Rice, Condoleezza, 1954–, U.S. government official and educator, b. Birmingham, Ala. A political scientist who has specialized in Russian and E European studies, Rice has been a professor at Stanford since 1981. From 1989 to 1991 she was an adviser on Soviet and E European affairs on President George H. W. Bush's National Security Council. Subsequently, she served (1993–99) as Stanford's provost. During the 2000 presidential campaign she was George W. Bush's foreign policy adviser, and in 2001 she became President Bush's national security adviser—the first woman and second African American (after Colin Powell) to hold the post. A member of the president's inner circle, she was an advocate of U.S. military power, a supporter of the Iraq invasion (see Persian Gulf Wars), and a spokeswoman for the administration's assertive foreign policy. She served (2005–9) as secretary of state during Bush's second term, succeeding Colin Powell. Rice also headed (2017–18) the Commission on College Basketball, which recommended changes in NCAA regulations (but not player compensation) in the wake of an FBI investigation into corruption surrounding the sport and its players. Her books include The Gorbachev Era (1986, with A. Dallin), Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995, with P. Zelikow), and Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (2017).
See her memoirs (2010); biographies by A. Felix (2002), M. Mabry (2007), and E. Bumiller (2008); J. Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (2004); G. Kessler, The Confidante (2007).
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