The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

Jeremy’s interest in public service was deeply personal. When he was seven years old, his father began working obsessively to expose a top-secret CIA program called MKULTRA. The program had funded esteemed psychiatrists and psychologists in the United States and Canada to administer experimental drugs and intensive shock treatments on human subjects—one of whom was Jeremy’s grandfather, causing him permanent brain damage.21 Following an eight-year lawsuit, the CIA settled with eight Canadians, including his grandfather, paying victims a woefully modest amount. From his family’s ordeals at the hands of the US government, Jeremy acquired two key convictions, both of which I shared. He believed that governments should not be able to act with impunity in the name of national security. And equally important, he thought public officials should keep in mind the individuals who would be harmed by our failure to act in the face of gross injustice.