II: Columbia University and Recruitment by Zbigniew Brzezinski 55nuclear disarmament. He dismisses in one sentence his first community organizing job — work
he went on to do in Chicago — though a former supervisor remembers him as “a star
performer.” [...] In a long profile of Mr. Obama in a Columbia alumni magazine in 2005, in
which his Columbia years occupied just two paragraphs, he called that time “an intense period
of study.” “I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk,”
he was quoted as saying. He said he was somewhat involved with the Black Student
Organization and anti-apartheid activities, although in recent interviews, several prominent
student leaders said they did not remember his playing a role. (Janny Scott, “Obama’s Account
of New York Years Often Differs From What Others Say,” New York Times, October 30, 2007)
One person who did remember Mr. Obama was Michael L. Baron, who taught a senior seminar
on international politics and American policy. Mr. Baron, now president of an electronics
company in Florida, said he was Mr. Obama’s adviser on the senior thesis for that course. Mr.
Baron, who later wrote Mr. Obama a recommendation for Harvard Law School, gave him an A
in the course. Columbia was a hotbed for discussion of foreign policy, Mr. Baron said. The
faculty included Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser, and Zalmay
Khalilzad, now the American ambassador to the United Nations. Half of the eight students in
the seminar were outstanding, and Mr. Obama was among them, Mr. Baron said.
One of Obama’s friends at Columbia was his roommate Sadik or Siddiqi, who is described as “a
short, well-built Pakistani” who smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and liked to party. Obama’s
campaign adamantly refused to identify “Sadik,” but the Associated Press located him in Seattle,
where he raises money for a community theater. When Obama arrived in New York, he already
knew Siddiqi — a friend of Chandoo’s and Hamid’s from Karachi who had visited Los Angeles.
Looking back, Siddiqi acknowledges that he and Obama were an odd couple. Siddiqi would mock
Obama’s idealism — he just wanted to make a lot of money and buy things, while Obama wanted to
help the poor. “At that age, I thought he was a saint and a square, and he took himself too
seriously,” Siddiqi said. “I would ask him why he was so serious. He was genuinely concerned with
the plight of the poor. He’d give me lectures, which I found very boring. He must have found me
very irritating.” Siddiqi offered the most expansive account of Obama as a young man. “We were
both very lost. We were both alienated, although he might not put it that way. He arrived disheveled
and without a place to stay,” said Siddiqi, who at the time worked as a waiter and as a salesman at a
boutique.... The apartment was “a slum of a place” in a drug-ridden neighborhood filled with
gunshots, he said. “It wasn’t a comfortable existence. We were slumming it.” What little furniture
they had was found on the street, and guests would have to hold their dinner plates in their laps. ...’
Obama commented: ‘“For about two years there, I was just painfully alone and really not
focused on anything, except maybe thinking a lot.” In his memoir, Obama recalls fasting on
Sunday; Siddiqi says Obama was a follower of comedian-activist Dick Gregory’s vegetarian diet. “I
think self-deprivation was his schtick, denying himself pleasure, good food and all of that.” But it
wasn’t exactly an ascetic life. There was plenty of time for reading (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V.S.
Naipaul) and listening to music (Van Morrison, the Ohio Players, Bob Dylan). The two, along with
others, went out for nights on the town. “He wasn’t entirely a hermit,” Siddiqi said. Siddiqi said his
female friends thought Obama was “a hunk.” “We were always competing,” he said. “You know
how it is. You go to a bar and you try hitting on the girls. He had a lot more success. I wouldn’t out-
compete him in picking up girls, that’s for sure.” Obama was a tolerant roommate. Siddiqi’s mother,
who had never been around a black man, came to visit and she was rude; Obama was nothing but
polite. Siddiqi himself could be intemperate — he called Obama an Uncle Tom, but “he was really
patient. I’m surprised he suffered me.” Finally, their relationship started to fray. “I was partying all