Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson Made It His Mission to Free Hostages

A governor, diplomat and political activist, Bill Richardson will probably be best remembered as a statesman who dedicated his later years to freeing hostages and political prisoners around the world. He was one of the Democratic Party's most popular and charismatic Latino leaders.

Richardson would often step in when officialdom could not close the deal on getting people released from prisons in countries ranging from North Korea to Myanmar to Russia. And more often than not he succeeded. In the 1990s he was also instrumental in getting an agreement to end the fighting in Darfur in Sudan and helped champion nuclear talks with North Korea. His efforts garnered him multiple nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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In one of his final missions, in December 2022, Richardson helped broker the release of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner, who was imprisoned in Russia. He bargained the releases in 2020 of U.S. Navy veteran Michael White from Iran, and in 2021 of American journalist Danny Fenster from a Myanmar prison. Last year he successfully negotiated a prisoner swap from Russia of Marine veteran Trevor Reed.

After serving for 14 years as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and as secretary of energy and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, Richardson was elected New Mexico governor in 2002 and reelected in 2006. He described being governor as “the best job I ever had.”

In 2007, Richardson made a stab at the Democratic nomination for president. “I was talking to my mom, and I said, ‘Mom, I'm running for president,’” The Washington Post quoted Richardson as saying during a 2007 campaign stop in Phoenix. “President of what?” he remembered her asking him in Spanish. After dropping out of the race, Richardson threw his support behind Barack Obama.

When his official political career ended, Richard founded the Richardson Center for Global Engagement. “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,” Mickey Bergman, the center’s vice president, said in a statement. “There was no person that Gov. Richardson would not speak with if it held the promise of returning a person to freedom."

The tributes to Richardson continue to pour in.

“The entire world lost a champion today,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D). “Bill Richardson was a titan among us, fighting for the little guy, world peace, and everything in between.” U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) called Richardson a “giant in public service and government.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Richardson “a quintessential public servant in every sense of the word. His entire life, he was dedicated to improving the lives of those around him — whether it was the people of New Mexico as our nation’s only Hispanic governor during his two terms or many Americans unjustly detained by despotic regimes around the world.”