Samantha Power: Negotiating With Russia, Persuading Obama, and the Fight for USAID

<p>How do you persuade a president, negotiate with Russia, and build a coalition when change seems impossible?</p><p><br></p><p>Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and USAID Administrator Samantha Power joins Stan Christensen for a candid conversation about diplomacy, negotiation, and leading through crisis. Power, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Problem from Hell and The Education of an Idealist, shares how she talked her way into covering the war in Bosnia, what she learned negotiating the removal of Syria&#39;s chemical weapons, and why Russia&#39;s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin was the best negotiator she ever faced.</p><p><br></p><p>They also discuss how to raise human rights issues without sounding moralistic, what really worked in persuading President Obama, the Ebola response, the dismantling of USAID and its human cost, and the lessons from her Harvard course on making change when change is hard, including why every coalition needs both &quot;Baptists and bootleggers.&quot;</p><p><br></p><p>0:00 Samantha Power and The Education of an Idealist</p><p>0:30 The audiobook and a letter to her son</p><p>2:15 How a failed negotiation made her a war correspondent</p><p>4:05 Writing her own press badge</p><p>4:45 Why you have to get close to the issue</p><p>6:50 Negotiation lessons: leave it all on the field</p><p>9:30 Leading USAID</p><p>11:15 How USAID was dismantled</p><p>15:10 Why Congress didn&#39;t push back</p><p>24:20 How to persuade President Obama</p><p>27:40 Raising human rights in policy debates</p><p>33:25 Syria, chemical weapons, and the red line</p><p>41:30 Negotiating with Russia&#39;s Vitaly Churkin</p><p>45:35 Lessons from the Ebola response</p><p>51:15 Teaching social change at Harvard</p><p>52:25 Shrink the change</p><p>53:30 Find your Baptists and bootleggers</p><p><br></p><p>SAMANTHA POWER</p><p>Harvard Kennedy School faculty page</p><p>https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/samantha-power</p><p><br></p><p>BOOKS BY SAMANTHA POWER</p><p>The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir</p><p>https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-education-of-an-idealist-samantha-power</p><p>A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2003 Pulitzer Prize)</p><p>https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Hell-America-Age-Genocide/dp/0465061516</p><p>Chasing the Flame: One Man&#39;s Fight to Save the World</p><p>https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300934/chasing-the-flame-by-samantha-power/</p><p><br></p><p>HER HARVARD COURSE WITH CASS SUNSTEIN</p