A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (102 page)

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Acknowledgments

The list of those who have aided and abetted this project, while they inspired its author, is long.

The book is very much the product of energy and insights generated at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. Greg Carr's vision produced the Center, and his commitment sustains it. I am grateful to him and to Graham Allison, who brought me on board. Center director Michael Ignatieff offered constant encouragement, even when it meant enduring a distracted executive director. Jill Clarke somehow managed to keep the Center afloat and the trains running early, while ensuring that I never missed an interview. Serge Troie, my brilliant research assistant, dug so deep that he could now write his own multivolume encyclopedia on U.S. responses to genocide. Jeremy Freeman stepped in heroically to supply crucial research support and commentary in the book's hectic, final days. Ingrid Tamm Grudin supplied sage advice through the project's multiple incarnations. Camilla Catenza, Jim Fleming, Jasmine Friedman, Jess Hobart, and the peerless Sarah Sewall have helped build a first-class institution that will produce cutting-edge policy analysis for years to come.

A grant from George Soros's Open Society Institute enabled me to interview hundreds of men and women from Cambodia, Kurdistan, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Many of these survivors were willing to relive their trauma because they thought their stories might play a small role in sparking rescue for others.Their testimony, combined with their resilient faith in the United States, were constant motivators. I am grateful also to the current and former U.S. government officials who opened themselves up, revisiting experiences that most had hoped would remain forgotten. A few appeared as characters in this book, but most are visible only indirectly in the narratives reconstructed or the perspectives conveyed. I have tried to portray the logic behind their decisions and non-decisions fairly. If I have strayed in fact or in tone, I hope that they will step forward and offer their own accounts.

More detailed and more international examinations of these cases and new studies of others are needed. An organization that will galvanize future research is the National Security Archive, the invaluable Washington non-profit organization that uses the Freedom of Information Act to secure the declassification of U.S. government documents. When I interned at the Archive as a college sophomore, I had no idea how much I would later benefit from their work. Will Ferroggiaro, director of their Rwanda project, deserves special thanks. Many senior officials in the U.S. government agreed to speak with me only because he granted me access to documents that bore their signatures.

The indefatigable Morton Abramowitz, my first boss, has been a steady compass. It was his advocacy on Bosnia, combined with the prescriptive genius of the late, great Frederick C. Curry, that convinced me to move to the Balkans to see for myself what might be done. Several years later, as I began my first round of Washington interviews, my cell phone rang. Mort had something urgent he wished to impart. "As you begin interviewing people, you have to guard against two things," he grumbled, "selective memory and absolute dishonesty." I did riot know then that he would pop up as a character in so many of the cases, but my reporting has only confirmed that his candor and conviction predated the Bosnia war. Sometime in the final month of my writing, he called again, this time with a question. "In all of your research," he asked, "did any American official ever say to you, without going on about all the constraints they faced, `Boy, I really blew it!'" As I looked back through dozens of notebooks, I realized that only one had done so: Mort himself. I am honored to have worked with him. I know I have learned from him; I hope it shows.

Four individuals played pivotal roles six years ago in encouraging me to turn an amateur, sweeping survey of U.S. responses to genocide into a book. Miro Weinberger, my trusted friend for whom all things seem possible, pressed me to explain and not merely expose the gap between American promise and practice on genocide. Anthony Lewis, whose columns had helped keep Bosnia "on the map" in the United States even as it vanished from the maps of the Balkans, convinced me nothing like it had been done. Martin Peretz, whose New Republic had given me a voice during the Bosnia war and given U.S. policy-makers an appropriately difficult time, helped convince Basic Books to publish it. And Leon Wieseltier, the wisest man in Washington and the most stirring moralist around, offered cherished counsel from start to weary finish.

For their support from near and far, I thank Arthur Applbaum, Murat Armbruster, Doreen Beinart, Peter Berkowitz, Tom Blanton, Julian Borger, Steven Bourke, Bina Breitner, Sally Brooks, Robert Brustein, Gillian Caldwell, Jack Caldwell, Diane Caldwell, Casey Cammann, Mark Casey, Lenore Cohen, Roger Cohen, Rebecca Dale, Romeo Dallaire, Owen Dawson, Debra Dickerson, Christine Dionne, Scott Faber, Gregg Farano, Helen Fein, Marshall Ganz, David Gelber, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Oren Harman, Lukas Haynes, Arnold Hiatt, Stanley Hoffman, Hrvoje Hranski, Swannee Hunt,Tom Keenan, Peter Kornbluh, Roy Kreitner, Kate Lowenstein, Victor Luftig, Jane Mansbridge, Pedro Martinez, Taddy McAllister, Erin McBreen, Jamie Metzl, Bob Mnookin, Katie Moore, Elizabeth Neuffer, Luis Ocampo, Ann Peretz, Stephen Power, Josh Prager, David Rieff, Ken Roth, Debra Ryan, Moshe Safdie, Maurice Saah, John Schumann, Alexis Sinduhije, Ann-Marie Slaughter, Mary Smart, Alison Smith, Chuck Sudetic, Stacy Sullivan, Doug Stone, Fred Strebeigh, Rebecca Symington, Margaret Talbot, Piotr Wandycz, Liz Wilcox, and Curt Wood.

I am especially indebted to those who took the time to read drafts, saving me from errors and steering me in new directions. Martha Minow taught me how to look at law with an eye to its political underpinnings and moral consequences. Nick Papandraeau, the unlucky first reader of the first draft of the book, brought his novelist's eye and crusader's heart to a messy text. A wonderful range of friends and colleagues offered comments: Michael Barnett, Gary Jonathan Bass, Elizabeth Becker, Antonia Chayes, Ben Cohen, Chuck Cohen, Alison des Forges, Craig Etcheson, Kate Galbraith, Arkadi Gerney, Philip Gourevitch, Joost Hilterman, Jonathan Moore, Andy Moravscik, Aryeh Neier, Jennifer Pitts, Jonathan Randal, Frederick Wiseman, and Jay Winter. I am grateful to Mike Kelly, Cullen Murphy, andYvonne Rolzhausen at the Atlantic Monthly for the phenomenal care they devoted to my Rwanda article, and to Ron Haviv, Susan Meiseles, and Gilles Peress who graced the book's pages with their stunning photographs.

Two individuals got "A Problem from Hell" into print. Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency took me on as a client when this book was no more than a gleam in an unemployed law-student's eye. She never let the publishing world's bouts of indifference shake her faith in the project's value.Vanessa Mobley, my editor at Basic Books, fought for and promoted the book with a rare combination of zeal and grace. I was blessed to have such a committed, talented duo behind me.

And finally, I must thank my dream team. Seven courageous friendsHolly Burkhalter, Sharon Dolovich, Laura Pitter, David Rolide, Elizabeth Rubin, Elliot Thomson, and the aforementioned Miro Weinberger-guided me by listening, by doing, and by being unashamed to don cocktail umbrellas in the rain. Anna Husarska, who shares more than a birthday and a homeland with Raphael Lemkin, taught me how to report war and observe people. Frederick Zollo introduced me to an America I had never seen, stocked my library, insisted this book mattered when it seemed it couldn't, and became the voice inside my head that kept me honest. Michal Safdie offered comfort and passion at the most difficult times. She made her family my family and supplied daily sustenance and beauty. With their boundless generosity, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dick Goodwin kept me off the disabled list. And with their insights into American politics and faith in America's potential, they reminded me why it was worth hunting for the "better angels." Sayres Rudy gave me his time, his critical mind, his wit, and his unswerving friendship. He left me dazed and the book changed.