The Secretary of the State at the time was James Baker, who had also been Secretary of Treasury and White House Chief of Staff: very powerful guy. And I went to see him in his very ornate office at the State Department to say I wasn't going to cover him anymore. It was just a courtesy call.
The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It wasobviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.
The President doesn't just appoint the Secretary of State, he appoints the Secretary of State, and then the Congress votes. And if the Congress approves that person, that person becomes Secretary of State.
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory--an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother.
I had more problems with the men in our own government, and not because they were male chauvinistic pigs but because they had known me for so long. I might have been a carpool mother and a friend of their wife, and so they'd been to my house for dinner and things like and they thought 'how did she get to be secretary of state when I should be secretary of state?' So that was more of a problem.
There is only one person in the State Department that can sign off on State Department personnel being in a facility that doesn't meet security standards, and it's the secretary of state.
I never dreamed about one day becoming Secretary of State. It's not that I was modest; it's just that I had never seen a Secretary of State in a skirt.
I was not only the first woman to become secretary of state, I was the first [U.S.] secretary of state of the 21st century. I was the first secretary of state to own a Web site, to visit Internet cafes, and to make Internet access a part of policy.
And the Marshall Plan, to us, meant a general who had turned into a secretary of state, and that the secretary of state saw the necessity of the reconstruction of these European countries that had suffered so heavily.
It is not for the State Department or even the Secretary of State to say when and how the resources of the American people will be spent.
Personally, having, you know, lived and worked in the White House, having been a senator, having been Secretary of State, there has traditionally been a great pool of very talented, hard-working people.
I first met Kim Dae Jung when he was a Korean dissident whose life was threatened by the military regime ruling in Seoul. I was Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, and Kim was directed to me because the East Asia Bureau at the State Department had long shunned him.
We were filming the West Wing on the set one day in DC and Madeleine Albright comes by the set. I mean, when does that happen? You turn around and there's the former Secretary of State just sitting there. After the Clinton administration finished we were filming right outside the White House and John Podesta comes walking up while we're out there filming. Just strolling by the set - the former Chief of Staff! Things like that would happen all the time.
Russia and [Vladimir] Putin`s antipathy toward Hillary Clinton from her time as secretary of state, Russia`s antipathy and loathing and fear of the U.S. State Department in general, those two - those things that we know about Russia they put a worrying cast over how successfully the new administration here has hollowed out and emptied out the U.S. State Department in just the few weeks since then been in charge.
I got to be White House chief of staff, ten years of congressman, secretary of defense, vice-president. If you're a political junkie like I obviously am - that was - every one of those was just a tremendous experience. I'm very comfortable with what I did and why I did it and how I did it. And I'll let others judge whether they liked it or not.
The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.
State Department lawyers need to have the evidence to back up the charge before they make it. Here's Nebraska Republican Jeff Fortenberry questioning Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson at a House hearing.