The Education of an Idealist

by Samantha Power

  It turned out that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was known around Washington as “the most powerful job nobody has ever heard of.” OIRA oversees regulation on issues as diverse as civil rights, health care, the environment, worker safety, transportation, food safety, and veterans affairs. Obama told Cass that he intended to nominate him for the post, and Cass spent the transition weeks between November and January giddily mapping out what the new President could do on regulation during his first hundred days.

  Once Obama announced his choices for the big national security jobs, I hoped that someone high up would focus on the next level down. Strobe Talbott generously called, having forgiven me for lobbying him rudely on Bosnia more than a decade before when he was President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State. Strobe was close to Hillary Clinton, whom Obama had just nominated to become Secretary of State. A few days later, after inquiring whether she would consider me for a position, Strobe forwarded me a blunt message from a Clinton insider: “I think she should go with the NSC.”

  Cass tried to console me. He insisted something would work out, quoting Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who wisely wrote, “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.” But even when I managed to focus elsewhere, my mind ran wild, reminding me of how scarred I was by my recent public disgrace.

  In one of my many dreams during this period, I was overjoyed because I was about to interview for a job with Clinton at the State Department. As the meeting time approached, I looked frantically for my car keys, but couldn’t find them. After rushing to the State Department in a cab, I was told that the meeting had been moved to her office on Capitol Hill. When I got there, I realized that although I was already half an hour late, I needed urgently to use a restroom—as pregnant women often did. The bathrooms had long lines of women beside them, and, as I waited, my cell phone rang, telling me I had to get to the meeting or it would be canceled. When it was finally my turn for the bathroom, I stepped forward, inching past a woman who had just arrived. As I walked by, she began whacking me with her handbag. Doggedly continuing forward, I heard her fall behind me. When I turned, she was lying on the ground and jabbing her cane upwards at me, saying, “You, missy, will pay for this. I recognize you. You are Samantha Power. I am going to tell all the newspapers that you hit an old lady trying to go to the bathroom.”

  This was my mental state as I waited for a job offer.

  I was also determined to keep my pregnancy hidden from my colleagues on the transition team. I lived a strange duality. On the one hand, the very thought of the baby—“half of Cass!”—made me smile throughout the day. But on the other hand, I reflexively feared I would get a lesser job if senior people found out, so I wore oversize Irish woolen sweaters and wide scarves, often keeping my winter coat on indoors.

  The irony of my subterfuge was not lost on me. The President-elect was the progressive son of a trailblazing mother. He had married a woman who had once been his mentor, and they had two young daughters. Yet here I was, one of his female advisers, petrified it would cost me if the people around him discovered I was pregnant.

  Obama had nominated Susan Rice to become US Ambassador to the UN. Rice had been a national security aide during the Rwandan genocide, and I had been critical of her in “A Problem from Hell.” But after some initial awkwardness, we had grown friendly over the course of the campaign, and she had been one of the few people to go out of her way to stay in touch during my exile. Strong-willed and scrappy, she laughed easily and was quick to break out dancing at social events.

  Having observed the UN in Bosnia and written about it for much of my career, I offered to help her prepare for her new role. When I mentioned the job that I had pitched to the President-elect, she thought it was idiotic. “What you say you want is all mush,” Susan explained, drawing on her decade of experience at the National Security Council and State Department. “Who will report to you? What will you be responsible for? If you are responsible for nothing, nobody will call you. You will be a floating person, irrelevant to what is happening day to day.”

  Susan advised me to seek the job of Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President for Multilateral Affairs at the National Security Council. This was the President’s senior adviser on all matters related to the UN. “From the White House,” she said, “you can see the full field.” She would help show me the ropes, and I could serve as a bridge between her team at the US Mission to the UN in New York and the White House, which tended to develop its own insular political culture from which even cabinet members felt excluded.

  Convinced by Susan’s bureaucratic wisdom, I told the President-elect’s foreign policy gatekeepers that I would like to be considered for this specific multilateral affairs position. I was finally speaking a language that White House personnel staff could act on, as the job had existed in the Bush administration, and it had been allotted a salary. Lippert, who had been inundated with demands from former campaign staff, seemed genuinely relieved to be able to slot my name into the traditional organizational chart.

  Much as I wanted to change the system and fantasized about doing so for Obama, my embrace of an established, conventional role would be the first of many concessions I would make to immutable realities. I had also never before relied so heavily on someone for career advice. I was grateful to Susan and would soon learn that, as a Washington novice and as a woman in national security, I needed to ask others for support.

  Even when Lippert and I had settled on the job, I still had to get the formal okay from National Security Advisor Jones, who would be my new boss. As I awaited my interview with him, I drove to the FBI field office in downtown Boston to be fingerprinted for the investigation that was required before I could obtain a security clearance. I also started making my way through a mountain of government paperwork. I had to complete forms for ethics, medical history, and financial disclosure, but it was the SF-86, the national security background questionnaire, that stunned me with its breadth. The form had twenty-nine separate sections, each with a detailed subset of questions. It also came with a bold warning that those who submitted false information could be charged with a federal crime and face up to five years in prison.

  Among its requirements, the form asked applicants to go back fifteen years and list any “close and/or continuing contact” with a foreign national, along with any contact with the representative of a foreign government. My entire family besides Mum, Eddie, Stephen, Ellyn, and Cass lived in Ireland, so I had to list each of my relatives. I sent emails to my Irish cousins telling them to alert the rest of the family that the FBI might soon be in touch. “Don’t worry,” I told them. “I’m not in trouble.” I had also traveled widely in Asia and Africa as a journalist, interviewing dozens of foreign officials, so I spent a number of taxing days going through my old reporters’ notebooks to track down the dates and locations of each of those interactions, as required by law.

  In January of 2009, I learned that I had been granted the top security clearance I needed to be able to participate in classified discussions and receive intelligence products. Now all I needed was General Jones’s approval.

  A few days before Obama’s Inauguration, my cell phone rang, and I was surprised by the voice I heard on the line.

  “It’s Obama,” he said.

  “You’re kidding,” I replied.

  “Who else would it be?” he teased.

  “You don’t call yourself the ‘PE’?” I asked.

  “It sounds like a ratty gym class,” he joked. “I prefer Obama.”

  We discussed my job limbo, which he said he’d been inquiring about constantly. “It will be fine,” I said, knowing the unfathomable pressures he was under. He described the logistical nightmare of ensuring that all of his friends and family felt appreciated during the festivities. “It’s like a wedding,” he observed.

  I praised the draft of his Inaugural speech I had read, especially the line i
n which he would tell dictators that America “will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Cass took the phone with a big smile.

  “We’ve come a long way from the University of Chicago,” said Cass.

  “Maybe I should have taken Douglas Baird’s offer,” said Obama, referring to the University of Chicago Law School dean who had urged Obama to pursue a tenure-track professorship.

  “Well, if you keep up the good writing, I’m sure something can be arranged,” said Cass.

  Obama signed off, saying, “I’d like to get together with you two, soon, to bat some ideas around.”

  We would quickly learn that such a meeting was a luxury the forty-fourth President of the United States could scarcely afford.

  THE NEXT DAY, CASS and I boarded the US Air Shuttle in Boston, ready to take up our new life in the nation’s capital. Mum and Eddie would be meeting us in DC so we could attend the Inauguration together.

  I was struck by the Americanness of it all. When they came to the United States three decades before, could Mum and Eddie have imagined that their adopted country would elect an African-American President? Or that their daughter would get to work at his White House?

  After the plane took off, we flew over Winthrop. I glanced at my home out the window before the land below us faded quickly into the distance.

  Part Two

  — 19 —

  No Manual

  Three days after President Obama’s inauguration, National Security Advisor Jim Jones invited me to interview for the position of Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs at the National Security Council. His administrative aide told me to bring a government ID in order to get past security, but out of an abundance of caution I brought my driver’s license, social security card, passport, and birth certificate. I was not going to be denied.

  After clearing the Secret Service checkpoint and metal detectors, I found myself on West Executive Avenue, the narrow lane that runs between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB). The stately, nineteenth-century EEOB is where most of the President’s staff have their offices, and where, as a journalist, I had interviewed US officials for my articles and books. But never before had I set foot in the West Wing, where I would be meeting with Jones. I didn’t know Obama’s new National Security Advisor, and I was sufficiently nervous about the impending interview that I did not really take in how momentous it was to be walking under the familiar portico of the White House.

  After a short wait in the visitors’ reception area, where I tried unsuccessfully to focus on the New York Times lying on the coffee table, Jones’s assistant guided me into a narrow passageway that led almost immediately to the cramped “Suite” of offices belonging to America’s top national security officials. Four aides were packed into cubicles, while the hugely influential Deputy National Security Advisor worked in a room roughly the size of a broom closet.

  “Location, location location,” I thought to myself. And, as if on cue, I heard Obama’s voice beckoning someone down the hall.

  Jones was a six-foot-four former Georgetown basketball forward and decorated Vietnam War veteran who had risen through the ranks of the military to become a four-star general. He kept his hair trimmed short and had the lean physique of someone still ready to suit up for battle. Although he cut an imposing figure, he was wonderfully informal as he escorted me into his office.

  “Pretty cool here, isn’t it?” he said.

  His shelves were already lined with photos of his grandchildren and dozens of “challenge coins” bearing the insignia of the various US military detachments he had served in or visited over the course of a forty-year military career.

  I had first heard about Jones from Fred Cuny, who had spoken glowingly about the general’s provision of US military protection to Kurds in Northern Iraq after the Persian Gulf War. As we sat down at Jones’s conference table, I mentioned that Fred had helped inspire my early career choices. Jones broke into a broad smile and, for the next ten minutes, talked about their partnership and the gaping hole left by Fred’s death.

  I had rehearsed a detailed set of arguments for why I would make a trusty NSC aide, but after throwing out a few perfunctory questions about what my priorities would be, Jones asked, “Can you start next week?” He didn’t seem to notice my pregnancy, which did not show clearly and I did not bring up.

  Mark Lippert’s assistant called me later in the day to say that the NSC had earmarked an office for me in the EEOB.

  “Really?” I exclaimed. “So this is real?!”

  “Yes,” she said warmly. “But I want to warn you, the space is really small.”

  I said I didn’t care how big my office was, reminding her that I had worked out of a backpack for years as a reporter, requiring only a notebook, pen, and laptop. But then I hesitated.

  “Is it a lot smaller than the other Senior Directors’ offices?” I inquired. There was a long pause.

  “For now, yes,” she said.

  Something similar happened when the NSC Human Resources Department informed me of my salary. I did not question the figure they presented, knowing that I would take a pay cut from working at a private university. The following day, however, I learned from a male colleague, also a Senior Director, that he would be paid five thousand dollars more than me.

  Instead of demanding a pay raise, I emailed Lippert, saying I had learned of the two salary tiers for Senior Directors. I asked what I would need to do to earn the higher pay. Lippert called immediately, and, since I wasn’t home, apologized to Cass. He said the mix-up would be corrected, which it was, but I wondered if I was experiencing bad luck or something more deliberate.

  The next week, at long last, I showed up for work at the White House, feeling elated to be a part of Obama’s team. My office in the EEOB was located inside a SCIF—a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. This meant that I worked inside the equivalent of a room-sized safe. If I was the first to arrive in the morning, I had to enter a combination by rotating a palm-sized dial on the heavy door. NSC offices lacked natural light because the blinds on the windows had to be kept closed to impede foreign spying. The computers at our desks didn’t allow us to access personal email, and we were required to leave our BlackBerries and cell phones on a table just outside the SCIF door.

  In my orientation briefing on security, I was warned that countries like China and Russia had sophisticated capabilities, so it was essential that I only talk about sensitive matters in spaces like my office that were designed for confidential discussions. I was also told to be wary of people working for foreign governments, as they sometimes tried to manipulate or blackmail US officials to gain access to classified information.

  When I got an overview of the health benefits for government employees, I learned that my three months of maternity leave would be unpaid. I would be able to use whatever sick days and vacation I had accrued to continue receiving my salary for a short while after Declan’s birth. But, because I was due in May, I would not have been in the job long enough for much of my leave to be covered. I was fortunate—I had savings, and I had Cass. But it seemed outrageous that other people might feel compelled to return to work before their parental leave was up simply to resume being paid. Thanks to Congress’s refusal to change the law, America was then one of only two high-income countries in the world that did not guarantee paid maternity leave.1

  Cass would soon be nominated as the head of OIRA and was already happily ensconced at the Office of Management and Budget as a senior adviser. On my second day, he invited me to lunch at the West Wing’s Navy Mess. A set of color-coded badges denoted which parts of the White House grounds staff could access, and Cass and I were glad to receive highly coveted blue badges, which enabled us to enter the West Wing without an escort.

  The Mess was much fancier than it sounded. I had expected a cafeteria-style canteen, but a Navy steward in a dark suit and tie escorted us to our table, where our food was served on White House china. Bec
ause of the maritime images on the windowless walls, we had the feeling of being in a ship’s miniaturized grand dining room.

  “It’s like the Titanic,” I observed, referencing the only nautical dining visual that sprang to mind.

  “Let’s hope not!” said Cass.

  He insisted that we mark the occasion of our first week on the job by indulging in the White House’s signature desert, the Chocolate Freedom, a brownie cake that oozed hot fudge and was topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. The past year—campaigning, resigning, marrying, getting pregnant, and relocating to DC—had been a whirlwind, and we were finally pausing to celebrate. We clinked our dessert spoons as if they were champagne glasses and luxuriated in the sudden calm.

  Later that afternoon, I joined a half dozen NSC officials in the office of NSC Executive Secretary Mara Rudman to discuss the drafting of a document outlining Obama’s strategic priorities in foreign policy. As soon as the meeting began, I felt a surge of queasiness and clamminess. I was five months pregnant, so feeling nauseous wasn’t unusual. But this felt different.

  As the sound of my colleagues’ voices receded, I started to shiver and then quickly lost consciousness, my head drooping against the tall shoulder of the yellow Victorian armchair where I sat. Because somebody else was speaking, no one noticed that I had fainted. I came to on my own and quickly excused myself. The sugar surge from the Chocolate Freedom must have done me in.

  Prior to starting at the White House, I had fainted only twice in my life—once when I was eleven years old, standing at the back of church during Mass, and once in law school when I was dehydrated from a severe bout of flu. But I would soon match that total in my first week as an adviser to the President of the United States.

  The second time, I was alone in my office, sitting at my computer. I recognized the onset of nausea just in time to use my arms as a cushion before I collapsed on top of the keyboard. Since my first fainting, I had avoided large sugar intakes, but that day I had not yet made time for lunch. When I came to, I resolved to keep a stash of crackers nearby to avoid working on an empty stomach.