John Negroponte

John Dimitri Negroponte (/ˌnɛɡroʊˈpɒnti/; born July 21, 1939) is an American diplomat. In 2018, he was a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is a former J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Prior to this appointment, he served as a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, United States Deputy Secretary of State (2007–2009), and the first ever Director of National Intelligence (2005–2007).

Negroponte served in the United States Foreign Service from 1960 to 1997. From 1981 to 1996, he had tours of duty as United States ambassador in Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. After leaving the Foreign Service, he subsequently served in the Bush administration as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004, and was ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005.

Negroponte was born in London on July 21, 1939, to Greek parents Dimitrios Negrepontis (1915–1996) of the Negroponte family and Catherine Coumantaros (1917–2001). His father was a shipping magnate and alpine skier who competed in the 1936 Winter Olympics. Negroponte attended the Allen-Stevenson School and The Buckley School and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1956 and Yale University in 1960. He was a member of Fence Club (Psi Upsilon fraternity), alongside William H. T. Bush, the brother of President George H. W. Bush, and Porter Goss, who served as Director of Central Intelligence and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Negroponte from 2005 to 2006.

Negroponte joined the United States Foreign Service in 1960. He served at eight different Foreign Service posts in Asia (including the U.S. Embassy, Saigon), Europe and Latin America, and he also held important positions at the State Department and the White House. As a young Foreign Service officer—one of the few men in Washington who dared to openly disagree with Henry Kissinger's secretive handling of the Vietnam peace talks—Negroponte attempted to convince his superior that any peace agreement negotiated without the consent of South Vietnam's leader Nguyen Van Thieu would fail. Seymour Hersh claims in his book The Price of Power that Kissinger never forgave Negroponte, and, upon becoming Secretary of State, exiled him to Quito, Ecuador.^{[citation needed]} This was to be the beginning of Negroponte's long distinguished career as an ambassador. In 1981, he became the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. From 1985 to 1987, Negroponte held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. Subsequently, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, from 1987 to 1989; Ambassador to Mexico, from 1989 to 1993; and Ambassador to the Philippines from 1993 to 1996. As Deputy National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, he was involved in the campaign to remove General Manuel Noriega from power in Panama. From 1997 until his appointment as ambassador to the U.N., Negroponte was an executive with McGraw-Hill.

From 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. During this time, the US began to maintain a significant military presence there, with the goal of overthrowing the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in a civil war. Military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. Honduras also received over $200 million in economic aid.

In 1995, The Baltimore Sun published an extensive investigation of U.S. activities in Honduras. The investigation found that Negroponte was aware of human rights abuses being committed by Battalion 3–16, but these were deliberately omitted from reports submitted to Congress. Speaking of Negroponte and other senior U.S. officials, an ex-Honduran congressman, Efraín Díaz, was quoted as saying: "Their attitude was one of tolerance and silence. They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed."

Substantial evidence later emerged to support the contention that Negroponte knew serious violations of human rights were being committed by the Honduran government, yet did not recommend ending U.S. military aid to Honduras. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, on September 14, 2001, as reported in the Congressional Record, aired his concerns on the occasion of Negroponte's nomination to the position of UN ambassador:

Based upon the Committee's review of State Department and CIA documents, it would seem that Ambassador Negroponte knew far more about human rights abuses perpetrated by the Honduran government than he chose to share with the committee in 1989 or in embassy contributions at the time to annual State Department Human Rights reports.