海角大神

A聽friend who noticed my copy of George Packer鈥檚 鈥淥ur Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American聽Century鈥� asked me, 鈥淗olbrooke, he was secretary of state, right?鈥澛�

He was not, but he ardently wished to be, and the mistake is perhaps suggestive of how close he got. Holbrooke, who began his career as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Vietnam and ended it as President Barack Obama鈥檚 special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is best known for negotiating the Dayton Accords that created a truce in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He was a big man with a big ego and big appetites, and his flaws ensured that he remained, in Packer鈥檚 words, 鈥渁lmost great.鈥� Why tell his story? For one, he鈥檚 a compelling character who led a fascinating life. But more importantly, Packer鈥檚 mesmerizing biography is an elegy not just for his subject but for the vision of American power that he represented.

Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of 2013鈥檚 National Book Award-winning 鈥淭he Unwinding,鈥� establishes Holbrooke as metaphor from the outset. 鈥淥ur feeling that we could do anything gave us the Marshall Plan and Vietnam, the peace at Dayton and the endless Afghan war,鈥� he declares in the introduction. 鈥淥ur confidence and energy, our reach and grasp, our excess and blindness 鈥� they were not so different from Holbrooke鈥檚. He was our man.鈥�

As a young diplomat in Vietnam in the early 1960s, Holbrooke was an idealist. But after seven years embroiled in the conflict, he summed up Vietnam with what he called 鈥渙ne simple, horrible truth: we didn鈥檛 belong there, we had no business doing what we were doing, even the good parts of it.鈥� The lessons he learned there were formative.

Holbrooke served in Democratic administrations and waited out Republican presidencies with lucrative jobs in investment banking. He was an assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration, but President Jimmy Carter鈥檚 national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, disliked him, which prevented him from rising. He was President Bill Clinton鈥檚 ambassador to Germany but again had made a powerful enemy, in this case Secretary of State Warren Christopher, an austere man who found Holbrooke鈥檚 bombast distasteful.聽

But when Clinton finally became convinced that the United States ought to intervene to stop the ethnic bloodshed in Bosnia, even Christopher supported Holbrooke, a fierce and early advocate for U.S. intervention in the region, to lead the delegation. 鈥淭he same traits of character that made the secretary of state shudder 鈥� the self-dramatization, the aggressiveness 鈥� would be more than a match for the Balkan warlords,鈥� Packer writes. The chapters on Holbrooke鈥檚 diplomacy in the former Yugoslavia 鈥� relentless, fast-paced, insistent, bullying 鈥� are the heart of the book.

When it came to how the U.S. should deploy its power, Packer writes, 鈥淒ayton did not mark a new path in the American story. It was closer to the end of something.鈥� Holbrooke believed that in the post-Cold War era, America鈥檚 superpower status gave the country the responsibility to manage humanitarian crises and political chaos around the world, but the idea never took hold.

The diplomat had enjoyed a good relationship with Hillary Clinton, and if she had won the 2008 presidential campaign, perhaps she would have rewarded his loyalty with the job he鈥檇 long wanted. Instead, she became secretary of state under Obama. She found a place for Holbrooke, putting him to work on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but he saw echoes of the Vietnam quagmire and couldn鈥檛 stop talking about them, becoming, in Packer鈥檚 words, 鈥渁 Vietnam bore.鈥澛�

Obama, who disliked drama and didn鈥檛 care for being lectured to, made clear to his staff that he didn鈥檛 want Holbrooke around.

Packer acknowledges, at the end of this insightful and beautifully written book, that Holbrooke鈥檚 memory will fade, along with 鈥渢he idea of a life lived as if the world needed an American hand to help set things right.鈥� In December 2010, Holbrooke fell ill and was rushed to the hospital, where he died. Even as they rode in the ambulance, Holbrooke protested to his deputy, 鈥淚 have so much to do.鈥�