With the passing of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration has lost not only a key player on its Afghanistan-Pakistan policy team, but also a link to the U.S. experience in Vietnam, says Susan Glasser, editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine.
Glasser was the last person to have lunch with Holbrooke; she met him for sushi in the State Department cafeteria the day before he fell ill. Holbrooke, whose last post was as the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, died at age 69 on Dec. 13, after emergency surgery for a torn aorta.
The Last Living Link
Holbrooke served under every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy. His storied career also included a five-year stint as the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine in the early 1970s.
When he joined the Obama administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy team in 2009, Glasser says, Holbrooke harkened back to his years as a young diplomat in Vietnam.
"In a way, this was the last guy who brought that living experience of Vietnam into the Afghanistan [team]," she says. "I think he desperately wanted to be able to find the solution that would bring us out of Afghanistan. Obviously, that didn't happen."
While he publicly disagreed with comparisons of the conflict in Afghanistan with the Vietnam War, Glasser says that Holbrooke would often make the connection privately.
"He didn't have some out-there notion that things were going well in Afghanistan. He was very clear about the terrible situation and the terrible bind that the U.S. found itself in," Glasser says.
For The Love Of The Game
In 1977, Jimmy Carter chose Holbrooke as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, making him, at 36, the youngest the serve in that job.
"Pride did not stop him from becoming an assistant secretary again under President Clinton," Glasser says.
When Glasser made a recent visit to the State Department, she says, Holbrooke gave her a tour of what he called the "worst offices he had since he worked at Foreign Policy."
They would be the last offices of the career diplomat, whom Glasser describes as "a guy who loved being in the game."
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