Holbrooke, 69, whose five decades of government service ranged from being a junior diplomat in South Vietnam to serving as the US ambassador to Germany and at the United Nations, died after surgery to repair a tear in his aorta.

He fell ill on Friday during a meeting with Clinton and was taken to a Washington hospital for emergency treatment. He underwent hours of surgery to try to save his life.

A tenacious lifelong diplomat who earned a reputation as a "bulldozer" in negotiating the 1995 Dayton Accords that concluded the Bosnian war, Holbrooke was once called "Washington's favorite last-ditch diplomat" by Time magazine.

Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven times, Holbrooke joined President Barack Obama's administration in January 2009 as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a tough job dealing with two of Washington's most vexing foreign policy challenges.

Analysts do not expect Holbrooke's death to have much impact on a report due this week to assess the impact of Obama's build-up of forces in the Afghanistan war. The US strategy is meant to allow Afghan security forces to gradually take over and permit American troops start withdrawing in July 2011.

While some analysts believe Holbrooke's influence on Afghanistan and Pakistan policy had waned, he may be best remembered for his success in bringing the warring parties in Bosnia to terms.

Holbrooke, who was born in New York on April 24, 1941, graduated from Brown University in 1962 and soon after was a US foreign service officer in Vietnam. He served as an aide at the Paris peace talks and was a Peace Corps director in Morocco before becoming assistant secretary of state for Asian and Pacific affairs during the Carter administration.