On January 23, 2009, Richard Holbrooke was appointed special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a former diplomat, journalist, investment banker, and advisor. Ambassador Holbrooke joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1963 and began his career in Vietnam as a provincial representative for USAID. As assistant secretary of state for Europe, he was the chief architect of the 1995 Bosnian Peace Accords at Dayton. He later served as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo. In 1993, he was the U.S. ambassador to Germany, and most recently, from 1999-2001, he served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. As a journalist, he was managing editor of Foreign Policy from 1972-77, and contributing editor of Newsweek for a year in the mid 1970s. Ambassador Holbrooke also wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers and two best-selling books: To End a War, a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and co-authored Clark Clifford’s memoir, Counsel to the President.