Washington, Dec 14 (PTI) Richard Holbrooke US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan has died after undergoing surgery to repair a torn aorta.
US President Barack Obama in his rare address to a holiday reception hosted for the Washington Diplomatic Corps by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Holbrooke was simply one of the giants of American diplomacy.
"I know that everyone here joins me when I say that America is more secure -- and the world is a safer place --because of the work of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke," Obama said in his address to the diplomatic corpse at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department yesterday; which was also the office of Holbrooke since January 2009; when he was appointed as the Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Richard Holbrooke has been serving this nation with distinction for nearly 50 years, from a young foreign service officer in Vietnam to the architect of the accords that ended the slaughter in the Balkans, to advancing our regional efforts as our Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and countless crises and hot spots in between. He is simply one of the giants of American foreign policy," Obama said.
"As anyone who has ever worked with him knows -- or had the clear disadvantage of negotiating across the table from him -- Richard is relentless. He never stops. He never quits.
Because he's always believed that if we stay focused, if we act on our mutual interests, that progress is possible. Wars can end. Peace can be forged," Obama said just before Holbrooke's death.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said Holbrooke is a fiercer friend and a beloved mentor and an invaluable counselor.
"He has been a friend of mine for many years and I am deeply grateful for his presence and support. When I came to the State Department, I was delighted to be able to bring Richard in and give him one of the most difficult challenges that any diplomat can face," she said.
"He immediately put together an absolutely world class staff. It represents what we believe should be the organisational model for the future - people not only from
throughout our own government, but even representatives from other governments all working together," she said.
"We know that with Richard, loyalty runs deep and it runs both ways. So tonight, our thoughts and prayers are with Ambassador Holbrooke, his wife Kati, their family, who are here with us as well," Clinton said.
Richard Holbrooke has been a giant of the diplomatic corps for almost 50 years, Clinton said adding that he is practically synonymous with American foreign policy of that time period.
"He's taken on the hardest assignments, from Vietnam to the Balkans to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this week, his doctors are learning what diplomats and dictators around the world have long known: There's nobody tougher than Richard Holbrooke. He's a fierce negotiator. I'm sure there are some shoulders here tonight that are still a little bit sore from his arm-twisting," Clinton said.
Mourning the death of Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama described him as one of the true giants of American foreign policy who has made the country stronger,safer and more respected.
His death comes on the eve of the crucial monthly Af-Pak situation room meeting at the White House to which he mwas a permanent fixture in this Administration.
The annual Af-Pak review is scheduled to be announced Thursday; in which he played a key role.
At the time of his death, Holbrooke was surrounded by his wife, Kati, his sons David and Anthony, his step-children Elizabeth and Chris Jennings, his daughter-in-law Sarah, and the rest of their family.
Acknowledging the role of Holbrooke in the present Af-Pak policy, Obama said the progress that the US has made in Afghanistan and Pakistan is due in no small measure to Richard's relentless focus on America's national interest, and pursuit of peace and security.
"He understood, in his life and his work, that our interests encompassed the values that we hold so dear. And as usual, amidst his extraordinary duties, he also mentored young people who will serve our country for decades to come," Obama said."One of his friends and admirers once said that, If you're not on the team and you're in his way, God help you.
Like so many Presidents before me, I am grateful that Richard Holbrooke was on my team, as are the American people,"Obama said."Richard Holbrooke was a larger than life figure,who through his brilliance, determination and sheer force of will helped bend the curve of history in the direction of progress.
He touched so many lives and helped save countless more. He was a tireless negotiator, a relentless advocate for American interests, and the most talented diplomat we've had in a generation," said US Vice President Joe Biden.
True to form, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said Holbrooke was a fighter to the end.
Holbrooke, whose forceful style earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer" and "Raging Bull," served under every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to 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.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry called the loss of Holbrooke "almost incomprehensible," adding that his "tough-as-nails, never-quit diplomacy" saved tens of thousands of lives. Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who will chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee next year, called Holbrooke "a dynamic force in American diplomacy" whose "stellar service is deeply appreciated and held in the highest esteem."
Holbrooke's 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.
"He's a bulldog for the globe," Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, once said.
The bearish Holbrooke said he has no qualms about "negotiating with people who do immoral things."
"If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed by trying to do so," he said in 1999.
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.
Holbrooke 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.
After 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 -- Holbrooke became assistant 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 in the early 1990s. 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."
James Dobbins, former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan who worked closely with Holbrooke early in their careers, called him a brilliant diplomat and said his success at the Dayton peace talks "was the turning point in the Clinton administration's foreign policy."PTI
Holbrooke's efforts surrounding Dayton later would lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised him 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 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 apologies 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 objections.
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.
"What's the point of being in the government if you don't try to make things better, which means trying to change things," Holbrooke told The Associated Press in a 2001 interview, reflecting on his time at the United Nations.
Holbrooke, with his long-standing ties to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a strong supporter of her 2008 bid for the White House. He had been considered a favorite to become secretary of state if she had won. When she dropped out, he began reaching out to the campaign of Obama.
Reflecting on his role as Obama's special envoy, Holbrooke wrote in The Washington Post in March 2008 that "the conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history, surpassing even Vietnam."
Holbrooke's relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai was strained after their heated meeting in 2009 over the fraud-tainted Afghan presidential election. Karzai brushed it off, saying he had "no problem at all with Mr. Holbrooke." But the U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan, not Holbrooke, were the ones who ended up developed the closest relations with the mercurial Afghan leader. The State Department said Sunday that Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were among those calling to wish Holbrooke well.
With his decades of service and long list of accomplishments in U.S. diplomacy, Holbrooke missed out on a tour as America's top diplomat, a job he was known to covet. As U.N. ambassador, he was a member of the Clinton Cabinet but his sometimes brash and combative style contrasted with that of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
At a ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords, Holbrooke bristled when was asked by a reporter if his views on the future of Kosovo, that it would eventually become independent, matched those of his boss.
"You mean, Madeleine?" he replied with a derisive snort, referring to Albright, who with others in the administration were publicly neutral on the question.
Holbrooke rejected direct comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam, but acknowledged similarities and repeatedly pressed the administration to do more to win the hearts and minds of both the Afghan and Pakistani people.
At the State Department ceremony in January 2009 when he was introduced as the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Holbrooke spotted an old friend in the audience, John Negroponte, his one-time roommate in Saigon (the former South Vietnamese capital now called Ho Chi Minh City) who later was the first director of national intelligence and a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
"We remember those days well, and I hope we will produce a better outcome this time," Holbrooke said.
A torn aorta is a rip in the inner wall of the body's largest artery, which allows blood to enter the vessel wall and weaken it. The result is serious internal bleeding, a loss of normal blood flow and possible complications in organs affected by the resulting lack of blood, according to medical experts. Without surgery it generally leads to rapid death.
"True to form, Richard was a fighter to the end," said Clinton. "His doctors marveled at his strength and his willpower, but to his friends, that was just Richard being Richard."
Holbrooke is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons from an earlier marriage, David Holbrooke and Anthony Holbrooke. AP
