Appeared at Syracuse University in 2006
(AP) -- Richard Holbrooke, a brilliant and feisty U.S. diplomat who wrote part of the Pentagon Papers, was the architect of the 1995 Bosnia peace plan and served as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, died Monday, the State Department said. He was 69.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called him one of America's "fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants."
"Richard Holbrooke served the country he loved for nearly half a century, representing the United States in far-flung war zones and high-level peace talks, always with distinctive brilliance and unmatched determination," Clinton said in a statement. "He was one of a kind - a true statesman - and that makes his passing all the more painful."
Holbrooke, whose forceful style earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer" and "Raging Bull," was admitted to the hospital on Friday after becoming ill at the State Department. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. had surgery Saturday to repair a tear in his aorta, the body's principal artery.
Holbrooke appeared at Syracuse University on October 18, 2006 as part of a summit on world peace. The event was called: Small World/Big Divides: Building Bridges in an Age of Extremes. Holbrooke joined a distinguished panel that afternoon in a session that was broadcast on C-SPAN. He talked of his misgivings about the war in Iraq under the Bush administration. He also referred to his experience brokering the Dayton Peace Accords which was negotiated a peace in Bosnia during the 1990's.
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