It was days before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the U.S. government was urging Americans to stay away from Russia. That\u2019s when Bill Richardson boarded a plane to Moscow.<\/p>\n
Mr. Richardson, the former New Mexico congressman, governor and cabinet member, was pursuing his passion: freelance diplomacy with a dangerous foreign government. In this case, he was headed to the Russian capital in an effort to secure the release of Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine who the State Department said was wrongfully imprisoned. In a call to Mr. Reed\u2019s parents, an aide to Mr. Richardson said his boss was on a \u201cguerrilla mission,\u201d they would later recall.<\/p>\n
Two months later, Mr. Reed was freed in a prisoner exchange with Russia, one that his parents said would not have been possible without Mr. Richardson\u2019s help \u2014 even if it was unclear whether the garrulous politician had made a decisive difference, as opposed to quiet negotiations by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
Either way, the Russian mission was classic Bill Richardson. Until his death on Friday at age 75, Mr. Richardson cultivated a unique specialty in foreign affairs, positioning himself as an emissary \u2014 sometimes a secret one, and not always a welcome one for U.S. officials \u2014 to brutish foreign leaders whom American presidents and other officials would or could not deal with directly.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Saturday, President Biden called Mr. Richardson\u2019s work to help bring home dozens of imprisoned Americans \u201cperhaps his most lasting legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a role for which Mr. Richardson was stylistically well suited. He had a flair for flattery, as well as a quick, self-deprecating humor. Asked in a 2016 public appearance how he had become a middleman to strongmen, he smiled as he quoted what he said was President Bill Clinton\u2019s answer to that question: \u201cBad people like him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over several decades, beginning in the 1990s, Mr. Richardson became known as something of a dictator whisperer, meeting with the likes of Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein, Cuba\u2019s Fidel Castro and more than one member of North Korea\u2019s ruling Kim dynasty. Several of his trips are widely credited with winning the freedom of detained Americans whose release had not been possible to secure through official channels, whether for practical or political reasons.<\/p>\n
He took pride in knowing how to negotiate with prideful, sometimes murderous men, writing a book titled \u201cHow to Sweet-Talk a Shark.\u201d (\u201cRespect the other side. Try to connect personally. Use sense of humor. Let the other side save face,\u201d he once told an audience.)<\/p>\n
Some U.S. officials have quietly complained in recent years that Mr. Richardson\u2019s freelance bargaining, however well intentioned, had complicated official negotiations to secure the release of American prisoners.<\/p>\n
Operating from his nonprofit, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement \u2014 which, despite the impressive name, occupied a modest office space in downtown Santa Fe \u2014 Mr. Richardson also provided advice and emotional support for the families of Americans who experts say have been wrongfully detained by hostile governments in growing numbers.<\/p>\n
He was drawn into the shadowy and often morally fraught world of prisoner diplomacy as a New Mexico congressman in 1994, after an Army helicopter pilot was downed and captured by North Korea after straying across the country\u2019s demilitarized border zone on a training mission. The pilot was a constituent of Mr. Richardson\u2019s, and the representative spent several days in Pyongyang securing his release, as well as the remains of his fallen co-pilot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the North Koreans were so sick of me, they gave me the pilots because they wanted me to leave,\u201d Mr. Richardson later joked.<\/p>\n
Mr. Clinton was impressed with his efforts and, in what Mr. Richardson called \u201ca domino effect,\u201d later sent Mr. Richardson on delicate missions to places like Afghanistan and Sudan.<\/p>\n
A behind-the-scenes illustration of Mr. Richardson\u2019s method can be found in a transcript of his July 1995 meeting in Baghdad with Mr. Hussein, whom he visited in a Clinton-approved effort to secure the release of two American prisoners. (The transcript is one of hundreds of Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces years later and posted online by the Defense Department.)<\/p>\n
The transcript shows Mr. Richardson to be copiously respectful of the Iraqi leader, noting that he had voted against the 1991 congressional authorization for the American military operation to expel Iraq from Kuwait. He also joked that Baghdad\u2019s ferociously hot summer weather reminded him of his native New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Mr. Richardson then told the Iraqi leader, \u201cIf we want my mission to be successful, it has to be done in extreme secrecy.\u201d He added that while he was not an official emissary of the Clinton administration, Mr. Clinton \u201cis very much aware of my visit, as I have spoken with him about it many times.\u201d Without mentioning specific concessions, Mr. Richardson made clear that granting clemency for the two prisoners would \u201ccreate an atmosphere of good will in the United States\u201d for Mr. Hussein.<\/p>\n
\u201cI apologize if I took too long talking, even though I promised not to do so,\u201d he concluded, joking that he had been compensating for his party\u2019s minority status in Congress.<\/p>\n
The pitch worked: Mr. Hussein agreed to let Mr. Richardson bring the prisoners home. In return, according to the Iraqi government transcript, Mr. Richardson left him with a piece of handcrafted New Mexican pottery.<\/p>\n
Mr. Clinton, who nominated Mr. Richardson to be his ambassador to the United Nations the next year, said that he had \u201cundertaken the toughest and most delicate diplomacy around the world.\u201d He marveled that just a few days earlier, Mr. Richardson \u201cwas huddled in a rebel chieftain\u2019s hut in Sudan, eating barbecued goat and negotiating the freedom of three hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n
After finishing his term as New Mexico\u2019s governor and leaving the national political stage, Mr. Richardson resumed his focus on American hostages and prisoners abroad. But in recent years, his work became increasingly independent of the U.S. government. And his role in U.S. negotiations with countries like Iran (helping secure the release of Michael White, a Navy veteran, in 2020), Myanmar (helping negotiate the freedom of the U.S. journalist Danny Fenster in 2021) and Russia became a source of tension with both the Trump and Biden administrations.<\/p>\n
As in the case of Mr. Reed, Mr. Richardson met with Russians \u2014 including an oligarch close to President Vladimir V. Putin \u2014 to produce a deal for the release of two other Americans detained in Russia, the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine. Ms. Griner was released as part of a prisoner swap in December, though, once again, U.S. officials gave no indication that Mr. Richardson had played a decisive role.<\/p>\n
Speaking to CNN last year, Mr. Richardson dismissed talk that his freelance diplomacy might complicate work through official channels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of nervous Nellies in the government that think they could know it all, and that\u2019s not the case,\u201d he said. \u201cLook at my track record over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Bill Richardson\u2019s time as energy secretary. He did not serve in the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
How we handle corrections<\/p>\n