Negroponte: Horseman of the Neo-COn Apocalypse

THE NEWS STORY STARTED off so blandly. The report stated that John Negroponte, former US Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines, and most recently the US Ambassador to the UN, would take up in Saddam's old palace in June, when Paul Bremer left and some power was handed over to the Iraqi provisional government. Said he'll be in charge of what will become the largest embassy in the world. Then it mentions a hitch in his nomination for UN ambassador.

In the confirmation hearings, Negroponte actually had to say, "To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras."

How messed up do things have to be in your past for you to have to say something like that? I've never had to deny an association with death squads in any of my job interviews. What's so different between me and John Negroponte?

Maybe it's just an age difference. Long before I was born, Negroponte was working as a political officer in the Saigon embassy. He served in that capacity from 1964 to 1968, and later became Kissinger's Vietnam expert at the Paris peace talks.

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