State Department spokesman has Ohio roots

Videos of Marie Harf

As the No. 2 State Department spokeswoman, Ohio-born Marie Harf not only has a front row to history, she often has to explain that history to a press corps that isn’t always appreciative of the answers she provides.

“It does get a little heated in there sometimes,’’ Harf says of the State Department briefings for which she is becoming known. “I don’t want to use the word showmanship. But there is a performance aspect to it on both sides, quite frankly.”

When Secretary of State John Kerry announced Sunday in Geneva that Iran had agreed to freeze progress on its nuclear weapons program for six months, Harf was there to help explain the deal to reporters from all over the world, assist in arranging Kerry’s 5 a.m. news conference, before rushing back to the Inter-Continental Hotel as the American TV networks conducted taped interviews of Kerry for the Sunday talk shows.

In Washington, she conducts many of State Department televised briefings for reporters. Standing at the podium, she is serious and deliberate, often resting her hands on her massive briefing book, which she describes as “more of a security blanket.’’

She acknowledges at times she can be “combative’’ with the press, becoming visibly agitated this year when Matt Lee of the Associated Press kept cutting in, prompting her to reply, “Matt, come on, can I finish my sentence please before you interrupt me?’’

She insists the department is more transparent, particularly on issues involving national security.

“Do we say everything? No,” she said. “There are things that we can’t say and people get angry at us when we can’t. I understand that.’’

Described by one of her former college professors as possessing a “critical, analytic mind,’’ she earned an M.A. in foreign affairs at the University of Virginia where she focused on Saudi Arabia. She has been a spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency and President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, before moving to the State Department this year.

In all her jobs, she has worked mind-numbing hours. During the final round of Geneva negotiations last weekend, she grabbed two and one-half hours of sleep Friday night and then pulled something of a college all-nighter Saturday before finally getting to sleep at 7 a.m. Sunday.

“I come home from these rounds and I sleep for twelve hours straight,’’ Harf said.

Growing up in Granville just east of Columbus, Harf describes herself as a “Buckeye at heart,’’ saying her father took her to her first Ohio State home game when she was six months old. She keeps a photograph in her office of her at age 7 wearing an Ohio State cheerleading outfit.

In fact, her enthusiasm for Ohio State is such that while in Geneva she followed text updates from her parents about last Saturday’s Ohio State-Indiana game. Ironically, she studied political science at Indiana University, in part because her father earned a Ph.D. from there and her mother — a onetime environmental adviser to former Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich — earned her undergraduate degree from the school in Bloomington.

Her front row to history included leaving the CIA in November of 2011 to join Obama’s campaign as a foreign policy spokeswoman, where she helped the incumbent president prepare for the second of his three debates with Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

From the campaign, Harf moved to the State Department, saying she “can’t imagine just ever doing communications that wasn’t wrapped up in this policy. I just can’t.”

“I love it,” she said about the State Department briefings, concluding that “when you find a place you like, it’s OK to just be still for a while and not think about what comes next.”