Richard Holbrooke

Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 to 1981 and Europe from 1994 to 1996).

From 1993 to 1994, he was

Holbrooke was born on April 24, 1941, in New York City, to Dan Holbrooke, a doctor, and Trudi Kearl (née Moos), a potter; brother, Andrew, survives him.[8]^[9] Holbrooke's mother, whose Jewish family fled Hamburg in 1933 for Buenos Aires before coming to New York, took him to Quaker meetings on Sundays. She stated: "I was an atheist, his father was an atheist... We never thought of giving Richard a Jewish upbringing. The Quaker meetings seemed interesting."^[10]

Holbrooke's father, who died of colon cancer when Richard was 15 years old,

Career

Foreign Service (1962–1969)

President

In 1970, at his own request, Holbrooke was assigned to be the Peace Corps Director in Morocco. Holbrooke initially rejected an offer to become the editor of the magazine Foreign Policy instead recommending his friend, John Campbell. After two years, he left the Foreign Service to become the managing editor of the magazine after Campbell died of thyroid cancer. Holbrooke held the position from 1972–1976.^[18] During his tenure, the magazine ran investigative reports on Vietnam and the Middle East which disturbed some members of the foreign policy community.^[19] At the same time (1974–75), he was a consultant to the President's Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy and was a contributing editor to Newsweek International.^[18]

Carter Administration (1977–1981)

In the summer of 1976, Holbrooke left Foreign Policy to serve as campaign coordinator for national security affairs to

Holbrooke also remained deeply engaged in prominent foreign policy issues. He visited Bosnia twice in 1992 as a private citizen and a member of the board of Refugees International, witnessing firsthand the damage and devastating human costs of the conflict. This experience committed Holbrooke to pursuing a more aggressive policy in the Balkans and, in a memo to his colleagues, he urged that "Bosnia will be the key test of American policy in Europe. We must therefore succeed in whatever we attempt."^[22]

U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1993–1994)

In 1993, after

Holbrooke served in Germany during a dramatic moment: only a few years after German reunification, he helped shape U.S. relations with a new Germany. A highlight of his tenure was President Bill Clinton's visit to Berlin in July 1994, when thousands of Germans crammed the streets to welcome the American leader.^[25] While in Germany, Holbrooke also was a key figure in shaping the U.S. policy to promote NATO enlargement, as well as its approach to the war in Bosnia.^{[citation needed]}

In 1994, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Germany, he conceived the idea of a cultural exchange center between the people of Berlin and Americans. With

In 1994, Holbrooke returned to Washington to become the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, a position he held until 1996, when he resigned for personal reasons (he had recently married the author Kati Marton and wished to return to New York). While assistant secretary, Holbrooke led the effort to implement the policy to enlarge NATO and had the distinction of leading the negotiation team charged with resolving the Balkans crisis.^{[citation needed]}

On August 19, an Armoured personnel carrier following the Humvee Holbrooke was riding in fell off the side of Mt. Igman near Sarajevo. Three of Holbrooke's five-man delegation team perished in the incident. In Holbrooke's telling of the incident, he portrayed himself and the other surviving member of his delegation, General Clark, as active participants in the rescue mission.^[28] However, Holbrooke's biographer George Packer, discredited Holbrooke's story, stating that another man traveling with the delegation, Colonel Banky, was in fact the person who searched for the APC while Holbrooke and Clark waited near the Humvee.^[2] A report on the incident stated that the driver of the APC was going too fast.^[2]

In Paris in December 1995, Holbrooke was the chief architect of the

]

Balkan envoy (1996–1999)

External videos
Booknotes interview with Holbrooke on To End a War, July 26, 1998, C-SPAN
Presentation by Holbrooke to the National Press Club on To End a War, June 18, 1998, C-SPAN

Upon leaving the State Department, Holbrooke was asked by President Clinton to become, as a private citizen, a special envoy to the Balkans given his service in the region. In 1997, Holbrooke became a special envoy to

According to Radovan Karadžić and Muhamed Sacirbey, ex-Bosnian Foreign Minister, Holbrooke signed an agreement with Karadžić that if the latter withdrew from politics he would not be sent to the Hague tribunal.^{[citation needed]} Holbrooke denied these terms, saying Karadžić's statement was "a flat-out lie."^[34]

Holbrooke and Bildt were considered candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize as a result of the Dayton Peace Accords. However, Holbrooke's personal lobbying for the award may have been detrimental to their chances.^[2]

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1999–2001)

In August 1999, Holbrooke was sworn-in as the 22nd

Holbrooke's other achievements as UN Ambassador included getting the United Nations Security Council to debate and pass a resolution on HIV/AIDS, the first time that body had treated public health as a matter of global security. In January 2000, Holbrooke used the United States' presidency of the UN Security Council to spotlight a series of crises in Africa, holding six consecutive UN debates that brought together leaders from the region and the across the globe, including former South African President Nelson Mandela and then U.S. Vice President Al Gore, to catalyze more effective UN interventions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and elsewhere. Holbrooke decried a "double standard" whereby African conflicts received insufficient global attention.^[37]

In 2000, Holbrooke led a UN Security Council delegation in a series of diplomatic negotiations throughout Africa, including to the

Upon leaving the UN a year later, Holbrooke took over a nearly moribund NGO that was intended to mobilize businesses and corporations in the fight against AIDS. At the time, it had 17 members. Over the next six years, Holbrooke turned this organization—originally called the Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS—into a worldwide organization with over 225 members.[42] It expanded to include malaria and tuberculosis, becoming the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2006. In 2011, the organization became GBCHealth and expanded its mandate to include an array of health issues. GBCHealth is the official focal point for mobilizing the business community in support of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and has grown into an important part of the ongoing war against these three diseases.^[43]

Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign

Holbrooke was Clinton's lead foreign policy advisor in her 2008 campaign for president and was believed to be her preferred choice for Secretary of State. When Obama

In January 2009, Holbrooke was appointed by President Obama as special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP).^[44] Holbrooke was never in serious contention to become Obama's secretary of state although he interviewed for the position. After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state she requested that Holbrooke become SRAP, a newly created role which he had previously advocated for. Holbrooke's tenure as SRAP has been considered lackluster. Holbrooke's relationship with President Obama was minimal and his relationship was even worse with Joe Biden. He became unpopular in the administration when he attempted to aid Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political opponents during his reelection bid.^[2] Holbrooke was well-liked in Pakistan by civilians because he actively sought to build a relationship with their country.^[2] In that position, he also helped kill an initiative to "back the creation of a new UN special envoy empowered to pursue peace talks with the Taliban."^[45] He also asserted that:

one of the most cost-effective steps Washington could take would be to boost the agriculture sector of Afghanistan, which in years past had been a productive and profitable source of exports. Replicate the past success, he said, and Afghans would have money and jobs—and that, in turn, would create stability in the country. He called for 'a complete rethink' of the drug problem in Afghanistan, suggesting that draconian eradication programs were bound to fail.^[46]

However, according to David Corn, "Holbrooke's skill set did not lead to much accomplishment in Afghanistan. He never worked out a productive relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai … He butted heads with other administration officials and was dismissed by European colleagues. He brokered no breakthroughs."^[46]

Other activities

Holbrooke was the vice chairman of Perseus LLC, a leading

Holbrooke also served as vice chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston, managing director of Lehman Brothers,^[50] managing editor of Foreign Policy, and director of the Peace Corps in Morocco.

He wrote numerous articles and two books: To End a War, and the co-author of Counsel to the President, and one volume of

and Project Syndicate.

On March 20, 2007, he appeared on

Ben and Jerry's ice cream to make amends. He subsequently sang "On the Road Again" in a trio with Colbert and Nelson.^[51]

Holbrooke was an Eminent Member of the

Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation

until his death.

In June 2008,

Friends of Angelo" (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo).^[52]

A documentary titled The Diplomat centered on the legacy of Holbrooke's career appeared on HBO in the fall of 2015. The documentary was directed by his son, David Holbrooke, and features notes from Holbrooke's "secret audio diary" which "he dictated on a near daily basis from August 2010 until his death".^[53]

He was a member of the Steering Committee of the

Bilderberg Group^[54]

and participated in every conference between 1995 and 2010.

Positions

In January 2001, Holbrooke said that "

weapons of mass destruction but because of the very nature of his regime. His willingness to be cruel internally is not unique in the world, but the combination of that and his willingness to export his problems makes him a clear and present danger at all times."^[55]

On February 24, 2007, Holbrooke delivered the Democratic Party's weekly radio address and called for "a new strategy in Iraq", involving "a careful, phased redeployment of U.S. troops" and a "new diplomatic offensive in the Gulf region to help stabilize Iraq."^[56]

During the

2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia, Holbrooke said during a CNN

interview that he had predicted the conflict in early 2008.

Personal life

Holbrooke was married three times. His first wife was Larrine Sullivan, whom he married in 1964; they had two sons, David and Anthony, before Holbrooke and Sullivan divorced in 1972.

MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, on January 1, 1977; they divorced in 1978.^[57] He was married to Kati Marton from 1995 until his death.^[8] Before he married Marton, he was involved in a longstanding relationship with the broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer and lived with her for seven years.^[58]

Holbrooke had been good friends with diplomat Anthony Lake whom he met in Vietnam in the early 1960s while both of them were in the foreign service. They frequently visited each other and Lake aided Holbrooke throughout the early years of his career. They grew apart when Holbrooke had an affair with Lake's wife, eventually rarely speaking, and by the time Lake became Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, their friendship was over.^[2]

Death

On December 11, 2010, Holbrooke was admitted to George Washington University Hospital in Washington D.C. after falling ill at the State Department's headquarters.^[59] While there, he underwent twenty hours of surgery to fix an aortic dissection, a rare condition.^[60]

Holbrooke died on December 13, 2010, from complications of the torn aorta.^[60] Holbrooke's last words before being sedated for surgery, which have been clarified to have been a comical interchange with his doctor, were: "You've got to end this war in Afghanistan."^[61] He is interred at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, New York.^[62]

Legacy

Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote: "His premature death—while heroically bearing the crushing burdens of Afghanistan and Pakistan—is tragic in more ways than many Americans yet realize."^[63] President Obama memorialized Holbrooke, stating "few have left such a towering legacy as a face of America to the world as Richard Holbrooke".^[64]

On January 14, 2011, Holbrooke's memorial service was held at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.^[65]

The 2014 film Diplomacy was dedicated to Holbrooke.^[66]

In 2015, Holbrooke's son David directed a documentary, The Diplomat, which chronicled his father's professional life and achievements.

A street in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, is named after Holbrooke, albeit in Albanian transliteration, "Riçard Holbruk".

Recognition

In 1999, Holbrooke received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.^[67]

In 2011, President Obama created the Richard C. Holbrooke Award for Diplomacy to be awarded annually to up to five individuals or groups the Secretary of State has determined have made “especially meritorious contributions to diplomacy.”^[68]

Writings

Books

• To End a War. New York:
  ISBN 978-0375500572
  .

• Counsel to the President

Articles

• "The Machine That Fails".
  JSTOR 1147889
  .
• "Japan and the United States: Ending the Unequal Partnership".
  JSTOR 20045002
  .
• "America, a European Power".
  JSTOR 20047041
  .

Reports

• OCLC 1148955001
  .

See also

• Foreign policy of the Bill Clinton administration

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Nasr, Vali (March–April 2013). "The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan". Foreign Policy. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
2. ^
   OCLC 1043051114
   .
3. ^ Alter, Jonathan (December 14, 2010). "Richard Holbrooke: An American in Full". Newsweek. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
4. ^ Moreau, Ron (December 14, 2010). "Holbrooke in the Trenches". Newsweek. Retrieved April 29, 2010.
5. ^ Alter, Jonathan (January 16, 2011). "Richard Holbrooke's Lonely Mission". Newsweek. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
6. ^ "Richard Holbrooke: A Disappointed Man". Newsweek. December 14, 2010. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
7. ^ "An American in Full". Newsweek. December 14, 2010. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} McFadden, Robert D. (December 14, 2010). "Strong American Voice in Diplomacy and Crisis". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
9. ^ Sciolino, Elaine. – "Man in the News – Richard C. Holbrooke; A Tough Man (Some Say Brutal) for a Tough Job". – The New York Times. – June 19, 1998.
10. ^ Roger Cohen (December 17, 1995). "Taming the Bullies of Bosnia". The New York Times Magazine – (c/o NYTimes.com). Retrieved November 27, 2015.
11. ^ Petition for Naturalization of Dan Holbrooke, U.S. District, Southern District New York Court #487977 dated May 22, 1944
12. ^ ^{a b} Sciolino, Elaine (June 19, 1998). "A Tough Man (Some Say Brutal) for a Tough Job". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved December 15, 2010.
13. ^
    Patch.com. Retrieved December 15, 2010.^{[permanent dead link}
    ]
14. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (December 14, 2010). "Richard C. Holbrooke, Giant of Diplomacy, Dies at 69". The New York Times. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
15. ^ "Holbrooke interview with the Brown Journal of World Affairs". January 5, 2023.
16. ^
    The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. PBS
    . – MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.
17. ^ Rogin, Josh (July 29, 2010). "Holbrooke: I helped write the Pentagon Papers". Foreign Policy. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
18. ^ ^{a b} "R. Holbrooke's Biography". Charlotte Rotary. Archived from the original on August 7, 2008.
19. ^ Glasser, Susan (December 14, 2010). "Richard C. Holbrooke, 1941-2010". Foreign Policy. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
20. ^ "Assistant Secretaries of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs".
21. ^ "The Democrats & Suharto: Bill Clinton & Richard Holbrooke Questioned on Their Support for Brutal Indonesian Dictatorship". Democracy Now!. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
22. ^ Holbrooke, Richard (1999). To End a War. New York, New York: Random House. p. 50.
23. ^ Holbrooke, Richard (1999). To End a War. New York, New York: Random House. p. 55.
24. ^ "Special Report: Policymaking for a New Era". Archived from the original on December 6, 2007.
25. ^ Jehl, Douglas (July 13, 1994). "With a Few Strides, Clinton Celebrates Germany's Unity". The New York Times.
26. ^ "American Academy". Archived from the original on January 20, 2009.
27. ^ "American Academy Fellows". Archived from the original on January 22, 2009. Retrieved October 13, 2008.
28. ^ "To End a War". The New York Times. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
29. ^ AMANPOUR, CHRISTIANE. "Holbrooke." New Republic 242.1 (2011): 9–10. BusinessSource Elite. Web. September 28, 2012.
30. ^ Perlez, Jane (March 22, 1999). "Conflict in the Balkans: The Overview; Milosevic to Get One 'Last Chance' to Avoid Bombing". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
31. ^ Peace and Security in the Western Balkans: A Local Perspective. Taylor & Francis. 2022.
32. ^ "Editors' Choice: The Best Books of 1998". The New York Times.
33. ^ To End a War The Conflict in Yugoslavia--America's Inside Story--Negotiating with Milosevic. Random House Publishing Group. 1999. p. 97.
34. ^ Robertson, Nic (July 31, 2008). "Karadzic Details 'Deal with U.S. to Vanish'". CNN. Retrieved November 24, 2008.
35. ^ Crossette, Barbara (December 22, 1999). "U.S. Saves Its U.N. Voting Rights With a Payment of Back Dues". The New York Times.
36. ^ Lynch, Colum (August 28, 1999). "U.N.'s Holbrooke to Forgo Waldorf Astoria Residence". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 13, 2022. Richard C. Holbrooke, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has eschewed the formal $30,000-a-month ambassador's residence at the Waldorf Astoria. But that hasn't stopped his 27-year-old executive assistant, R.P. Eddy, from checking into the luxury hotel suite where Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson lived during their terms as ambassador.
37. ^ "Holbrooke Intends to Keep Emphasis on Africa".
38. ^ Press Release: Israel Accepted to WEOG An Achievement for Israeli Diplomacy. – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. – The State of Israel. – May 28, 2000.
39. Daily News. January 17, 2001. Archived from the original
    on January 24, 2009.
40. ^ Global Business Coalition: Strategy Page. Archived September 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
41. ^ Al Gore Support Center Accomplishments Archive Archived July 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
42. ^ Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: "A Growing Business Movement".
43. ^ Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: "New Group to Galvanize Business Role in Combating AIDS, TB and Malaria" Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
44. ^ Kantor, Jodi (February 7, 2009). "Back on World Stage, a Larger-Than-Life Holbrooke". The New York Times. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
45. ^ Borger, Julian (December 14, 2010) Afghanistan after Holbrooke, The Guardian
46. ^ ^{a b} Corn, David (2010-12-14) Richard Holbrooke's Unfinished Business, Mother Jones
47. ^ "Membership List for the Trilateral Commission" (PDF)., September 2010, p. 13. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from www.trilateral.org
48. ^ "Membership List for the Trilateral Commission". May 19, 2010., May 2010, p. 13.
49. ^ Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: "GBC President and CEO Richard Holbrooke Heading to State Department".
50. ^ Council on Foreign Relations – Richard Holbrooke Archived July 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
51. ^ "The Colbert Report". Comedy Central. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
52. ^ Countrywide's Many 'Friends' Conde Nast Portfolio, June 12, 2008.
53. ^ "Richard C. Holbrooke's Diary of Disagreement With Obama Administration". The New York Times. April 23, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
54. Bilderberg Group. Archived from the original
    on February 2, 2014. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
55. ^ "Holbrooke: Iraq Will Be a Major UN Issue for Bush Administration". United States Diplomatic Mission to Italy. January 11, 2001. Archived from the original on January 25, 2009. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
56. ^ "Former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke Delivers Democratic Radio Address". Democratic National Committee. February 26, 2007. Archived from the original on March 9, 2007. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
57. ^ "Richard Holbrooke Weds Blythe Babyak". The New York Times. January 7, 1977. p. 56. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
58. ^ "Kati Marton's love stories: Paris, marriages to Peter Jennings and Richard Holbrooke, and a couple affairs". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
59. ^ Lee, Matthew (December 13, 2010). "US diplomat Richard Holbrooke dies". The Boston Globe. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
60. ^ ^{a b} Blackburn, Bradley (December 14, 2010). "Richard Holbrooke Dies After Suffering Aortic Dissection". ABC News. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
61. ^ Revisiting Holbrooke's Last Remarks, Robert Mackay, The New York Times, December 14, 2010.
62. ^ "Permanent Residents of Oakland Cemetery". Sag Harbor Partnership.org. Sag Harbor, NY: Sag harbor Partnership. Retrieved May 10, 2019.^{[permanent dead link]}
63. ^ Frank Rich (December 26, 2010). "Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?". The New York Times. p. WK14.
64. ^ "Honoring Holbrooke: 'Because We Could Make a Difference...'". White House. January 14, 2011. Retrieved November 6, 2021.
65. ^ "Memorial Service held at John F Kennedy Center C-SPAN". C-SPAN. January 14, 2011. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
66. ^ Rafer Guzman (October 23, 2014). "Volker Schlöndorff, German director of 'Diplomacy,' talks new film, summers in Amagansett". Newsday. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
67. American Academy of Achievement
    .
68. ^ "Obama Creates Award to Honor Richard Holbrooke". Courthouse News Service. January 19, 2011.

Further reading

Secondary sources

• Chollet, Derek H., and Samantha Power. (2011). The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World. New York: Public Affairs.
  ISBN 978-1610390781
  .
• Curran, Daniel, James K. Sebenius, and Michael Watkins. "Two Paths to Peace: Contrasting George Mitchell in Northern Ireland with Richard Holbrooke in Bosnia–Herzegovina." Negotiation Journal 20.4 (2004): 513-537. online
• Hartwell, Leon. Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process. Negotiation Journal. 35(4):443-469.
• ISBN 978 1 910702 92 5), London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 3 (February 6, 2020), pp. 23–25. Moyn concludes his review, on p. 25: "[Packer's book] Our Man may be the most vivid tour of America's foreign delusions that has been offered since the Vietnam War
  ."
• Packer, George (May 2019). "The End of the American Century: What the life of Richard Holbrooke tells us about the decay of Pax Americana". The Atlantic.
• Packer, George (September 28, 2009). "A Reporter at Large: The Last Mission". The New Yorker. Vol. 85, no. 30. pp. 38–55. Retrieved February 22, 2010. [Richard Holbrooke's plan to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam in Afghanistan].
• Packer, George. (2019). Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  ISBN 978-0307958020. Full-scale scholarly biography.*Bloomfield, Steve (May 2, 2019). "Our Man by George Packer review – Richard Holbrooke and American power"
  . The Guardian. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
• Powers, Thomas, "The Fog of Ambition" (review of George Packer, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, Knopf, 2019, 592 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 10 (June 6, 2019), pp. 12, 14–15. "Friends... told Holbrooke he was making a mistake to support the [Iraq] war [in 2003], but he chose the road of realism. To be against that war... he felt, would mark a man as soft... But that was a moment when the United States needed bucking up to say no to a rush to war. [I]t's hard not to feel... this was the moment that put the 'almost' in 'almost great.'" (p. 15.)
• David Rieff, "An American in the Treetops: Should we miss Richard Holbrooke?", Harper's Magazine, vol. 339, no. 2032 (September 2019), pp. 89–94. "Packer is content to sum up Holbrooke by deploying the fuzzy category of 'almost great' – which... obscures more than it clarifies. Holbrooke was not just an appalling human being but a diplomat whose accomplishments were actually quite modest." (p. 94.)

Primary sources

• The Principles of Peacemaking Holbrooke's address to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs conference on "Israel's Right to Secure Boundaries" on June 4, 2007

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richard Holbrooke.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Richard Holbrooke.

• Biography at the United States Department of State
• Writings and speeches at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Column archives at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Richard Holbrooke at
  The Asia Society
  • Interview by Nermeen Shaikh
  • Speech to an Asia Society Gala function On the occasion of the Society's 50th anniversary in 2006
• Richard Holbrooke at Aljazeera
• Richard Holbrooke, veteran US diplomat, dies at BBC News with obituary and tributes
  • Bulldozer of the Balkans, BBC News, 1998
• Richard C. Holbrooke, 1941–2010 Archived September 5, 2014, at the
  Foreign Policy
• Richard Holbrooke at The Guardian
• Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) at The New Republic
• Richard C. Holbrooke at The New York Times
• Richard Holbrooke Obituary at The Daily Telegraph
• Remembering Ambassador Richard Holbrooke at Time
• Holbrooke's Overlooked Record in East Timor, Iraq and the Balkans – video report by Democracy Now!
• Charlie Rose: An Appreciation of Richard Holbrooke December 14, 2010
• Richard Holbrooke at Find a Grave

Political offices
Preceded by Arthur Hummel	Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs 1977–1981	Succeeded by John Holdridge
Preceded by Stephen Oxman	Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs 1994–1996	Succeeded by John Kornblum
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Robert Kimmitt	United States Ambassador to Germany 1993–1994	Succeeded by Charles Redman
Preceded by Peter Burleigh Acting	United States Ambassador to the United Nations 1999–2001	Succeeded by John Negroponte
New office	United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan 2009–2010	Succeeded by Marc Grossman