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Photo courtesy of Nick Kristof
developing weapons to target the United States. “It was a poignant meeting,” she says. “The scientists were nervous about losing their jobs. They talked about their scientific expertise and Baker suggested potential cooperative projects. Now, with Putin in power, relations are in terrible shape. But years ago, it was a moment of real promise.”
REGIS TODAY
Carol Giacomo ’70 with The New York Times colleagues standing outside the foreign ministry guest house on the outskirts of Pyongyang, North Korea. Left to right: columnist Nick Kristof, videographer Jonah Kessel, Giacomo, and video editor Adam Ellick.
In 1986, Giacomo had her first overseas assignment writing about Cory Aquino’s defeat of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippine election.
ONE MILLION MILES, 100 COUNTRIES
One of only a few female journalists at the U.S. Capitol at that time, Giacomo says, “I did what girls do. I worked harder. I had to be better, more present, more cooperative. I focused on doing a good job and not making a mistake.” She was assigned to the U.S. State Department and began traveling extensively with the resident press corps. Over two decades, Giacomo logged a million miles and visited more than 100 countries with eight secretaries of state. “The secretary of state is at the center of every big international story. Things are different now, but back then journalists went everywhere the secretary went. We talked with him on the airplane,
traveled in the motorcade, and stayed at the same hotel.” Life was ever-changing. “On any given day, there could be an assassination or a plane shot down,” says Giacomo. Her bags were always packed. “I had to be a quick study and turn on a dime.” During the Reagan administration, Secretary of State George Schultz was involved in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. It became a specialty area for Giacomo. “Arms control is an arcane subject. I raised my game to compete in that environment,” she says, referencing interviews with think tanks and the Arms Control Association. “I received a crash course on submarine launched ballistic missiles.” The collapse of communism in 1991 found Giacomo in the former Soviet Union with Secretary of State James Baker. She recalls a positive step in U.S./Russian relations during a visit to a nuclear laboratory there. The State Department team came face-toface with scientists charged with
MOTHERHOOD JOYS AND CHALLENGES
In 1986, Giacomo married a political photojournalist and later had a son, Christopher Marquette, now a journalist with CQ Roll Call. It’s a source of pride and wonder that he followed in his mother’s footsteps. “It wasn’t easy having parents like us,” Giacomo says. “We worked crazy schedules and were constantly on the road, sometimes simultaneously in different parts of the world.” Their full-time nanny blended well with the busy family. “She was from Chile and spoke little English but was devoted to our son and we made it work,” Giacomo says. “She was with us for 20 years and is still part of our family.” Giacomo made the best of her days off. A yearlong fellowship in 1999 researching U.S. economic and foreign policy decision-making during the Asian financial crisis at the U.S. Institute of Peace kept her home in Washington. “Chris was playing little league baseball that summer. I drove his team to games all over Maryland and Virginia.” With motherhood came safety concerns while Giacomo traveled abroad. In 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy defense secretary, called journalists to task for not providing positive coverage of the Bush administration’s coalition in Iraq. Giacomo volunteered to accompany him to the country and report what she saw.