Memo to the President Elect
How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership
By Madeleine Albright
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2008
Madeleine Albright
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-135180-8
Chapter One
A Mandate to Lead
Memorandum
(personal and confidential)
To: The President Elect
From: Madeleine K. Albright
Date: Election Night, 2008
Congratulations on your success. Well done! You have won
a great victory. But with that victory comes the
responsibility to lead a divided nation in a world riven
by conflict and inequity, wounded by hate, bewildered by
change, and made anxious by the renewed specter of
nuclear Armageddon. In days to come, leaders you've
never heard of, from countries you can barely locate,
will assure you of their friendship and offer you
assistance. My advice is to accept, for you will need
help. We Americans like to think of ourselves as
exemplars of generosity and virtue, but to many people
in many places, we are selfish, imperious, and violent.
The voters will want you to transform this perception
while also protecting us, defeating our enemies, and
securing our economic future-in other words, to do as
promised during your campaign.
The president of the United States has been compared to
the ruler of the universe, a helmsman on a great sailing
ship, the
Mikado's Grand Poo-bah, a lonely figure
immersed in "splendid misery" (Jefferson's description),
and "the personal embodiment [of the] ... dignity and
majesty of the American people" (William Howard Taft's).
Students of the office have identified an array of
presidential roles: commander in chief, master diplomat,
national spokesperson, head administrator, top
legislator, party leader, patron of the arts,
congratulator of athletic teams, and surrogate parent.
Your political advisors will want you to focus on
activities that will keep your poll numbers high and get
you reelected. I urge you to concentrate on duties that
will restore our country's reputation and keep us safe.
On January 20, 2009, you will place your hand on the
Bible and, prompted by Chief Justice Roberts, swear in
front of three hundred million Americans and six billion
people worldwide to "preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States." Following George
Washington's example, you will add a heartfelt "so help
me God." The oath completed, you will become the world's
most powerful person. It will no longer be happenstance
when you enter a room and the band strikes up "Hail to
the Chief." You have attained our nation's highest
office; the question, not yet answered, is whether you
have what it takes to excel in the job.
Eight years ago, as the second millennium drew to a
close, the outlook for America could not have been
brighter. The world was at peace, the global economy
healthy, and the position of the United States
unparalleled. The platform on which George W. Bush ran
for president in 2000 referred to the era as "a
remarkable time in the life of our country." Colin
Powell, the incoming secretary of state, told Congress,
"We will need to work well together because we have a
great challenge before us. But it is not a challenge of
survival. It is a challenge of leadership. For it is not
a dark and dangerous ideological foe we confront, but
the overwhelming power of millions of people who have
tasted freedom. It is our own incredible success that we
face."
Like any inheritance, incredible success can be invested
productively or not. Tragically, America's political
capital has been squandered. When comparing notes with
former cabinet members-Democrat and Republican alike-I
have seen people shake their heads in disbelief at the
manner in which presidential power has been misused. The
consensus question: What could they have been thinking?
From day one, the wrong people were in top positions.
The decision-making process was distorted or bypassed.
Ideological conformity was valued over professionalism,
and falsehoods were allowed to masquerade as truth.
Principles that are central to America's identity were
labeled obsolete, and historic errors were made without
accountability. Important national security tools,
including diplomacy, were set aside. I had hoped that
President Bush would salvage his administration during
its final years, but the gains made were both belated
and marginal. Sad to say, you will enter office with
respect for American leadership lower than it has been
in the memory of any living person.
As a child in Europe, I hid in bomb shelters while Nazi
planes flew overhead. Listening to the radio, I exulted
at the voice of Churchill and the wondrous news that
American troops were crossing the Atlantic. I was seven
years old when Allied forces hit the beaches at Normandy
and later repelled Hitler's army at the Battle of the
Bulge. By the time the war was won I was eight, anxious
to discover what peace might be like, and already in
love with Americans in uniform.
To Abraham Lincoln, the United States was "the last best
hope of Earth." To me, it will always be the land of
opportunity. I could not imagine wanting to live
anywhere else, nor conceive what the twentieth century
would have been like without my adopted country. That is
why it is so disturbing to learn of reports that most
people in most countries now believe that America
"provokes more conflicts than it prevents" and that we
have a "mainly negative" influence in the world.
The tragic blunder of Iraq stands out, but there have
been others-neglect of our allies, overreliance on the
military, allowing the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld to be the face of America. Yes, we have an
excuse: the world is different now, but that is all the
more reason to be mindful of proven strengths. The
terrorist outrage of 9/11 was shocking, but we have
lived for decades with the knowledge that death could
arrive from across the sea. The attacks were cause for
grief and anger, and for reassessing our institutions
and strategies; they were not good reason for panic or
for abandoning our principles when we needed them most.
After 9/11, the Bush administration started well but
soon forgot who our country's most serious enemies were.
Many Americans ...
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Memo to the President Elect
by Madeleine Albright
Copyright © 2008 by Madeleine Albright.
Excerpted by permission.
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