Richard Holbrooke: AP/Alex Brandon

Within two weeks Dick Holbrooke and Steve Solarz passed away, and all friends across the globe whose lives have been touched by them are mourning.

I first met Holbrooke in 1972 when the Williamsburg Conference, convened by John D. Rockefeller III, and organized by The Asia Society, held its second conference in Yogyakarta to bring Americans closer to Asia.

Holbrooke had just started his new job as the managing editor of the newly published quarterly journal Foreign Policy, supposedly more “youthful” than its more “senior” Foreign Affairs published by the Council on Foreign Affairs. I had dinner with him at my residence, and found he was one of the best minds among US foreign policy intellectuals. The occasion was to me like a course in American politics.

He advised me to get to know the US Congress and keep up with some powerful members of both Houses, especially because the Vietnam War had given it more power to hold the purse string for the war. That advice drove me to join a congressional fellowship program in mid-1977, when Holbrooke was the assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific in the Carter Administration.

Holbrooke was also instrumental in supporting the CSIS’ idea of holding a conference in Bali on the US presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The Vietnam War had just ended two years before. Many important participants from the region, including a good group of high-ranking and influential personalities from the US administration, Congress, think tanks, media, and universities intellectuals, attended the conference. The idea was to learn about the US’ involvement in East Asia after the Vietnam War as well as its thoughts on and expectations toward the region.

In 1979, Holbrooke helped Indonesia and other ASEAN members when Southeast Asia was inundated by Indo-Chinese refugees at the first ASEAN post-ministerial meeting in Bali in January, and later at the Geneva Conference on Refugees held by the UNHCR.

My best experience with Holbrooke was when Pat Derian, then assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights who was “notorious” because of her efforts to promote human rights around the world, visited Indonesia. She was very close to president Carter, being an equal rights activist for the African-Americans, as a member of Freedom Riders. Holbrooke frantically called me to help, because Pat Derian insisted on meeting with president Soeharto and visit PKI detainees in prison.

I asked Gen. Benny Moerdani — who was very close to president Soeharto then — for assistance. Pat Derian was able to meet with the president and then with PKI prisoners held in Salemba prison. The encounter went smoothly for both sides.

Since then on I could do no wrong in Holbrooke’s eyes, and we became the best of friends.

In May 2009, I went to see Holbrooke and asked him about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said it was difficult, and developments in Pakistan would be decisive for the resolution of the Afghan conflict. He asked me where Indonesia could help. I told him it would depend on the UN’s request and that we could possibly help train the police force. That was my last encounter with him.

Holbrooke is no more around, but his smart, sometimes arrogant and insistent personality — yet always full of compassion for humanity — will stay with us forever. Kati, like you, I miss him too. I still owed him a boat ride on the rivers of Kalimantan.

Steve Solarz was another giant who deserves to be praised for his activities and work at the US Congress. I first met him when he was ending his chairmanship of the Sub-committee on Africa at the House of Representatives. He asked me whether he should consider being the chair of the Sub-committee on East Asia and the Pacific. I said of course! That was in early 1981. When he accepted the new job, I invited him and his wife, Nina, to visit Indonesia as a kind of introduction.

He and Nina came, and as usual Solarz was not interested in touristic visits, so at first he declined to see Borobudur while visiting the USAID’s irrigation and family planning projects in Yogyakarta. I asked Nina if she could insist Steve go to the temple. Nina managed to convince Solarz, and so off we went to Borobudur in the early morning before visiting the projects. He was very taken by the answers of the women at the family planning clinics in Yogyakarta when he asked why they supported family planning programs in their village. Their single answer was: Because they wanted to enjoy life and not be burdened by big families.

When we passed through Yogyakarta, he saw a primary school with kids playing around during a break, and he wanted to visit them. They were very friendly and hanging around him, and when he paid an impromptu visit to the third grade class, he asked the students, who the US president was. When they shouted Reagan, Regen, or something that sounded like that, Solarz said: “God, how I tried to forget that man”. Reagan was president-elect then. He was impressed, and I had made my point about Indonesia with the visit.

That was a glimpse of the man. Active, committed, full of ideas and initiatives and imposing. But he was also the one who was committed to other people’s lives and to the US doing something about them. His unfailing commitment was evident when he became vice chair of the International Crisis Group.

During the Reagan Administration, when the Democratic leadership did not pay enough attention to the Asia Pacific region, Steve was the one who kept working on bipartisan US foreign policy for the region. He was also the congressman who encouraged Asians to be congressional fellows, and a colleague of mine at CSIS spent one semester with him. Steve will always be remembered as a friend of Asia who tried very hard to keep up the good work of the US in the region.  

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