John Negroponte speaks at his swearing in ceremony as new U.S. Ambassador
to Iraq on June 23, 2004. (Source: U.S. State Department)
John Negroponte's Chron File from Tenure in Honduras
Posted on 04/12/2005 8:21:17 AM PDT by OESY
The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.
The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever."
"Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic star. In cables and memos, Negroponte made it clear that he saw the "special project" as key to the Reagan administration's strategy of rolling back communism in Central America.
As Negroponte prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing today for the new post of director of national intelligence, hundreds of previously secret cables and telegrams have become available that shed new light on the most controversial episode in his four-decade diplomatic career. The documents, drawn from Negroponte's personal records as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, were released by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post.
The documents were initially declassified and provided to Negroponte in 1998, after his retirement from the Foreign Service, but the vast majority have never been made public....
The documents offer revealing glimpses into the personality, leadership style and political attitudes of the man President Bush selected to shake up U.S. intelligence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Negroponte's determination to reverse the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua occasionally put him at odds with fellow envoys and with more cautious State Department bureaucrats....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Read article with caution. Note the source.
The only dictatorships left in Latin America are left-wing.
And whatever happened in Nicaragua?
Sounds like he had good judgment. Remember how later, despite all the good press, the liberals were outraged over how in a free election the Sandinistas got kicked out?
If so, Negroponte should get a medal for his efforts. He saved countless hundreds of thousands from death via Marxism.
All roads lead to the left's efforts to destroy Bush.
Washington Post is still irked by the fall of the despotic commie Sandanista regime. Negroponte deserves much credit for his efforts in Honduras against the communists in Nicaragua, and it drives WaPo crazy that he will be DNI.
The dems have never forgiven him for playing a key role in ousting their good communist buddy, Ortega. They never will.
Thank God for the Contras.
Yo soy Contra tambien!
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