Publication |
2013.
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Summary/Abstract |
As Condoleezza Rice was completing her term as secretary of state, she visited New Delhi, walked into the prime minister's living room, and "came face to face" with his national security advisor, M. K. Narayanan. India had recently experienced the horrendous terrorist attack in Mumbai, and Narayanan, Rice writes, "had the same shell-shocked look that I remembered seeing in the mirror after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon." She took his hands and said, "It's not your fault… . I know how you feel. It's like being in a dark room with doors all around and knowing anything might pop out and attack again. But now you have to concentrate on preventing the next attack." Rice could not recall how Narayanan responded, but it didn't matter. "I was very much inside myself," she writes. "I was replaying those awful days in the wake of 9/11 that had from that time forward been September 12 over and over again. Nothing was ever the same… . Protest as you might to yourself, to the nation, and to the world, you never get over that feeling you could have done better. And you resolve never to let it happen again."1
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