Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson dies aged 75

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Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the UN under Bill Clinton who became one of Washington’s top emissaries for talks with rogue regimes around the world to rescue detained Americans, has died aged 75.

Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico who was an influential player in Democratic politics throughout his career, died in his sleep at his home in Chatham, Massachusetts.

“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,” said the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, an organisation he founded, according to the Associated Press. “There was no person that governor Richardson would not speak with if it held the promise of returning a person to freedom.”

Richardson was born in California in 1947 but grew up in Mexico City. He returned to the US for his studies, attending Tufts University near Boston and earning his master’s degree at its Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His national political career began in 1983 after he was elected to serve as a US congressman, in a position he maintained until 1997.

That year, then-president Bill Clinton tapped him to be US ambassador to the UN — a position he held for 18 months until he shifted to a different cabinet role as energy secretary. Once he was out of office, Richardson ran successfully for New Mexico governor, a role he held for eight years, from 2003 to 2011. During that time, he launched a failed White House bid in 2008 and was considered for vice-president by Barack Obama.

Richardson’s primary contribution to US diplomacy rested in his ability and willingness to hold negotiations with some of the country’s greatest geopolitical rivals and fiercest opponents — earning him the nickname “under-secretary of thugs”.

Throughout his public life, he negotiated with Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator, and spoke to leaders and top officials of North Korea, Myanmar and Russia in attempts to secure the release of Americans who were believed to be wrongfully detained.

Most recently, Richardson played a role in the securing the return of Brittney Griner, the American basketball player who was detained in Russia, to the US, in a bargain that included the return of Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer in the US, back to Russia.