Richard C. Holbrooke has a long list of accomplishments to his name: He was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and assistant secretary of state for Europe; he was special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo and a Nobel Peace Prize-nominee. Currently vice chairman of Perseus, a leading private equity firm, Holbrooke will bring his vast experience to Denison University as speaker for the Richard G. Lugar Symposium on Public Policy at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, in Swasey Chapel (200 Chapel Drive). The symposium is free and open to the public.

Holbrooke's breadth of experience in international affairs and his ties to the current political landscape make his perspective especially relevant. His talk, "America at the Crossroads," will reflect some of his insights.

Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), for whom the symposium is named, graduated with the Denison University class of '54.

A brief biography of Ambassador Holbrooke

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the Honorable Richard C. Holbrooke, is Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC, a leading private equity firm with offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 1999 to 2001, while also a member of President Clinton's cabinet. As Assistant Secretary of State for Europe from 1994 to 1996, he was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia. Ambassador Holbrooke later was President Clinton's Special Envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo and Special Envoy to Cyprus on a pro bono basis while a private citizen. From 1993 to 1994, he was the US. Ambassador to Germany. During the Carter Administration (1977 to 1981), he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was in charge of U.S. relations with China at the time Sino-American relations were normalized in December 1978.

After joining the Foreign Service in 1962, he served in Vietnam (1963-66), including a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta for AID. He worked on Vietnam at the Johnson White House (1966-68), wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, and was a member of the American delegation to the Vietnam Peace Talks in Paris (1968-69).

Holbrooke was Peace Corps Director in Morocco (1970-72) and Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine (1972-77). He held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms, Credit Suisse First Boston (Vice Chairman) and Lehman Brothers (Managing Director). He has written numerous articles and two best-selling books: To End a War, a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and Counsel to the President, Clark Clifford's memoir, which he co-authored. He writes a monthly column for The Washington Post.

Holbrooke has received more than twenty honorary degrees and numerous awards, including several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. He is the Founding Chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, a center for U.S.-German cultural exchange; President and CEO of the Global Business Coalition, the business alliance against HIV/AIDS; and Chairman of the Asia Society. He is on the Board of American International Group. NGO board memberships include the American Museum of Natural History, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Citizens Committee for New York City, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Refugees International. He is Director Emeritus of The Africa-America Institute, on the Advisory Boards of MEMRI and USA for UNHCR, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the US Board of Governors of Interpeace, and Professor-at-Large, Brown University.

For a downloadable, high-resolutiion photograph of Ambassador Holbrooke, please link here.

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