National Security Advisors

National security advisor Condoleezza Rice struck a new note of humility in a speech to veterans Monday, acknowledging that "democracy is not easy" and urging patience following last week's deadly bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem. "We must remain patient," Rice told the annual convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio. "When Americans begin a noble cause, we finish it. We are 117 days from the end of major combat operations in Iraq. That is not very long."

Underscoring the fragility of the moment, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice arrived Saturday hoping to hold Israelis and Palestinians to, and then build on, an initial set of agreed steps aimed at ending generations of conflict. Rice opened talks Saturday evening with Palestinian Authority officials in the ancient West Bank oasis of Jericho and was to meet Israeli leaders in Jerusalem today.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, whose stance on affirmative action drew nationwide headlines last week, generally took a centrist approach to race and gender preferences during her years as provost of Stanford University in the 1990s, according to supporters and some critics on campus.

After meeting with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow on Thursday, U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice briskly spelled out some of the elements of the new strategic relationship that the Bush administration wants with Russia. Under those ties, long, tortuous negotiations as to the number of nuclear weapons on each side would be a thing of the past.

After talks with a top Russian official in Moscow, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was upbeat Wednesday about the chances of a U.S. agreement with Russia on the Bush administration's plans for a missile shield. With the U.S. and Russia poised for talks that could shape a new post-Cold War security framework, Rice expressed America's eagerness to press ahead and jettison the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which bans deployment of a national missile shield.

When the history of the Clinton administration is written, the dominant figure for foreign policy will no doubt be national security advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, the senior official who most closely reflects the beliefs and instincts of the president he serves. Over the last seven years, none of President Clinton's other top foreign policy aides has turned out to be so influential.

President Clinton on Thursday strongly defended his administration's response to suspected Chinese espionage at a key U.S. nuclear weapons design facility, insisting that he and his aides moved quickly to investigate and prevent further breaches of national security. "We did not ignore evidence," Clinton said in his first public comments on unfolding allegations of a major security leak at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in the mid-1980s. "Quite the contrary.

These have not been easy times for President Clinton's three-member foreign affairs brain trust. The "ABC" team--Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen--took a broadside of verbal hits first at a public meeting in Ohio as they steered the United States toward armed conflict with Iraq, then from congressional Republicans when they accepted an ambiguous, eleventh-hour agreement brokered by U.N.

Former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake withdrew his name from consideration to become CIA director Monday night, bringing to a close one of the most contentious confirmation battles since President Clinton first took office in 1993. After a series of intense White House meetings throughout the day to discuss the status of his nomination in the Republican-controlled Senate, Lake submitted a three-page letter to Clinton asking that his nomination be withdrawn, sources said.

White House National Security Advisor Anthony Lake acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that the Clinton administration has shifted its approach to China by trying to avoid confronting the Beijing leadership head-on over human rights or other issues. Sitting in his office on the first day of his return to Washington from a trip to Asia, Lake indicated that the administration is now trying to avoid setting conditions or drawing lines in its dealings with China.