Interview on CNN's Larry King Live

MR. KING: Tonight, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her first in-depth interview since taking the job just a little over a hundred days ago, next on Larry King Live.

We're in the Treaty Room at the State Department in Washington, DC. This is the Harry S Truman Building and this is the first in-depth interview since she took this job. The Secretary of State of the United States, Condoleezza Rice. We're in the Treaty Room, as we said. We're sitting right by the picture of the first Secretary of State, a guy named Thomas Jefferson.

What does that feel like, you and he, same job?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it's pretty extraordinary. Thomas Jefferson, of course, such a towering figure in American policy but also at a time when the march of democracy is the most important element of our foreign policy, someone who wrote eloquently about human rights, about the rights of man. One of my favorite quotes from Thomas Jefferson is, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time."

MR. KING: So you taught him, then, right? You would teach about him?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, absolutely. And but it reminds us too that this great defender of liberty, greater defender of democracy, that human beings are sometimes a little bit flawed. And, of course, he was a slave owner. And given that my ancestors, or some of them, were slaves, it's a sort of interesting juxtaposition.

MR. KING: No anger?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no. You have to recognize that the norms of the time were what they were. It only shows that human beings weren't perfect then. Human beings aren't perfect now. But what it says is that people like Jefferson and the other framers of the Constitution gave us institutions that understood that human beings were not perfect but gave us something to strive for, to get better every day. It gave us laws and institutions and principles to which a lot of impatient patriots, people like Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, a simple woman in the South, they could appeal to those principles and institutions over time to make us better.

MR. KING: The term "impatient patriot," what was the trip like? You just got back last night.

SECRETARY RICE: Just got back last night from Europe. It was a terrific trip. It was a trip in which the President was able to go to some of the new democracies. As an old Soviet specialist, Larry, to see these places that were literally behind the Iron Curtain just a couple of decades ago that are now, in the case of Latvia, a member of the European Union, a member of NATO, where democracy is vibrant; and for Georgia, to be in that square where you had 100,000 Georgians chanting the President's name and carrying American flags. And I'll tell you that for me the most exceptional moment, just a moment that gave me chills, was when they started to sing the American National Anthem with this Georgian accent and it was just -- it was so exciting to be there.

MR. KING: Oh, say, can you see. (Accented.)

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, something like that. But it was a great moment.

MR. KING: Were you aware of the grenade?

SECRETARY RICE: I heard about it afterwards. Obviously, it's being investigated. I think that the Georgian security services are working with our services to see what happened. But it didn't disrupt in any way the flow of what was happening there and it was just very exciting to be on that square.

MR. KING: They have been critical of each other. How do you explain the Bush-Putin relationship?

SECRETARY RICE: The Bush-Putin relationship is one that first and foremost is one of respect because whatever our differences, Russia is a great country and a great culture and it's a place that has made enormous progress over the last 15 or so years. This is not the Soviet Union and one only had to be in Moscow this time or over the last several times to see how far this country has come. And so there is enormous respect.

I think that the President and President Putin clearly like each other. They have an easy way with each other.

MR. KING: Even when they're critical of each other?

SECRETARY RICE: Even when there's criticism. Even when there's difficulty or a difference of opinion, it's always respectful and even friendly. And, of course, they have such an easy relationship. I'll tell you though, when the President got into President Putin's vintage car to drive --

MR. KING: What was that like?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we all held our breath but the President wasn't going to have to drive a stick shift or something like that. But it was a great -- a nice moment.

MR. KING: People may be -- are they wrongfully surprised at President Bush on the world stage?

SECRETARY RICE: Well --

MR. KING: He had been Governor of Texas and not traveled well.

SECRETARY RICE: Right, right. But this President has been through so much as President and he brought to the office certain characteristics that have served him well and have served us well as a country. I remember when I first met him as Governor of Texas and I thought --

MR. KING: You were at Stanford.

SECRETARY RICE: I was at Stanford. I had just recently left -- well, I had left the administration. This was in 1998. He had just become Governor of Texas. And he has such a sense of -- you have such a sense of conviction with him, that this is somebody who leads from principle, who leads from a deeply ingrained set of values. And when you are President of the United States there is so much going on around you and you're being told and asked to do so many things that if you don't have firm grounding in values then you're just like a will-o'-the-wisp and --

MR. KING: And you can take that anywhere.

SECRETARY RICE: And you can take the values anywhere. And going back to the relationship with President Putin, it's one of the reasons that you can have or the President can have a friendly relationship with President Putin, one that is respectful and where the President can still speak up for democracy.

MR. KING: Can you disagree with him openly?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can --

MR. KING: I mean, does he invite that?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, absolutely. The President is someone who prods people to say, "Well, what do you think about that," and then to challenge you. It's something I very much enjoy.

Now, it's the kind of thing that I've always said the President and I will do privately. I hope to get out of this town and never have anyone know what I might have said to the President or not said to him. I owe him that.

MR. KING: Your predecessor, Colin Powell, told me though, "You win some and lose some." True?

SECRETARY RICE: Sure. Of course. And he is, after all, the President. He's the one that the American people elected. He's the one who went out and won their confidence.

MR. KING: Before we get to issues and things, what about this job, if anything, surprised you?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can't say that much surprised me. I'd been National Security Advisor. I had watched my great predecessor, Colin Powell, do this job with skill and aplomb. I think we were -- we're personally very close so I watched him up close and personal, so to speak, go through this job.

But it is a job that has a great deal of needing to make sure that the people who work for the United States of America in the diplomacy of the United States of America know that they are supported here by the President and by me. Larry, we very often think about our men and women in uniform and the dangerous and difficult job that they do, and their service is extraordinary in what they accomplish every day. We also have a lot of diplomats out there who are doing difficult work, dangerous work. There is a plaque downstairs that commemorates in memoriam to American diplomats who have died abroad. And so I try to remember every day that more than anything this is not about policy, this is not about ideas, it's about people. Because the people who carry out American foreign policy, in some cases they may be the only American that someone in Georgia or someone in Sudan or someone in Colombia may meet, and so the people who represent the United States of America, that's really the strength of what we're doing.

MR. KING: Before we come back, the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State have often over the years had clashes. I wonder, wearing both those hats, what's that like. We'll be right back with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Don't go away.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: We're back in the Treaty Room with the -- at the Secretary of State's -- this is your building?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no. (Laughter.)

MR. KING: Well, she works here. With Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State of the United States, a little over a hundred days on the job. We always hear about natural clashes between state, security, defense.

SECRETARY RICE: Right.

MR. KING: When you wore two hats -- one or the other -- what's that like?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, National Security Advisor has a very special role, first of all as the principal daily advisor to the President of the United States, and the National Security Advisor has to be sure not to take advantage of that. You sit just down the hall from the President. You're a few steps from the President. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, are across Washington running great big operations and they have to have the confidence that the National Security Advisor is going to represent the views of everyone equally so that the President has the full range of advice.

And I tried to do that. I tried to be an honest broker. I think my successor, my good friend, Steve Hadley, is terrific at that. He is someone --

MR. KING: You get along?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, absolutely. He's not only one of my closest colleagues, he's been a good, good friend over these years. And he is someone who is always going to make certain that the President has the full range of advice, not just his own views.

MR. KING: Now let's move to some issues. We'll skirt around. The Bolton nomination. Is there anything about his nomination that concerns you?

SECRETARY RICE: I just hope that we can get this nomination done, Larry. I understand the deliberative process of the Senate and they have a role to advice and consent. But we need our nominee at the UN so that we can engage in what is really a very important debate right now about UN reform, about the future role of the United Nations, an extremely important organization to us. John Bolton is eminently qualified for this job and I'm the one who talked to the President about having John do this job because --

MR. KING: You pushed it?

SECRETARY RICE: Absolutely. When we were looking for a UN Ambassador I thought that John, with whom I'd had a lot of experience in his diplomacy over the last four years, would be a strong voice at the UN. Yes, he's been critical of the United Nations from time to time but in some ways that is a great benefit because at a time when the UN is undergoing considerable discussion about reform, looking at what needs to be done, it's a good thing to have somebody who's thought both about the good and the bad at the UN.

MR. KING: How about stories of negative treatment of personnel?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can tell you that there are a lot of people who have worked for John Bolton who are inspired by him and who are intensely loyal to him. And John is hard-charging. There is no doubt about that. But he has been very successful in managing people. He's been very successful in his diplomacy. I expect that when John leads the mission at the UN that he's going to do it in a way that is respectful of the people who work for him and that he'll get the best out of them.

MR. KING: Do you think he learned from these hearings, too?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we all learn from experiences like this. I learned from my own confirmation hearings. We've all learned.

MR. KING: You breezed, though.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, no, hardly, hardly. It was -- the confirmation hearing -- by the way, the confirmation process, even those of us who have to go through it, at the time it may not seem like something that you want to go through but it's a good process that we have of having you to step back and look at issues, having you to step back and look at questions about what has transpired. And, of course, we all learn from those processes.

MR. KING: Do you expect him to get through?

SECRETARY RICE: I certainly do. I am very hopeful that when the Senate really considers what has been said --

MR. KING: Which could be any day now.

SECRETARY RICE: Right. And we -- there's a vote that's scheduled. When it's considered, I think that people will see that there is a very strong record here of achievement, a very strong record of leadership and that it should go forward. I certainly hope so.

MR. KING: How involved does the Secretary of State get? For example, would you call a senator?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, of course.

MR. KING: You do? In other words, you lobby?

SECRETARY RICE: But I've talked -- I talk to people on the Foreign Relations Committee all the time about administration views, about how we see different issues, so it's not at all unusual that I talk fairly frequently to the senators. The Congress is a co-equal branch of government and they have an extraordinarily important role in foreign policy and there needs to be open communication between the Executive and the Legislature.

MR. KING: You said when you "get out of this town." Are you going to go back to academia?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I'm going to go back to academia. I'm going to go back to California, which is a place you love as well. You understand why.

MR. KING: You're not going to run for governor?

SECRETARY RICE: I really would like to go back to my life.

MR. KING: You do?

SECRETARY RICE: I do. I love being an academic. I love teaching. I love writing. And right now I'm concentrating on one of the most challenging jobs that I think you can possibly have at one of the most challenging times because we're in a historical period where, if we all do our work well, the United States could leave, this administration could leave, a future that is so much brighter, where democracy has marched forward, where we have made real strides in the war on terrorism, where we have led the world in addressing questions of poverty and disease. This is a very exciting time to be Secretary of State but there is going to be a very exciting time to be a professor at Stanford again, too.

MR. KING: Any -- no one can be certain about everything and hindsight is easy. Any post doubts about Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I believe that Iraq is going to -- the Iraqis are going to turn out to be one of the strongest affirmations of the universal values of freedom and liberty.

MR. KING: So nobody died in vain?

SECRETARY RICE: No one -- no, absolutely not. In fact, the sad fact is that nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice. And we each, every one of us, I think most especially the President, mourn every single death because every life is precious. But it's been America's role in the world to defend freedom. It's been America's role in the world to create conditions in which freedom can move forward.

We were just in The Netherlands at the cemetery there, the Dutch American cemetery, to honor the service of those who 60 years ago helped to liberate Europe from fascism. We were last year at Normandy to celebrate and to honor the memories of those who -- young men who liberated a continent through the Normandy invasion.

It's been America's fate, America's role, America's obligation to help people who were in tyranny to be free, and Iraq is in that long line of --

MR. KING: Iraq's a liberation to you?

SECRETARY RICE: Iraq is a liberation, yes.

MR. KING: We'll be right back with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Treaty Room at the State Department. Don't go away.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: She's celebrating a little over a hundred days on the job. May 5th is the anniversary. The Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The new United States Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, says he believes North Korea has taken preparatory steps for a nuclear test. You said earlier this week the United States has no intention to attack or invade North Korea. President Bush once told me, "You never tip your hand." Were you tipping your hand there?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, no, I think the North Koreans quite clearly understand that we have a strong deterrent on the Korean Peninsula with our strong relationship with South Korea, with our forces that are in the region. I don't think the North Koreans are confused about the United States and our ability to deter any aggression that North Korea might be planning.

MR. KING: So why did you say that?

SECRETARY RICE: But the question is: Would we somehow wish to invade North Korea? Because the North Koreans, in their machine, their propaganda machine, very often tell the North Korean people that there is a plot to invade North Korea, that America wants to make war on North Korea. No, the United States wants a peaceful Korean Peninsula. We just want a Korean Peninsula -- like, by the way, the Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese, the South Koreans all want -- a Korean Peninsula in which there -- on which there are no nuclear weapons. And the reason that we have this problem is that North Korea has insisted on pursuing nuclear weapons programs and a nuclear weapon. And so the entire purpose here is to have a Korean Peninsula that is nuclear weapons free. That's what the problem is.

MR. KING: But under the -- if we use the concept of Iraq, wouldn't we go in to liberate them?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think you -- as you said, the President of the United States never takes his options off the table. But we believe that this is a situation that is susceptible to diplomacy because North Korea has neighbors that are unified in their view that North Korea should not have a nuclear weapon. Now, Iraq had for 12 years defied the international community. It had used weapons of mass destruction. People forget that Kurds and Iranians and others had suffered from actual use of weapons of mass destruction by the Iraqi regime.

And, Larry, I will be the first to say that North Korea is a terrible regime in terms of the treatment of its people, the starvation that they experience, the prison labor camps that are there, and we are -- we are going to shine a light on that. This President is never going to stop speaking out about the conditions of people who are trapped in grave circumstances or about the need for reform. But every situation is different and not every situation requires the use of military force.

MR. KING: If therefore diplomacy is the answer, would you meet with North Korean officials?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we've had an experience of bilateral discussions with the North Koreans in 1994 and what happened is the North Koreans signed an agreement with us and then they went about violating it practically before the ink was dry. So there's no need to go back down that road. We do --

MR. KING: You would --

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we do meet with the North Koreans in the context of the six-party talks. We have talked to them in New York where they have representation. So it is not as if we are without contact with the North Koreans. But we believe that the strongest vehicle by which to deal with the North Korean nuclear program is with all of the parties sitting at the table who have an interest here. It doesn't mean that we don't talk to the North Koreans in the context of those talks.

MR. KING: Are you concerned or hopeful, or both?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm, of course, concerned because the North Koreans continue to pursue this nuclear weapons program. But one has to just continue to work diplomatically and one has to continue to unify the international community around this goal. And if we remain united I believe we can resolve this.

MR. KING: Is it the spot in the world that worries you the most?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, one doesn't have to choose between difficult places in the world. Obviously, North Korea is an issue. I think the place that is at once most volatile and most hopeful is actually the Middle East because --

MR. KING: Volatile and hopeful.

SECRETARY RICE: Volatile and hopeful. It's got a history of a lot of violence, of course. But we at this particular moment, perhaps have the best chance that we've had in a long time for movement forward between the Palestinians and the Israelis toward a two-state solution that means a Palestinian state and an Israeli state living side by side. It would require what is already going on there -- the process of democratization in the Palestinian territories. They've had elections. They're going to have more elections. But Palestinians need to reform their security forces and make sure that they're fighting terrorism. But of course, the Israelis are going to leave the Gaza and withdraw from four settlements in the West Bank. This is an extraordinary moment.

MR. KING: Because of the leadership of both sides?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. But I have to underscore the leadership of Prime Minister Sharon here because this man, who in many ways was the father of the settlement movement, has really now said that Israel and the Palestinians are going to have to share the land. And that's a very important fundamental place from which to recognize the need for two states. And one, you just have to admire him for that kind of leadership.

MR. KING: Clearly, Yitzak Rabin-like.

SECRETARY RICE: That's a very, very admirable case of leadership.

MR. KING: We'll be right back with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Don't go away. Thank you.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: We're back at the State Department in Washington, D.C., the Harry S Truman Building with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. What's the job of the Secretary of State or the Administration in selling its -- by that I mean, the polls say we're down on Iraq, the American public is not supportive. Is that your problem?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it is important for the Secretary of State, for the President and for all of us to talk to the American people constantly and consistently about what it is we're trying to do because these are difficult times, Larry. Nobody likes to see the loss of life that we are experiencing and so we have to get out. We have to talk about the great dramatic movement that is going on in democracy and we have to make the case to the American people that we do know something from history: Democracies are more peaceful.

When you have a situation in which you have the spread of democracy in a place like the Middle East, then you're going to have a different channel for all of that hatred and venom, right now which is being channeled into terrorism, it's being channeled into people who fly airplanes into buildings on a fine September day. And we're recognizing that over the years where we didn't speak out for democracy in the Middle East, we were not actually getting stability, we were getting a kind of malignancy underneath. And we just -- we have to make that case.

MR. KING: Well, why hasn't it been made? What doesn't the American -- why doesn't the American public, in your opinion, get it?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, I think actually the American public does understand this, Larry.

MR. KING: You think they're wrong?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, when you talk to people, when you look at what happened in the campaign where the President made this case, Americans I think are very proud of what we are doing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's hard. And I recognize the struggle that people have internally, that we all have internally about the fact that we have lost life in order to move forward. But after September 11th, I think we recognized that we were going to have to have a different kind of Middle East in order to leave a permanent peace for our children.

MR. KING: Does public opinion affect you?

SECRETARY RICE: The President is determined to lead from values and from principle. He was elected by the American people not to read the polls on any given day, but to lead in the way that American presidents have led when they are at their best, and that is to speak out for America's role in the spread of democratic values and freedom and liberty understanding that when the world is freer we are more secure and when the world is less free we are more vulnerable. When you listen and we talk about the real threats out there today, you talk about a North Korea. Why do we worry so much about North Korea, this closed, non-transparent society with potentially a nuclear weapon?

When you look at the Middle East, the absence of democracy there that has led people to economies that are -- where 22 of them have a gross domestic product less than that of Spain and where anger and hatred is being fueled, so that we experience something like September 11th. If you contrast that with Europe now, where 60 years ago nobody would have said that Europe was going to peaceful, but now where you have democracies throughout Europe, do we fear somehow war in Europe any longer? No. Do we fear Europe attacking us or using military force? No.

There is a clear link between the spread of democracy and our own security. And so that's what we have to keep our eyes on. And I know it's hard and I know that this is a generational struggle. But Americans have never gotten tired and quit early. That's not who we are. It took us a long time to get to a Europe in which the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully, in which we now can go and celebrate democracy in Georgia or Latvia. But the sacrifice was worth it because our people are much more secure and much freer.

MR. KING: What do you make, Madame Secretary, of violence as an answer? Well, we were born in violence, right? We had a --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

MR. KING: That fellow: "When in the course of human events."

SECRETARY RICE: Right, yes.

MR. KING: We have a Second Amendment. People can own guns.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

MR. KING: By the way, what do you think about gun control?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, Larry, I come out of a -- my own personal experiences in which in Birmingham, Alabama, my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against white nightriders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac, and sitting there armed. And so I'm very concerned about any abridgement of the Second Amendment. I'll tell you that I know that if Bull Connor had had lists of registered weapons, I don't think my father and his friends would have been sitting at the head of the community defending the community.

MR. KING: So you would not change the Second Amendment? You would not --

SECRETARY RICE: I also don't think we get to pick and choose in the Constitution. The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment of the --

MR. KING: But doesn't having the guns, while it's protection, also leads to people killing people?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, obviously, the sources of violence are many and we need to get at the sources of violence. Obviously, I'm very much in favor of things like background checks and, you know, and controlling at gun shows. And there are lots of things we can do. But we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. And on this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Alabama, when, in fact, the police weren't going to protect you.

MR. KING: Did you see him take the guns?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, absolutely. Every night, he and his friends kind of organized a little brigade.

MR. KING: How old were you?

SECRETARY RICE: I was eight -- eight years old.

MR. KING: You remember that?

SECRETARY RICE: I remember it very, very well.

MR. KING: Did you understand it, as an eight-year-old why --

SECRETARY RICE: I understood that something was deeply wrong in Birmingham, Alabama, when I didn't have a white classmate until we moved to Denver, Colorado. I knew that these were separate societies. Our parents -- I grew up in a very nice, sheltered little middle-class community in Birmingham. My mother was a schoolteacher. My father was a minister and a high school guidance counselor. And I'm still friends with a lot of the kids from that community. And we recognize that we had very special circumstances.

Our parents told us, "All right, it may be that you can't have a hamburger a the Woolworth's lunch counter, and it may be that you can't go to this amusement park, Kiddieland, but don't worry, you can do anything you want. Your horizons should be limitless in America."

MR. KING: Did you believe that?

SECRETARY RICE: And we believed it.

MR. KING: Or as Dick Gregory once said, "Why would you want to eat a hamburger at the Woolworth counter?" (Laughter.) We'll be right back with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Don't go away.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: We're back with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The job itself. Is it the travel? I mean, you have -- you couldn't do this -- or could you -- if you were married and with children?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I would manage to do it if I were married with children. Other people manage to do it married with children.

MR. KING: Married with young children.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't know. I've always said, Larry, my life turned out like I think it was supposed to turn out. And so I'm very happy doing this job. The travel is, right now, fun. I don't know how I'll be when I'm here a year from now with you, talking about -- whatever it'll be -- 465 days. Maybe a year from now I'll be tired of the travel, but I really love it. And I like getting out to different places. First of all, I like going to foreign countries or I wouldn't have been a specialist in foreign affairs.

Secondly, I like going out and representing the United States and talking to people about what we're trying to do. There's such excitement out there right now about the democracy agenda. There's such excitement about the fact that in places like Lebanon and Afghanistan, places that -- and Iraq, places that perhaps we never even thought would see democracy, that democracy is starting to bloom.

And then I like getting out and talking to our men and women in the field. We have a lot of fine Foreign Service, Civil Service people. One thing that's well -- not well understood is we have a lot of Foreign Service Nationals, that is, people who are citizens of the countries in which we are headquartered, who work for us. And many of them have worked for many, many years.

MR. KING: We pay them.

SECRETARY RICE: We do. And they are some of the most loyal and wonderful people, so I love getting out and seeing all of these people.

MR. KING: I've had other government officials tell me that the biggest mistake they made prior to going into government is critical -- being critical of government employees, bureaucrats and the like. They're generally very hardworking.

SECRETARY RICE: They are very hardworking people. The United States is very fortunate in our Civil Service, our Foreign Service, our military. We have people who, in many ways, give their lives to public service. They don't do it because it brings glory or because it brings money. They do it because they want to change the world.

And one of the exciting things about being Secretary of State right now is that when I talk to our people out in the field, I say, you know, I've taught people like you who went into the Foreign Service or the Civil Service because they wanted to change the world. And we have a chance to change the world for the better because this is really an historic moment. And people respond to that. These are hardworking, really dedicated patriots.

MR. KING: Is there a lot of red tape on the job?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, there's a fair amount of red tape in it. But I was in a university. There's a fair amount of red tape in universities, too. There's no reason to be frustrated.

MR. KING: Mostly you -- as I read about your travels, you meet with heads of state.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

MR. KING: Aren't you supposed to meet with foreign ministers?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I have excellent foreign minister colleagues and people, you know, people to whom I'm particularly close, like the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw or my colleagues in -- I had a wonderful experience recently when I went to Latin America. I flew from Colombia to the Communities of Democracy in Chile with a wonderful woman, who is the Foreign Minister of Colombia, Foreign Minister Barco, and then flew back to El Salvador with the Foreign Minister of El Salvador. So I have some great colleagues among the foreign ministers, but it is also very nice that when I go to places, heads of state have been willing to spend time with me.

MR. KING: What did you think of the Blair reelection?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the British -- British elections are very interesting. They're pretty intense because they're short. But Prime Minister Blair is someone who has also stood on principle and he has understood and has communicated, I think, so well that the great democracies -- those of us who are lucky enough to live on the right side of freedom's divide -- have an obligation to those who are on the wrong side of freedom's divide. And I've often heard him talk about the fact that had people abandoned Great Britain in its hour of need, Britain would not be free today. And so whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan, he's been a real stalwart for freedom.

MR. KING: But also had trouble selling it.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think "selling it" is the wrong word. These are complicated issues and it is hard because these struggles are hard. And people feel the intense loss of life and see the violence and that's hard. What leaders have to do and what the President has done -- President Bush -- and what Prime Minister Blair has done so well is to keep reminding us of what the horizon looks like.

You know, we've had struggles in this country. I've often wondered, in the darkest hours of the Civil War, what people were saying to Abraham Lincoln about whether this was going to turn out all right. Or when George Washington lost New York. Were there people who were saying, "You know, that Declaration of Independence, that was maybe not such a great idea after all"?

MR. KING: Good point.

SECRETARY RICE: So these great historical changes are always hard. They are almost always violent. But if you do your work well, in the long run, they are almost always worth it.

MR. KING: I think 95 percent of the American press was against Lincoln.

SECRETARY RICE: Interesting.

MR. KING: We'll be right back with Condoleezza Rice right after this.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: We're back with Madame Secretary. Like that, huh? Madame Secretary Condoleezza -- they'll love that back in Birmingham. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE: Right. (Laughter.)

MR. KING: The perception that the United States is pushing this, that we are the, as one phrase called it in the paper, the "revolution export service," that we're -- you will be democracies.

SECRETARY RICE: I just find it extremely patronizing to assume that people don't want to be free and they only will look at freedom if the United States somehow pushes it. You know, you have to impose tyranny. You don't impose democracy.

If you ask people, "Do you want to be able to say what you think? Do you want to worship as you please? Do you want to be able to educate your boys and girls? Do you want to be free from the arbitrary knock of the secret police at night?" people across the globe -- I don't care what culture they come from, I don't care what language they speak, what religious they espouse, or how literate or illiterate they are -- people know deep in their souls that that is the height of human dignity.

And we saw it, Larry. We saw it when Afghans went out to vote in huge numbers along dusty roads. I've been to Afghanistan. There are few paved roads in Afghanistan. They walked for miles to vote. In Iraq, where they faced down terrorists, who literally told them if they voted they would die, and they still voted. Where they've gone into the streets in Lebanon. Where they went into the streets in Ukraine and in Georgia. Who are we to assume that somehow there are people on some corner of the earth that don't want the human dignity that comes freedom and liberty?

MR. KING: And who are the suicide bombers? Don't they want freedom?

SECRETARY RICE: The suicide bombers, in a place like Iraq, are people -- many of them who are the same people who were oppressing their fellow Iraqis under Saddam Hussein.

MR. KING: They're oppressors.

SECRETARY RICE: And who would like to have a return to the bad old days of Saddam Hussein's rule, or they are terrorists, like Zarqawi, who want to impose their own view of a great religion, which by the way is a perversion of Islam, that would take people back to a time when women were in bondage, to a time when only one very narrow view of religion was tolerated. That's who the suicide bombers are. That's who the people who are killing, by the way, innocent Iraqis who simply want a better life.

MR. KING: And they totally believe this. They are -- that it's their distorted view of a religion?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it is clearly a distorted view of religion because Islam is a great and peaceful religion. And it is a religion that we in the United States respect fully. The fastest growing -- one of the fastest growing religions in the United States is Islam. And if you go to almost any community in many of our cities, you will see mosques and you will see that people who practice this great religion are a part of America's great democracy. That's the way that it should be and I would hope, if anything is understood, that America, which values religious diversity, values this great religion that is Islam.

MR. KING: She's giving us an extended time tonight. We'll be back with our remaining moments right after this.

(Commercial break.)

MR. KING: We're back with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Treaty Room of the State Department.

What's with the skirt and the boots?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) It was cold in Germany. I lived in Colorado a good bit of time; you put on boots. Larry, ever since I was a little girl, I liked to shop. Okay? There, I've said it.

MR. KING: You're kidding.

SECRETARY RICE: No, no. My mother and I -- well, my father was, as I said, a minister and so my father would go to work on his sermons on Saturday morning and my mother and I would head downtown to go shopping.

MR. KING: And boots was the thing?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, not in Alabama but certainly in Colorado.

MR. KING: But did you think you would get the kind of press that got, the picture all over the world?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no, of course not. In fact, somebody said to me, "You know, your picture is on the front page of The Washington Post," and I thought, "Well, what did I do now?" I guess I wore boots. (Laughter.) I guess that's what it was.

MR. KING: You didn't think of it?

SECRETARY RICE: No, of course not.

MR. KING: Does it mean you would not do it again?

SECRETARY RICE: No, of course not. I'll wear whatever I'm comfortable wearing.

MR. KING: Your own private life. Did you ever, you know, want to get married, want to have children, wanted that "mom-ism"?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, my view is that you don't get married in the abstract; you get married to some one. And so --

MR. KING: You haven't met him?

SECRETARY RICE: No. I haven't. It doesn’t mean that it won't happen someday. But I'm a deeply religious person and my life has, I think, unfolded as it was supposed to. I have certainly no complaints about the way that it has unfolded. I had extraordinarily loving parents who just believed in me and told me I could do anything and gave me every opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do. I have, to this day, a wonderful family. I sometimes read I have no family. I have -- you know, in the South, and particularly in African American families, extended families are really important. And I have aunts and uncles and cousins who are really, really close to me and marvelous friends and friends who go back to every stage in my life, from the time I was a kid, in college and graduate school. It's terrific.

MR. KING: But you're open to Mr. Right?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.)

MR. KING: If Mr. Right comes along?

SECRETARY RICE: I don't have time right now, but sure, who wouldn't be?

MR. KING: Did life go the way you want it to?

SECRETARY RICE: Life has unfolded, for me, in ways that I absolutely love.

MR. KING: You think you're lucky?

SECRETARY RICE: I think I'm blessed.

MR. KING: Better word. Do you ever doubt your faith?

SECRETARY RICE: I have -- I can honestly I've never doubted the existence of God. Like all people of faith who think, I have had questions from time to time. And one of the great contributions that my father made to me -- my father was a theologian -- is that he let me have those questions. And I can remember from the time I was a very young kid debating with him about the Bible and debating about this aspect of Jesus' life or that aspect of the Apostle Paul and therefore wanting to read more and wanting to understand more. And he gave me a great gift there because he never made me feel that my faith and my intellect were at war with one another. He always made me believe and let me believe that God gave you a brain and he expects you to use it.

MR. KING: Even after 9/11?

SECRETARY RICE: Especially after 9/11. I think after 9/11, we all needed our faith very, very strongly. I remember in the days immediately after, there wasn't much left except to pray. And again, I remember Abraham Lincoln saying that there are times when you have to get on your knees because your intellect won't fully explain. And whether it was 9/11, or in my case the deaths of my parents, my faith has always come through for me.

MR. KING: Thank you, Madame Secretary.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

MR. KING: It was good seeing you again.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

MR. KING: The Secretary of State from the Treaty Room of the State Department, Condoleezza Rice.

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