o night divine ♪ ♪ o night o holy night ♪ >> larry: susan boyle with "o holy night" from her new album "the gift." good evening. i'm kathleen parker. >> i'm eliot spitzer. breaking news this evening. we are sad to announce richard holbrooke the obama administration's special representative for afghanistan and pakistan has died tonight after suffering a torn aorta at the state department on friday. holbrooke, 69, is best remembered for having brokered the peace agreement between warring bosnian factions in 1995.

we'll go to jill dougherty live at the state department for more. >> reporter: well, the latest confirmed by a senior administration official that ambassador holbrooke did die today. remember that it happened last week. here at the state department. and he has been in the hospital over the past weekend and today numerous surgeries. in fact, about 20 hours of surgery. but eventually he did seccumb. we're told by people who were with him that he put up a very, very good, strong fight but in the end this extremely strong man and one of the giants of american diplomacy has died. the coincidence was that here at the state department today, you know, they had a holiday party, president obama here, secretary clinton, and both of them making very strong and heart felt

comments about dick holbrooke and his 50 years, nearly 50 years in diplomacy going way back to the vietnam war and then to the dayton peace accords. a man who is able to sit down and really take it to the person on the other side. in fact, many people have said that richard holbrooke was a man they wouldn't want to have to face in negotiations. he was extremely strong and also very intelligent in the way he approached things. and also, over the past couple of years, when he was asked by president obama and secretary clinton to come back and work here as a special representative on afghanistan and pakistan, something that he really didn't have to do after this distinguished career, that he -- he went out to the field, traveling to afghanistan, traveling to pakistan, over the past couple of years, out in remote areas, literally in his boots, and then in offices, meeting with those officials in other countries and pulling together this strategy, which is

really the so-called afpac strategy. he was the architect of that. >> you know, he is a man of over powering intellect who was relentless in everything he did. perhaps among his accomplishments the one that stands out that will be forever remembered is being so overwhelmingly difficult was the dayton accords that resolved the bosnia disputes. that was almost a miracle that he pulled out of thin air. how is that viewed among the diplomatic world? >> it's really the keystone you'd have to stay of an intensely difficult negotiation that he was able to sit across the table from slobodan milosevic and really pull something together that nobody really thought possible but with the force of will and also with the very compelling argument he was able to do that. he wanted to do that in afghanistan but he pointed out that it's a very difficult thing

to compare those two, because as he pointed out, there is no slobodan milosevic to negotiate with. there is no army, no country when you're dealing with afghanistan and terrorism in afghanistan. that's what makes it very difficult. but this man who goes all the way back to the vietnam war took everything that he had learned from that conflict and from other conflicts, bosnia, etcetera, and tried to apply them to what is going on now in afghanistan. and that was one mission, perhaps, that he was not able to accomplish but he certainly gave it his all. >> well, jill, richard holbrooke was known to be tough and straight forward and sometimes that approach worked well and sometimes it didn't work so well. what was his relationship like with hamid karzai? >> reporter: sometimes rocky, but he was able to accomplish something at least. they were able to communicate. but there were some rocky periods. even some of the people who work with him said that it was tough.

he was very demanding. and some of them, only i would say the strong survived in that. he did not suffer fools lightly and he really wanted to push ahead. and dealing with the media, you know, we were on many press planes with him and he would come back and knew everybody by name. he was always interested in talking to the media, getting his message out and he had a force of character. very tall, impressive physically impressive person who had a lot of charisma and influence when he came into a room. >> you know, jill, thank you so much. we may come back to you over the course of this hour. a very, very sad story. we happen to have an interview with richard holbrooke that was conducted by larry king not long ago about his relationship with president karzai of afghanistan. let's take a listen and look to see how he described it. >> is this your toughest effort ever? you've had a few. >> yeah. i mean, i don't think there's ever been a negotiation that was any more difficult than this one.

48 hours with almost no sleep, people dying. incredible pressure. the europeans going crazy on us from time to time. three parties instead of two. croats, muslims, and serbs. it was really something. >> of course, that obviously was about the dayton accords not his relationship with president karzai and as difficult as the dayton accords were perhaps the last task he tried to handle trying to bring peace to afghanistan was until now at least a burden that nobody has been able to figure out. joining us to talk about richard holbrooke and his extraordinary career cnn's political analyst david gergen, jeff toobin and jamey rubin former state department spokesman. all of you know richard holbrooke and worked with him. david, you knew richard for many years. what are your thoughts? >> he was larger than life. it's almost unimaginable not to have him in american foreign policy at the center of things.

because he was this sort of force of nature. you know, he was to diplomacy what lyndon johnson was to politics. you know, you have this sense of we're just not going to meet this kind of guy again. it is extremely sad because i just thought he was indestructible. he was being groomed for so long to be secretary of state. >> he was also quite colorful. >> yeah, he was wonderfully colorful. and he always -- he always had this sort of inside, he would take you inside the inner sanctum of things and tell you things. he was extremely analytical at the same time and he lived for diplomacy. everything else in life was waiting. he always liked to be out there in the action. when he was on wall street, his heart was in. >> it takes a certain kind of personality to be a diplomat and to be drawn to that field. what was it about his life that made him want to do that? >> well, i think richard had

many qualities, many of them have been mentioned in the last few minutes, but i think what's so far hasn't been said is that he really saw the united states as a force for good in the world and that i remember getting to know him very well over the issue of bosnia, his finest diplomatic achievement, people have mentioned the architect of the dayton accords. but, you know, he got engaged on bosnia when he was out of office, when he was working for the international rescue committee and like many of us he had visited bosnia during the height of the genocide that was going on there and he saw an opportunity for the united states to change the perceptions of our country because he realized that bosnia was a cause that was worth fighting for, that was worth putting the full force of american diplomacy and backed ultimately by military force on behalf of these innocent victims who represented something unique -- people who

-- the bosnians who didn't fight on behalf of, you know, they had serbs and bosnians and croats and were trying to demonstrate a high culture in bosnia and what richard did, i think, better than any of the diplomats that i ever came into contact with, was he had the power of the historical analogy. sometimes, you know, you felt you were living -- reliving vietnam when you were in a room with him and he was describing a particular battle or a particular negotiation. you know, he really lived the vietnam and i think he even coined a phrase that became quite popular in the clinton years, the viet-molia syndrome, the idea that after somalia and vietnam the united states was very reluctant to get engaged in the world because of the risk of casualty, something that obviously 9/11 changed.

but the historical analogy was what richard put to enormous use in this diplomacy that he performed so brilliantly. >> he was a young foreign service officer in saigon and that i think was the formative experience of his life. he was such an erudite man. in addition, he was the coauthor of clark clifford's memoir, the great diplomat man about washington dissenter on the vietnam war. i thought it was so interesting. here was a guy who was really a powerful figure at the time, stands back and is the coauthor of someone else's memoir because he wanted to know how diplomacy had been conducted through the 1950s and 1960s. >> jamie i think your point about the dayton accord in bosnia, it was not a popular cause. it was a cause the public nan fact washington needed to be brought to because of the humanitarian argument. i think you are right he understood there was something good at a very fundamental, humanitarian level that could be done there and you lived that with him. >> yes, i did. i worked for madeline albright and although everyone probably

knows they didn't always agree on procedure, what they agreed on was the policy and the idea that the united states had a special role in the world. this was at a time when people were looking inward, when bosnia received no support, the military operation there from republicans. they voted it down, frankly. the david, i think you were in the state department around then when they voted down the idea of peacekeeping for bosnia and what richard understood was not only the history of u.s./soviet relations that affected this former yugoslavia but also this was an opportunity to set a new framework for american foreign policy after the cold war. there were ethnic conflicts in yugoslavia. there were some in other parts of the world. and i think this combination of history and substance and diplomacy and backed by force if necessary and all of the many other qualities, that was what was special about richard.

he could do an enormous number of things at the same time, talking to people at the same time, phone calls at the sim time. flattering one person and perhaps being a little tougher on the other. >> the clintons, bill and hillary clinton, both recognized this was an enormous talent and whenever there was sort of like a really tough problem, where's holbrooke? president obama called him today, one tough son of a gun. that is exactly what he was. i remember so well when he was -- because of his vietnam experience he was really a far east specialist. that's the area of the world -- >> the youngest assistant secretary for east asia. >> and i had a call from president clinton early none his administration saying, i want to talk to you about the future. i want to talk to you about the future of dick holbrooke. he's been in the far east. that is obviously where we

should send him. what about sending him to germany? because if he goes to germany it'll be a learning experience. he'll know another part of the world and it will prepare him for his future. >> and he became ambassador to germany, yet another extraordinary chapter in his life. >> his resume is clear, not that his resume even speaks to his mass of intellect, ambassador to united nations, germany, assistant secretary in two regions of the world but the ambassador to the entire world because of the depth of his knowledge and it was just remarkable. he understood that this was not just u.s./russia or u.s./china. there were so many other conflicts that could through mediation, use of force, trade, good resolutions could be brought to the forum. that's what he did over and over again. >> yes. and i think even while out of government through the international rescue committee which he worked very, very hard at, through any number of written articles or tv appearances, richard was someone who really believed that the united states had to stay engaged in the world.

that american diplomacy was unique. and i remember during the dayton accords the thing that he showed a lot of people is that we could keep russia and europe consulted with but it really required american leadership if we were going to get this done for so many years before that people said oh, bosnia, let's let the europeans take care of it. jim baker famously said we don't have a dog in that fight. that's up to the europeans. what richard understood was as madeline albright called it the united states as the indispensable nation. without american involvement, engagement, and the word intense, is probably the word i would most associate with richard. he always had a way of making you feel that the issue he was working on was the most intense issue in the world. i remember there were city after city he said, this is the most dangerous city in the world today was a particular city in

croatia or a particular city in bosnia. >> it's worth mentioning. there was another side to dick holbrooke and his marriage to connie martin was really one of the romance stories. >> yes. >> the two of them really had a special relationship that i think brought him enormous sense of satisfaction. >> they were in a certain sense at the center of the entire social circuit among what i would call the council on foreign relations, erudites, smart thinkers who to a certain extent these days are being derided but they were the ones who would run american foreign policy, understood our role in the world but exceptionalism. it is there. we're going to continue with our guests in a minute. we have to take a quick break. we'll be right back. >> in regard to afghanistan, here is a country which -- in which both india and pakistan have interests and unless those interests can be brought into symmetry and that symmetry aligned with the afghans, this

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we are back with jeff toobin, jamie rueben, and david gergen but before we return to our conversation about the horrendous news of dick

holbrooke's death let's go over to dick robinson over in kabul a cnn senior international correspondent. can you hear us? >> reporter: yes. i hear you just fine. thank you. >> obviously this horrendous news for anybody who ever knew richard holbrooke or worked with him or cares about american diplomacy. when was ambassador holbrooke last over in afghanistan and what was his mission and how was he accomplishing so much over there? >> reporter: well, he was last here just over a month or so ago, 25th of october. his mission here in his own words as he said was a hugely challenging one not just encompassing afghanistan but pakistan as well and the very fact that he had that sort of twin job if you will was recognition of the fact that the two countries as he's also said were there -- the futures are so intertwined and their problems are so intractable in many ways and he certainly recognized that. his style of diplomacy, his

level of knowledge of detail, his level of knowledge of history was what he brought to bear here. they could be and still remain for diplomats here some very tough meetings with president karzai, tougher, perhaps, in the last few years, tougher since richard holbrooke took over his position here. his job to cajole the afghan government towards less corruption, towards better governance, towards a better position with pakistan could perhaps really the results of that be seen just a few weeks ago. president karzai meeting here with the prime minister of pakistan, coming here to kabul. that kind of meeting was exactly what richard holbrooke was pushing these two countries towards to align their interests better, to have a better relationship. but he was in no doubt and no one here has any doubt at all how tough it is to push forward. but his persuasive powers, his ability to essentially stare

tough lead ners the ers in the face and tell them tough things with the skills that he brought here, it is going to be a very sad day that the people of kabul wake up to here. in particular president karzai who sent messages to richard holbrooke's family just in the last few days. >> as you have intimated it was always not an easy relationship with president karzai because ambassador holbrooke was pushing relentlessly on the issue of corruption within the afghanistan government but even before that it was ambassador holbrooke who envisioned that this was an issue that was not just afghanistan or pakistan. he put the two together and said, look. this is both of these countries intertwined, interwoven. there is no solution in one without getting some resolution in the other as well. that was his strategic vision for the region. >> yes. and he was also criticized when he initially took the job here because he also believed that he needed to listen to what india

was going to say and made trips to india as well to learn their position and understand their position. of course that was a very prickly issue for pakistan. this is why he, perhaps, faced so much criticism from pakistan and also from afghans as well from the afghan leadership. the skills that have brought him so far in his diplomacy, his very tough position when he need to be tough. the afghans of course liked to sit around and talk a lot. people joke about three cups of tea. people joke about 14 cups of tea. that style of long-term talking discussing, listening, often not really coming to a conclusion was a very tough style for richard holbrooke to get to know him but being a consummate

diplomat, that is what he brought with him. but of course it did rough people up the wrong way here at times. that was a skill that he was -- he was learning on the job here to deal with politicians in this part of the world. >> nick, thank you so much. i know it must be the middle of the night over in kabul. thank you for joining us tonight. i want to ask the table, what was mr. holbrooke accomplishing in pakistan? how was he doing in that part of the world? >> well, i think that what richard's primary objective in that part of the world was to try to combine and work closely with the u.s. military. i think he recognized that the key actor right now is general petraeus and what you'll find is admiral mullen went to the hospital and richard and general petraeus developed an extremely good working relationship from the beginning. they respected him. they knew him from bosnia. and he understood that in order to be successful there he had to ensure that the civilian component tried to work with the military component and it wasn't easy. i think everyone from secretary

gates to secretary clinton to the president has acknowledged our civilian capacity is rather thin as compared to the military capacity and richard was trying to chin thaup t up, one day working on new crops instead of drugs, the other day working on getting salaries of afghan police and military transferred by cell phone rather than having people leave their jobs as police and military officers and have to go back to their families and get money and deliver money. so everything from the meetings with the president of pakistan and the president of afghanistan he had a very good working relationship with but also had to do all of these incredible civilian things -- agriculture, financial transfers, civilian police, and all of the different elements that make up the civilian -- >> well, it's quite a juggling job. >> yes. >> i think jamie's call is

exactly right. i would just add i think he experienced enormous frustrations not only over there but here because he really did want to put in far more sort of civilian side and he developed this good relationship with petraeus but he believed you had to build up the civilian side and he got cut off a lot here with this congress and it was -- this is the most frustrating job i think he ever had. and he poured himself into it. i'll always wonder whether the demands of this traveling back and forth, the intensity he brought, whether he was a casualty of the afghan war. >> you know, jeff, we are hearing so much and i think jamie is right and david as well he is somebody whose talents were so deep and came from so many different areas, he appreciated that duality, civilian, ambassador efforts, military, he meshed all of these pieces in a way very few people have been able to do. >> he did and one of the worst

kept secrets in washington and new york was richard holbrooke wanted to be secretary of state and he never did. he wanted to be in the clinton administration. certainly if al gore had won in 2000 almost certainly woe have been secretary of state. certainly in the campaign of 2008 he was positioning himself and he never did. but it always struck me that having been disappointed, in that quest, he didn't go off and sulk. he joined the clinton administration and the obama administration at levels that someone of his stature might easily have said, you know, that's beneath me. instead, he got into this extraordinary work. my colleague at the new yorker, george packer, did a profile of holbrooke where he traveled to afghanistan with him and the difficulty of just getting around afghanistan, you know, david, what you said about what that did to him physically, you know, he was a big man. he probably could have lost a few pounds. he -- the physical cost of going in these small planes, very dangerous conditions, it's a lot. >> i think that speaks to what jamie referred to before. he actually believed there was

something overwhelmingly powerful, important, and good that came out of all of this which is the presence of u.s. diplomacy. we're joined now by retired general wesley clark who worked with ambassador holbrooke for many, many years. general, thank you for joining us. can you hear us? >> yes, i can. and i have to say, listening to the panel, it is a tremendous shock and a great loss to the united states and to people all over the world to lose richard holbrooke. he was as david said a force larger than life. he had a tremendous intellect. he had an enormous grasp of the issues. he had a keen sense for humanity. he really epitomized everything that was great and good about american diplomacy and about the united states of america. >> general, when did you last see mr. holbrooke? >> in july. at long island. and he was -- it was during the time that there were a lot of difficulties in pakistan. he was back in the united states and he was very anxious to get

back into the region and get engaged. >> this is david gergen. i'm just curious about what he really felt about the afghan war. did he think it was winnable or did he think we really needed to adjust our sights there? >> well, i think that that's going to come out over time. but i will tell you this. that he put his heart and soul into it. and i don't think, you know, when richard holbrooke started to do something, he put everything else aside and worked on it. and this was something he passionately worked on ab nd believed in trying to help us all. >> can you tell us his honest opinions about pakistan? >> i can't tell you that. >> you can but you'd have to kill me? >> i can't tell you this but i am going to tell you what you haven't given him credit for and that is that he had a tremendous vision of what europe was all

about. it was richard holbrooke who pushed for nato enlargement. on labor day weekend of 1994, he was with the vice president. he was in berlin. and the cables flew back and forth. it was richard holbrooke against half the state department and all of the pentagon and richard holbrooke won and the united states policy shifted from no nato enlargement to support nato enlargement. and of all the things he did, including peace in the balkans, maybe in the long term, the vision he had for u.s. diplomacy and leadership was the most powerful gift that he left us with. and it was epitomized in the process of nato enlargement, which is now seeing nato basically sweep across eastern europe and provide security for 27 nations. >> and to build on that point it wasn't just that nato as an alliance expanded, it is an alliance that believed in democracy and spread of economic system that has brought millions and millions of people under the core values as jamie said that the united states believes in. this is diplomacy that has had a

genuine impact on an enormous part of the world. >> i think it's not just that richard holbrooke was a problem solver. he was certainly that but he was a real visionary. i can tell you from working side by side with him on some terrible problems that he always could step back from the problem. he could always write the cable. he could cast it in ways that communicated exactly what the issues were, that put the right recommendations in front of national leaders. he communicated to nato. he communicated to the white house during the balkans engagement that we had and of course to the parties in the region. he was simply an outstanding, outstanding leader. not just a diplomat. he was a leader. he had a vision. he had a force about him. and i can tell you that for the rest of us that were on the team that we were in awe of what he delivered, his capacity for hard work, and the kind of man that he was. he was absolutely a real leader. >> wes, i was trying to recall.

he cared deeply for the people around him. i was trying to recall the incident when he was out either on a caravan or a mission when one of the vehicles went off the road. >> tell that story, wes. that is an amazing story. >> it was the last week of august of 1995 and we had visited slobodan milosevic and we had to go then into sarajevo and it was under siege and we had asked milosevic to assure us safe passage through the serb forces. he called the general and came back and told us he couldn't give us that promise so we took u.n. helicopters and landed on top of this big mountain overlooking sarajevo. and the american mission had sent a major in a humvee for me and then they sent a french armored car for everybody else. i got richard in the humvee with me. the other members of our team

went into the french armored car and it broke through a shoulder of the road coming off mount igmund, rolled a quarter mile down. we were -- dick and i were frantic. he was speaking french to the french forces that were around there. small arms was going off. these people were mangled in the road down. it was just a terrible, tragic loss. and yet, you know, he put the team back together and we went back and did the job that president clinton assigned us to do. >> wes, jamie rueben here. i know you accompanied ambassador holbrooke on some of his crucial missions to milosovic and maybe you could give the world a sense of how powerfully he used the imagery of the military to add to american diplomacy. >> well, he always liked to have a military guy with him and wherever he was, he liked to be able to display america's military power and then get into

the reasoning of it. and so i was along, general don carrick was along. jim pardu who at the time was an army colonel assigned to the office of the secretary of defense was along. before that colonel nelson drew was along. so we always had a good military team around him and we could always make the connection back so if we needed a demonstration of american power, a fly over or a bombing campaign, we were immediately connected. richard holbrooke didn't do things that were unconnected. he was always tied in with the brass, state department, pentagon, white house, and that was really the -- one of the keys to his success and one of the hallmarks of his operating style is he was no lone ranger. he was a real -- a point man for a full american team. >> all right. thank you, general clarks, for sharing those stories and insights with us. we'll now turn to cnn's dr.

sanjay gupta calling us from atlanta at the university hospital. can jay, sanjay, can you hear us? >> yes. >> thanks for joining us. what can you tell us about ambassador holbrooke's medical condition? >> reporter: this is a condition of the large blood vessel that leads away from the heart. it's different from having heart surgery, for example, people think of when someone has chest pain, this is typically caused by a blockage of one of the blood vessels in the heart. this is something different. this is an aortac section or tear. the blood sort of gets into the wall of the aorta, itself, as opposed to going and giving blood to the rest of the body.

what i heard is that he had chest pain but was able to walk out of the office during his meeting and started to have significant trouble after that. that's typically as a result of the blood that's supposed to be giving oxygen to the rest of the body. simply not being able to do that anymore. and then the operation that you heard about 20, 21 hours friday and into the morning on saturday is basically to find that area of the blood vessel that is dissected or torn and repair it. it has to be done very quickly because the longer you wait obviously the longer the rest of the body is going without blood. and it is a medical, surgical emergency when something like this occurs. many patients able to even make it to the hospital because it happened just so quickly and the impact is so severe so quickly but patients who do get to the hospital often need these major surgeries to try and repair that. you know, in the interim, if organs in the body did not get enough blood flow, the heart started to fail as a result of that, the tragic outcome we're

hearing about today. >> sanjay, what is it that will cause a tear of this sort? what is the triggering factor? >> it's a great question. what we know more than anything else, seems to be hypertension, eliot. that's the far and away number one, number two, and number three cause is hypertension or high blood pressure. typically occurs in men more so than women. it tends to occur in people around this age. you know, in their 50s or 60s. he is 69 years old. and it's just typically a result of someone having hypertension for many years, think of the wall of the major blood vessels being damaged over time and it may not be -- >> i think we're losing -- >> -- when that major problem occurs it's the blood getting into the aorta again. 50s and 60s, typically men and high blood pressure being the concern. >> sanjay, this is david gergen.

with that hypertension, high blood pressure, would it come from a really demanding job? the nature of the work in which he was doing, the traveling he was doing extraordinary pressures he was under, do you think they probably contributed significantly to his condition? >> you know, in all the time when you think about the sort of relating stress to a problem like this, i think certainly doctors say it could contribute to the extent that being a hard driven person, being type a to some extent, can actually cause you to be more likely to have hypertension, it's also something that's controllable. so i would say you have people who have extremely high, demanding jobs who will never have a problem like this. and people who don't who still have a problem like this. a hypertension can occur in isolation like that. could it make it worse? perhaps. i think that high blood pressure alone is a significant risk factor and that can occur in any

segment of the population. >> all right. sanjay sanjay, thank you so much for joining us. >> all right. >> we'll take a short break and when we come back we'll be here with our panel to talk about the unfortunate news of the passing of richard holbrooke. we'll be right back what we're seeing here at this training center is without doubt the most important thing going on in afghanistan on the security front. to train the army and the police to take over responsibility for their country's own security is number one long-term priority. it'll take a while but what i've seen here today with my friends and the italian guard and other nationalities here is the most important thing.

in regard to afghanistan here is a country in which both india and pakistan have interests and unless those interests can be brought into symmetry and that symmetry aligned with the afghans, this war could go on indefinitely so it has to be addressed.

>> we're going to now speak with the former u.s. ambassador, a diplomat, who served in afghanistan and was a close friend of ambassador richard holbrooke. can you hear us, peter? >> yes, i can. >> please tell us your thoughts. you were a very close friend of ambassador holbrooke's. >> this is a very sad moment and the loss is one for his family and friends but it's a loss for the country. there's no more -- with no more difficult place in the world than pakistan and afghanistan, and holbrooke brought to it enormous energy. he was able to mobilize resources in a way that nobody else in the u.s. government can recruiting a top notch staff and that's an important part of diplomacy. getting people into the field in both pakistan and afghanistan. he developed a contact group with 40 or 50 different countries to support the u.s. effort to keep them informed and

he was able also to work with the different parts of the u.s. government, the different elements of the state department, defense department, the white house, the congress. he really, what he was was a masterful, three-dimensional chess player and that's what made him so effective. but there is something else about him. i think this is really important. at the same time he had a real moral compass. he cared deeply about corruption in afghanistan. but perhaps this was most -- the most physical case was bosnia. he went to bosnia at the beginning of the war. people weren't going there then. he went to a terrible concentration camp. this was as a private citizen. and his view of that country was very much colored by that experience. and i've been there at the same time in '92. we often talked about it. and that moral purpose is what

also drove him to want to be involved in bosnia. he was ambassador to germany. he didn't need to be. and to try and force the u.s. government to do something about a genocide in europe and circumstances where the europeans were helpless and so many in the u.s. government didn't want to do anything. so his greatest achievement was not only negotiating the end of the war in bosnia but also getting our own country to want to do something about it. >> you know, peter, it is so important you're raising these aspects of his personality because secretary clinton's statement that she issued this evening about ambassador holbrooke reads in the first sentence, tonight america lost one of its fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants and the fierceness and energy and determination that he brought to every controversy and every effort of diplomacy is often what garnered the attention that the humanitarian purpose underlying it which jamie also has been focusing on is really what motivated and

kept him going with the energy that really dominated his personality and it's just so critical that we remember that as he was a diplomat who did everything that mattered. >> peter, you, like i, have spent a lot of time with his family and i know when they talked about what they were proudest of their father, for example, one of his sons doing, was not all this diplomacy and all of this intergovernmental stuff that we're talking about was that particularly in bosnia and through his work in the international rescue committee that their father really believed in helping people and that through his efforts along with the clinton administration hundreds of thousands of people are alive today that might not otherwise be alive in bosnia and kosovo and i know, peter, you worked with him on that and had opportunity to talk to him about that. >> that's right. in fact, when he went to this concentration camp in which several thousand men were sleeping on the floors in the cold weather of dairy sheds with shaved heads, i mean it really was a scene that could have been out of world war ii. a man gave him a sculpture, a

little piece of wood he had carved. and richard treasured that. he had it with him. he wrote an article in the "new york times" magazine about it and about the man and about what he had witnessed. there was a real sense of a real moral courting which -- as you know, in washington people are always playing the game who's on top and who's not? you know, he was resented for the number of times he was on television by so many people. but it was this other dimension that was incredibly important and you speak of his family. what he was most proud of for his sons was the humanitarian work they did and the legacy they continued. >> if i could just add he was a wonderful writer in addition to

everything else and he wrote a terrific memoir of his period that led up to the dayton accords called "to end a war." it tells some of the stories we've talked about tonight including this incredible story that wes clark talked about where one of the two cars in the caravan went over the cliff and everyone in it died including i should say david kaplan who was a producer at abc news and much beloved figure there. >> i'm curious to come back to this about what his views were, peter, about the best way forward in afghanistan and pakistan. we're just coming up to this review now. what can you -- can you illuminate that for us? >> well, richard was, although not everybody in washington thought this, he was a team player. and he understood that that is the way you are effective as a diplomat and that's your

obligation as a diplomat. and so he would -- his style would be to express his views forcefully in the internal processes of the u.s. government but then to carry out the decision. but there is no doubt that he was a big skeptic of the strategy that is now being followed and certainly, and the thing that he was skeptical of is that the strategy requires an afghan partner and he had gone to afghanistan many times before undertaking this assignment, again as a private citizen. he sought early on that karzai, hamid karzai was corrupt, ineffective, incapable of reform. he wanted to do much more about the fraudulent presidential elections but in the end was overruled by higher ups in the obama administration and he, like what any good diplomat should, he carried out the instructions that he was given. >> peter, before we let you go, what has the united states lost

in its diplomatic efforts, impacts in afghanistan, with richard holbrooke no longer there? the relationships he had, the credibility he brought, who can replace that wealth and depth of knowledge and determination? >> it's of course a saying that, you know, nobody is indispensable. but richard was close to indispensable. he -- i don't think we're going to be -- it'll be easy to find anybody who appreciates and has such a good sense of the different actors of what their interests are. somebody who has this energy. and certainly somebody who could get the u.s. government to focus and to mobilize the resources. he built a terrific staff because he was never solo operator. he understood the support, the importance of the people who are with him but they -- these are people who are loyal to him and i think it's going to be very

tough for any replacement to be able to mobilize those people and to use them in the same way. holbrooke could mobilize a lot of people and that's a tough thing for people to do in government. >> yeah. could you -- could we come back one more time, peter, just to the afghan question? because you said he was well known that he was a skeptic and i think that's right. did he think it was futile or did he just think we had to knock karzai out or we had -- that some replacement -- he clearly thought karzai was corrupt. and he was very frustrated with that. what -- what was it -- did he think that -- if you think of waving a magic wand what would he have done? >> well, if he had had a very big magic wand i think he would have replaced karzai and the -- you know, and the entire afghan government going down to the lowest levels.

certainly, i think, he was hoping that somebody else would have emerged and i think he was actually much admiring of abdula abdula who was karzai's main opponent in the 2009 presidential elections and if there had been an honest election might actually have won it. i think holbrooke was also, richard holbrooke was very much moved by his early experience in vietnam, an enterprise which the u.s. committed enormous resources to but never had a vietnamese partner that was capable of winning the loyalty of the population and as a result we lost 50,000 lives in a failing effort. and so i think in looking at afghanistan that perhaps he would not have, if he was the sole decision maker have made the decision to commit these additional troops because i think he was mindful that there's really something wrong with committing troops -- >> all right. i'm going to jump in here.

>> peter has done enormous great work for the united nations and had very strong views about afghanistan but i think especially today when we're trying to remember a man who did so much for american foreign policy we'll let him speak and his family speak to what he really believed. in my close friendship with richard including family dinners together and a lot of time spent together, very recently, i think he had very complex views on afghanistan and i don't think it would be fair to say he opposed president obama's decision here. he obviously felt the frustrations that peter has mentioned. but i think we'd be doing a disservice to try to label his views. there will be plenty of time for that. for the moment let's remember a man who did so much for the other parts of the world in bosnia and kosovo and helped us

as all of us have said, helped keep a moral compass for american foreign policy. >> all right. peter, thank you for joining us over the phone. we will take a quick break. we'll come right back. leftover desserts, boardroom, now. thanks, i already have some yummy black forest cake. black forest cake? ♪ [ female announcer ] need a guilt free treat? try yoplait light. and i've lost weight. [ female announcer ] with 30 delicious flavors all around 100 calories each.

welcome back. we are continuing live, the

unfortunate coverage of the death of rich art ard holbrooke who has represented the united states across the world. quote, richard's life's work saved tens of thousands of lives. we loved his energy. we loved his resolve. that's who richard was and he died giving everything he had to one last difficult mission for the country he loved. wherever chaos and violence threatened american interests and human lives for nearly a half century, wherever there was a need for courage and insight, richard holbrooke showed up for duty. all right. >> before we go, let's go around the table and everybody give us your closing thoughts on ambassador richard holbrooke. >> i thought john kerry's statement was actually quite eloquent and expressed much of what i feel that richard represented for the country. i just thought he was a friend who was indestructible. it never occurred to me that he could possibly die this young. >> jamie?

>> well, i served with richard for most of eight years and was friendly with him for the ten years since then. my wife is very close with him. i think it's very hard to sum up a life in a minute and he was a man who had such multiple talents and multiple skills and multiple roles in foreign policy and diplomacy and as we talked about earlier giving a moral and humanitarian component to it. so, clearly, we lost someone important to foreign policy, to diplomacy, to the democratic party, who he served so determined for so long and obviously to his wonderful wife and kids so there will be a lot more to say about a big man in american history. >> and i'll just say briefly

i'll miss the memoir that will now not be written because he could have written a great autobiography and, alas, we won't see it. >> isn't that the truth. >> richard holbrooke appearing in october gave his assessment of the situation in afghanistan. news reports were saying the situation there was a proven but listen to what holbrooke had to say in that interview. >> i tend not to fall into either the optimistic or the pessimistic camp on issues in which i'm a participant. we have our goals. we have our strategy. it is of the most vital importance to our national security interests and it directly affects the homeland security of our nation as everyone knows. and we are determined to see it through. president obama personally oversees every critical detail related to our homeland security and i am not in the spin patrol of the people who are giddy with optimism on the op-ed pages of

some papers or the people who say it's another vietnam and it's hopeless. it's certainly not another vietnam for reasons you and i discussed before. and it is certainly not hopeless. but anyone who doesn't recognize what a daunting task it is, is misleading and the american public should understand that this is not going to be solved overnight. it is going to be a difficult struggle. it has a political component. we are not trying to win this war militarily. and a dayton type negotiations also a very unlikely but some kind of political element to this is essential and we are looking at every aspect of this. we are talking to all our other nations about it. >> tough, moral, larger than life man. irreplaceable? >> well, i think for those of us who lived through the last 15 years of u.s. foreign policy