Bush Names Top Security Aide, 2 Senior Advisors

Calling his appointee for national security advisor brilliant, experienced and wise, President-elect George W. Bush on Sunday named Condoleezza Rice to the post, bestowing on the former professor a pivotal role in shaping foreign policy in the incoming administration.

In accepting the appointment, Rice, a former Stanford University provost who served as Bush’s foreign policy advisor during the presidential campaign, said she was honored, and added, “It is a wonderful time for the United States in foreign policy, because it is a time when markets and democracy are spreading, when our values are being affirmed around the world, and yet it’s a time of great challenge.”

Bush also announced two other top appointees, naming Texas Supreme Court Justice Alberto R. Gonzales as White House counsel and Karen Hughes, his longtime communications director, as counselor to the president.

The announcements came a day after Bush named former Gen. Colin L. Powell as his secretary of State. So far, Bush has named two women, a Latino and two African Americans--Powell and Rice--to top posts in his administration.

The appointment of Rice, 46, was widely anticipated. She worked for President Bush as a Soviet affairs specialist in the National Security Council and was foreign policy advisor to George W. Bush’s campaign.

“Dr. Rice is not only a brilliant person, she is an experienced person. She is a good manager. I trust her judgment,” Bush said. “America will find that she is a wise person.”

Gonzales, 45, a graduate of Harvard Law School, served for three years on Bush’s gubernatorial staff as legal counsel. Bush later named him the Texas secretary of state.

“I know firsthand I can trust Al’s judgment because he was my first counsel as governor,” Bush said. “Al is a distinguished lawyer. Al is a man who has only one standard in mind when it comes to ethics--and that is the highest of high standards.”

Bush also noted that Gonzales’ background is “such a compelling story,” marveling that he grew up in a large family in a two-bedroom house and who now will be “sitting at the right hand of the president of the United States.”

Gonzales said that working with Bush in Texas for three years gave him “the opportunity to get to know the type of man that he is, how he makes his decisions.” He added, “Mr. President-elect, I could not pass up the opportunity to serve with you again.”

Hughes’ appointment was perhaps the most important from a policymaking standpoint. As counselor to Bush, she is expected to hold a wide-ranging portfolio.

Bush simply said that Hughes, 43, will “do strategic planning.”

Hughes is a fiercely loyal and trusted Bush aide with a demonstrated willingness to deliver unpleasant news or direct advice.

Indeed, Bush seemed most relaxed when introducing Hughes, joking at one point: “We knew each other when the definition of a motorcade was one car.”

He said of Hughes: “She is a woman who is frank, straightforward. She has got enormous judgment as well.”

Like Gonzales and Powell, Rice and Hughes have compelling up-by-the-bootstraps backgrounds.

During a brief question-and-answer session with reporters, Bush was asked whether he intended to send a message with his early appointments of women and minorities.

“You bet,” the president-elect answered. The message is “that people who work hard and make the right decisions in life can achieve anything they want in America.”

Rice recalled that she did not attend an integrated school until the 10th grade, when her family moved from Birmingham, Ala., to Denver.

“I think that you will see in the presidency of George W. Bush recognition of how important it is that we can continue the last 30-plus years of progress toward one America, that he will have an administration that is inclusive, an administration that is bipartisan and, perhaps most importantly, an administration that affirms that united we stand and divided we fall,” Rice said.

Hughes, who has worked for Bush for 6 1/2 years, said she is the granddaughter of a coal miner who did not want his children to follow him into the mines and inculcated in them the value of an education.

Hughes grew up as an Army brat. Her father, a major general, was the last U.S. commander of the Panama Canal.

She has worked as a television reporter in Texas and as executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

After making the staff announcements at the Governor’s Mansion here, Bush flew to Washington to begin two days of meetings with congressional leaders, President Clinton, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and the man Bush defeated: Vice President Al Gore.

While in Washington, Bush also intends to interview prospective Cabinet members. He said Sunday that he will announce his economic team “pretty soon.”

The three senior White House appointments show that Bush has focused more intensively on assembling his senior staff than on a Cabinet. And that is no accident.

He and his advisors are determined to avoid the mistakes made by President-elect Clinton and his transition team in 1992.

Eight years ago, Clinton spent so much time trying to deliver on his campaign promise of appointing a diverse Cabinet that “looks like America” that he barely had a White House staff in place upon taking office.

The makeup of Bush’s White House team has been eagerly anticipated--and regarded as unusually important--because of the Texas governor’s relative lack of governing experience and a tendency to delegate.

The appointments of Hughes and Gonzales signaled Bush’s intention to put his own stamp on the presidency.

Until now, the Texas governor has relied to a remarkable degree on Republican elders who served in his father’s administration. They include running mate Dick Cheney, who was President Bush’s Defense secretary; and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who was his father’s deputy White House chief of staff and Transportation secretary. Powell served in the earlier Bush administration as well, including as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Despite surrounding himself with seasoned Washington insiders, doubts have persisted about Bush’s lack of experience in government and his interest in foreign affairs.

But over the weekend, in response to repeated questions from reporters, Bush aides disclosed that he has traveled abroad far more extensively than previously known, for both business and pleasure.

Aide Gordon Johndroe said Bush has gone overseas more than a dozen times for business and personal reasons, including trips to Guatemala, France, Bermuda, Italy, Israel, Egypt, Gambia, England and Scotland. He also has visited Mexico and Canada “many, many times,” Johndroe said.

Another misconception about Bush may involve his storied reliance on staff. In fact, as governor he has often gone against the counsel of his top advisors, and on some high-profile matters.

In 1995, for instance, Bush vetoed a popular patients’ bill of rights designed to curb abuses by managed care organizations. That veto caused Bush much political grief in Texas and again during the 2000 campaign.

But his veto came down to “a choice of good public policy versus politics,” as Bush put it afterward.

And in the just-ended presidential campaign, Bush also dismissed the advice of most of his strategists to avoid proposing Social Security reform, an issue they called the “third rail” of American politics.

But, as Bush proudly boasted during the campaign, he ignored such advice because he so strongly believes that action must be taken soon to prolong the life of the retirement program.

Those seeking further clues about Bush’s attitude toward senior staffers can find them in the president-elect’s 1999 autobiography, “A Charge to Keep.”

In it, Bush writes that he understands “the importance of surrounding yourself with smart, capable and loyal people, friends who are not afraid to tell you what they really think and will not abandon ship when the water gets choppy.”

Bush wrote that he has learned to “give your senior advisors direct access to the boss, or they become frustrated and disillusioned.”

On Sunday, he told reporters that he has decided against elevating Rice’s post to a Cabinet-level position, but left no doubt that she would exert considerable influence by dint of her daily meetings with him.

And he hinted that Hughes, a blunt woman of imposing physical stature, would also be in close communication.

In her remarks, Hughes told Bush: “I promise I will always give you my unvarnished opinion.”

Amid much laughter in the room, Bush replied: “No question about that.”

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Bush Appointments

Condoleezza Rice

National security advisor

Age: 46

Education: B.A. in political science, University of Denver, 1974; M.A., University of Notre Dame, 1975; doctorate, Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, 1981.

Experience: Senior fellow at Hoover Institution and professor of political science, Stanford University, 1981-present; provost, Stanford University, 1993-99; director/senior director, Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, National Security Council, 1989-91; special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1986.

Books: Co-author, “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed,” 1995; co-author, “The Gorbachev Era,” 1986; author, “Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army,” 1984.

Corporate boards: Chevron Corp., Charles Schwab Corp., the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan, San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors.

Family: Single, no children.

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Alberto R. Gonzales

White House counsel

Age: 45

Education: B.A., Rice University, 1979; J.D. Harvard University, 1982.

Experience: Texas Supreme Court, 1999-present; Texas secretary of state, 1997-99; governor’s general counsel, 1995-97; attorney with Vinson & Elkins, 1982-95; Air Force, 1973-75.

Family: Wife, Rebecca.

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Karen Hughes

Counselor to president

Age: 43

Education: B.A., Southern Methodist University, 1977.

Experience: Communications director, Bush gubernatorial offices and presidential campaign, 1994-present; Texas Republican Party executive director, 1992-94; public relations and media consultant, 1985-91; Texas media coordinator Reagan/Bush campaign, 1984; television reporter, 1977-84.

Family: Husband, Jerry; son Robert.

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Source: Associated Press