Former Morocco Country Director Richard Holbrooke appointed the Permanent United States Representative to the United Nations
Richard Holbrooke was appointed the Permanent United States Representative to the United Nations in 1999. He has been a professional diplomat, a magazine editor, an author, a Peace Corps director, the chairman of two important non-governmental organizations and an investment banker.
Ambassador Holbrooke was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1993-1994 before being appointed by President Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs in 1994. During that time, he was also chief negotiator for the historic 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.
His most recent position was as a vice chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston, a New York based investment bank, from 1996-1999. During the same period he served on a pro bono basis as the Special Presidential Envoy for Cyprus, and a Special Envoy in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In 1967-69, he wrote one volume of The Pentagon Papers, and simultaneously served as a member of the American Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam.
Over the next two decades, he held numerous positions both in the private and public sector. He served as managing editor of the quarterly magazine Foreign Policy. He also served as a consultant to the President's Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, and was a contributing editor to Newsweek International. He coordinated national security affairs for the Carter-Mondale presidential campaign. He was appointed assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1981, he became vice president of Public Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm. He became a managing director at Lehman Brothers, a New York investment bank, in 1985.
Holbrooke has been very active in the non-profit arena, especially in the area of refugee assistance. His involvement includes Refugees International, the International Rescue Committee, the American Academy in Berlin, the National Advisory Council of the Harriman Institute, the Citizens Committee for New York City, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served on the boards of the American China Society and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
He is the author of To End a War, and co-author of Counsel to the President, as well as numerous articles on foreign policy.
