Our country lost a wonderful statesman last summer – Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
He passed away on the first day of September. Richardson’s work in foreign affairs amounted to a tribute to the value of diplomacy. He served as an ambassador to the United Nations (Clinton administration), a member of the House of Representatives, US energy secretary (Clinton administration), and eventually governor of New Mexico.
Richardson used his diplomatic skill to secure the release of Americans held prisoner in hostile regimes overseas. In 1996, when still serving in the House of Representatives, he played a major role in the release of Evan Hunziker from North Korean custody and for securing a pardon for Eliadah McCord, an American convicted and imprisoned in Bangladesh. His accomplishments won him a Nobel Peace prize nomination.
In 1997, he worked alongside Nelson Mandela and helped negotiate the transfer of power between Mobutu Sese Seko and Laurent-Desire Kabila at the conclusion of the first Congo War. In 2000, when serving as secretary of energy, Richardson earned a United States Institute of Peace Senior Fellowship and spent the next year researching and writing on the negotiations with North Korea and the energy dimensions of U.S. relations.
Richardson returned to North Korea in 2010 at the invitation of the North’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan. Upon arriving in Pyongyang, he told reporters that his “objective is to see if we can reduce the tension on the Korean peninsula, that is my objective. I am going to have a whole series of talks with North Korean officials here and I look forward to my discussions.” On December 19, Richardson said his talks with North Korean officials made “some progress” in trying to resolve what he calls a “very tense” situation. Speaking from Pyongyang, Richardson said he found the North Korean general he met receptive to his proposal for setting up a hotline between North and South Korean forces and open to his idea for a military commission to monitor disputes in and around the Yellow Sea.
After his retirement from politics, Mr. Richardson continued his work in the field of diplomacy. He started the Richardson Foundation in 2011 to negotiate the release of prisoners. In 2016, at the request of Ohio Governor John Kasich, Richardson unsuccessfully negotiated for the release of Cincinnati college student Otto Warmbier, detained on a visit to North Korea. North Korea eventually released Warmbier in a vegetative state a year later, and he died in Cincinnati within a month.
In 2021, Richardson undertook a mission to Myanmar, where he negotiated with military junta head Min Aung Hlaing, and secured the release of U.S. journalist Danny Fenster from an 11-year prison sentence. Shortly before his death, four Democratic senators nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in seeking the release of 15 political prisoners, including professional basketball player Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed.
The ideals that Richardson stood for – dialog and diplomacy – should be important in the current state of international affairs, the raging Cold War between the US, its allies and those countries in the China/Russia orbit. Let’s hope we remember the this departed statesman in the years to come.
