Samantha Power

So you were fourteen, Samantha, when a call came and you received some terrible news from Ireland. What do you remember about that day?

I remember sitting in my bedroom in Atlanta, Georgia, and hearing my mother come home from the hospital early, and that didn't happen often. Probably some radar was going off in me that something was amiss, but I wasn't prepared for my mother coming into my room and sitting me down and telling me that my father had passed away. He was 47. The one detail that was seared into my soul was that he died alone. And I remember overhearing that he had been found days later in the house, in our house. … Do I realize that my childhood sense of having superpowers? You know, if I were stronger, if I had been more worth it, you know, my dad would have been able to get it together. Only when you get older do you understand what addiction is and what alcoholism is and how much bigger it is than one person's will or one family's will. But again, I was 14. All I knew was this large, charismatic, very loving father had vanished.

You decided to become a war correspondent. Why did you feel at such a young age that you had to go there yourself [to Bosnia]?

In the period where I was coming of age in America, the Holocaust was getting heightened attention. There was a museum opening up on the mall in Washington with America's cherished monuments. It was taught in great detail in American schools. And the idea of never again had gathered significant force, I think. So fast forward, then, 1992, I've just graduated from college. The Berlin Wall has fallen just a few years before, and there's a great sense of promise that peace is at hand and that the world can come together. But at the same time, as Yugoslavia collapsed, you see this savage war in Bosnia break out, this horrific ethnic cleansing and such suffering.

You had taken great pains to get there [to Bosnia]. How did covering the conflict in Bosnia firsthand shape your own thinking?

It has left me certainly with a desire to be out in the world talking to people who are affected by our decisions, affected by the decisions of their governments, that that is a perspective that is invaluable and too often lacking, honestly, in the bubble of policy.

President Clinton refused to intervene in the conflict at that stage. What were your personal feelings about what you saw as a lack of direct action by the US and NATO at the time?

To see kind of chaotic and dispersed diplomacy that didn't seem to be well leveraged, and to know that the effects of diplomatic failure was going to be more bloodshed and more kids killed while jumping rope in playgrounds, it tore me up inside, and it tore many, many journalists up inside. So, as a citizen, I think, of the world and a citizen of America, I really wanted President Clinton to prioritize this conflict.

You were forced to resign after referring to Hillary Clinton … as a monster in print. How do you look back on what you said now?

Well, even at the time, I couldn't believe that I had said it. I it's hard to be convincing in this regard since the words came out of my mouth, but I got way too caught up in it. It was my first presidential campaign. … the mud was being slung from one campaign to the next, and I regret it to this day. I did have a chance to apologize to her in person, and I'm very glad about that. And of course, had a chance to work with her when she was Secretary of State and I was President Obama's human rights advisor. And so we've come a long way. But it's a reminder of just how one can lose perspective. It can feel like the center of the universe, but you have to stay true to treating people and talking about people with respect. And I didn't do that.

And in the short term, of course, it cost you dearly. You went from being at the heart of the campaign to being a complete outsider. Is it that you resigned or that Obama asked you to go?

Initially, he rejected the idea that I would have to resign. Then he realized that it was potentially going to be costly for the campaign. So he said, I'm going to put you in the penalty box. And of course, my Irish cousins would say the Sin bin. I had to go to the Sin Bin. So I was in the Sin Bin for quite a while there until he locked up the nomination and then I came back for the general election.

So, after President Obama was elected, he brought you back into the fold … In his second term, you served as US Ambassador to the UN. … How did you take to being a diplomat?

The short answer is I loved every minute of it. The longer answer is that I wasn't known for being the most diplomatic person before becoming a diplomat, but I think that authentically being curious about my colleagues from these other 192 countries, playing soccer with the Latin American ambassadors, joining the Korean, Danish, Serbian, and Thai ambassadors in a amateur rock band, you know, building, just seeing all that we have in common. We all love music.

I read the letter that you wrote to Declan when he was just six months old. You were going away on your first trip to Iraq. What did it say?

I just was, again, afraid that something bad would happen, that I'd be in Iraq and wouldn't come home to my boys. And so I just tried to convey to Declan the love that I felt for him at that time. And don't get me talking about the letter. I'll lose it here at the end of the program. Whenever you hear thunder, that will be me. Whenever the Red Sox win the ninth, that will be me. … It was uh it was very hard to write. It's very hard to read. And right now it's very hard to keep that book away from my son uh'cause he's eleven and wants he's heard about the letter and he wants to read the letter and I'm absolutely determined for him not to read the letter and I hope never to have to read the letter.