WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (RIA Novosti) – John Kerry got down to work Monday as the new US secretary of state, using an informal talk with staff to recall a childhood memory of the bleakness of post-war East Berlin and paying lighthearted tribute to the two women who preceded him in the post.
“I really did notice the starkness, the desolation,” Kerry said as he recounted how, at the age of 12 when his father was stationed in West Berlin as a US diplomat, he used his diplomatic passport to venture into the Soviet-controlled sector of Berlin, a city that was divided by the victorious powers after World War II.
“I really noticed the difference between the east and west,” he said. “There were very few people. They were dressed in dark clothing. They kind of held their heads down. I noticed all this. There was no joy in those streets. And when I came back, I felt this remarkable sense of relief and a great lesson about the virtue of freedom.”
Kerry praised his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who was also preceded in the post by a woman, Condoleezza Rice.
“The big question before the country and the world and the State Department after the last eight years: Can a man actually run the State Department?” he joked.
Clinton, viewed by many as a strong possible contender for the presidency in 2016, bid her farewell to department staff on Friday in the same cavernous lobby of the State Department building where employees gathered to listen to Kerry on Monday.
Kerry, who was formally sworn in as secretary of state on Friday, has wasted no time in getting down to business: He has spoken in recent days with key Israeli and Palestinian officials, as well as with officials from Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Mexico and Canada, the State Department said.
