World Biography: Biofiles: John D. Negroponte

 

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Name: John Dimitri Negroponte

Born: July 21, 1939

 

Photo: courtesy of the U.S. mission the UN --http://www.un.int/usa/negroponte_bio.htm

Current Position: The first Director of National Intelligence for the United States. (Nominated on February 17, 2005, confirmed on April 21, 2005)

Birthplace: London, UK

Family: Married (Diana) with five children. (Note: John and Diana Negroponte adopted all of their children from Honduras), Brother: Nicholas Negroponte, who is a co-founder and director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

Education: Graduated from Yale University in 1960

Occupation: Career diplomat

Career History: Entered U.S. diplomatic service in 1960. His first diplomatic assignment was to the U.S. embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. From 1971 to 1973, he was the officer-in-charge for Vietnam at the National Security Council (NSC), working under Henry Kissinger. Negroponte eventually rose through the ranks of the diplomatic corps to serve as the Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. He also served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs from 1985 to 1987 and as the Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from 1987 to 1989. In this position, he worked with Colin Powell. Following that assignment, Negroponte served as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico from 1989 to 1993 and then as the Ambassador to the Philippines from 1993 to 1996.

Negroponte's service in Honduras is controversial due to the allegations that he had a vital role in the U.S. effort to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government Honduras' neighbor, Nicaragua.

From 1997 to his nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Negroponte was the Executive Vice President for Global Markets for the McGraw-Hill Companies.

President Bush appointed Negroponte as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a position he held from 2001 to 2004, when the president nominated him as the first U.S. Ambassador to Iraq in the post-Saddam era.

On April 19, 2004, President George W. Bush nominated Negroponte to be the U.S. Ambassador to the new Iraqi government after the scheduled June 30, 2004 handover of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer. Negroponte served as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to March 2005. On February 17, 2005, President Bush nominated Ambassador Negroponte as the first Director of National Intelligence.

 

Organizations: Belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. Past chairman of the French-American Foundation.

America's Priority at the U.N.: Taking on Terror --Article by John Negroponte

Languages: English, Vietnamese, Greek, French, and Spanish

Worked/Collaborated With: Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell

 

Sources: United States Mission to the United Nations Biography page on Ambassador Negroponte--http://www.un.int/usa/negroponte_bio.htm

President's Statement on Senate Confirmation of Negroponte--http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050421-5.html

Foreign Policy in Focus --Biography of John Negroponte--http://www.fpif.org/republicanrule/officials_body.html#negroponte

Ambassador Negroponte's Speeches while serving in Iraq--http://iraq.usembassy.gov/iraq/speeches.html

Source Watch: A Project of the Center for Media & Democracy --http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=John_Negroponte

 

Lee, R. "World Biography: John D. Negroponte"

http://www.worldbiography.net/negroponte_john.html

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