(Fox News December 13, 2010) Longtime U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, died Monday after undergoing emergency heart surgery Saturday for a torn aorta. He was 69 years old. Holbroooke had a forceful style which earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer," was admitted to the hospital on Friday after becoming ill at the State Department. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. underwent surgery Saturday. Holbrooke's death comes the same week the White House plans to release a review of the Afghan war, a project in which Holbrooke was deeply involved. Earlier on Monday, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner was asked how that review process would be affected without Holbroooke's contributions. "Clearly, someone with Ambassador Holbrooke's intellect, his experience...we miss him, and we miss his input."President Obama had a chance to speak to Holbrooke's wife and children at a State Department holiday party before news of his death. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also hailed Holbrooke's long service earlier in the day. "He has given nearly 50 years of his life to serving the United States," Clinton said during a meeting in Canada.
Holbrooke served under every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to President Obama in a lengthy career that began with a foreign service posting in Vietnam in 1962 after graduating from Brown University, and included time as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam. His sizable ego, tenacity and willingness to push hard for diplomatic results won him both admiration and animosity. "If Richard calls you and asks you for something," just say yes," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said. "If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful." He learned to become extremely informed about whatever country he was in, push for an exit strategy and look for ways to get those who live in a country to take increasing responsibility for their own security.
Born in New York City on April 24, 1941, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke had an interest in public service from his early years. He was good friends in high school with a son of Dean Rusk and he grew close to the family of the man who would become a secretary of state for presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Holbroooke was a young provincial representative for the U.S. Agency for International Development in South Vietnam and then an aide to two U.S. ambassadors in Saigon. At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967. The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese. Ater stints in and out of government--including as Peace Corps director in Morocco, editing positions at Foreign Policy and Newsweek magazines and adviser to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign--Holbroooke became asistant secretary of state for Asian affairs from 1977-81. He then shifted back to private life--and the financial world, at Lehman Brothers.
A lifelong Democrat, he returned to public service when Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993. Holbrooke was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs. One of his signature achievements was brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia. He detailed the experience of negotiating the deal at an Air Force base near the Ohio city in his 1998 memoir, "To End a War." Holbrooke's efforts surrounding Dayton would later lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised his immunity in return for leaving politics. Holbrooke denied the claim.
Holbrooke left the State Department in 1996 to take a Wall Street job with Credit Suisse First Boston, but was never far from the international diplomatic fray, serving as a private citizen as a special envoy to Cyprus and then to the Balkans. In 1998, he negotiated an agreement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo where they were accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign and allow international observers into the province. "I make no apologizes for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view," he said later. When the deal fell apart, Holbrooke went to Belgrade to deliver the final ultimatum to Milosevic to leave Kosovo or face NATO airstrikes, which ultimately rained down on the capital. "This isn't fun," he said of his Kosovo experience. "This isn't bridge or tennis. This is tough slogging."
Holbrooke returned to public service in 1999, when he became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after a lengthy confirmation battle, stalled at first by ethics investigations into his business dealings and then unrelated Republican objectives. At the U.N., Holbrooke tried to broker peace in wartorn African nations. He led efforts to help refugees and fight AIDS in Africa. He also confronted U.N. anger over unpaid U.S. dues to the world body and persuaded 188 countries to overhaul the United Nations' financing and reduce U.S. payments. Holbrooke told the Associated Press in 2001 that it doesn't make sense to be in government if you don't try to make things better.
Holbrooke, with his long-standing ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, was an early supporter of Hillary's presidential campaign in 2008. He had been considered a favorite to become secretary of state had Hillary won the White House. When she dropped out of the race, he started reaching out to the Obama campaign. When Obama won the presidency in 2008, Obama made him special envoy to Afghanistan.
Holbrooke is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons David Dan Holbrooke and Anthony Andrew Holbrooke.
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