President, top diplomat communicate closely

WASHINGTON -- At least once or twice a day and sometimes much more often, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush talk on the telephone.

Not since the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, or perhaps of George H.W. Bush and James A. Baker, have a president and his top diplomat communicated so closely or understood one another so well.

Rice's cool, confident demeanor has been much on display since Bush promoted her from her first-term job as White House national security adviser. So has her personal charm, which went a long way toward smoothing the rough edges of the Bush administration's relations with European and other allies bitter over the unpopular Iraq war.

Less evident in public is Rice's capacity both for anger and for quick action, or the degree to which her close relationship with Bush gives her clout at home and abroad.

Rice has few specific foreign policy accomplishments to her credit since becoming America's top diplomat in January, but Bush seems to trust her implicitly, and foreign leaders and Washington bureaucrats know it, said Steven Lamy, director of the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.

Rice was Bush's foreign policy tutor when he ran for president, and something of the teacher-student relationship remains, say people who have watched or listened to the two discuss world affairs.

"I think she's very powerful -- probably one of the most influential and powerful if you're talking about influencing the president," said Lamy, who was a graduate school classmate of Rice's at the University of Denver.

Having the president's ear gives Rice freedom that her predecessor, Colin Powell, never had.

It's hard to imagine the cautious Powell, for example, making the snap decision that Rice did last month after a disastrous meeting with the president of Sudan.

Rice didn't wait for any consultations with the White House, or even with her own Africa specialists back at the State Department, after Sudanese security men blocked her interpreter and other senior aides at the gate and then manhandled reporters and members of her traveling party.

Minutes after leaving President Omar el-Bashir's compound, Rice jabbed her finger at her top envoy in Khartoum.

Get the Sudanese on the phone, now, and make them apologize, Rice said. They quickly did.

Governments, especially large and powerful ones, don't often demand apologies in public. It's embarrassing for the other capital, and could backfire. Rice, however, was outraged by what she considered thuggish behavior, and she wasn't the least bit worried that Bush or anyone else might second-guess her.

So far, Rice may have had more influence on the tone and style of U.S. diplomacy than on its substance.

She is traveling widely, visiting nearly 40 countries, and giving well-received speeches abroad.

The first of those, in Paris, helped to mollify European critics by acknowledging international opposition to the Iraq war.

Rice has also repositioned the United States in its efforts to end suspected or declared nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea. Although neither effort has yet borne fruit, Rice has strengthened alliances with several other countries in the process.

Rice is the chief mouthpiece for Bush's second-term pledge to champion the spread of democracy even in unlikely or unreceptive places.

Sudan got a taste of that, but close U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia also have felt the chill. Rice abruptly canceled a planned trip to Egypt earlier this year in a dispute over the jailing of an opposition political activist.

Rice rescheduled her visit for June, after activist Ayman Nour had been freed. She also chose Cairo to deliver a much talked-about speech that challenged both Egypt and the Saudis to open up traditionally closed political systems.

"It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy," Rice said then.

After the speech, Rice made a point of meeting Nour. Nour thanked Rice, with a handwritten note, for sticking her neck out.

With promotion to a top Cabinet job, Rice has quickly displayed celebrity wattage unusual for buttoned-down Washington.

About six in 10 Americans approved of the job done by Rice in polling this spring, better numbers than received by either Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Perhaps predictably, Rice's stock as a potential Republican presidential candidate is way up, even though she says she's not interested.

The first black woman to be secretary of state, Rice is simultaneously on the cover of AARP's mass-mailed magazine this month and at the head of Forbes magazine's second annual list of the world's 100 most powerful women.

Forbes picked her largely on the strength of her position on the innermost ring of Bush's private circle.

"With her steely nerve and delicate manners, Rice lately has reinvigorated her position with diplomatic activism," the magazine said. "Rice has played a key, behind-the-scenes role in all of President George W. Bush's major decisions."