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From one of the world's most admired women, this is former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's compelling story of eight years serving at the highest levels of government. In her position as America's chief diplomat, Rice traveled almost continuously around the globe, seeking common ground among sometimes bitter enemies, forging agreement on divisive issues, and compiling a remarkable record of achievement.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama who overcame the racism of the Civil Rights era to become a brilliant academic and expert on foreign affairs, Rice distinguished herself as an advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign. Once Bush was elected, she served as his chief adviser on national-security issues—a job whose duties included harmonizing the relationship between the Secretaries of State and Defense. It was a role that deepened her bond with the President and ultimately made her one of his closest confidantes.
With the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Rice found herself at the center of the Administration's intense efforts to keep America safe. Here, Rice describes the events of that harrowing day—and the tumultuous days after . No day was ever the same.
Additionally, Rice also reveals new details of the debates that led to the war in Afghanistan and then Iraq.
The eyes of the nation were once again focused on Rice in 2004 when she appeared before the 9-11 Commission to answer tough questions regarding the country's preparedness for—and immediate response to—the 9-11 attacks. Her responses, it was generally conceded, would shape the nation's perception of the Administration's competence during the crisis. Rice conveys just how pressure-filled that appearance was and her surprised gratitude when, in succeeding days, she was broadly saluted for her performance.
From that point forward, Rice was aggressively sought after by the media and regarded by some as the Administration's most effective champion.
In 2005 Rice was entrusted with even more responsibility when she was charged with helping to shape and carry forward the President's foreign policy as Secretary of State. As such, she proved herself a deft crafter of tactics and negotiation aimed to contain or reduce the threat posed by America's enemies. Here, she reveals the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that kept the world's relationships with Iran, North Korea and Libya from collapsing into chaos. She also talks about her role as a crisis manager, showing that at any hour—and at a moment's notice—she was willing to bring all parties to the bargaining table anywhere in the world.
No Higher Honor takes the reader into secret negotiating rooms where the fates of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon often hung in the balance, and it draws back the curtain on how frighteningly close all-out war loomed in clashes involving Pakistan-India and Russia-Georgia, and in East Africa.
Surprisingly candid in her appraisals of various Administration colleagues and the hundreds of foreign leaders with whom she dealt, Rice also offers here keen insight into how history actually proceeds. In No Higher Honor, she delivers a master class in statecraft—but always in a way that reveals her essential warmth and humility, and her deep reverence for the ideals on which America was founded.
Renowned for her diplomatic reticence, Condoleeza Rice has shared few personal observations about policymaking and personalities during her eight eventful years in the White House of George W. Bush. That almost complete silence ends with this strikingly candid memoir. Rice describes the discretion that her job required even in her early days as National Security Advisor. Not only did she, the first woman to serve in that post, have to deal with critical day-to-day national security matters; she was also obliged to quiet the fractious interdepartmental relations between Donald Rumsfeld's Defense and Colin Powell's State. No Higher Honor offers a vivid account of how the events of September 11th and its aftermath thrust her into urgent new responsibilities, soon including the ramp-ups for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the beginning of his second term, the president appointed her Secretary of State, thus placing her in the direct line of fire of Vice President Cheney, who since leaving office, has roundly criticized her positions on foreign policy issues including North Korea and Iran. Now released from her eight years of executive restraint, Rice writes with unguarded candor about White House decision-making in the Age of Terrorism.
Condoleezza Rice was the sixty-sixth U.S. Secretary of State and the first black woman to hold that office. Prior to that, she was the first woman to serve as National Security Advisor. She is a professor at Stanford University, and co-founder of the RiceHadley Group. Rice is also the author of the New York Times bestselling Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family.
Overview
From one of the world's most admired women, this is former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's compelling story of eight years serving at the highest levels of government. In her position as America's chief diplomat, Rice traveled almost continuously around the globe, seeking common ground among sometimes bitter enemies, forging agreement on divisive issues, and compiling a remarkable record of achievement.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama who overcame the racism of the Civil Rights era to become a brilliant academic and expert on foreign affairs, Rice distinguished herself as an advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 ...