Closed-Door Openness at Foggy Bottom

"Powerful," agreed Crocker.

"Your insightful words," said Kenneth Wollack, "come from the heart as well as the head."

Rice reciprocated by praising her committee. "We've already gotten some outstanding recommendations. . . . I think the other recommendations are great. . . . I couldn't agree more. . . . I agree completely. . . . Great comments. . . . I find myself in violent agreement with what's been said around the table."

The secretary of state offered the committee members a provocative thought to start their deliberations. She asserted that the "first goal" of American foreign policy should be developing democracies. "Now, why don't I say 'war on terror' or whatever?" she continued. "Because without well-governed, democratic states, you're likely to have failed states or authoritarian states that are going to submerge but not deal with the unhealthy political forces that lead to extremism."

But the participants' thoughts were more academic as they moved from election management to Bangladesh to education to the relative merits of opium poppy and pomegranates in Afghanistan.

"Poverty is a cancer that affects democracy," Atwood argued.

"The real cancer is corruption," Gershman rebutted.

Nourished by a spread of bagels and seated in a square around an elaborate display of houseplants, the committee members grew bolder after Rice left the room. A reporter, finally permitted by State Department officials to return to the meeting, was in place to record some of it.

Crocker noted that "we have to be able to cope with the argument that the U.S. is inconsistent and hypocritical in its promotion of democracy around the world. That may be true."

After the State Department's Rose Likins gave a report about foreign service training, committee member Joshua Muravchik said, "I come away just shaking my head at the complete absence of a sense of political strategy or political skills on the part of our people."

Gershman added that in the "inhospitable" Middle East, "it's just not a matter of training embassies to sort of be sensitive to dissidents."

"I'm distressed," Likins responded, "to hear the news that you think 90 percent of the people that you met in the field doing this are not doing it effectively."

Windsor criticized the State Department for requesting a decrease in funding for civil society and human rights in the 2008 budget. "That doesn't send a very good message," she protested.

Gershman noted that some of the administration's democracy promoting programs "could be seen as token gestures."

"This is a bad period for a lot of reasons," added Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. "The political dynamic that we represent, the forces we support, have been put on the defensive."

Sharp words. Fortunately for the State Department, Rice and the television cameras were gone.