The Palestinian election is something that was really a turning point. It's a mandate for peace.

I was born in a very small town in North Dakota, a town of only about 350 people. I lived there until I was 13. It was a marvelous advantage to grow up in a small town where you knew everybody.

Hamas, the opponents of Arafat, the opponents of peace, urged a boycott of the election, and yet there was an 85 percent turnout where Hamas is supposed to be strong. Isnt that really quite incredible?

My clerkship with Justice Douglas was tremendously important. He told me, Christopher, get out into the stream of history and see what happens. I've tried to follow that advice.

Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.

I don't want to talk about intelligence matters. I will say, however, that intelligence-community estimates should not become public in the way of this city and in the way of Congress.

Only two countries in this hemisphere are not democratic, but many countries in both Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, are really fragile democracies.