The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which he founded and directed, said in a statement Saturday that Bill Richardson died in his sleep at his home in Chatham, Massachusetts.
“He has served others throughout his life — including his time as governor and his subsequent career helping to free people who have been held hostage or wrongly held abroad,” said Mickey Bergman, vice president of the Centre.
“There was no one Governor Richardson wouldn’t talk to if there was any hope of release. The world has lost an advocate for people wrongfully imprisoned abroad, and I have lost a teacher and a dear friend,” he added.
Prior to being elected governor in 2002, Richardson served as U.S. envoy to the United Nations and Secretary of Energy during the Bill Clinton presidency, and served as a congressman for northern New Mexico for 14 years.
He also traveled the world as an unofficial problem-solving diplomat, negotiating the release of US military personnel and hostages from North Korea, Iraq, Cuba and Sudan.
He has negotiated with nearly every enemy of the United States, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It was a role Richardson enjoyed, having once described himself as “the casual undersecretary of the bad guys”.
“I plead guilty to photo opportunism and saving people and improving people’s lives,” he once said.
He helped secure the release of American journalist Danny Fenster from a prison in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in 2021 and this year negotiated the freedom of Taylor Dudley, who crossed the border from Poland to Russia.
He went to Moscow to meet with Russian government officials in the months leading up to the release of veteran Marine Trevor Reed in a prisoner swap last year, and also worked on the cases of Britney Griner – the WNBA star who was released from Moscow in 2022 – and Michael White, a Navy veteran released by Iran in 2020.
Source: DN
