"“What Holbrooke wants attention for is what he’s doing, not what he is. That’s a very serious quality and it’s his saving grace.”"
I confess I knew nothing about Richard Holbrooke until reading this. As Roger Cohen describes him, he sounds more than unpleasant as well as effective.
That said, the above quote is striking because of the nightmare we're undergoing now, where we have a man never held accountable for who he is doing things that are unspeakable, from holding male Hispanic immigrants in open "dog pens " dog pens in blistering heat in El Paso to helping autocrats like MBS get away with murder, quite literally.
So what I glean is that a man can be unspeakable but his legacy will be those things most speakable. But when you have a morally unspeakable leader who also does unspeakable things, it's a perfect rejection of the American values and idealism Cohen so cherishes.
He wishes for its return, "when the nightmare passes." I would change that "when" to "if."
80
ABOUT PURITY AND LEADERSHIP. Roosevelt and FDR were both womanizers who liked their drink and smoked heavily. The won WW II. Hitler was reportedly a sexual deviate, but not a womanizer. He maintained a vegetarian diet, flipped out if anyone was smoking in the Bunker and liked children (an unutterably repugnant fact). He lost the war. Assailing Holebrooke for being being other than a paragon of virtue is to deny his true talent. The fact that he stepped on people along the way is unfortunate. But then again, is anyone really pure? Mother Theresa's personal diaries show that she had lost her faith for 50 years. There is no person of stature among Trump's sycophants (a fancy Greek word for brown-noses). How could there be? Trump proves Hannah Arendt's observation that evil is banal. And Trump is nothing if not utterly, indisputably banal. Sometimes he even B-anal too.
10
Holbrooke reminded me of an aging drug kingpin who wanted one more huge pay, or day of glory before retiring. However, at this late stage of his career the kingpin’s powers of faculty are diminished, and he therefore gets somewhat sloppy. Inevitably, plans go awry and he ultimately ends up busted. I admittedly hadn’t heard of Holbrooke until reading Packers book, and overall enjoyed the book. Holbrooke’s ultimate achievement was certainly Bosnia. Though only about a decade afterwards, I’m not sure if it was Holbrook’s getting older, or just fear of being on the wrong side of things politically, but Holbrooke erred on the most important foreign policy issue of modern times – he supported the war in Iraq and Dick Cheyney (at least initially). He wasn’t the only one of course (Hilary, John Kerry, Powell, etc), but to make such a poor call of judgment for someone supposedly impacted by Vietnam was glaring (despite the company). Obama certainly had many flaws, and the never ending war in Afghanistan certainly never went well, but he was right to “ice out” Hollbrooke.
4
A great country bucks the elite, retires the worst politician to ever dirty a pantsuit and elects a disputer to stick thumbs in the eyes of the oppressive elite, despite every organ of institutional power arrayed against us. THAT is indeed a great country. And we will do it again.
3
Holbrooke was everything that was wrong with democratic foreign policy in the 90's and I'm glad Obama sniffed him out.
We need more people who wield power with magnaminity and less people who are nothing more than adventurers like Holbrooke. Afghanistan was just the right assignment for Richard, RIP.
3
We might couple the hopes of the words "remake, redeem and rescue" with the question "who let the dogs out?" and the answer would not be the most important thing. Instead, try "who can lock up the dogs again?" The dogs of isolationism coupled with a brand of Islamophobia that makes Saudi murder and mayhem acceptable? The dogs of racism, blatant murder, and voter suppression? The dogs of GOP surrender to a panoply of gods of greed, utilitarianism, and sheer ignorance? And the god of enshrining the worst instincts of conservatism on our courts? Where is Dr. Pangloss? At the NYT?
2
Roger, you might want to ponder the fact that America now puts refugees in internment camps.
10
I don’t know if there is a Pulitzer Prize for op-eds but, if so, this piece should be a slam dunk.
12
"Yes, America is, and will be once more when the nightmare passes, as it must if Americans have half the stubborn resourcefulness and passionate idealism of Richard Holbrooke."
America will only be great again if the tiny minority who possess a tenth of Holbrooke's vision and passion utterly defeat the forces of self-centeredness, ignorance, and hatred of the outside world -- and very soon. If Trump is re-elected, America will never be great, ever again. The United States and the world will once again be plunged into the horrors of nationalism and xenophobia we defeated almost a century ago. We made a world order -- YES, a world order -- that SERVED OUR INTERESTS. It always depended on the U.S. being seen to be playing it somewhat straight.
Now the Trump-Bannon idiot faction cheer a movement in which 200 nations join hand in hand to march forward into a future in which each of them believes its own nation and culture and interests to be superior to all others and deserving of all the lebensraum and revenge for historic slights they demand, and no nation is in any position to dissuade them. What could possibly go wrong?
Where have you gone, Richard Holbrooke? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
4
...” the American idea of an improvable world in which....certain forms of evil....those bestial camps, must be confronted.”
Oh for the time when we confronted those camps, not created them to contain children
7
As smart as he was he seemed to be nasty and arrogant but also quite the charmer. Diane Sawyer? VA va voom! So many beautiful women like bad boys..
2
"But America can still remake, redeem and rescue."
Richard Holbrooke? What exactly are you drinking or smoking, Roger?
2
Mr Cohen, thank you for writing about Mr Holbrooke as he deserves... it is as good almost as a precis of the book and better because of your personal experience. A complex, difficult, ambitiously-divisive personality but a gifted and committed diplomat-- an odd ball combination of part bullying, part cajolery and part sheer honesty/sincerity.
The Pakistani journalists mourned him when he died in 2010. The general sentiment I heard then, was along these lines... forget it, nothing good will happen now. This was one man who could drag Taliban, ISI, Pak. military and USA onto the same table. They have no one in US diplomatic circles with his understanding of this region's people or his willingness and capacity to engage and engage to the bitter end....
To create such trust comes from vision and real kahunas.
I wonder if Afghanistan may have been a different story had he lived, and Obama had shown trust.
6
Holbrooke sounds like a complex person--too complex for today's world, "a time of shrieking certainties" (another brilliant turn of phrase by Roger Cohen). It has been such a time on the right for many years, and now unfortunately on the left as well.
In this piece, Cohen violates several precepts of modern conventional liberalism: 1. If someone is ever a jerk (especially a white male jerk), they must be dismissed as unfit to lead (like Al Franken), and prosecuted if possible. 2. President Obama was perfect and must never be criticized; after all, he won the Nobel Peace Prize didn't he? 3. America must never use force: we must teach other countries better self-esteem, not punish them.
Sadly, most readers of the Times will have no sympathy for someone like Holbrooke, and will click on through to a more satisfying op-ed (perhaps by someone with initials M.G.) where they can more readily find their "shrieking certainties."
8
Mr. Cohen, with all due respect, sir: America is not a great country. "What a great country!" No, sir.
Europe is paying for the consequences of American folly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CIA and Bush flat-out lied about WMD in Iraq. Saddam's regime was not a direct, physical threat to the United States. I spent 21 months in Iraq and 11 months in Afghanistan as an embedded author and other than the JSOC missions in the Hindu Kush, the only damn good thing I can tell you is that I survived.
It is Europe, not America, that is paying for the lies of President George W. Bush and the CIA in Iraq. That's not greatness, a great country does not do that to its allies nor does a great country go to war over a lie, in the first place. Vice the Afghanistan War, in 2019 the blind are still leading the blind inside the Beltway, including Langley--"Shovel the money and pretend that spending money equals counterterrorism." My friends died because of Petraeus' failed counterinsurgency doctrine in Afghanistan in 2009, it's ten years later now and behold, America is still shoveling money into the bottomless pit of Afghanistan while Petraeus is lionized, praise and paid very well to . . . . wait for it . . . . consult on national security, inside the Beltway.
That's not greatness, it is idiocy and outside of the United States, where people and nations are paying for the consequences of the profound absence of greatness in America, it is recognized as idiocy.
12
If you’d like to know what kinds of cramped littlebrains we now have running the country, look no further than the commenters whose takeaway from this excellent column on a complex man is, “And that useless Obama and his Nobel Prize!”
8
This kind of article is why I subscribe. to the NYT.
I especially like it that the complexities of this man (meaning: of all of us) are dealt with, instead of the either/or good/bad thinking that seems to be a part of our culture.
In some respects, perhaps to do this kind of work well a person needs to be an uninsightful jerk. One has to be willing to make dreadful mistakes, and keep going. How can you do this if you are wracked with indecision?
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Holbrooke has both his parents as being of Jewish heritage (unlike this piece) although they gave him a Quaker upbringing.
Holbrooke had to pick his poison in Bosnia. The Orthodox Serbs or the Catholic Croats. Both were attacking defenseless Moslems in Bosnia. Serbia was trying to hold together Yugoslavia which was breaking up into ethnic statelets. The Serbs had attacked Croatia. The Croats were the USs troops on the ground.
1
You talk about Holbrooke and Bill Clinton as if they were the only great US citizens who were serioulsy flawed but accomplished great things. Neither really overcame his early life. One great US citizen did not "overcome" his background. He is used it to become the most consequential president of the US since WWII. There was never a more flawed person in the WH (until Trump). But LBJ who was born poor in a small town near the Texas border, who graduated from a Texas state teacher's college, used his past for "compassion." In the words of his principal biographer, Robert Caro, he was a "political genius." More than 50 years ago he cajoled the Congress into passing the civil rights act, the voting rights act, the fair housing act, Medicare, Medicaid, Headstart, Foodstamps and the law which prohibits discrimination in legal immigration on the basis of race, religion or national origin. More than any one person, LBJ is responsible for the diversity of the US today and its first non-white president. Really an article like this reminds me that LBJ is clearly due for a reevaluation. Yes he failed miserably in Vietnam, but no US president since Truman has had a succesful career as a commander in chief. Truman fought to a tie in Korea. Ike sent the first military personnel to Vietnam. JFK sent the first fighting troops to Vietnam and botched the Bay of Pigs. The record only gets worse from there. Only GHW Bush was successful militarily, in Panama and Kuwait.
13
Richard Holbrooke was a giant, and his very real accomplishments dwarf any of his personal faults.
31
The comment about Holbrooke, Obama and the Nobel prize sort of describes where we are.
2
Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
2
We do need people with the inner core strength and stubbornness to achieve long term goals.
Thank you, Mr. Holbrooke.
1
A beautiful tribute to a complicated and driven man whose demons and principles coexisted in such a way to both heal and destroy over the course of his life - and, in the final reckoning, the words of Anthony Lake are perhaps the most appropriate and a fair appraisal of this patriot... he should be remembered for what he did and not for who or what he was. Would that he somehow have lived and been listened to, the Middle East would have likely seen a different and coherent foreign policy.
3
Holbrooke was in my class at Brown. I offer some insight into his hiding his background as a Jew from my experience there as a Jew. First, there was a Jewish quota. No more than 10% of the class could be Jewish. Second, Freshmen Jews could only room with other Freshmen Jews. When my roommate left after first semester, a non-Jew was given her spot after pondering whether the taint of rooming with me would affect her negatively. For every achievement he made in school, the fact that he was a Jew was mentioned to diminish it. Also his changed name was constantly mentioned. One must look at individual behavior in true context. One also must point out that the Jewish quota went away in the Ivy League as inherited wealth dissipated and the only folks with money to pay full tuition were those "dirty" Jews. Maybe his personality was as described but those exact traits were seen as appropriate (unearned) strengths in his non-Jew classmates. Despite and because of being who he was, he achieved extraordinary results. Let us praise him not bury him with the slings and arrows of outrageous prejudice.
102
The American idea, as somewhat reflected in the remarkable career of Richard Holbrooke, is now just the nostalgia which Mr. Cohen eloquently relates. The same thing is powering Joe Biden's Studebaker candidacy. Sometimes the bleakest assessment is also the most accurate: there is no getting the country we thought we knew back again. Yes, there will be a post-Trump era relatively soon, as he is now an old man, but there will be no great restoration. They say that when a man's heart fails him, even a successful medical intervention will leave him greatly changed.
Enjoy this opportunity, between critical national elections, to wallow in nostalgia for an America that either was or may have been. But be prepared for what is likely to happen later in 2020: a relatively narrow electoral college defeat for Trump, his refusal to accept the results, his supporters' full concurrence that he was "robbed," a final collapse of constitutional principles, and probable civil war if the Democrats then insist on taking rightful control of the executive branch.
3
Give me Holbrooke over a scavenging crow any old day.
1
An eloquent defense of what appears to have been a scoundrel, Masterful. And I'm going to read that book.
3
Nice column. It would be ideal for America to have a Holbrooke-like figure to deal with the concentration camps we have erected in the desert, where every day egregious human rights violations are taking place against migrants and children. The America that Holbrooke represented may have had its faults, but it had some semblance of moral authority. The America of 2019 - a country that imprisons the most vulnerable of children in deplorable conditions - is another story altogether.
1
The concentration camps in Bosnia were rather more than “deplorable conditions,” and that goes triple for those run by the Khmer Rouge.
Wow, truth in the pages of the NY Times. Obama did get a Nobel Peace Prize just for existing.
3
@TL
He should have it taken away because of Yemen.
2
"Holbrooke could be a pompous, self-serving, ruthless, insinuating ass."
Precisely, I was going to offer it were it not written. He was our Peace Corps Director in Morocco after Nixon expelled the Democrats. I brought a Moroccan student to meet the Director, Holbrooke, because that would be something special for the student. Holbrooke spun away after less than a minute showing the typical traits quoted. That was standard Holbrooke.
Worse, Peace Corps is forbidden to function as an intelligence agency. Holbrooke milked gullible volunteers for every detail he could about student protests. I specialized in keeping my distance because of his wide-eyed ambition with heavy treads.
His self service was his most oustanding trait.
32
Such a tribute to Holbrooke from Cohen to illustrate the subject of George Packer's book on the complicated and dedicated man Holbrooke was. I look forward to more from reading the book. The coolness toward Holbrooke from the Obama people was not known to me, and more to be discovered. Striking the idea of 100,000 alive due to Holbrooke's defiant and strong mission to stop the killing in Bosnia/Serbia. Hate is so damn strong. Pakistan, the Taliban, other missions more intractable. Thanks, again, Roger, for this outstanding piece.
4
Richard Holbrooke's "certain idea of America" was of his being Secretary of State.
1
Why does America have to be a GREAT country? Why can't it just be a middling country whose people have a good chance at living contented lives? Many, many millions of people live good lives in countries which don't concern themselves with being great. Why do so many Americans think that America has to be GREAT?
18
If we are very lucky in our lives, we manage to make and keep a few good friends.
Mr. Cohen clearly made one in Holbrooke.
3
Character counts. Forgetting your ex-wife's name seven times was a personal insult to her and to you. That is why you were counting. Sleeping with one's best friend's wife may be tempting for many but acting on the temptation is an entirely different matter. Your masterful essay recently on the joy of attending your daughter's graduation and tbe sorrow of what you had missed over the years suggests you are a man who reflects on his character. God bless those efforts. MLK was right, men should be judged by the"...quality of their character." I am far to concerned with dealing with my own foibles than wasting my time reading about anyone who could NOT do that. Thanks but no thanks.
4
And what was MLK’s orivate life like?
1
The claim that Holbrook put an elderly couple, holocaust survivors, off a bus to provide room for himself sounds like a canard. I would have appreciated some verification. Also, with the passivity and timidity that passes for "leadership" in most bureaucracies, it comes as no surprise that Holbrook's aggression put people off.
2
Thank you for another lesson Mr. Cohen. You're an excellent teacher.
1
For the real story about Richard Holbrooke, and the preposterous self-glorifying myths Roger Cohen is determined to perpetuate even now ("What a great country!"), the reader need only follow the link provided in the 5th paragraph of this piece.
The tireless effrontery of this class, still insisting on its goodness, virtue and wisdom -- this, after years of its own failures and other people's boundless misery -- should no longer astonish. These folks will be doing it as long as they command column inches.
1
Complicated man, supreme envoy. Which side do you think he should be remembered for? Absolutely poignant how he met his end and where we find ourselves today in relation to his ideals.
1
Reading this article of hope in the face of America's low ebb with the Trump era brings to mind the words of the civil rights anthem- "Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday"
3
Reading Mr. Cohen 'on' the late Richard Holbrooke, I'm thankful for Mr. Holbrooke's diplomatic services -- and at least as thankful that I never knew him.
2
Perhaps President Obama recognized the inner man and realized that first, last and foremost that man served himself.
No great counselor to a president, no great emissary of the United States makes himself the center of attention. His or her job includes the very real obligation to stand and remain in the shadows, not to put himself center stage craving adulation.
Holdbrooke made himself a cult. Apparently Mr.Cohen is one of the worshippers.
7
"Marton did an extraordinary thing by giving Packer the intimate correspondence and other papers that made this masterpiece possible."
Kati Marton wrote a memoir, "Paris, A Love Story", which might be of interest to those who want to know more about the human side of Richard Holbrooke.
The epigraph: "If there is any substitute for love, it is memory. To memorize, then, is to restore intimacy." ~ Joseph Brodsky
7
@Mary Ann Donahue
Thank you for giving us this profound and thought provoking quote by Brodsky, from the book’s epigraph. My version of this is different than Brodsky’s.
We are all imperfect in our ability to love. To remember, to memorize, someone’s imperfect expressions of love is to love. The process of ruminating on when a loved one—a spouse, parent, friend—succeeded and failed in their expressions of love ultimately leads us to a meditation on their intents, and what prevented the successful manifestation of them. Remembering, groping for, and feeling the contours of such intent is compassion, forgiveness, and a doorway into the humility of our own imperfections. Such memory is not a substitute for love, it is love.
6
I knew nothing about Holbrooke's personal life, but I admired him for years as an explainer of foreign policy on TV shows like Meet the Press. How I would love to see Tim Russert interview Richard Holbrooke about Trump's foreign 'policy'!
17
None evident.
You point out here that people are of mixed natures many times. I have no argument with that. But your statement "a Trump supporter may be a decent, smart American" gave me pause. I know Trump supporters well. From doctor to manager to barber to soccer mom, I know them, from young to old, and more--living in Oklahoma, I do know them. I love some of them. I see their humor, their love for family, their histories, and yes, their unwillingness to think or examine issues deeply. But, and it breaks my heart, they are not decent. That was no longer an adjective for them when they accepted that toddlers should be put in cages. And they did and do accept it. That children should be imprisoned in compounds where the guards were deliberately not background-checked. They do accept that. That babies should be "lost" and untrackable by design. They accept that. And they are no longer decent, doing that. I don't think they are smart, either, in that they still believe themselves among the most virtuous of people on the face of the earth. What a mistake.
107
In many old movies and especially cavalry westerns someone is always told to keep the colors flying. For a few years now the flag has been lying on the battleground, thrown there by our leadership. It is time for some brave soul to lift it off the ground and rejoin the charge to greatness.
6
This is an outstanding piece! Written with an uncommon degree of pathos and understanding. Thank you shedding some light on the complex Mr. Holbrooke!
20
No grounds for optimism here!
Few Americans demonstrate the stubborn resourcefulness and passionate idealism of Holbrooke, but many can match his arrogance and selfishness.
We bicker and poster over pressing domestic issues like affordable health care, simple and fair income taxes, immigration, and infrastructure, but we never act. We give our elected and appointed politicians free rein on foreign policy and foreign entanglements.
Many Americans, especially those who live in states without ocean frontage, are passionate about restricting the liberties of blacks, Hispanics, gays, and pregnant women, but are neglectful of their own affairs.
Some land of the free and home of the brave!
25
@AynRant
Lovely rant. Made me smile. Nearly cry. The person cares, sees, and says; in that way, pushes for action.
Thanks for this.
As to Obama’s peace prize, I suspect that the Nobel prizes awarded to Gore and Obama were northern Europe’s way of saying they preferred postwar America, the vision of America you often articulate, to Dick Cheney’s vision of America.
32
"... when this nightmare passes." I keep thinking of an obit in the NYT last year about a Jew who narrowly escaped the holocaust who was quoted: "All the optimists who thought, before the holocaust, that reason and decency would prevail were wrong. Only the pessimists escaped in time to survive." I suspect this U.S. nightmare will get much, much worse. But I'm too old to escape and have no where to go (but to the grave).
56
@Rethinking
Appreciate your apt comment and quote. That light of truth facing put a crack in my natural optimism to reveal shards of dishonesty underneath. I'm momentarily a pessimist.
Near the grave myself, but with so many young loved ones to remain behind, I expect to revert to optimism. I want to believe in the young, in the future.
6
Richard Holbrooke, son of Polish Jewish immigrants, was a passionately idealistic man. A great American patriot and deeply flawed man, he tried -- as a diplomat -- to alleviate human suffering wherever he worked.
President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Mr. Holbrooke thought he deserved the prize for engineering the end of the Bosnian-Serb Balkan conflict. Holbrooke dealt in interventionism to give human rights to people who had been mercilessly tortured for their beliefs and their faith. As were the people tortured by the Third Reich last century.
Richard Holbrooke was not a likeable man. He was a flawed and bombastic diplomat, but he was an optimist and in a time of great pessimism in America. He believed in America's human values. The NATO bombing that led to Bosnian peace saved lives. The U.S. saved Vietnamese lives by the hundreds of thousands in 1982. Today our president wants to withdraw the U.S. from NATO and TPP.
In January, 2009, Holbrooke was named Special Adviser and Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, Sec'y of State. He died at 69, less than one year later when his heart literally broke during surgery in Washington, DC.
Richard Holbrooke died in 2010, long before the terrible nightmare of an unfit president ruling inchoately over the US was on our horizon. Long before Donald Trump represented America to the world from 2016 till today.
11
So, in sum, Holbrooke was a great diplomat and a lousy human being. Maybe the two go together. Interesting, also, that the HBO doc produced by his son describes an idealistic government service, even a Don Quixote, not the repulsive being who pushed aside the Holocaust survivor couple.
1
I must disagree. Holbrooke "stopped" the war in Bosnia? What he did was lay the foundation for the next war there. His "great" diplomacy resulted in a country torn in two (not counting the Brcko corridor). He allowed the Bosnian Serbs to call their part of the divide "Republica Srbska." The Serbian Republic - sounds like a country, doesn't it? And that is just how the Serbs in Bosnia treat it. They refuse to cooperate with the Bozniaks (Moslems) or Croats in the other part of the country, "The Federation." The country still has three presidents; it's a joke which Hoolbrooke started. There are 10 Cantons in the Federation and 64 political units in the RS. What Hoolbrooke did was pause the war; it will resume again, thanks to him.
6
@Michael O'Malley At least it stopped for a while --- and has yet to (openly) start again. What would you have --- more mass graves?
4
A fine appreciation and clearly one from the heart. Holbrooke gave this country a lot and deserves respect for his accomplishments.
However, Cohen takes some cheap shots at Obama. As Packer makes quite clear in a much more nuanced treatment Holbrooke made the mistake of being condescending and pompous in his initial encounters with Obama. Perhaps the relationship never would of worked but if you can't read the personality of your principal or don't bother to try what does that say?
9
Well, all I can say is for all HIS faults, the writer H.L. Mencken was correct when he opined, "The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
2
Of course, the neophyte Obama had no appreciation of Holbrooke’s talents, being totally unschooled in the gives and takes of diplomacy. And then they give a Nobel Prize to Obama, what a sham! I can’t help but resent somehow the deep digging into Holbrooke’s personal life. As a public man, he should be seen and judged on his accomplishments and failures, nothing else. Let’s face it, all the personal details just add the lurid details that sell books.
1
@Joe Gagen It's the contradictions within pubic and personal that all creative and productive people harbor; biographies that reveal them can teach us how to recognize and balance them on scales large and small. Great achievements require personal sacrifice and vice-versa. Not easy to reconcile within any dimension of living.
5
Bosnia = "successful interventionism?" A failed basket case cantonal state? In what world is the author living?
3
Column is regrettably dismissive of Barack Obama, himself a person with a very complicated background, but he clearly handled that much better than Holbrooke.
14
Ah, sometimes morally questionable people on a personal level can do morally admirable things. He seem to have been unbearable for the people close to him, and priceless to the anonymous people that he saved but was away from him. I guess you need a bit more balance in a Secretary of State, it is a political position, and it is telling that Holbrooke did not get the point.
I hope time can forgive his bad deeds, and thank him for the good ones. How I wish a Holbrooke would have saved the Armenians, the Jews, and many others all the ugly pain that once started never ends.
6
I really think it would be extremely healthy for Americans, including Mr. Cohen, to develop an understanding of how the world sees them. They do not see "a great country", they do not see a country, which in the words of almost every American tourist you encounter here in Amsterdam is simply "the best" at just about everything. A statement made usually with very little knowledge and therefore understanding of the world outside the US. What the rest of the world sees is Holbrooke with all of his human short comings. The nature of the man described in the book and in this column is how most people outside of the US perceive the US. There is nothing wrong with looking out for one's own interests, every nation does that, but the on-going pretence of the US that it has the moral high ground, that everything it does is by definition for the greater good of all humanity is what grates and rings hollow especially today. To state that Iraq is merely a sign of "its fallibility not its worthlessness" is to put it mildly a form of blindness to the consequences of that war, which is beyond belief. The Iraq war, how it was executed (with only American interests in mind) and the lies it was based on gifted us ISIS, the current fundamental instability in the Middle East. The Europeans with their early 20th century imperial myopia may have created the foundation at Versailles but boy the US built the building we see today. What is more, some are dead keen to do it all over again in Iran.
394
@Jacques...thank you for this. I tend to be ruthless with my American compatriots---my own family, for that matter---for their comprehensive ignorance of themselves, and hence, the world. To be economically empowered to travel a world it's intellectually clueless about is the epitome of weakness, not a "great country." The Beverly Hillbillies of the world.
55
@Jacques
Exactly.
Americans are good at pretending.
33
@Jacques
We may not be "all that", but Europe has more than a few things to be ashamed of.
As Yogi Berra might have said, you made America "necessary".
29
“I can’t relax. I’m in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he says before going into the operating theater never to awaken. Reading all this, I wept....
the moth to the flame,the flame isn't all that bad
5
I don't know if it's pessimism. There are some things you just don't joke about because it is beyond distasteful. There was a decent article titled, " 'The Lehman Trilogy" and Wall Street's Debt to Slavery" by Sarah Churchwell in The New Yorker. Some may think the writer's criticism is pessimistic but I think it's realistic and well written.
1
Thank you Mr. Cohen, for this beautifully written piece.
5
@Shiva
Just want to 2nd the motion -- Mr. Cohen's sustained level of journalistic excellence is a breath of fresh air in very toxic times.
1
As a writer and a reporter, Roger Cohen is a gift beyond telling.
EVERY piece he writes for the NYT is a combination of his accuracy of reporting; of his judgment as to what is important for us to know in OUR role as citizens, as an informed electorate; and of the unfailing felicity of his writing.
Roger Cohen makes me a better citizen and a better human being. I cannot thank him enough.
18
Everyone should read Packer’s book. It is a great history of our continuous “march of folly” from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
Obama comes off as a dismissive critic of the generation of “the best and brightest” , as he ,Susan Rice, and Axelrod find Holbrooke’s personal style that of an embarrassing old uncle (they send word down to him not to ever bring up Vietnam), while they stumble along and innoculate themselves from Republican criticism by installing Petraeus in a 60,000 troop Afghanistan “surge”.
In trying to avoid the “Vietnam Syndrome” in Afghanistan, Obama instead rushes toward it —listening to his generals demand more and more troops, never admitting the obvious but politically taboo fact that that war was and continues to be unwinnable. Curiously, the other old crazy uncle, Biden, agrees with Holbrooke (whom he too, couldn’t stand) that the war can’t be won.
I await the Democratic candidate who is willing to explain to the American people that Pakistan’s protection of the Taliban, stemming from its desire to use Afghanistan as a friendly buffer against India makes “victory” impossible. I want he or she to commit to full withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan, no more counter-productive night raids and drone strikes, and sanctuary for the Afghan refugees certain to become the victims of the Taliban.
Above all, we need to hear a clear notion of what America needs to do to show leadership and responsibilty in the world.
17
Holbrooke sounds like about as fine a diplomat as there can be. As for the rest of his life, who cares? We're not out to celebrate nice diplomats, but to have winners.
For revealing his talents, and for your emotion about a dead friend, Thank You.
However, I think your emotion has gotten the best of you in the comments you make which laud the brilliant, stupid, classy, embarrassing, awesome, trivial, perplexing, and beloved organism in which we live, The United States of America.
Like Richard Holbrooke, our home is both beautifully rational and humane, and yet more sleazy close up. Eg, some sleaze.
You write that when you saw the Wall come down, you "understood with visceral certainty how American values, resolutely defended, advance liberty, not least for about 100 million central Europeans."
No. Not us. Victory came with the Russian collapse and Revolution, 1987-1991.
US Resolution? Before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, our RFE and VOA routinely called on Magyars to revolt, to overthrow the Stalinist regime: we were there to stand behind them.
They fulfilled their part. They drove out the Red Army.
We dishonored our part. We played no role in the uprising.
The Soviets returned.
2500 people were killed, all told.
In 1989, we kept up our profitable trade with China in the wake of Tiananmen.
Before Holbrooke, there were three years of Bosnian carnage. We let it happen: as our Secretary of State put it, “We do not have a dog in this fight.”
7
Your own words convince me that I don't want Richard Holbrooke representing America. But yes, he represented the American century. Donald Trump is just Holbrooke-light without a cause.
1
Thank you Mr. Cohen for the reminder that our country can and likely eventually will recover from Trump’s reign. I look forward to reading Mr. Packer’s book. That Mr. Holbrooke struggled with his own demons is a reminder that our focus should be on our ideals. Perseverance in defining, articulating and defending those ideals would seem a tall order.
1
Our last secretary of state was only interested in money, and the current one is only interested in domination and extension of this country's power. Hillary was only marking time until she could become president, and John Kerry, while a war hero and dedicated diplomat, was too timid.
Too bad we never got to see what Secretary of State Holbrooke could have done.
7
@Clearheaded
Our last Secretary of State was Rex Tillerson. I agree that as CEO of Exxon, he was undoubtedly 'only interested in money.'
5
You're right Mr. Cohen, these are cynical times. Which is why it's so heartening to read about a man that was optimistic in the face of war and calamity, and did everything in his power to end it. Was Holbrooke perfect? Not in the least, but his overriding goal was to make the world better, with no concern about the optics for himself, rather focusing on results. We would be lucky to have an individual like him in the current administration, an actual adult, working to make the world a less dangerous place.
12
In these times, I like to trumpet humility as a primary virtue, as its lack seems terribly damaging in so many quarters.
But Richard Holbrooke's story, as told here and in Mr. Packer's book, raises a conundrum for me. Could Mr. Holbrooke have achieved what he did, and saved the lives that he did, had he been a more personally humble and decent person?
Or was his arrogance, his blind spots, his mania, and his, well, jerkiness, somehow necessary to his successes?
17
Thanks Roger, it was several sides of Richard Holbrooke that most of us never knew before. Strange that with all of that he knew America very well.
2
Mr. Cohen, thank you for consistently offering some of the best, most enlightening essays to be found. You are a gifted and insightful writer.
12
Thank you Mr Cohen. I am almost done with Packer’s remarkable book. Richard Holbrook’s was insufferable in many ways, but he was also doggedly determined to do the right thing and this country benefited from his determination. You’ve written a great obit for Holbrook’s and, I fear, maybe also the prestige of the United States.
8
I very much admired Richard Holbrooke from afar and had wished my international-trained lawyer daughter could have met him. He might have been dismissive or patronizing of a starry-eyed young woman who he might had assumed had never entered the lion's den. But he would have been greatly mistaken because she calmly sat feet away from dictator Charles Taylor at the ICC for six months adjudicating horrific testimony and whenever their eyes locked she told me, she never blinked. A great review of a great diplomat.
4
It seems Halbrooke didn't have one or two character flaws, he had too many. No wonder Obama, a principled man, had problem with him. Just because he had a successful diplomatic mission doesn't make his version of "stubborn resourcefulness and passionate idealism" desirable.
1
Excellent article which piques my interest in a man of whom we knew but really did not. Want that book! So refreshing to have a biography that is more than a simplistic tribute.
3
I am a citizen of the world. I just retired last month. Looking back over the years, it occurred to me that America has been at war for all my 65 years. So to wake up to David Brooks and Roger's despairing takes will not improve my weekend. America has to go back to what it was. It must teach its children civic education. Citizens must re-engage. With a stolen election in 2000 and electoral malfunction in 2016 the breach must be repaired. Holbrooke is a hero of mine as are the two Nicholas Burns both whose views are reassuring in this chaos in DC. As a son of two Kennedy Scholarship recipients air lifted to study in the US, it never occurred to me that America would diminish its spirit of generosity. That is why the surveys cited by Brooks and the marginalization of Amb. Holbrooke is so deflating.
19
Good diplomats rarely are all that loveable. Holbrooke certainly wasn't.
5
Too bad he wasn’t there before it started in the first place just think of how many lives could have been saved, maybe he could have stopped the ramp up and rhetoric with all of his flaws.
I, too, think that the quintessential American genius is the can-do approach to life, the refusal to just sit and contemplate whatever Fate does to man, the determined choice to respond by treating it like a practical challenge that can and must be faced, a problem that can be solved.
It is an approach hardwired into the culture. It is what makes an American an American. It can be adopted, for a price: shutting the door on the contemplation, the inner processing that is also necessary for a person not to also be “a jerk”.
8
If the book is as engaging as the review, I will enjoy it. I has been ordered.
American patriotism died with Richard Holbrook. Republican leaders put power and party over country and democratic leaders are simply taking a stand.
This administration is an absolute outrage. Every cabinet leader was chosen for their willingness to dismantle the agency they lead. The senate is remaking the judiciary with cronies and partisans. The executive branch is a corrupt, money laundering enterprise that is selling out technology and destroying trade agreements.
If you are not worried, you are not paying attention.
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Interesting man, Richard Holbrooke. Never heard of him till this superb think-piece, so this information is all I have to go by.
A good diplomat and world-saver? At the U.N., he recommends Pol Pot's faction, the executioner of some two million of his own people. A glaring, unforgivable mistake!
Yes, he did other, good things, but also other, bad things.
I don't know how to score someone's soul accurately and wisely, but this stranger seems to chalk up one egregious error for every big moral victory. Perhaps we all do on smaller scales usually.
Thus, I wonder if we just shouldn't leave things alone. But we're not built that way, most of us; we're going to do something even if it's wrong. (My comment here is a case in point.)
So maybe there's a cosmic plan behind all this action. Or maybe it's just matter in motion creating an endlessly entertaining variety show. It's a buffet for cogitation.
4
“But America can still remake, redeem and rescue.”
On what planet? In what parallel universe? The minds of the finest historians and political scientists in this country have said — some implicitly, some explicitly — that there is no turning back. That the republic is doomed. That the Republican Party is in the last stages of reaching its long-term prize: complete and permanent control of the United States government with a form of managed democracy closely resembling fascism. Whom shall I believe? Snyder, Johnston, Ornstein, Mann, Browning — or Roger Cohen?
You live in a beautiful fantasy world, Mr. Cohen, and as far as I can tell in another country. Ordinary Americans don’t have those luxuries. They won’t have them when their celebrities disappear as the totalitarians take over. Possibly that seems unlikely to you because there isn’t a prayer you’ll ever experience any of it.
6
Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s dream team, assigned the most intractable diplomatic assignments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Middle East. I still have a vivid recollection of being filled with renewed optimism when I first heard of the appointments in 2009.
As with many talented individuals, the churn of Holbrooke’s personal life belied his professional performance, but personal foibles should not be invoked to diminish his manifold diplomatic achievements.
The turn to Packer’s scathing criticisms of Holbrooke was abrupt and unanticipated—no transition, as it were. I would have preferred not being exposed to them here.
Thankfully, Holbrooke himself does not have to bear witness.
What he might have achieved were he still here, during a time when the world needs diplomacy and paladins like Holbrooke—imperfections and all—more than ever.
2
Sorry RH, in this era in the US, character matters. But thank you for your service.
3
I also thank you, Prof. Cohen. This is Pulitzer stuff.
4
A fascinating and inspiring piece. Thank you.
5
A fascinating piece, thanks. Seems as if Holbrooke could be a great humanitarian on the grand stage of world diplomacy but much less than that in the personal realm. I don’t think I could call someone ‘my friend’ who could not recall my wife’s name after 7 introductions or who slept with the wife of his best friend. Someone that self serving is not someone whom I would trust enough to be a friend. I might respect, even admire, some of his accomplishments. But I would always be wary of what he might do if/when he thinks the world might not be watching. If that is ‘great diplomacy,’ then I am relieved that I have no interest in being part of it.
6
Diplomacy is all about the contradictions of human nature and how to smooth them out, if only for a few moments. Holbrooke was born and lived his entire life as an example of those contradictions. His qualifications for recognizing the good and disregarding the bad served him as well as could be expected. Often praised, often criticized and often ignored, his career as a person and a professional were always at odds, which made him who he was.
Great piece about a great book, Mr. Cohen.
8
Having spent an insufferable and painful 15 hours on a plane ride with Holbrooke, many moons ago, and been witness to his every failing as a human being, I must admit I had no desire to pay tribute to him even as inadvertantly as to read a bio of him. But through the urging of friends, I finally succumbed, particularly after reading one of the most powerful opening chapters ever...I was hooked and found Packer's book to be an amazing creation in its own right - it deserves the Pulitzer and every other prize out there.
As for RH, I think it is taking it a bit too far, to say he "ended a European War" and as much as I admire Obama, I am glad RC brought up Obama's dismissive and denigrating behavior towards Holbrooke...but then I can understand completely why Obama of all people, could not abide being in the same room with RH.
Thank you Roger Cohen for bringing this superb biography to everyone's attention.
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@MTS Interesting both Obama and RH with lost fathers.
As far as Holbrooke the man is concerned, I’m reminded of the anecdote about composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Allegedly, when Lloyd-Webber asked an acquaintance why people took such an instant dislike to him, the answer was that it saves time.
5
This is a good review and a terrific book. I read the views about America - and for decent people are in the world. Most books about human rights and policy are dulling. Packer writes well, even his less interesting bits of life. This is better than Halberstam and Isaacson. It is sad that we have to go at the end of the American century. I have been to Vietnam and the Balkans - most of the Serbs and Moslems were very difficult. I met Holbrooke and he liked the films I worked. He talked with enthusiasm about films and journalism truth. Well, I really liked him. I wonder if he was really awful? Cohen thinks and Packer. I don’t know. These days we cannot understand most of the awful people in public life. Thanks for a great book and a good review.
4
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took diplomacy in college - proved one thing - diplomacy is hard to get right. That is one reason why there are so many wars. When we as humans prepare more of our children for wars than to create understanding and agreement...how can one not be, but a cynic of humanity?
5
Cohen makes it sound like there is real peace in the Balkans. Wasn’t there a dust up in Kosovo just last week and are all foreign troops out of the area. Aren’t we still going on and on with war crimes trials. It is amazing now how every one in the world knew that Vietnam was a civil war except JFK.
5
@Rich Murphy
Back when Holbrooke was negotiating the Dayton accords, I heard that Albanians pleaded with him to recognize the Kosovars' years-long campaign of passive resistance against Serbian rule, and include Kosovo in the settlement. RH waved them away.
Personally, the diplomats I most admire are George Mitchell, a true gentleman who succeeded in working out the Good Friday Agreement; and the architects of the Marshall Plan.
26
Richard Holbrooke was not hired to be a nice guy. He was hired to achieve results, which he did, over and over again, proving himself in so many ways. Of course he had his flaws, as do the rest of us, but the rest of us might not have had his talents or his ability to see the possibilities in others that he was unable to see, introspectively, in himself.
Many of us are prone to be armchair psychologists, attempting to discern the complexity in others and the reasons for it while being able to harness them for the greater good. Sometimes we are perceptive and hit the mark, productively, as Holbrooke (and Packer) did, able to coax the angels out of the devils, as Holbrooke did as well.
In Holbrooke, it was his flaws, perhaps, that made him great. Without them, he might have been just another diplomat with small footprints, rather than a colossus astride the world, capable of changing it, even as he was unable to change himself.
27
@Quoth The Raven You could replace the name Richard Holbrooke with Larry Summers and the outcome would be similar as the author's summary in support of the Obama Administration.
A diplomat is in the business of negotiation and compromise.
He or she knows that there are some core values which can never be compromised, but some positions can be abandoned for the greater good of a larger goal.
That rule applies to one’s personal life.
A diplomat is also in the service of two masters. His or her nation is the ultimate master, but the head of the nation’s government is the practical, day-to-day master of every diplomat.
The importance of the national mission should make an American diplomat work hard to satisfy, or at least mollify, the president. One would hope that a president would warm to a diplomat who produced results.
Richard Holbrooke was a very skilled, tireless diplomat who, perhaps because of his messy personal life, did not have the full confidence of his final master, Barack Obama.
Roger Cohen quotes Tony Lake as saying, “What Holbrooke wants attention for is what he’s doing, not what he is. That’s a very serious quality and it’s his saving grace.”
At some point, a man or woman who aspires to do great things may be called upon to make sacrifices to get the opportunity for greatness. Giving up being a jerk does not seem too much to ask.
24
I don’t believe our role in the world is to “remake, redeem, and rescue” it. That monumentally hubristic proposition has caused so much trouble and cost so many lives around the world, with the war in Iraq as the latest the latest, most horrifying example. If any other country said it wanted to remake the world, we would be horrified. Yes, we have wonderful ideals. The Declaration of Independence defines them best. And yes, those ideas are worth advocating. But to attempt to bend the world to those ideals? No.
39
@Mark Siegel This is the third column by a NY Times opinion columnist this week with a similar theme. With a citizenry sick of seeing their young people fight in useless military adventures, budget deficits that are completely going off the rails and a more diverse population that's going to make it harder to achieve the unity of purpose necessary to engage in military conflict I'd say interventionist schemes will be difficult to implement. Look at what's happening with Iran right now. Nobody beyond the Beltway is buying what their selling.
28
The library tells me I am now 20th in line for 5 copies. Don't know if I can wait.
2
Don’t be so cheap, buy a copy. Otherwise their will be no books, only Kindles.
8
Reading the columns of Richard Cohen, David Brooks, and Bret Stephens, it often seems as if the entire point of America's existence has been to provide their ancestors and kinsmen with a stage grand enough to be worthy of their innate talents.
12
As I think back, I remember reading of Holbrooke’s astute diplomatic skill and that it was always tinged with a certain negativity toward his personal qualities. Roger Cohen’s tribute so eloquently explains what I remember: A human being who was full of talent and noble intent and who was also...all too human.
42
Quite a story. Truthfully, I have heard and somewhat followed Richard Holbrooke, but I never knew the man as described by Roger Cohen. We are all complex and conflicted, and, in some way or another, we are victims of ourselves, whether it be our pasts or the present time. We have a dark side, we all do. And sometimes we can neither retrain nor completely redeem it. But we can balance it with heroic, selfless, and dedicated actions. In the end, perhaps in another life, we are judged for our total essence. And it seems as if Mr. Holbrooke will find an inner peace after all.
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@Kathy Lollock
"In the end, perhaps in another life, we are judged for our total essence."
I hope that none of us is judged in any afterlife. That would make life a sort of guessing game. Who is doing the judging, and how will we be judged? I don't know about you, but I have no recollection of anything before I was born. I will hope for symmetry, i.e., that we all just go into oblivion at the end, because we came from oblivion. That would be the most rational outcome. Of course, then the same thing happens to the "best" of us and the "worst" of us. We just die. But that's ok. It means we have to deal with any judgments in this life, as it unfolds. It's up to us, in the here and now. But what's so bad about that?
22
@Blue Moon You are right it is more about the here and now. It is hard to shake a Catholic upbringing which emphasizes the after-life...heaven or hell. Frankly, that philosophy is misleading and rather hypocritical when you think about it. My best friend is Jewish. She taught me a lot. That is: Our good deeds should be done out of compassion and concern for our fellow human beings who live and breathe as we do. It is not about gaining "grace" so we will be assured a place in "heaven," if there is such a place.
6
Holbrooke was good and even great at something. The world was fortunate to have him. But he was bad at others aspects of being human. So what. Let's celebrate him for his good works and accept his flaws. I hope others will do the same for me.
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@Cascadia
“So what?”, you ask. Those “other aspects”, as you call them, nullified his effectiveness and all-but annihilated his future.
Obama didn't dislike and avoid him out of petty spite. He’s a politician after all — you take the bitter with the sweet in that profession. Obama took Holbrooke’s measure. He saw a gifted, driven but flawed, obsessive, near-uncontrollable subordinate with many intramural enemies. Not to his liking, any more than Gen. Stanley McCrystal was, whom he fired.
11
"What a great country! Yes, America is, and will be once more when the nightmare passes, as it must if Americans have half the stubborn resourcefulness and passionate idealism of Richard Holbrooke."
Sounds great but a bit naive and wishful. I still can not believe how easy it was for a complete idiot to take over the most powereful country in the world. It's more than scary. As long as the the Leslie Grahams of this world are traitors we have much to worry about.
103
@ANUBIS: Trump did not "take over" anything. He ran for public office and won. Or don't you believe in democracy?
Trump won by the exact same method as every other POTUS in history -- the Electoral College. Funny, I knew about that back in 6th grade, but apparently 90% of liberals (and Hillary's staff) thought the US elected Presidents by the POPULAR vote in blue Sanctuary states!
Trump did not ride into Washington DC on a tank, at the head of a massive army of "brownshirts".
Also: wake up, liberals. Nowhere is it written you are guaranteed to win every election every time.
1
@Concerned Citizen...hmmm, really? Try five elected by that "democratic" electoral college without the mandate of the popular vote. Only neoconservatism with a taste for authoritarianism could equate minority rule as "democracy." The rest of us learned THAT in 6th grade, as well, with a teacher learned enough to know the not-always-kosher paradoxes built into the system. That EC you flaunt has succeeded in doing just exactly what it was designed not to do. Brilliant.
22
@Concerned Citizen
If the Electoral College were 'democratic' the votes of a state's electors would be cast proportionately with the popular vote in the state. By giving each state two electoral votes regardless of population, the 'extra' power to rural states would be preserved, but razor thin margins in 3 states would not elect a President who lost the nationwide popular vote by 3 MILLION votes.
11
The certain idea of Richard Holbrooke iof America was NOT shared by the Obama administration
From the NY TImes
"Richard C. Holbrooke’s Diary of Disagreement With Obama Administration"
NY Times 4/22/2015
See also
"Richard Holbrooke's decline and fall, as told in Clinton emails"
Politico 07/02/2015
"The emails,... tend to confirm the sad narrative of Holbrooke’s last years, when he found himself cut out of senior-level discussions and his powers curtailed by the Obama White House."
6
@Talesofgenji: and what were the Obama Administration's great diplomatic accomplishments? Cravenly giving in to Iran? and sending them billions of dollars?
Golly, that worked out well.
1
@Talesofgenji maybe Obama will read the book and see his own arrogance?
@Concerned Citizen
Fact deficient ...
3
I will take a bully with heart like Holbrooke over a heartless, evil bully like Bolton any day.
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@David Gold
Er, kind of a left-handed compliment.
4
@David Gold
re-read your comment a few times.
then shake your head a few more times.
then realize you made Jacques' point
1
@Jim Muncy
not that there's anything wrong with being left handed...…
just trying to help you diffuse the wildly angry responses you might receive.
2
Thank you Roger.
7
This "essential patriotism" is of course a lie, much as Roger Cohen and other aspirational mandarins of the establishment would insist otherwise.
Our trouble is, we're not pessimistic enough; a population surfeited on lies, without the luxury of the fictions pundits tell themselves, grows reckless.
This is something Trump understands, even if the Roger Cohens of this world never will.
13
@jrd Yes, we now lack a people willing to sacrifice themselves for the large moralistic pretensions of
people like Holbrooke and his nostalgic fanboys, Cohen being only one example. The latter obviously views himself as the US Bernard Henri Levy. None of them served a tour at the point of the spear.
Great column on Richard Holbrooke, Mr. Cohen. I wouldn't want a word of it changed.
12
@SMS
Except perhaps the entirely gratuitous and undeserved slap at Obama
3
On a peaceful quiet evening where the cat in the den has finished 'Moby Dick', and Christie is down to eight hostless guests on an Island ending with 'Then There Were None', (I dashed up the stairs to double-check the title, and in so doing, an office directory this typist placed together, listing the name Holbrooke and his home number for no reason remembered), it is a bit dampening to read that America is on its way to perdition. 'Mind Over Matter', Mr. Cohen!
Holbrooke's life and profile, authored by George Packer has been on a wish list to be forwarded to a cerebral friend in The Children's International Community, where Tony Lake put his heart and long hours. But most of all, it features The Honorable President Obama, the only man of Distinguished State, who has made this reader feel fortunate and privileged to be an American.
Extraordinary people, who achieve and accomplish great deeds, often forget those close to them and under their banner; The Human Heritage factor, on occasion, missing in their constitution.
Brilliant as Holbrooke may be, there is a tinge of cruelty in the veins of these movers and shakers. David Brooks of the New York Times once wrote of the life-planned, where most of us are summoned to lead a life well-considered.
Genius comes at a price where an imbalance is to oft to be found and the old adage that Life is not Fair has never felt right to this observer.
America has miles to go. Smile, Beloved Country!
10
@Miss Ley: when exactly, did the liberal community (incl. the lefty media) EVER think the US was NOT on its way to perdition? I am 63, and I remember articles with similar tone back in the 70s and 80s -- I remember Carter's "malaise" speech. (I remember when economically, we were to be utterly undone and out maneuvered by JAPAN! China wasn't even in the picture!)
Fawning adulation over Obama is not a logical response to Trump; Obama gave us Trump as surely as anything else.
Did you not read here, very correctly, that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for literally nothing -- for being "elected while black" -- while Mr. Holbrooke's really astonishing accomplishments were ignored. I gather then, the Nobel Peace Prize is just (yet another!) one of those things in life that little more than popularity contests.
Sad.
3
I began reading the book the day it was published. There is not doubt in my mind that it will become required reading for anyone interested in the on ground work of diplomacy.
Today our state dept.is empty of ideas and leadership because our president is a man with no interest in diplomacy .Let me change that the president is an idiot.
83
Excellent piece, I'm glad his story is finally being told. Incredible how Holbrooke orchestrated a huge diplomatic accomplishment ending the Bosnian war but when it came to winning the Nobel Peace Prize (and becoming Sec State) he was unbelievably blind and undiplomatic.
33
This statement is ever true: “America is always best,” Holbrooke noted in a journal, “when it is true to its own values + ideals,” advanced through “steady articulation and skillful pressure.” I would modify it to say "universal values + ideals" -- and that these must not fall to the notion that any means is justified as long as the ends are noble. The coming "America first" failure sadly is almost certain.
14
Richard Holbrooke, one of the so so many talents that History was ready to reward as immortals and that politic evils and mediocre elected left in the dark. But on the side of the dark immortals sometimes, is the curiosity of thinkers and the talent of writers...
7
Terrific piece by Roger Cohen about a complex at times unpleasant, but extremely talented person who did many good things which at least balances out some of the negatives. Holbrooke wanted to do and apparently did perform on a high scale.
12
Lesson learned some 20 years ago by this reader of Holbrooke's remarkable book, 'To End a War' - the Dayton accord that ended the war was not inevitable. Quite the contrary, a peace agreement was fiercely sought despite obstacles that easily could have stymied success. The desire of the parties for an end to hostilities made the accord possible, but possible only. Peace was worth fighting for, and I applaud both George Packer, and Roger Cohen for celebrating Richard Holbrooke's achievement.
66
Sir, I’ve read many articles about Him over the years. I’ve always had the impression that he was extremely full of himself. Certainly, that is NOT an anomaly in powerful, driven people. This is a loving tribute to a difficult person, and despite his flaws, he actually worked for good. What more could we ask for ?
Thank you.
156
A nice eulogy from Roger Cohen for his friend Richard Holbrooke.
But, to be sure, there may be a tendency towards hagiography here, even with Roger's admission of Richard's personal complications.
The bottom line seems to be that Holbrooke was in many ways very, very representative of America--idealistic, muscular, willing to go to the line for causes big and small, but also arrogant, judgmental, tunnel visioned, and often lacking a larger perspective or recognition of and empathy towards other points of view.
Like man, like nation.
165
@Glenn Ribotsky
I don't think America was or is like Holbrooke at all.
America has been stubbornly unwilling to "go to the line for causes big and small" until forced into it - WWII, Bosnia, Rwanda.
Did we stop Russia in Crimea, or Syrian chemical attacks, or Pol Pot, or the Rohingyas in Myanmar, or the Yazidis in Iraq?
Rather, America feigns weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq and our CIA has ousted countless leaders of nations for financial gain.
10
I reviewed the Packer book for Amazon. I didn’t know him like Cohen, but my sense is that Holbrooke was a great man who was his own worst enemy.
44
@David Shulman
There are no great men. This man achieved some good, but also some bad. It probably all balances out.
1
@Jim Muncy - you may be right, but this comment (Shulman's) might deserve further illumination on your part
3
People are complicated.
Individuals can have tremendous insight into other people, but little of themselves.
They can have high ideals and also engage in base fulfillments.
Some people can have great ambitions with little discipline.
Or understand the consequences of behavior, except their own.
Holbrooke certainly embodied the best and worst in humans.
But his last words before his futile operation was said to be asking his physicians to bring peace to South Asia. If his final hope was not even for himself, but instead to make the world better, we should remember him for that.
67