The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

Senior Directors were the core of the President’s NSC staff, and we held roughly the same “rank” as Assistant Secretaries at the State Department. We prepared background papers and talking points, and we offered advice to President Obama, National Security Adviser Jones, and Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon on what the United States should do vis-à-vis particular countries, emerging threats, and sudden crises. On key matters, we would lay out before the President the pros and cons of pending choices. These “decision memos” were liable to cover everything from whether to provide Pakistan additional military assistance to whether Obama should meet with the Dalai Lama over Chinese objections. The NSC had “regional” Senior Directors for every part of the world, “homeland” Senior Directors for threats like natural disasters and cyberattacks, and “functional” Senior Directors for issues that cut across different parts of the globe, such as nuclear nonproliferation, climate and energy, and international economics. As the functional Senior Director responsible for multilateral affairs, I advised the President on US relations with international organizations, especially the United Nations. My portfolio was broad. On a typical day, I might review a UN Security Council draft resolution ratcheting up sanctions against Iran or I might assess whether the United States should support deploying UN peacekeepers to a conflict zone. I also got Jones’s permission to serve concurre...