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Health & Fitness

Book Review: No Higher Honor, by Condoleezza Rice

If you read only the 18-page chapter 6, "The United States Is Under Attack," you will get your money's worth.

If you read only the 18-page chapter 6, "The United States Is Under Attack," you will get your money's worth.

That chapter provides more information, and understanding, about our government's behavior on September 11 than can be gathered from having read dozens of articles and books: how the President reacted; how and where and why he and the Vice President were moved around the country; about the need to make such decisions as whether to shoot down civilian planes which failed to respond; about the combination of sadness and relief when the fate off that third hijacked plane was learned; about the need to guard against possible ground attacks.

The single word "informative" defines Rice's book. Condi is not a great writer, but her academic and pedestrian style serves well to describe people places, events, suspicions, debates, differing mindsets of government departments, relationships with allies and enemies, anger, fear, elation courage, cowardice. While the major events of Rice's and the nation's lives are presented chronologically, many of her explanations seamlessly move into the past and forward to the future when non-contemporary matters pertain to what is being related. There are occasional boring pages among the almost 800, including some as eye-glazing as the Bible's begats.

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A dozen of her chapter titles provide a sample of the topics Rice addresses: The Middle East, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Again, Confronting the International Community with a Choice, Four More Years, Iraq and the Home Front, He Lives in His Own Head, One Last Chance for North Korea.

Throughout Honor, Rice doesn't shirk from addressing disagreements and negotiations within the government: Powell, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice herself, Bush. About each issue, we read what was known or not; about missed signals; about many more mixed, rather the missed, signals -- and why they were missed or mixed. Both Cheney and Rumsfield have publicly bristled about some of her interpretations, which is not only to be expected but humanly unavoidable.

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Rice mixes talk of fashion-designer dresses with talk of war, the trivial with the very serious. Doing so humanizes the participants in world affairs. Although it is not her intent, readers come to understand it is mistaken to be in awe of most decision-makers, whose individual mix of competence and temperament follow them from Podunk to the District of Columbia and from D.C. to Pakistan. Just regular folks whose several performances follow the normal bell curve from incompetent through so-so to brilliant.

Speaking of changing arenas, Rice quietly expresses pride in the saga of a black female from the South  moving through college official and concert pianist to become a power player on the world stage, but she does it without boasting. She is a major character in this book, but she speaks of herself in the third person -- you know, "National Security Advisor" or "Secretary of State" -- often enough to avoid any hint of self-aggrandizement.

"A black female secretary of state simply didn't fit with the stereotypes that most people [Muslims] held about the United States. Tony Blair may have summed it up best when he said that he'd bee struck at the first Camp David meeting of the President flanked by Colin Powell on one side and me on the other. Could this happen in Britain? he asked himself. Not yet, he said he answered silently. Not yet."

It makes no difference whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or whether you favored invading Iraq or whether you are pro- or anti-Israel, you will come away with increased understanding of the not really rarified atmosphere in Washington, D.C. Following Condi through her long days and many  trips and speeches --and real 3 a.m. phone calls -- helps one understand and appreciate Hillary's current performance as Secretary of State.

Frank Versagi is the editor of Versagi Voice.

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