Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor and U.N. ambassador who later traveled the globe on missions to free hostages and political prisoners, has died at his family’s Cape Cod summer home.
Richardson, 75, died late Friday at the family property in Chatham, Mass., according to a statement Saturday from the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, an organization he founded to promote diplomacy and peacekeeping efforts.
Former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson speaks to reporters after a news conference in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Seth Wenig/Associated Press file
“Governor Richardson passed away peacefully in his sleep last night,” said Mickey Bergman, the center’s vice president. “He lived his entire life in the service of others – including both his time in government and his subsequent career helping to free people held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.”
Richardson’s career in politics and diplomacy spanned four decades and included eight terms in Congress, a stint as energy secretary during the Clinton administration, and a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007.
In more recent years, he was best known as the globe-trotting statesman and savvy negotiator who was repeatedly dispatched by Democratic and Republican administrations to win the release of hostages and political prisoners, from North Korea and Myanmar to Russia. He spent months negotiating with Russian officials in helping to secure the release last December of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner.
His reputation as a hostage negotiator earned him international accolades. “Bill Richardson is like a diplomatic Red Adair,” former senior White House adviser and ABC News personality George Stephanopoulos once said, comparing Richardson to the world-traveling oil-well firefighter. “He’s a skilled negotiator. He sits there and listens, and people trust him.”
At the time of his presidential bid in 2007, he was perhaps the Democratic Party’s most celebrated and courted Latino official. He campaigned in English and Spanish, presenting himself as the embodiment of America’s growing diversity. He was known then, and since, for often striking a humorous and self-depreciating tone.
“I was talking to my mom, and I said, ‘Mom, I’m running for president,'” he said during a 2007 campaign stop in Phoenix. “President of what?” he recalled her asking him in Spanish.
He dropped out of the race in early January after poor performances in early contests.
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