Former American diplomat, specialist in the release of detainees, and former American ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Bill Richardson, died on Saturday, at the age of 75, announced the vice-president of his foundation, Mickey Bergman , in a press release. Also a former governor of New Mexico and former energy secretary to former President Bill Clinton, Mr. Richardson “passed away in his sleep during the night,” Mr. Bergman said.
“The world has lost a defender of those who were unjustly detained abroad,” he added. Specializing in negotiations for the release of Americans detained by countries considered “hostile” by the United States, the former ambassador notably contributed to that of basketball player Brittney Griner in 2022, when she was held in Russia.
He had also played a major role in negotiations with Saddam Hussein for the release in 1995 of two Americans who had crossed the border. Born in California in 1947, Bill Richardson grew up in Mexico before joining the United States as a teenager, in the suburbs of Boston (Northeast).
“Indiana Jones of American Diplomacy”
He is one of the first representatives of the Hispanic community to have reached high political office and declared himself a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidential election of 2008, again the first candidate of the Latin American minority. He eventually stepped down to support Barak Obama and was to join his government after his election, but a campaign finance affair forced him to give up on becoming his Commerce Secretary.
Parliamentarian, ambassador to the UN and then Bill Clinton’s energy secretary in the late 1990s, Bill Richardson had carved out a reputation as an adventurer, nicknamed “the Indiana Jones of American diplomacy” for his unofficial missions to pet peeves of the United States.
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Kim Jong Il in North Korea, Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela… For nearly thirty years, the bubbling emissary multiplied private mediations with Washington’s worst enemies.
