Richard Holbrooke

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Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (born April 24, 1941) is an American diplomat, magazine editor, author, Peace Corps official, and investment banker. He is also the only person to have held the Assistant Secretary of State position for two different regions of the world (Asia and Europe).

Although long well-known in diplomatic and journalistic circles, Holbrooke achieved great public prominence only when he brokered a peace agreement among the warring factions in Bosnia that led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, in 1995.

Although he lost out to Madeleine Albright in 1997 when Bill Clinton chose a replacement for Warren Christopher as Secretary of State, Holbrooke is still seen as a leading contender for that post in any future Democratic administration. He was an advisor to the Presidential campaign of John Kerry in 2004. Perhaps more hawkish than most Democrats, Holbrooke has a very aggressive style that some find off-putting. Others find him an effective, hard-nosed negotiator.

On February 24, 2006 he called for US withdrawal of troops from Iraq.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Current Activities 2 Chronology 3 Books 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Current Activities

Holbrooke is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Citizens Committee for New York City, and the Economic Club of New York. He is on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and is Chairman of Refugees International. He is also the Founding Chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, and honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum. He is a professor-at-large at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, his alma mater.

He is vice chairman of Perseus LLC, a leading private equity firm. In addition, he is a board member of American International Group and is the chairman of the executive committee of the Asia Society. He has had a long association with the Rockefeller family, going back to 1972 when he was invited to the family's Williamsburg Conference in Jakarta by the Asia Society founder, John D. Rockefeller 3rd.[1]

He has also served as vice chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston, managing director of Lehman Brothers, managing editor of Foreign Policy, and director of the Peace Corps in Morocco. He has received seven Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

He has written numerous articles and two books: To End A War, and the co-author of Counsel to the President, and one volume of the Pentagon Papers. He has received more than a dozen honorary degrees, including a LL.D. from Bates College in 1999. As of 2005, he writes a monthly column for The Washington Post.

On March 20th, 2007 he appeared on The Colbert Report to mediate in what Stephen Colbert (or rather, his television alter-ego) saw as Willie Nelson infringing on his ice cream flavor time. Mr. Holbrooke was the 'ambassador on call' and after a short mediation process the two parties agreed to taste each other's Ben and Jerry's ice cream to make amends. He subsequently sang in a trio with Colbert and Nelson.

Ambassador Holbrooke has two sons. He is currently married to Kati Marton, an author and journalist. This is the third marriage for Holbrooke and the fourth for Marton.

[edit] Chronology

• 1962 - Graduates from Brown University; enters U.S. Foreign Service
• 1962-1966 - Vietnam: diplomatic service as a provincial representative for the Agency for International Development (AID), then Ambassadors' staff assistant to Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge.
• 1966 - White House: Vietnam staff of President Lyndon Johnson
• 1967-1969 - Special assistant to Under Secretaries of State Nicholas Katzenbach and Elliot Richardson; writes one volume of the Pentagon Papers
• 1967-1969 - Member of the American Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam
• 1969-1970 - Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University
• 1970 - Peace Corps: Director in Morocco
• 1972 - Resigns from Foreign Service
• 1972-1976 - Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine
• 1974-1975 - Consultant to the President's Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy
• 1974-1975 - Contributing editor of Newsweek magazine
• 1976 - Co-ordinates National Security Affairs for the Carter presidential campaign.
• 1977-1981 - Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (as the U.S. switches full diplomatic relations to the People's Republic of China from the Republic of China)
• 1981 - A consultant at Lehman Brothers, eventually becoming full-time Managing Director
• 1992 - Member of the Carnegie Commission on America and a Changing World
• 1992 - Chairman and principal author of the bipartisan Commission on Government and Renewal, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation and the Peterson Institute (formerly the Institute for International Economics)
• 1993 - U.S. Ambassador to Germany
• 1994-1996 - Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs
• 1995 - Leads the American team negotiating the Bosnian Peace Accords at Dayton
• 1996 - Awarded the Manfred Wörner Medall
• 1997 - President Clinton's special envoy to Cyprus
• 1997 - Responsible for business development in Europe and the Far East for Credit Suisse First Boston
• 1999-2001 - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
• 2001 - Counselor at the Council on Foreign Relations; chairman of its Terrorism Task Force.
• 2001 - Appointed director of Rockville, MD, company Human Genome Sciences, Inc (Nasdaq: HGSI)
• 2001 - Appointed President & CEO, Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS
• 2002 - Awarded Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (Germany)
• 2002 - In October he became Executive Committee Chairman of the Asia Society.
• 2007 - Appears on The Colbert Report to broker peace between Willie Nelson and Stephen Colbert.

[edit] Books

• "Counsel to the President" (with Clark Clifford) ISBN 0-394-56995-4
• "To End a War" ISBN 0-375-75360-5

[edit] See also

• David Rockefeller
• Rockefeller family
• Asia Society
• Council on Foreign Relations

[edit] External links

• Council on Foreign Relations: Biographical information
• Interview with Richard Holbrooke by Nermeen Shaikh at Asia Society.
• Richard Holbrooke profile, NNDB.
• Richard Holbrooke Bio at Greater Talent Network (Speakers Bureau)
• Mother Jones Article on Holbrooke's Involvement in East Timor
• Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
• Speech to an Asia Society Gala function On the occasion of the Society's 50th anniversary in 2006.

Preceded by Robert Michael Kimmitt	United States Ambassador to Germany 1993 – 1994	Succeeded by Charles E. Redman
Preceded by Bill Richardson	U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. 1999 – 2001	Succeeded by John D. Negroponte

United States Ambassadors to the United Nations	↓
Stettinius • Johnson* • Austin • Lodge • Wadsworth • Stevenson • Goldberg • Ball • Wiggins • Yost • Bush • Scali • Moynihan • Scranton • Young • McHenry • Kirkpatrick • Walters • Pickering • Perkins • Albright • Richardson • Burleigh* • Holbrooke • Cunningham* • Negroponte • Danforth • Patterson* • Bolton • Wolff* *denotes acting