Ben Rhodes (White House staffer)


Benjamin J. Rhodes is an American writer, political commentator and former Deputy National Security Advisor under President Barack Obama. With Jake Sullivan, he is the co-chair of National Security Action, a political NGO. He contributes to NBC News and MSNBC regularly as a political commentator. He is also a Crooked Media contributor, and co-host of the foreign policy podcast Pod Save the World.
In 2018, Random House published Rhodes's memoir, The World as It Is, a New York Times bestseller and revelatory behind-the-scenes account of Barack Obama's presidency. George Packer in The New Yorker called the book "the closest view of Obama we’re likely to get until he publishes his own memoir." In the New York Times, Joe Klein wrote, "His achievement is rare for a political memoir: He has written a humane and honorable book." Rhodes has written opinion articles for newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and The Atlantic.
During the Obama administration, Rhodes led the secret negotiations with Cuba that resulted in the December 17, 2014, announcement by President Obama and Raúl Castro that the two countries would normalize relations. Rhodes traveled to Canada and the Vatican for talks with Cuba about a prisoner exchange that led to the release of Alan Gross and a U.S. intelligence asset, along with the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S. In his book, Rhodes revealed that his negotiating counterpart was Alejandro Castro, the son of Raúl. Rhodes was the U.S. government representative at the funeral for Fidel Castro in 2016. Rhodes has been critical of the Trump administration's approach to Cuba.
Rhodes was featured in the HBO documentary The Final Year, along with John Kerry, Samantha Power and Susan Rice. The documentary portrays the events of Obama's final year in office, with a focus on his foreign policy team.

Early life and education

Rhodes was born on November 14, 1977, in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. He is the son of an Episcopal father from Texas and a Jewish mother from New York. He attended the Collegiate School, graduating in 1996. Rhodes then attended Rice University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 2000 with majors in English and political science. He then moved back to New York, attending New York University and graduating in 2002 with an MFA in creative writing. His brother, David Rhodes, is a former President of CBS News.

Career

In the summer of 1997, Rhodes volunteered with the Rudy Giuliani mayoral campaign. In the summer of 2001, he worked on the New York City Council campaign of Diana Reyna. In 2002, James Gibney, editor of Foreign Policy, introduced Rhodes to Lee Hamilton, former member of the House of Representatives and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was looking for a speechwriter. Rhodes then spent five years as an assistant to Hamilton, helping to draft the Iraq Study Group Report and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
In 2007, Rhodes began working as a speechwriter for the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.
Rhodes wrote Obama's 2009 Cairo speech "A New Beginning". Rhodes was the adviser who counseled Obama to withdraw support from Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, becoming a key adviser during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Rhodes was instrumental in the conversations that led to Obama reestablishing the United States' diplomatic relations with Cuba, which had been cut off since 1961. The New York Times reported that Rhodes spent "more than a year sneaking off to secret negotiations in Canada and finally at the Vatican" in advance of the official announcement in December 2014.
After leaving the Obama administration, Rhodes began working as a commentator. He wrote The World as It Is and began contributing to Crooked Media, NBC News and MSNBC. In 2018, he co-founded National Security Action.
Rhodes has criticized U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. He wrote of the war in Yemen, "Looking back, I wonder what we might have done differently, particularly if we’d somehow known that Obama was going to be succeeded by a President Trump."

Controversies

In a controversial profile in The New York Times Magazine, Rhodes was quoted "deriding the D.C. press corps and boasting of how he created an 'echo chamber' to market the administration's foreign policy", including the international nuclear agreement with Iran. The piece was criticized by numerous journalism outlets for its lack of journalistic integrity and biases against the Iran deal.
In 2017, it was alleged that Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube attempted to manufacture incriminating or embarrassing information about Rhodes and his wife, as well as fellow former National Security Council staffer Colin Kahl, in an apparent effort to undermine supporters of the Iran nuclear deal. Rhodes said of the incident, "This just eviscerates any norm of how governments should operate or treat their predecessors and their families. It crosses a dangerous line." The effort continued well after the Obama administration ended.

Awards and honors

In 2011, Rhodes was on Time magazine's "40 Under 40" list of powerful and prominent young professionals. Rhodes was number 13 on Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" list of the most influential young people in business in 2014.
In 2015, Rhodes was named one of Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 global thinkers.

Books

Rhodes is married to Ann Norris, who was chief foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer. They have two daughters.