Teary Rice bids farewell to State Department

A smiling but moist-eyed Condoleezza Rice bid farewell to hundreds of applauding and cheering State Department colleagues who worked under her during her four years as US secretary of state.


"You will always be in my thoughts, my prayers and my heart," Rice, her voice choked with emotion, told the gathering yesterday after a brief speech about the importance of defending liberty and democracy in the world.


She then descended a few steps to shake hands with ambassadors, diplomats, security officers and other employees. She also stood for photographs before leaving the building's main entrance.


Rice normally enters and leaves the building in a limousine through the ultra-secure underground parking. Rice is following a tradition at the State Department where the chief diplomats are greeted upon their arrival and departure by all the staff in the reception hall of the austere building.
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Even though she continues her duties until Tuesday, when President-elect Barack Obama will assume office, Rice has no plans to return to the seat of American diplomacy and foreign policy. She has left upon her desk a welcome note for Hillary Clinton, who is expected to arrive at the State Department on Wednesday morning to succeed her. Rice was due to spend the weekend with George W Bush at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, about 50 kilometers from Washington.


Her closest aides, who bade farewell to her in a private ceremony, gave her as a present the chair she used at the State Department, according to Sean McCormack, her spokesman who also left his job yesterday.