美国国家公共电台 NPR Susan Rice Talks Of Balancing Career And Motherhood, Reflects On Benghazi

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Susan Rice, who has held some vital U.S. government jobs, once said no to one of them. Before she was a top adviser¹ for President Obama, President Clinton's administration offered her work on issues relating to Africa.

SUSAN RICE: I feared that I might well get pigeonholed² in Africa, that people in this predominantly white national security establishment would see me as black working on Africa and therefore not capable of or suited to do anything else.

MARTIN: As a result, Rice declined that particular job offer, wanting to prove herself in a different position first. She recounts her rise in a new memoir³ titled "Tough Love." The former national security adviser talked to Steve about that moment.

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE⁴: That story shows you getting offered something that seems really nice by a powerful person. And you say no - which is a hard thing to do. Are you good at that?

RICE: (Laughter) I think my kids would tell you I'm good at saying no.

(LAUGHTER)

RICE: I don't know that I'm - yes, I guess when I need to say no, I'm certainly comfortable saying no. My dad had a mantra that comes from his experience growing up in the segregated⁵ South in the '20s and '30s and serving in a segregated Air Force at Tuskegee during World War II. He always told me and my brother, don't take crap off of anybody.

INSKEEP: Rice thrived in one Democratic administration. She became a senior figure in the next - first President Obama's U.N. ambassador, then national security adviser. She was eventually drawn⁶ into the partisan⁷ fights of Obama's time, and that included the crisis that emerged in the summer of 2016. She was in the White House when the CIA director first told her of Russia's interference in that year's presidential election.

What did you do?

RICE: Well, we ran right upstairs to the Oval Office and interrupted the president.

INSKEEP: And soon learned the challenges of responding in a politically divisive time - the Obama administration tried to warn all 50 states that their election systems could be hacked⁸. Rice says some didn't want to hear it.

RICE: They didn't view our concern as being based on national security or apolitical. They viewed it as...

INSKEEP: You said...

RICE: ...Partisan.

INSKEEP: ...Republican-governed states...

RICE: Some of the red states...

INSKEEP: Some of the red states...

RICE: ...Not all of them. But they resisted...

INSKEEP: ...Essentially⁹ didn't trust you or didn't trust the president - didn't trust the administration.

RICE: Didn't trust the administration.

INSKEEP: Nor did Republicans in Congress. In Rice's telling, the president wanted a bipartisan warning of the threat. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell resisted. President Obama did issue a warning to Russia's Vladimir Putin to cut it out, but it was hard to do much more.

RICE: We worked behind the scenes to ready a series of punitive¹⁰ measures to retaliate¹¹ against Russia should the president decide - or I should say, when the president decided¹² it was necessary to do so.

INSKEEP: You didn't retaliate before the election.

RICE: We chose not to retaliate before the election because we had not seen further evidence of the Russians pursuing the kinds of behavior that we were most concerned about and that the president had warned Putin about - infiltrating¹³ the state election systems and manipulating the voter registration¹⁴ or the voter rolls. What we didn't want to do was to preemptively punish the Russians before the election if they hadn't done precisely¹⁵ what we were most concerned about because we feared it might prompt them to do it.

INSKEEP: In a way, the administration was deterred¹⁶ by Russia. You were fearful of a greater Russian interference in the election, and so you restrained yourselves from...

RICE: I wouldn't say we were fearful or deterred. We made a judgment¹⁷ that what was most important at that point was preserving the integrity of our electoral processes. But what we didn't want to do, Steve, was play into the Russian narrative¹⁸ and, frankly¹⁹, what was then Donald Trump²⁰'s narrative, which is that the election is rigged; this is not going to be fair.

INSKEEP: This becomes, in a way, a story about vulnerabilities of democracy. Doesn't it? I'm thinking about the way you write of how to tell the public about this issue. And of course, President Obama is the president. But the decision is made not to have him say it because it would seem too political if the president said it.

RICE: The decision was made that it would be better having it come from the leadership of our intelligence community because we didn't want to play into a narrative that somehow this was a political statement.

INSKEEP: Your description of Mitch McConnell gets to another thing. When you first found this information, it was so urgent you said you interrupted the president in a meeting. And then it took weeks and weeks and weeks to bring the rest of the government on board to the extent that you could.

RICE: Well, it took weeks for CIA Director John Brennan to be granted an audience with each of the so-called Gang of Eight...

INSKEEP: The top...

RICE: ...The top leadership...

INSKEEP: ...Congressional leaders, yeah.

RICE: ...Some of whom made themselves readily available. But a couple of them, including Majority Leader McConnell, would not make themselves available until after Labor²¹ Day.

INSKEEP: Mitch McConnell's people have defended him and said you don't really understand what happened in those private meetings; he was not as obstructive as people portray²² him. Are you certain that he was the major issue in getting bipartisan agreement, that this was happening and that this was a problem?

RICE: Steve, I recognize that it would be in the interest of his team to try to obscure that. I have no doubt he was the - what we used to call the long pole in the tent. He was the one who held up the statement and made it very difficult, ultimately, to achieve. And when we got it, he watered it down to something that was almost indecipherable.

INSKEEP: Would you do anything differently if you could go back to 2016?

RICE: Yes. What I regret is that after the election, when we chose to impose sanctions and other punitive measures against the Russians - and they were substantial in many different respects - economic, cyber, diplomatic and otherwise - we made a recommendation to the president - so this is really on the Cabinet principals that I chaired - not to impose the most painful sectoral²³ economic sanctions on Russia. They would have hurt our European allies almost as much as they would have hurt the Russians.

INSKEEP: Because they're economically intertwined with Russia.

RICE: Yes. And secondly²⁴, we were mindful of the fact that just three or four weeks later, President-elect Trump was going to take office. We were very concerned that if we had imposed the harshest possible sanctions that a brand-new president would turn around and undo²⁵ them and make us all look weak and feckless.

INSKEEP: But would you today, if you could go back...

RICE: Yes. And that's why...

INSKEEP: ...You would impose those stronger sanctions?

RICE: I would because I think we have seen, in subsequent months and years, that the Russians are essentially still undeterred.

INSKEEP: The memoir from Ambassador Susan Rice is called "Tough Love."

Thanks so much.

RICE: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEST PESSIMIST'S "IT'S ONLY WORDS")

1 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

2 pigeonholed   

v.把…搁在分类架上( pigeonhole的过去式和过去分词 )；把…留在记忆中；缓办；把…隔成小格

参考例句：

• This document was pigeonholed for quite some time. 这份公文压了不少时间。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The scheme has been pigeonholed. 这个方案被压下来了。 来自辞典例句

3 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

6 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

7 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

8 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

9 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

10 punitive   

adj.惩罚的，刑罚的

参考例句：

• They took punitive measures against the whole gang.他们对整帮人采取惩罚性措施。
• The punitive tariff was imposed to discourage tire imports from China.该惩罚性关税的征收是用以限制中国轮胎进口的措施。

11 retaliate   

v.报复，反击

参考例句：

• He sought every opportunity to retaliate against his enemy.他找机会向他的敌人反击。
• It is strictly forbidden to retaliate against the quality inspectors.严禁对质量检验人员进行打击报复。

12 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

13 infiltrating   

v.（使）渗透，（指思想）渗入人的心中( infiltrate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Be vigilant against the danger of enemy agents infiltrating the government and boring from within. 要警惕敌特渗入政府内部进行暗中破坏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The metastatic melanoma is seen here to be infiltrating into the myocardium. 图示转移性黑色素瘤浸润到心肌。 来自互联网

14 registration   

n.登记，注册，挂号

参考例句：

• Marriage without registration is not recognized by law.法律不承认未登记的婚姻。
• What's your registration number?你挂的是几号？

15 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

16 deterred   

v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I told him I wasn't interested, but he wasn't deterred. 我已告诉他我不感兴趣，可他却不罢休。
• Jeremy was not deterred by this criticism. 杰里米没有因这一批评而却步。 来自辞典例句

17 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

18 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

19 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

20 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

21 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

22 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

23 sectoral   

adj.扇形的

参考例句：

• Is agriculture actually taxed by sectoral policies, or is It'subsidized? 按照部门政策，农业实际上是上缴了税还是得到了补贴呢？ 来自辞典例句
• In the 1980s this concept was used to buttress several so-called sectoral reciprocity proposals. 80年代这一原则曾被用来支持几个所谓部分互惠建议。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

24 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

25 undo   

vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销

参考例句：

• His pride will undo him some day.他的傲慢总有一天会毁了他。
• I managed secretly to undo a corner of the parcel.我悄悄地设法解开了包裹的一角。