Obama's Inner Circle

Gregory Craig: The lawyer who played a leading role in the defense team for President Clinton's impeachment is a newcomer to foreign policy. At the end of the Clinton administration, he served as the director of policy planning at the State Department.

Richard Danzig: A Yale-trained lawyer, Rhodes scholar, and secretary of the Navy for President Clinton, Mr. Danzig serves as one of Senator Obama's chief advisers on military affairs.

Scott Gration: A retired Air Force major general and fluent Swahili speaker, General Gration met Senator Obama on a trip to Africa and the two have been in close touch ever since. General Gration flew missions as a command pilot in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he served as commander of Task Force West.

Anthony Lake: President Clinton's first national security adviser is the most senior man on the Obama campaign's foreign policy team. Mr. Lake has been criticized by Samantha Power for his inaction on preventing genocide in Rwanda and slow reaction to the Serb-led massacres in Bosnia during his first term. Mr. Lake is the highest ranking Clinton administration official working for Senator Obama.

Denis McDonough: A former legislative aide to Senator Daschle, Mr. McDonough is the Obama campaign's "point guard" on foreign policy, as some campaign staffers call him.

Samantha Power: A journalist and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, Ms. Power is the author of "A Problem From Hell," a book that examines the problem of genocide from the perspective of international law. She became Senator Obama's first foreign affairs tutor and worked on his staff in 2005.

Ben Rhodes: A 30-year-old wunderkind, Mr. Rhodes was one of the lead staff writers for the Iraq Study Group recommendations issued at the end of 2006 that encouraged engagement with Syria and Iran to end the war in Iraq. He is also a coauthor of Lee Hamilton's and Thomas Kean's memoir of the commission to investigate September 11. Mr. Rhodes serves as the chief speechwriter on foreign policy.

Susan Rice: A senior staffer on President Clinton's national security council who served as assistant secretary of State for African affairs, Ms. Rice has been an outspoken foe of the Sudanese regime for the last ten years. At the end of the Clinton administration she gave a press conference in southern Sudan and accused the Sudanese regime of allowing a new slave trade. In 2004, she first endorsed Howard Dean, but ended up as a senior adviser for Senator Kerry's campaign.

Daniel Shapiro: A senior adviser on Middle East affairs, Mr. Shapiro is a long time Democratic operative who worked for four years for Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida. In that capacity, he played a role in sponsoring some hawkish legislation such as the Syria Accountability Act and working to list Hezbollah's satellite television station, al-Manar, as a foreign terrorist organization. Also, Mr. Shapiro also worked briefly for President Clinton's national security council.