleezza "Condi" Rice is an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 66th United States secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 and as the 19th U.S. national security advisor from 2001 to 2005. Since 2020, she has served as the 8th director of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. A member of the Republican Party, Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state and the first woman to serve as national security advisor. Until the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008, Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, were the highest-ranking African Americans in the history of the federal executive branch. At the time of her appointment as Secretary of State, Rice was the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States to be in the presidential line of succession.
In Their Own Words (5)
You see, this war came to us, not the other way around.
Remarks at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, May 15, 2005. , 2005
As I was telling my husb— As I was telling President Bush.
Newsweek, May 3, 2004. , 2004
These people are making a choice for peace and that means that the time is coming in which this insurgency will have no foothold, in which it will be defeated, defeated by Iraqis and in which we can fully come home.
Interview on ABC Good Morning America, December 16, 2005. , 2005
If you have any doubt about the degree with which this is self-defense, just look at those pictures from September 11th.
Interview by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, September 24, 2001. , 2001
It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails, when you're trying to make a plan work.
Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 11, 2007. , 2007
Timeline
The story of Condoleezza Rice, told in moments.
Earns her PhD in political science from the University of Denver at 26. Her dissertation focused on Czech military politics. She joins the Stanford faculty that same year.
Becomes the Soviet affairs advisor on the National Security Council under George H.W. Bush. She's 34. She helps manage the end of the Cold War, German reunification, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Testifies before the 9/11 Commission as National Security Advisor. She's questioned for hours about a Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." from August 2001.
Sworn in as the 66th Secretary of State. First Black woman in the role. She served through the Iraq War surge, the Israel-Lebanon conflict, and the rise of Iran's nuclear program.
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