Bobby Charles ’82

A former assistant secretary of state on power—and Powell

"Small towns and small colleges instill in you a sense of the possible, a sense of being able to tackle something and get it done. I grew up in a town of 500 in northern Maine. I was an Eagle Scout. I was very focused on the idea that you have a duty to do."

"I was very taken by the mythology of Daniel Webster. I thought I'd be trial lawyer, but you don't find a lot of the Daniel Webster ways of looking at the law these days. I found that litigation is actually three-quarters coercion and one-quarter the unpleasantness of presettlement behavior."

"The White House of Ronald Reagan, where I spent my three college summers, was a place of utter and complete inspiration. There was optimism that was infectious—the notion that you could approach big problems with good cheer and resolve them across the aisle and across the water."

"The White House of George H.W. Bush had a lot of intellectual firepower. There was also a lot of civility but less unity."

"George W. Bush is a very moral and a very earnest and a very decisive person. He has an agile mind. I've seen him in meetings 'get' things before anyone else."

"One of the most remarkable things I saw was the nobility of Colin Powell, the dignity that attaches to public service even under fire. I felt honored every minute of every day I sat with him. I also happen to think he was right quite often."

"Condoleezza Rice is a contrast, not necessarily an unhealthy contrast. Her life experience is more narrow, she has lived through fewer crises. What that leads to is more of a chomping at the bit, more of a desire to establish recognition of who she is."

"The Republican Party is missing the boat when it comes to the environment."

"Of course we're going to have a few horrific events in any given day when you've got several thousand insurgents trying to stir the 25 million people of Baghdad into chaos. It doesn't begin to compare with what Iraqis encountered under Saddam. It doesn't make democracy the wrong goal. It doesn't mean the transition to a stable democracy, however messy, isn't worth the pain."

"If we cannot assure that Afghanistan stays out of the grip of drug corruption, the country will become a haven for terrorists, extremists and insurgents. We should have done aerial eradication. We should have aggressively pushed alternative crops, including wheat. We did not react fast enough. We did not send a message that drug production would absolutely not be tolerated."

"Almost every American kid will be approached to try marijuana and other dangerous drugs, including cocaine, synthetics and heroin these days. It's an extraordinary threat that parents underestimate."

"The only reason people smoke marijuana is to get high. 'Medicalization' of marijuana is essentially a calculated tactic consistent with the strategy intended to legalize all drugs over time."

"It's the greatest exhilaration, the greatest honor to have somebody say, 'We've got a problem and we want you to help us make it better.' I operated on three to five hours of sleep a night for a year and a half when dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq at the State Department, and I was never tired. I was just so pumped to be able to make a difference."

"There's a terrible and wonderful burden that sits on your shoulders when someone gives you a chance. You need not only to pay back but also to give others a chance. I've always tried to do that."

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS: Established police training academies in Baghdad, Kabul and Jordan; directed U.S. civilian counter narcotic efforts internationally in 70 countries; U.S Naval Reserve, 1999 present (active duty after 9/11) CAREER: President, The Charles Group, Gaithersburg, Maryland; assistant secre tary of state, international narcotics and law enforcement, 2003-2005; chief of staff chief counsel, Dennis Hastert's Sub committee on National Security, Interna tional Affairs and Criminal Justice, 1995 -1999, attorney, New York, 199 V 1995; deputy associate director, White House Office of Policy Development, 1992-1993; clerk, US. Court of Appeals, 9 th Circuit, 1987-1988 EDUCATION: A.8., government, Phi Beta Kappa, MA, politics, philosophy and economics, Oxford University, 1984, J.D, Columbia University, 1987 FAMILY. Wife Marina, children Nicholas (11) and? Sophia (4)