From the early years of US involvement in Vietnam to the latter stages of the war on terror, the remarkable career of Richard Holbrooke spanned almost half a century before coming to a dramatic end just before Christmas 2010. Holbrooke was already something of a dying breed – a celebrity diplomat and hyperactive emblem of the Pax Americana that had emerged out of the Second World War but was already entering its twilight years. At a meeting with his boss, then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan – a position that he had insisted on naming himself so that everyone knew it was a rank above a mere “special envoy” – became breathless and turned such a fierce bright red that it was immediately clear to everyone in the festively decorated room that something was terribly wrong.
An internal fury had been bubbling inside him for months, caused by a life of frustrated ambition and the realisation that no one in the Obama administration cared much for his counsel. Years of fast living, air travel and stodgy diplomatic dinners had also taken their toll on this 6ft 1in barrel-chested missionary for the idea of the American superpower as a force for good in the world. The terrible pain that Holbrooke felt in his chest was from the tearing of his aorta: his heart was literally breaking apart. Even in his last moments, as doctors prepared to rush him to surgery, he became an almost cartoonish version of himself – barking quick-fire instructions to his staff, flirting with the medical attendees and insisting that he could not possibly die because he still had much work in the world to complete. Who else, after all, but the broker of the Dayton peace agreement of 1995 – when Holbrooke had browbeaten the warlords of the Balkans into agreeing an imperfect but much-lauded peace – was going to end the “forever war” in Afghanistan?
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