HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton

HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes Page B

Book: HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography
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involved, he was grateful that she reached out to him. They sipped glasses of wine by her fireplace, and Hillary invited him to come back the next night, where he found Holbrooke, the veteran diplomat who had negotiated the Dayton Accords ending the war in the Balkans during Bill’s presidency. The two men didn’t know each other, but as Petraeus found out that night, they would soon be working closely. Petraeus, the highly educated soldier, and Holbrooke, the classic diplomat, were more alike than it might seem on first glance. They were both ideas men. And while they didn’t see eye to eye on everything, they quickly developed a high regard for each other’s intellectual firepower.
    Hillary opened another bottle of wine, and the three of them sat down by the fireplace. It was mostly a social drink, a getting-to-know-you moment for Petraeus and Holbrooke, whom Hillary had picked to be the presidentially appointed special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In that role, he would partner with Petraeus to develop civil-military plans for the region and meet with officials from the two countries, as well as American leaders, to implement those ideas.
    Hillary’s courtship of Petraeus would pay dividends, both on policy and personally. In mid-February 2010 she found herself stranded in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, because of mechanical problems with her jet. Petraeus, who had been in nearby Riyadh, redirectedhis own plane to pick Hillary up and bring her back to the United States. On the plane, Hillary picked Petraeus’s brain on the region monitored by U.S. Central Command, an area encompassing twenty countries that spans from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to the waters off Somalia’s coast in the south. During their conversation, it became clear that both Hillary and Petraeus were exhausted from their respective trips. So Petraeus, playing the part of an officer and a gentleman, offered Hillary his bed in the compartment at the back of the plane. As Hillary settled into Petraeus’s bed, he stretched out on the floor outside the door to the compartment. She had won him back.
    Initially, Holbrooke had hoped to become the deputy secretary of state, but the Obama camp couldn’t forgive him for threatening messages he had delivered to foreign policy experts during the campaign, vowing to deny them jobs in a Hillary administration if they signed on with Obama. Instead, Obama picked Jim Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration who had counseled Obama during the general election. Steinberg, then the dean of the University of Texas’s public policy school, was with his daughter at a birthday party in November when Obama called to offer him the job. Disappointed that he wouldn’t become Obama’s national security adviser, Steinberg asked for one concession from the president: Give me a permanent seat at National Security Council meetings. That would ensure that he couldn’t be shut out of the top level of the policy-making process. It’s okay with me, if it’s okay with Hillary, Obama said. Hillary liked that idea because Steinberg’s presence would mean State had two seats at the national security table, and Steinberg was an acceptable number two because of his long-standing ties to trusted Clintonites.
    Hillary sat down with Steinberg in early December in an apartment on Central Park South, overlooking the lush rectangle of gardens, fountains, and playgrounds that stretches from the northern reach of midtown Manhattan to the southern edge of Harlem. Sheused the apartment for a series of one-on-one sessions with advisers and potential hires that fall and winter. The location allowed her to meet with them discreetly, lowering the risk that reporters would find out who was up for a job at State, and in an environment cozy enough to promote comfort and informality. Once visitors stepped out of the elevator on the appropriate floor, Hillary’s

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