Jeff Dufour, The Examiner
2007-10-29 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Nancy Brinker may always be best known for transforming her sister’s dying wish — that something be done about the scourge of breast cancer — into Susan G. Komen for the Cure, one of the most visible cancer organizations in the world. Komen boasts 100,000 volunteers, puts on 112 Race for the Cure events each year with more than 1 million participants, and is known everywhere by its symbolic pink ribbon.

As the organization celebrates its 25th anniversary, Brinker continues to work on its mission at night, and often gives speeches on weekends.

But these days, she has a new day job as chief of protocol for the United States, a position she accepted because of another pledge to a family member. After serving from 2001 to 2003 as ambassador to Hungary, she returned to public service “because I promised my father I would do this before he died” in June. “This part of my life is dedicated to my dad.”

Her new post is at once one of the more critical and one of the more under-the-radar positions at the State Department. Only once in a while does a protocol chief move into the limelight, such as when Shirley Temple Black held the job during the Ford administration.

“There are people in this building that don’t know what the office does,” said Deputy Chief Ray Martinez, who served as acting chief for eight months before Brinker’s swearing-in.

The chief’s office oversees visits by heads of state and other dignitaries, manages the details of the president’s foreign travel and supervises Blair House, the president’s guest residence.

The chief herself is responsible for establishing and maintaining relations with foreign diplomats living on U.S. soil. She personally presents all new foreign ambassadors to the president, and acts as their immediate liaison with the larger U.S. diplomatic corps and the administration. As for the diplomats who arrived in Washington before she took her post, Brinker says she’s going to try to meet as many of them as she can.

She also briefs U.S. administration officials traveling abroad or receiving heads of state in Washington on matters of protocol in order to head off inadvertent sleights or faux pas due to differences in culture or custom.

According to Mary Mel French, who held the job during President Clinton’s second term, the chief of protocol needs to worry about such things as “where flags are placed, and how they’re used in the ceremony. And how flowers are used. In some countries, white flowers are used for funerals, so you wouldn’t use those.”

To that end, the chief and her staff rely on a wide variety of public and classified sources, from country Web sites to CIA and State Department country briefs, as well as contacts in foreign embassies in the United States and U.S. embassies abroad.

The challenge really lies in “the number of demands placed on the position,” said Martinez. “You may have three or four heads of state visiting on a given day and you can’t be in three or four places at once.”

James Symington, who served as chief of protocol under LBJ before being elected to Congress, added, “You have to keep up with those folks and be aware of any concerns they have. All the way down to the gastronomic side — make sure you don’t serve them the wrong things.”

In her remarks at Brinker’s swearing-in, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the job requires “an unerring sense of reserve and calm, just in case something goes wrong, which it almost always will. … If the secretary is a little bit late or the president’s a little bit late, somehow you have to smooth those waters.”

But importantly, she added, “You need the ability to connect with people.”

Brinker certainly knows the right people. She’s friends with Laura Bush, having lived in Texas for the better part of 30 years, and has worked with Rice on “medical diplomacy” worldwide.

“Ambassador Brinker has an extraordinary ability to relate to people at all levels, which is ideal for this service role,” said Hala Moddelmog, Komen’s CEO.

“Outreach” is Brinker’s watchword. “There is enormous possibility here to engage the people we have living in our country,” she said.

She’s creating educational events for the diplomatic community and organizing trips around the country. “At the end of the day, all diplomacy is personal,” she said. “I want to know about their personal lives. I try to meet families when I can.”

Already, she’s held an economic conference at Blair House with 70 ambassadors and representatives from major American banks. She’s welcomed the president of Mongolia, arranging a tour of George Washington Hospital for his wife, as well as the prime minister of Armenia and, most recently, the Dalai Lama. His gift to her, a kata scarf, is draped across a chair in her office.

Brinker is under special pressure to keep relations smooth abroad and at home. As Symington notes, “This isn’t the high point of esteem for the United States in the world right now.”

“I’d argue that things aren’t as bad as people think they are,” said Brinker. “We have a lot of friends. We are in this [conflict] and I think it’s important that we make our values understood.”

Brinker is a committed Republican — she’s contributed more than $140,000 to GOP candidates and organizations in the past 10 years — but she emphasizes that neither of her career roles is particularly political in nature.

“Cancer isn’t a political movement,” she said. Nevertheless, she no longer sits on Komen’s board, and she says she keeps four devices in her handbag to keep all the communications for her various responsibilities separate.

“I have a nasty habit of being up in the middle of the night,” she said. “That’s when I get a lot of my e-mailing done.”

If time management is one concern for Brinker, the ceremonial conventions of her new post are another. “You’re supposed to go right and go left” at certain times, she said. “I can’t remember the steps. I failed dance class. There’s a lot to learn, but I’m an optimist.”

NANCY BRINKER’S TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1 You need vision to see and articulate your goals. As Helen Keller said when someone expressed sorrow at her being blind, “There is nothing worse than being able to see and have no vision.”

2 You need to be a strong leader to enlist the support of others and make your vision a reality.

3 You need to keep your focus razor sharp. If your lens becomes unfocused, chaos will ensue.

4 You need to create a team to realize a dream. You must persuade people to share successes and the disappointments — and to support each other.

5 You need to be persistent. As my Dad told me, most people fail because they just give up. He was right.

jdufour@dcexaminer.com