Remembering Bill Richardson | Guatemala's Stunning Election | PEPfAR's Uncertain Future

“Bad people like him”

You have probably seen the news that Bill Richardson passed away on September 1 at the age of 75. He was a long-serving member of congress and governor of New Mexico, and former Secretary of Energy and US Ambassador to the United Nations. But his most lasting impact on international affairs was his freelance work as an international hostage negotiator. As a private citizen he’d travel to places like North Korea or Burma and sit face-to-face with some of the world’s nastiest dictators to secure the release of a foreigner wrongfully detained. He was a natural politician and had the unique ability to make personal connections awful dictators like Omar al Bashir or Saddam Hussein — and used that skill to good effect. (Both released hostages after meeting with Richardson.) “Bad people like him,” Bill Clinton once quipped.

In 2015, Bill Richardson joined me on the podcast for a long conversation about his work as a freelance diplomat who specialized in international hostage negotiations.…