Word: richardson
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...Richardson had just unpacked after his trip to Pyongyang to retrieve Hunziker when Sherry Early, an Albuquerque constituent, telephoned on Dec. 1 to plead for his help on behalf of her husband John, who was being held by Kerubino's forces in war-torn Sudan. Richardson says he never accepts a mission unless the family, the State Department and the country holding the hostage all invite him to mediate. Early, his Kenyan co-pilot and an Australian nurse were captured by Kerubino's men on Nov. 1, when their Red Cross plane landed at an airstrip near Gogrial. The plane...
...week after the phone call, Richardson and a State Department team were flying over Gogrial, where tires had to be cleared from a dirt airfield below so they could land. "I get out of the plane, and it's a surreal scene from a Tarzan movie," the Congressman recalls. A delegation of threadbare Dinka fighters from Kerubino's army lined up to greet him. Richardson had on a tie and the same blazer he'd worn for good luck in every other hostage negotiation...
...American banker and a Mexican homemaker, he grew up in Mexico City and played baseball well enough to be drafted by the then Kansas City Athletics after attending a prep school in New England. At his father's insistence, Richardson left baseball behind and chose Tufts University, ending up with a master's degree in international relations. After a three-year stint as an aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he moved to New Mexico to run for Congress...
...State Department usually dreads sending Congressmen overseas because they can be loose cannons in sensitive negotiations. Even Richardson has been known to commit a diplomatic faux pas. During his Baghdad meeting with Saddam to free Daliberti and Barloon, the Iraqi leader stormed out briefly when Richardson crossed his legs and showed his shoe sole--a sign of disrespect in Arab culture. "We connected because I was honest and tough,'' says Richardson. "I didn't apologize, even when I crossed my legs...
...instructions and has a knack for finding a warm spot in even the surliest of despots. He always reads the history and psychological profile of his potential adversary. He knew that one of Kerubino's daughters had just died of measles, so when talks with the chieftain became heated, Richardson took a break and strolled over to a nearby hut to visit one of Kerubino's other children, who also had measles. "It touched him," Richardson says...