WASHINGTON (AP)–Samantha Power, the Harvard University professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author," will take a senior foreign policy job at the White House, The Associated Press has learned.
Power was the 2008 recipient of the Armenian National Committee of America’s Freedom Award for championing the US recognition of the Armenian Genocide in her book “A Problem from Hell: American and the Age of Genocide.”
She was given the award on September 13 at the ANCA-ER annual banquet, where she spoke of the "great strides" made by the Armenian American community in combating genocide denial and isolating it from the mainstream opinion.
Officials familiar with the decision say Obama has tapped Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, a job that will require close contact and potential travel with Hillary Clinton, who is now secretary of state. NSC staffers often accompany the secretary of state on foreign trips.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Power’s position, as well as that of other senior NSC positions, have not yet been announced. One official said the announcemen’s would be made in the near future.
White House officials would not provide details of Power’s new role.
Power, a noted human rights expert who won the Pulitzer for her 2008 book "Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World" about the late U.N. diplomat, made headlines last March during the height of the fierce fight for the Democratic presidential nomination when she called Clinton "a monster" in an interview with a Scottish newspaper. Her remarks set off angry exchanges about the tenor of Obama’s campaign.
Power was an early and ardent Obama supporter until calling Hillary Clinton a "monster" forced her off his campaign, but she was rehabilitated after the election when she made a gesture to apologize to Clinton and was included in the transition teams for both the State Department and the U.S. mission to the United Nations.