Somewhat about four years ago there was a huge scandal at my Alma Mater – the great Harvard University. On January 14, 2005 its 27-th President Mr. Lawrence H. Summers in his speech at a national conference made some casual remarks. The whole meaning of them was that maybe – just maybe! – there is an explanation of why there are very few women in top university positions in science and engineering. Maybe, said Harvard’s President, it’s because “women are intellectually less able than men” and thus they might “lack an ability to succeed at the highest level in those fields”. The stir and indignation among the liberals in the American academic circles as well as in feminist community were humongous. Although later Mr. Summers had profusely apologized for those clumsy words, explaining that actually he was the big champion of hiring more and more women to correct those inequities, nothing helped; that infamous speech cost him the coveted Harvard presidency. And - yes, you’ve guessed it – consequently, who else but a righteous woman became the “Madame Harvard President”? Sad but true - it has happened for the first time in the long and glorious history of that distinguished educational institution,

Being a fierce opponent of faulty principles of “egalitarism” and a staunch proponent of applying the rules of meritocracy in process of hiring the university professors, I immediately stepped up to the plate to defend my President. As a focal point of my open letter to him I played the trump card which, I was sure, couldn’t be beaten. I wrote: “Suppose that Dr. Condoleezza Rice herself would apply for the professorship at Harvard. Would you hire her BECAUSE she is a WOMAN? And not only just a woman, but also a BLACK woman?   NO! Hundred times - NO! You will hire her right off the bat because she is extremely well educated, very experienced and just awfully SMART!”

I doubt whether I should have written those words today, after the Secretary Rice’s speech on September 18 at the Marshall Foundation in Washington, DC. The details of that speech are very well known to the world media and general public; so I won’t repeat them. What particularly strikes me in M-me Secretary’s arguments is the sheer incongruity of her own account of the nature of the S.Ossetian-Georgian conflict with the statements of the scores of American officials on the same subject. Sure, it took them about a month to see the light, but nevertheless now the highest officials of the CIA and the Congress, influential media personalities, and lots of politicians - from obscure Georgian opposition leaders up to General Colin Powell himself! - clearly and unequivocally assert that it was Georgia who started it all by shelling and bombing Zkhinwal in the earliest hours of the morning of August 8. Thus, by all means, not those “awful, unpredictable, treacherous Russians”, but Mr. Saakashvili and his government should be branded as aggressors. It seems crystal clear to everybody.    But apparently not to Secretary Rice who adamantly and emphatically keeps claiming the opposite. It doesn’t make any sense to me and I vainly searched for some plausible explanation of such a strange phenomenon.

To me it’s obvious that Ms Rice is – or at least, up to now, used to be - one of the smartest women of our times.   The sole reason I can find for such an aberration of that brilliant mind is that she most probably… fell under the spell of that dashing Georgian President. You can bet your sweet life – nobody ever looked at Ms Rice in such a way, with those oily eyes and that gaze full of frightening passion, a glance that some observers consider as “bordering with paranoia”… And that could be devastating for some sensitive woman. I could easily visualize that scene and imagine that dialogue – like the one between the loving mother and a spoiled, indulged child: “- Mommy, I want that expensive toy!”   “You mean those missiles, dear? You get them!” “And I also want those tanks all stuffed with the latest and most advanced communication gadgets!” “Sure, sweetie, you want it – you get it, anything you say!” etc. Yes, women can be smart, very smart. They may have a lot of common SENSE. But… they are still remain being women. And women are very SENSIBLE! That’s their nature - and we shall thank God Almighty for creating them that way. It brings a lot of joy and pleasure for us, men… as long as those women stay away from the top administration posts where they would make any really important strategic decisions.

Being aware of that situation I always stand very strongly against putting the women in key government positions, no matter how much sense they might have. Yet they cannot be completely separated from or deprived of their sensitivity. All of a sudden they might be susceptible to the irresistible charms of some guileful vile, but hot “southern European” gentleman – and that might put the whole world at the brink of catastrophe. Thus, it could happen to any woman; unless, of course, that they are made of iron. And yet even “The Iron Magnolia”, as we learned recently, could suddenly burst into perfectly normal feminine tears and rush out of some very important government meeting…

You see, sense and sensitivity are two quite different qualities; especially for women in high places.