A Word on Richard Holbrooke: One Doesn't Need to Be a Prick to Get to the Top
Author George Packer has just come out with a 500-page blockbuster biography of Richard Holbrooke, the diplomat and political hustler who passed away nine years ago (as karma would have it at the State Department). Holbrooke was one of those out-sized personalities combining charm, ego and abrasiveness that appealed to the ruling classes and repelled underlings. I spent an eternity with Holbrooke one weekend long ago and got a full dose of this entertaining yet difficult man. Packer and those who worked with Holbrooke extensively are in a much better position than I to comment on him as a negotiator, husband and father. But Holbrooke's concentrated personality fairly overwhelmed those who spent time with him, myself included.
Those who fawned over him largely were members of the Washington and New York elites. Those in the trenches had a much more mixed to negative view of a man who sucked up and kicked down. Holbrooke, then a private citizen, fell into my lap one l-o-n-g weekend in Phnom Penh many years ago when I served as chargé d'affaires in our new embassy. He was on a "fact-finding" trip as part of an effort for landing a job in the new Clinton administration. I was stuck with him as there were few outlets for entertainment in those wild east days. The more he tried to push himself into our official business, the more I pushed back, at one point ordering him out of the ambassador's vehicle during a codel visit he tried to muscle in on.
We had drinks in the evenings in which he enjoyed regaling a handful of us with old war stories and DC gossip, yet curiously skirted talking about his youth and upbringing. He told me that I had "the best job in the Foreign Service." After polishing off an entire gift box of chocolates someone gave me, washing it down with bourbon, Holbrooke jabbed his index finger at me, looked me straight in the eye and said, "Remember this, Bruno. The State Department will always break your heart." ("haht" in his Scarsdale accent.)
In my very limited time with him, I found Holbrooke to be charming and exasperating at the same time. I think he came to respect me for standing up to his pushy ways. He gave me his card and told me to contact him if/when he joined Bill Clinton's administration (I didn't). Working for him might have been "career enhancing," to use Foreign Service jargon. But I'd worked with out-of-control egotists before and didn't like it. And Holbrooke was in a class of his own. I contrast him with John Kerry (sorry for the name-dropping), whom I'd worked with numerous times overseas. An ego in his own right, Kerry nonetheless was never overly demanding, abrasive or selfish. He respected career USG professionals, asked many questions and showed concern for our circumstances. Kerry, a consummate gentleman, was all business. Lesson: One doesn't need to be a prick to get to the top.