Samantha Power
In 2013, Samantha Power was confirmed as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a post she would hold until 2017.
Born in London on 21 September 1970, Power holds both Irish and American citizenship. She attended Lakeside High School before going on to Yale College, then Harvard Law School. Her career has spanned journalism, human rights work, writing, university teaching, and diplomacy. Her book A Problem from Hell earned her the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize — a notable sweep of recognition for a single work. She is also the author of Screamers. A member of the Democratic Party, Power has worked across several roles that sit at the intersection of policy and advocacy, and she received the Great Immigrants Award as well as Time 100 recognition during her career.
After her years at the United Nations, Power returned to government service when she was appointed Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development in 2021, a position she held until 2025. She also received the Order of Princess Olga, 1st class, during this period of her career. Her tenure at USAID, running from 2021 to 2025, stands as the most recent chapter in a public career that has moved between writing, diplomacy, and international development.
Quotes by Samantha Power
It's not ideal to always be one eye on the Blackberry and two arms around my children. For the sake of mothers out there who don't have the Blackberry but do have the children and are hoping someone will be raising their voice on their behalf, it's a great privilege.
The media is an ally when it comes to showing the truth about terrorist groups. Attacking the media will not produce a more compliant citizenry. It will produce a more alienated, suspicious and disenfranchised public, one more likely to chafe under a government's attempts at control, all to the benefit of terrorist groups.
If your aim is to attack the United States, it is hard to imagine a more difficult way of getting here than by posing as a refugee.
I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for. That can encompass our elected officials' adherence to law and our country's return to the Geneva Conventions.
Sanctions did indeed help to bring Iran to the negotiating table. But sanctions did not stop the advance of Iran's nuclear program. Negotiations have done that, and it is in our interest not to deny ourselves the chance to achieve a long-term, comprehensive solution that would deny Iran a nuclear weapon.
The inertia of the governed cannot be disentangled from the indifference of the government. American leaders have both a circular and a deliberate relationship to public opinion.
Western governments have generally tried to contain genocide by appeasing its architects. But the sad record of the last century shows that the walls the United States tries to build around genocidal societies almost inevitably shatter.
