Samantha Power is an American scholar of great flair, intellect and potential. She came to the world’s attention through her role as the foreign affairs adviser to Sen. Barack Obama. I am reading at present, and very highly recommend, an outstanding book Power spent four years writing called “Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World” (Allen Lane 2008). During its writing she interviewed more than 400 people, colleagues, friends and members of Sergio’s family.

Sergio was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1948. After the University of Rio, he went on to study philosophy at the University of Fribourg and then at the Sorbonne in Paris. He took part in the mass demonstrations in 1968, and was badly beaten up by the riot police as they stormed the students’ barricades. Later he completed the prestigious state doctorate at the Sorbonne. By this time he spoke flawless Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian and French.

In 1969 Sergio joined the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. In his future 34 years of service with the world body he served in Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, Mozambique, Lebanon, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo and East Timor. Just mentioning these countries reminds us of the seriously testing time the United Nations has been through, sometimes with success and sometimes with grim failure. Sergio specialized at the sharp end of United Nations activity, and his colleagues were amazed by his personal courage and qualities of leadership under shocking conditions.

Kofi Annan, the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, was the first to rise to the top through the ranks of the United Nations. He much admired Sergio and worked closely with him. Sergio was widely seen as a future secretary-general. It was not to be.

In June 2003, Kofi Annan selected Sergio to be his special representative in Iraq with the support of a small political team. Although he was new to Iraq few, if any, in the United Nations had so much experience working in dangerous places. He had gained the respect of the Americans during his time in Kosovo, and it was thought the Europeans and the Arab governments would get on well with him. He sought to persuade the coalition leaders that Ahmad Chalabi, and a number of other exiles, had greater support in America than in Iraq.

On Aug. 19 there was a massive, terrifying explosion, caused by a flatbed truck packed with 1,000 pounds of explosives, at the Canal Hotel United Nations compound in Baghdad. It sent shock waves not only through the ancient and crowded city of Baghdad but also through the entire civilized world. Sergio died slowly crushed under the rubble. 21 other people were killed by the suicide bomber, and some one hundred injured.

Two experiences in Sergio’s long career fascinated me. In 1992, during his time in Cambodia, he believed that cooperating with the loathed Khmer Rouge was essential if the Cambodian peace process was not to fail. While he had not the slightest doubt about the murderous record of the Khmer Rouge, he made a number of extremely hazardous trips into their territory and made contact successfully with their military commanders.

In 1999 Sergio led a small interagency United Nations team on an assessment mission into Kosovo. He wanted to discover the extent of NATO’s collateral damage and the scale and nature of the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs. Again facing acute danger, this time from prowling NATO aircraft and uncooperative and angry Serbs, he was able to raise the United Nation’s damaged profile and help get it back into play.

Samantha Power has laid out some key lessons of Sergio’s career.

• “Legitimacy matters, and it comes both from legal authority or consent and from competent performance.

• Spoilers, rogue states, and nonstate militants must be engaged, if only so they can be sized up and neutralized.

• Fearful people must be made more secure.

• Dignity is the cornerstone of order.

• We outsiders must bring humility and patience to our dealings in foreign lands.”

Her clear and honest account of Sergio’s life is crucial reading for those concerned with the future of the United Nations and “the seeming rise in irrationality and rage in an increasingly interconnected world.” Meanwhile, we can be thankful for Sergio’s courage and his dedication to peace.