[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 22966-22968]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING AMBASSADOR RICHARD HOLBROOKE

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 335 just 
received from the House and at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 335) honoring the 
     exceptional achievements of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and 
     recognizing the significant contributions he has made to 
     United States national security, humanitarian causes, and 
     peaceful resolutions of international conflict.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
concurrent resolution.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate has been asked to concur 
with

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our colleagues in the House and approve a resolution honoring our 
friend and a great public servant, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who 
passed away on Monday.
  We remember Richard not just as one of America's most distinguished 
and accomplished statesmen, but as a man who--from Vietnam to his last 
mission in Afghanistan--really was a warrior for peace. It is fitting 
that we honor him by approving this resolution.
  Richard was an incredible combination of the best qualities of the 
human spirit--a serious thinker who embraced relentless action; a 
tough-as-nails negotiator who commanded an enormous and infectious 
sense of humor; and perhaps above all, a diplomat who knew firsthand 
just how difficult and frustrating engagement could be, but in his 
life's legacy reminded all of us just how much engagement could 
accomplish.
  Richard's passing is almost incomprehensible, not just because it was 
so sudden, but because I cannot imagine Richard Holbrooke in anything 
but a state of perpetual motion. He was always working. Always hard-
charging in the best sense of the word--he had an immense presence--and 
a brilliance matched only by his perseverance and his passion. He once 
complained that the bureaucracy in Washington all too often saw 
suffering around the world as an abstraction. He took Hannah Arendt's 
famous phrase and flipped it around, saying that sometimes our biggest 
battles were against the ``evils of banality.''
  Well, Richard waged--and won--his share of battles against banality 
and inertia. He was always a man on a mission, the toughest mission, 
and that mission was waging peace through never-quit diplomacy--and 
Richard's life's work saved more lives in more places than we can 
measure. He simply got up every day knowing that--even in difficult 
circumstances where history's verdict is yet to be handed down--every 
ounce of energy and every drop of sweat held the promise of making 
things better for people.
  Yes, Richard had an outsized personality, and it was one that he 
himself could joke about, even relish. He earned the nickname ``The 
Bulldozer'' for a reason. But Richard did not push people away. He drew 
people to him. He was incredibly appreciative of those who worked with 
him and was unfailingly loyal to them. I remember last January, when 
Richard came to the Foreign Relations Committee to testify on the war 
in Afghanistan, he stopped the hearing to introduce his top staff--some 
16 people. More than just colleagues, they were his partners. He knew 
their families and he knew the names of their children. At the State 
Department he didn't just create an office for Afghanistan and 
Pakistan, he built a family.
  His staff returned his affection and loyalty many times over. Foggy 
Bottom is filled with men and women inspired and mentored by Richard. 
Ever since Richard fell ill last Friday morning, dozens of friends and 
family and staff gathered in the lobby of George Washington Hospital to 
show their support and wait for news of his condition. When I stopped 
by on Sunday night, I couldn't help but be moved by the love and the 
concern. And when news of his passing spread, people began 
spontaneously gathering at the hospital. And then--something that 
Richard would have understood and appreciated--they went out together 
and shared stories about him.
  It was impossible to know Richard and not come away with ``Holbrooke 
stories.'' Certainly I have my share. Our public careers were 
intertwined in so many ways, from Vietnam to my Presidential campaign 
to the conflict in Afghanistan. There were long conference calls, 
impromptu policy debates when we found ourselves on the same shuttle to 
LaGuardia, stories shared about our children and lessons learned about 
being modern Dads, and wonderful wine-filled dinners where we came up 
with brilliant plans for peace that didn't always seem so brilliant--if 
they were remembered at all--in the light of day. Richard always made 
it fun because it is a pleasure to be in the company of someone who 
loved the job they were doing for the country they loved. And make no 
mistake--just shy of 70, with a back-breaking schedule--Richard 
Holbrooke loved what he was doing.
  And so, 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. He spent his 
formative years as a young Foreign Service officer in Vietnam, where he 
worked in the Mekong Delta and then on the staffs of two American 
ambassadors, Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge. Given the storied 
expanse of his career, people sometimes forget that Richard wrote a 
volume of the ``Pentagon Papers,'' the seminal work that helped turn 
the course of the Vietnam war. And as with all of us who served in 
Vietnam, Richard's experience there informed his every judgment, and 
left him with the conviction that time spent working even against long 
odds to see that peace and diplomacy prevailed over war and violence, 
was time well-invested for the most powerful of nations and the most 
determined of diplomats.
  He was a pragmatist devoted to principle. He believed that the United 
States could help people around the world at the same time as we 
defended our interests. Richard once wrote about a meeting he attended 
in the Situation Room in 1979, when he was Assistant Secretary for East 
Asia and the Pacific. The South China Sea was being flooded with tens 
of thousands of refugees from Vietnam. They were fleeing the regime 
there, looking for safe haven somewhere else. But most of them were not 
making it. Instead, they were drowning.
  The Seventh Fleet was nearby and could divert to rescue them. But 
there were those in our government who did not want the Navy to be 
distracted from its other missions. And besides, what would we do with 
the refugees? And wouldn't our actions just encourage more people to 
set sail in rickety boats in an attempt to find freedom? Back and forth 
the debate went. Ultimately, Vice President Mondale made the decision: 
America would not stand idly by while people drowned. Richard wrote 
this: ``At this time and distance it may be hard to conceive that the 
decision, so clearly right, was almost not made. There are people who 
are alive today because of Mondale's decision; of very few actions by a 
government official can such a thing be said.''
  Well, we can certainly say that--and more--of Richard Holbrooke. 
Earlier this week, we marked the 15th anniversary of what was perhaps 
his greatest legacy. On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords 
brought an end to a 3\1/2\ year war in Bosnia that had claimed tens of 
thousands of lives and displaced millions. It is a war that would have 
inflicted far more misery if Richard had not tirelessly shuttled 
between the Serbs and the Croats and the Bosnians. He laid the 
groundwork for the peace talks. And then, over 20 days, he charmed, he 
cajoled, and ultimately he convinced the three principal leaders to end 
a war. In the years since, ``Dayton'' has become a byword for the kind 
of aggressive diplomacy that Richard practiced. At Dayton, Richard 
Holbrooke brought himself and the Nation he represented great honor.
  We loved that energy, we loved that resolve--that is who Richard was, 
and he died giving everything he had to one last difficult mission for 
the country he loved. It is almost a bittersweet bookend that a career 
of public service that began trying to save a war gone wrong, now ends 
with a valiant effort to keep another war from going wrong. Over the 
last 2 years, he and I worked closely together on our policy in 
Afghanistan and Pakistan. His honesty could be bracing, and I loved 
that about him. He was always solution-seeking--and always so committed 
to the mission that he never hesitated to leverage the skills of those 
around him because it was success he sought, not spotlights.
  Through this resolution, we acknowledge his extraordinary public 
service and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family, especially 
his extraordinary wife Kati; Richard's two sons, David and Anthony; his 
stepchildren Elizabeth and Chris Jennings; and his daughter-in-law 
Sarah. We are reminded how much richer all of our

[[Page 22968]]

lives have been thanks to the intelligence, humor, and warmth that 
Richard brought to every day of his life. And we mourn your loss with 
you.
  I will miss working with Richard Holbrooke. And I will remember 
something he said last year about his enduring faith in America despite 
the many trials we now face. He said, ``I still believe in the 
possibility of the United States . . . persevering against any 
challenge.'' It is difficult to imagine wrestling with the challenges 
of Afghanistan and Pakistan without him, but we are all sustained by 
the decades-long example Richard set making the possibility of American 
perseverance more of a reality. And for that our Nation will always be 
grateful.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I thank Ambassador Holbrooke for 
the Dayton Accords, held in Dayton, OH, in which Ambassador Holbrooke 
played such a key roll in bringing forward.
  I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution and preamble 
be agreed to en bloc; the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en 
bloc; and that any statements relating to the concurrent resolution be 
printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 335) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.

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