Richard Holbrooke
Richard Holbrooke, a U.S. diplomat and Foreign Service Officer, currently special envoy to South asia, including Afghanistan, India and Pakistan for the Obama administration. In the past, he had a major role in negotiating the Dayton peace accords for the Balkans.
In the past, he was Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador to Germany, and an Assistant Secretary of State.
He will also be visiting India as part of the Pakistan mission, although Kashmir is outside his scope.
Europe and the Balkans
In the Clinton Administration, he was named Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. He was the lead negotiator of 1995 Dayton peace agreement for the Balkans.
He was Ambassador to the United Nations from 1999 to 2001.
Middle years
After the Vietnam years, he spent a year as a fellow at Princeton University, and then became Peace Corps Director in Morocco.
In 1972, he resigned from the Foreign Service to become Managing Editor of the quarterly magazine Foreign Policy. He consulted, in 1974-1975, to the President's Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy
In 1976, he was a foreign affairs advisor for the Carter-Mondale presidential campaign. After Carter took office, he became Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
After the Carter Administration, Holbrooke went into industry and eventually became Managing Director at Lehman Brothers.
Early career
After graduation from Brown University, he began his diplomatic career in 1962, serving in Vietnam. After language training, he was a provincial representative for the Agency for International Development (AID), and then an assistant to Ambassadors Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.. In 1966 he was re-assigned to the White House, working on the Vietnam staff of President Johnson. In 1967-69, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, served as a special assistant to Under Secretaries of State Nicholas Katzenbach and Elliot Richardson, and simultaneously served as a member of the American Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks.