Exclusive: Clinton rebuts talk of diminished role

I had a quick audience with Hillary Clinton before she left on a week-long trip to India and Thailand this afternoon. I asked the U.S. secretary of state about chatter — which she addressed in straightforward terms — that she had been overshadowed in the early months of the Obama administration and that high-profile envoys had taken the lead on some of the most pressing foreign-policy challenges facing the United States, from a stagnant Middle East peace process to growing militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, leaving her with a perhaps less exciting portfolio.

The conversation came a day after her first major foreign-policy speech as secretary of state at the Council on Foreign Relations, and amid concerted efforts to boost her profile, in particular since she broke her elbow and required surgery last month.

Clinton, dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit and no longer wearing an arm sling, seemed perplexed by the idea that she might feel insecure about ceding turf to the envoys, given, she said, that she had been instrumental in getting them appointed and that they report to both her and the president (she also noted that she consults actively with them). "I am really not," insecure about that, she said emphatically.

"Given all the new administration inherited, the demoralization, the steady demands of the job, there’s so much to take on at once," Clinton said, explaining that being the secretary of state requires a great deal of multitasking, whether it’s teleconferencing with ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill, reviewing a George Mitchell memo, communicating with Congress, or meeting with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, and a longer list she ticked off. It would have been "irresponsible," she said, to try to micromanage everything, with all the foreign-policy challenges and priorities that she, at any moment, as a top cabinet official, is working with President Obama to articulate.

"I’m comfortable delegating," Clinton said. She described the job as immensely challenging and rewarding. "It’s so substantive, it’s so demanding."

Asked about the personal toll of having to be "on" — on message, on top of the issues — all the time, Clinton called herself, as she has in the past, "more of a work horse than a show horse." Acknowledging that the job required its share of the latter, such as press conferences and public appearances, she said she nonetheless has to be "focused and rooted in the work."

Had she deliberately spent her early months as secretary trying to build rapport with the other principals and overcome any legacy of mistrust from the primary campaign, before moving to raise her profile as the nation’s top diplomat, as she aimed to do with Wednesday’s speech?

"There’s no other approach that would have worked," Clinton said. "I am [directly] responsible for 50,000 people," she noted, referring to the approximate size of the State Department’s workforce. "When I have gotten into a new job, from senator to first lady to secretary of state to lawyer," she explained, it’s been important to get acclimated, do the homework, and build relationships.

She rejected, however, the suggestion that she wasn’t dominating her turf even before she broke her elbow last month. "We had moved at breakneck speed," Clinton said. "I traveled extensively, dealt with important things that matter, went to Congress. I see the president and am at the White House frequently."
       
What legacy does she want to leave from her tenure as secretary of state? "It’s too early," Clinton protested, shaking her head. One goal, she said, is to build up State’s resources and personnel so that the department, diplomacy, and foreign assistance can be more effective tools of statecraft — longer-term work that competes for her time with the more urgent challenges of the day.

What goes through her mind as she is falling asleep? A stream of intelligence reports that make her think about allocating resources to different problems, she said.

And then she was off to do an interview with a Pakistani television correspondent, who was concerned about what she might be ready to offer tomorrow in New Delhi. In Wednesday’s speech, Clinton said the United States would welcome "anyone supporting the Taliban who renounces al Qaeda, lays down their arms, and is willing to participate in the free and open society that is enshrined in the Afghan Constitution." Asked if that meant she thought there were "good Taliban in Pakistan," Clinton, without missing a beat or consulting any notes, said that was for the Pakistani government to decide.