DIPLOMAT: Richard Holbrooke’s superior quality in pursuit of stellar diplomacy

The life, energy and development of the late American diplomat, an extra ordinary man of great caliber, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was documented and narrated in a film by his son. The film named Diplomat is highly recommended to every student of international diplomacy and global politicking.

“THE DIPLOMAT tells the remarkable story of the life and legacy of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, whose singular career spans fifty years of American foreign policy from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Told through the perspective of his eldest son David, the documentary takes you behind the scenes of high stakes diplomacy where peace is waged and wars are ended. The film will be released in 2015, the 20th anniversary of Holbrooke’s crowning achievement: the Dayton Peace Accords which ended the war in Bosnia.”

“Like many Great Men, the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke wasn’t a great father. The work-life balance was never a factor in his long foreign service career, spanning a steamy backwoods post in Vietnam at the dawn of that war to his last post, the one that arguably killed him, the diplomatic version of the Augean Stables—solving Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After his death in 2010, his filmmaker son David Holbrooke set out on a personal project, with the aim of trying to understand the life of his often absent father.

The result is HBO’s The Diplomat, a moving and revealing portrait of one of America’s best-known negotiators, a man who devoted himself to settling international disagreements with talk, not bombs, and who literally died trying to negotiate the “Af-Pak” mess,” as documented by Nina Burleigh of Newsweek.

Burleigh further commented on his family:”The thrice-married Holbrooke was larger than life, a man who, besides negotiating historic peace treaties, was a bon vivant and a limelight hog. His stature was such that his son bagged interviews with global figures—Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, Diane Sawyer (one of Holbrooke’s ex-girlfriends), General Wesley Clark, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, the president of Afghanistan and many more American foreign policy leaders, thinkers and journalists.”

Late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was a man who had a knack and unique talent for global diplomacy. He mingled with ease and grace among Kings, presidents, regular folks and warlords. He can be best described as the best Secretary of State that America never had. This HBO film is worth seeing, if not for its intrigues but for its stellar and successful act of diplomacy by the man who was a real diplomat.