Jake Sullivan to the rescue

AT THE HOARY age of 36, Jake Sullivan delivered this life lesson to graduating students of the University of Minnesota. “Reject certitude. And don’t be a jerk. Be a good guy.” He cannot be accused of ignoring his advice. The Democratic wunderkind, who eight years later will become the youngest national security adviser since McGeorge Bundy in 1961, has a reputation for high-grade amiability that is even rarer in Washington, DC, than his big brain.

“He’s the smartest guy in the room, but he’s not cocky about it,” says Senator Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Minnesotan, who hired Mr Sullivan from the Minneapolis law firm where he had taken a brief break from elite institutions (Oxford, Yale Law, a clerkship at the Supreme Court). When he left her office to work on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, he promised to return. He proceeded instead to make himself indispensable, in the State Department, White House and on the trail, to Mrs Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden in turn, including as the then vice-president’s NSA. (“He did the trifecta,” quips Ms Klobuchar, a trifle ruefully.)

Even Iran’s mullahs were said to appreciate his lack of condescension, after he was charged by Mrs Clinton with a series of top-secret missions to the Gulf that opened a path to the Iran nuclear deal. More remarkably still, the mullahs of...