the room where it happened
New
threats
and
opportunities
were
coming
at
us
rapidly,
and
eight
years
of
Barack
Obama
meant
there
was
much
to
repair.
I
had
thought
long
and
hard
about
America’s
national
security
in
a
tempestuous
world:
Russia
and
China
at
the
strategic
level;
Iran,
North
Korea,
and
other
rogue
nuclearweapons
aspirants;
the
swirling
threats
of
radical
Islamicist
terrorism
in
the
tumultuous
Middle
East
(Syria,
Lebanon,
Iraq,
and
Yemen),
Afghanistan
and
beyond;
and
the
threats
in
our
own
hemisphere,
like
Cuba, Venezuela,
and
Nicaragua.
While
foreign-policy
labels
are
unhelpful
except
to
the
intellectually
lazy,
if
pressed,
I
liked
to
say
my
policy
was
“pro-American.”
I
followed
Adam
Smith
on
economics,
Edmund
Burke
on
society,
The
Federalist
Papers on
government,
and
a
merger
of
Dean
Acheson
and
John
Foster
Dulles
on
national
security.
My
first
political
campaigning
was
in
1964
on
behalf
of
Barry
Goldwater.
I was describing why State needed a cultural revolution to be an
effective instrument of policy when Trump asked, “Now, we’re discussing
Secretary of State here, but would you consider the Deputy job?” I said I
would not, explaining that State could not be run successfully from that
level. Moreover, I was uneasy about working for someone who knew I had
competed for his job and who might wonder constantly if he needed a foodtaster. As the meeting ended, Trump took my hand in both of his and said,
“I am sure we will be working together.”
quote
Acheson’s famous remark when asked why he and President Truman had
such an excellent working relationship: “I never forgot who was President,
and who was Secretary of State. And neither did he.”
chap 13
Mnuchin had been beavering away all day with
Liu He, China’s economic-policy czar and top trade negotiator, widely
viewed as number three in Xi’s regime.
I was describing why State needed a cultural revolution to be an
effective instrument of policy when Trump asked, “Now, we’re discussing
Secretary of State here, but would you consider the Deputy job?” I said I
would not, explaining that State could not be run successfully from that
level. Moreover, I was uneasy about working for someone who knew I had
competed for his job and who might wonder constantly if he needed a foodtaster. As the meeting ended, Trump took my hand in both of his and said,
“I am sure we will be working together.”
quote
Acheson’s famous remark when asked why he and President Truman had
such an excellent working relationship: “I never forgot who was President,
and who was Secretary of State. And neither did he.”
chap 13
Mnuchin had been beavering away all day with
Liu He, China’s economic-policy czar and top trade negotiator, widely
viewed as number three in Xi’s regime.
