Shortly after I became Secretary of State, I received an insightful—and surprising—letter from Ambassador George Kennan, the Grand Old Man of American Diplomacy. I had never met Ambassador Kennan, but I knew him as the most highly regarded, influential, and prophetic American diplomat of the last century. A letter from Kennan was like a report from the burning bush by the Moses of diplomats. When I opened it I expected wise commentary on the great geostrategic issues of the day. Instead, he gave me three pages of heartfelt advice about my new job.
Though then ninety-seven (he died, aged 101, in 2005), he could still produce clear, succinct, powerfully argued prose. As if I needed it, he began by establishing his credentials—oldest living member of the original Foreign Service of 1925–75; seventy-five years of foreign affairs experience as a diplomat and historian; protégé of George Marshall; one of the chief architects of the plan that bears Marshall’s name; and author of the famous “Long Telegram” from Moscow, which laid the foundation of the containment policy that shaped America’s strategy toward the Soviet Union until it collapsed. Kennan was a man of strong opinions and a speaker of hard, unpalatable truths, a lone voice driven more than once into the wilderness. He was always revered, but not always listened to.
After his personal history came the heart of the letter, which started with a reminder of the Founding Fathers’ intention in the years after our nation’s birth regarding the two principal duties of the Secretary of State. The first was to function as the President’s most intimate and authoritative advisor on all aspects of American foreign policy. The second was to exercise administrative control over the State Department and the Foreign Service. He then cut to the chase: you can’t properly perform either of these duties if you are constantly running around the world in your airplane. Recent Secretaries of State, in his view, had been spending too much time flying to other countries for face-to-face meetings with foreign leaders and dignitaries. The role of the Secretary of State is principal foreign policy advisor to the President, not highest-ranking roving ambassador. Surely modern communications made it possible to conduct diplomacy without flying off to meetings all over the world. He had no quarrel with brief travel away from Washington when official duty required it. But absences should be held to a minimum and avoided when suitable alternatives were available.
The problem of Secretaries traveling too much, he continued, was not limited to questions about his presence or absence in Washington. Ambassadors are the President’s representatives to the other nations of the world—the official, institutional, government-to-government links between countries. Because he is there every day, the ambassador’s position should be enhanced as the main channel of diplomatic activity. The too-frequent arrival of the Secretary and assorted special envoys tends to undercut that role. Why spend time with the ambassador when you can persuade the Secretary to drop by?
Well, the Kennan letter pretty much matched the way I wanted to approach the job, and I embraced its recommendations. In my four years as Secretary I traveled a great deal, but not as much as some of my predecessors and nowhere near as much as my successors. Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton set world records.
For some unknown reason, the media, led by the New York Times, started clocking my frequent flyer miles. I didn’t travel enough, they claimed. I should be making more waves out there in the world rather than spending so much time in Washington or at the UN headquarters in New York.
None of them answered the obvious question: Is this trip really necessary? What national purpose is served by having me out there? And none asked me if I might have good reasons for remaining in Washington.
Truth is, in my first year I traveled to thirty-seven countries and logged 149,000 miles . . . not exactly hiding in a bunker.
For years I’ve been a frequent traveler. Even today I’m on the road as much as 50 percent of the time. But I don’t long to travel. Years ago travel lost any glamour it may have had. I travel for work, not for pleasure. Any trip I take has to be necessary. It has to have a purpose and a function. I am not by nature a good tourist; I’ve seen most of the world’s sights that I’ve wanted to see. When I was Secretary, I met with leaders, visited schools, talked to kids, and was a spectator at cultural events, but I seldom lingered to tour and shop. I used telephones, the then-newfangled email system, and cell phones to stay in touch with my foreign counterparts around the world. I attended every NATO and European Union meeting, every official gathering of Asian leaders, every Organization of American States meeting, and made more trips to Africa than any of my predecessors.
In fact, during my four years as Secretary some of the biggest problems and decisions made back in D.C. occurred when I was twelve hours away in some hotel overseas. I was in Peru on 9/11. I was in Asia when important decisions were made concerning our detention and interrogation policies. I wish I had been in Washington at such times.
My way of managing my time and travel is not the only way. Other Secretaries may have the better argument. Today more frequent overseas travel may be a better and more appropriate use of a Secretary’s time than watching over State Department business in Washington. The presence of the Secretary in other countries shows the flag in a very special way. This in itself can be as important as private meetings or attending conferences. The world has changed since the eighteenth century. Travel between countries now takes hours, not weeks or months. Face-to-face presence is easy. We all have to adapt to the age we live in. One could argue that Kennan was trying to bring back to life a vanished age.
There is no single best way to do the job. Every Secretary and, for that matter, every leader has to make a judgment about where to focus his efforts.
The right answer for a Secretary of State is, of course, to balance the requirements to participate in international forums, maintain bilateral comity with other nations, and be present to run a large department and serve the President. Deputies, assistants, staff, and communications help, but the leader can only be physically in one place at a time. And physical presence trumps electronic presence.
My own solution to the problem of finding the right balance has been shaped by my military training and experience. In the military the problem is posed this way: “Where should the commander be on the battlefield?” The answer: “Where he can exercise the greatest influence and be close to the point of decision”—the place where personal presence can make the difference between success and failure. A battalion commander leading a charge up a hill with seven hundred troops behind him may be a courageous and inspirational figure, but he is at that moment just another infantryman trying to stay alive. He can’t see the whole battlefield; he is not in a position to move forces; he can’t communicate with all his subordinates, arrange more support, or keep higher headquarters informed. The battalion commander who is firing a rifle and no longer commanding his battalion is, as we say, “decisively engaged.” (A commander is decisively engaged when he is in a win-or-lose situation and has lost freedom of movement.)
Corporate leaders will of course have different answers to the “Where on the battlefield?” question than military leaders or Secretaries of State. But for each of them the answer has to be “at the point of decision.” The point of decision can be many places. Because it is important for followers to see and hear from their leader, corporate executives should often visit the factory floor to see what is going on. But then get out of the way so workers, foremen, and line leaders can get on with their jobs. Get back upstairs and work to make sure the guys downstairs get what they need to do the job. That’s what you’re being paid for!
The point of decision might be a television show explaining to the world the revolutionary new product you are getting ready to unveil (see Steve Jobs) or why you overinvested in complex derivatives or subprime investments (too many to mention). Maybe you need to be up on Capitol Hill getting keelhauled by a first-term congressman.
There are lots of recent examples of executive failure to be at the point of decision. During the 2008 and 2009 economic recession, we saw CEOs at bridge tournaments or playing golf while all hell was breaking loose in their corporate headquarters. They were neither in a place to influence the action nor in a decisive position to win the battle.
I watched with profound disbelief as the top executives at Lehman Brothers again and again sent out a new and inexperienced chief financial officer to explain why their company was getting sucked into a black hole, while they sequestered themselves in their paneled offices.
The right answer to “Where on the battlefield?” is a function of a leader’s experience, self-confidence, confidence in his subordinates, and the needs of his superiors. In my career, I constantly asked myself where my point of decision was—the best place to see what is really going on, to influence the outcome, and to retain freedom of movement. During Operation Desert Storm, I only occasionally visited General Schwarzkopf at his headquarters in Riyadh. My place was in the Pentagon making sure he and his half a million troops got what they needed, not the least of which was political and public relations support.
One week into the war, the public mood had become unsettled and the media was becoming critical. After the success of the first day and the excitement of watching cruise missiles strike with incredible accuracy, it looked from the outside as though the war was going nowhere. “Why isn’t it over?” people were asking.
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and I realized we had to act to settle things down. The point of decision for us at that moment was not in our offices or in situation rooms monitoring the war, but down in the press room. We called a press conference where Dick gave an excellent summary of the strategic and political situation, and then I covered the military campaign. I summarized our actions during the previous week, concluding with a few sharp words detailing our strategy to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait: “First we are going to cut it off,” I told the assembled reporters, “and then we are going to kill it.” My line was picked up by all the newspapers and all the radio and TV news shows. It did the trick. It told the people out there what they needed to know. Confidence about our war aims returned. And Dick and I could leave the front lines and get back to our offices.
General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during World War II, wanted desperately to lead the D-Day invasion of Europe. Any general would want to lead the “Great Crusade.” But that didn’t happen. The assignment went to General Eisenhower, one of his protégés and junior to him. President Roosevelt, well aware of how badly Marshall wanted the mission, discussed it with him. At the end of the conversation, as Marshall was leaving, Roosevelt said gently, “Well, I didn’t feel that I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington.” Marshall, that great man, knew his place was not to wade into the surf out of a landing craft in the Philippines or command the assault on the Normandy beaches, but to ensure that MacArthur and Eisenhower could.