Can Condoleezza Rice Do What Colin Powell Could Not?

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America-s first black female Secretary of State has the total confidence of her President. Insiders claim that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney have taken a back seat. Even the French are welcoming a return to cooperative diplomacy. Last week, in the Washington Post, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns was quoted as saying that under Condoleezza Rice America has returned to "the kind of diplomacy some of our critics had felt we were no longer capable of." Is Rice changing US foreign policy or just providing a different image? What if diplomacy fails to get Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear programs? Is spreading democracy to the Muslim Middle East a realistic American goal? Will Rice and the Bush Administration be judged by Iraq? We hear from experts in national security and foreign policy, and a former State Department employee. Making News: Discovery Lands in California, First Shuttle since Columbia There were sonic booms over Southern California today as the Shuttle Discovery glided toward a smooth landing just before dawn at Edwards Air Force Base. Its mission was to repair and replenish the International Space Station but, for NASA, there was a lot more at stake. John Johnson, Jr, who-s at the Space Center in Florida for the Los Angeles Times, has more on the mission-s shortcomings and successes. Reporter-s Notebook: American Nuclear Weapons Sixty Years after Nagasaki Sixty years ago today, and three days after Hiroshima, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Since then, there's been a worldwide consensus that nuclear weapons would be used as deterrents against aggression, but never again as offensive weapons. Is that policy changing? Dr. Robert Norris, author of Racing for the Bomb, is Senior Research Associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
America-s first black female Secretary of State has the total confidence of her President. Insiders claim that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney have taken a back seat. Even the French are welcoming a return to cooperative diplomacy. Last week, in the Washington Post, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns was quoted as saying that under Condoleezza Rice America has returned to "the kind of diplomacy some of our critics had felt we were no longer capable of." Is Rice changing US foreign policy or just providing a different image? What if diplomacy fails to get Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear programs? Is spreading democracy to the Muslim Middle East a realistic American goal? Will Rice and the Bush Administration be judged by Iraq? We hear from experts in national security and foreign policy, and a former State Department employee.
  • Making News: Discovery Lands in California, First Shuttle since Columbia
    There were sonic booms over Southern California today as the Shuttle Discovery glided toward a smooth landing just before dawn at Edwards Air Force Base. Its mission was to repair and replenish the International Space Station but, for NASA, there was a lot more at stake. John Johnson, Jr, who-s at the Space Center in Florida for the Los Angeles Times, has more on the mission-s shortcomings and successes.
  • Reporter-s Notebook: American Nuclear Weapons Sixty Years after Nagasaki Sixty years ago today, and three days after Hiroshima, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Since then, there's been a worldwide consensus that nuclear weapons would be used as deterrents against aggression, but never again as offensive weapons. Is that policy changing? Dr. Robert Norris, author of Racing for the Bomb, is Senior Research Associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Shuttle Discovery comes home

Johnson-s article on Shuttle Discovery landing

Department of State

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Washington Post article on Rice taking control of diplomacy

Ratnesar-s article on Rice-s control of foreign policy

Time magazine photo essay on Condoleezza Rice

Manhattan Project

Credits

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Warren Olney