Bill Richardson, the two-term Democratic governor of New Mexico and US ambassador to the United Nations who dedicated his post-political career to working to free Americans detained abroad, has died. He is 75 years old.
The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which he founded and leads, said in a statement Saturday that he died in his sleep at his home in Chatham, Massachusetts.
“He lived his entire life in service to others — including both his time in government and his subsequent career helping to free people held hostage or wrongfully held overseas,” said Mickey Bergman, the center’s vice president. “There is no one that Governor Richardson will not talk to if he holds the promise of returning someone to freedom. The world has lost a champion for those unjustly detained abroad and I have lost a dear mentor and friend.”
Before his 2002 election as governor, Richardson was the UN ambassador and secretary of energy under President Bill Clinton and served 14 years as a congressman representing northern New Mexico.
Richardson also traveled the world as an unofficial diplomatic problem solver, negotiating the release of American hostages and soldiers from North Korea, Iraq, Cuba and Sudan. He bargained with a who’s who of America’s enemies, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It’s a role that Richardson relishes, once describing himself as the “unofficial secretary to gangsters.”
Armed with a golden resume and extensive experience in foreign and domestic affairs, Richardson ran for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination in hopes of becoming the nation’s first Hispanic president. He dropped out of the race after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
Richardson was the nation’s only two-term Hispanic governor. He describes being governor as “the best job I’ve ever had.”
“It’s the most fun. You can do your best. You set the agenda,” Richardson said.
Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has died at the age of 75. Getty Images
As governor, Richardson signed legislation in 2009 that abolished the death penalty. He called it “the hardest decision of my political life” because he had previously supported the death penalty.
Other accomplishments as governor include a $50,000-a-year minimum wage for New Mexico’s most qualified teachers, an increase in the state’s minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.50 an hour, a pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds, renewable energy requirements for utilities and funding for infrastructure projects large, including a commercial spaceport in southern New Mexico and a $400 million commuter rail system.
Richardson continued his independent diplomacy even while serving as governor. He had just begun his first term as governor when he met with two North Korean envoys in Santa Fe. He went to North Korea in 2007 to retrieve the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War. In 2006, he persuaded Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to release Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Paul Salopek.
Bill Richardson ran in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. AFP via Getty Images
Richardson changed the political landscape in New Mexico. He raised and spent record amounts for his campaign. He brought Washington-style politics to a laid-back western state with a part-time Legislature.
Lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, complained that Richardson threatened retaliation against those who opposed him. Democratic state Sen. Tim Jennings of Roswell once said Richardson was “beating the public” in his dealings with lobbyists on health care issues. Richardson dismissed criticism of his administrative style.
“Admittedly, I am aggressive. I used the bully pulpit of the governor’s office,” Richardson said. “But I did not threaten retaliation. They say I’m a vindictive person. I just don’t believe that.”
Longtime friends and supporters attribute Richardson’s success in part to his persistence. Bob Gallagher, who heads the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said if Richardson wants something done then “hope he has a shotgun at the end of the aisle. Or a ramrod.”
After dropping out of the 2008 presidential race, Richardson endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. That’s despite a long-standing friendship with the Clintons.
Obama later nominated Richardson to be secretary of commerce, but Richardson withdrew in early 2009 because of a federal investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving his administration in New Mexico.
Bill Richardson supported Obama in the ’08 primaries despite being friends with the Clintons. Getty Images
A few months later, the federal investigation ended without charges against Richardson and his former assistant. Richardson had a troubled tenure as energy secretary because of the scandal over the loss of secret nuclear weapons computer equipment at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the government’s investigation and prosecution of former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Richardson approved Lee’s dismissal at Los Alamos in 1999. Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, charged with 59 counts of mishandling sensitive information. Lee later pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling computer files and was acquitted by a federal judge.
William Blaine Richardson was born in Pasadena, California, but grew up in Mexico City with a Mexican mother and an American father who was a US bank executive.
He attended prep school in Massachusetts and was a star baseball player. He then went to Tufts University and its graduate school in international relations, earning a master’s degree in international affairs.
Richardson moved to New Mexico in 1978 after working as a Capitol Hill staffer. He wants to run for political office and says New Mexico, with its Hispanic roots, seems like a good place. He campaigned for Congress just two years later – his only losing race.
In 1982, he won a new congressional seat from northern New Mexico that the state had taken in redistricting. He resigned from Congress in 1997 to join the Clinton administration as UN ambassador and became secretary of energy in 1998, holding the position until the end of the Clinton presidency.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
