Ronan Farrow

Ronan Farrow's new book is War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Rachel Martin:

MARTIN: You sat down with Rex Tillerson in January, just months before he would be fired by President Trump. As you spoke with him, did you get the sense that he was following orders by making these dramatic cuts to the State Department, or did he believe in this as a key component of his mission?

FARROW: He was open in this interview about saying that he did defy the extent of the budget cuts, that he pushed back behind closed doors. But the fact is the underlying realities of his tenure in the job were devastating for the department. I mean, he told me point blank that his ardent defense of these deep, deep cuts to the department was partly born of inexperience. The idea of advocating for your institution, he said, he learned too late was something he was supposed to be doing. And that really astonished all of these other secretaries of state that I talked to.

MARTIN: What else was the through line in your conversations with all these former secretaries of state?

FARROW: Many of them said surprising and candid things. You know, a lot of these people have controversial histories but also a lot of insights about where we go wrong as a nation. Colin Powell is someone who, despite a divisive track record in some ways with his involvement in the Iraq effort, was...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue