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Post by stonefruit on Feb 17, 2005 20:20:36 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 0:23:13 GMT -5
Thank you for posting. My head is still in the toilet in reaction to this appointment.
The implications are horrific.
First, it is saying, in code, in their cynical joking fashion, that the US is now the biggest state sponsor of terror, and has the largest terrorism budget in the human history, and is in the control of terrorists.
It is saying that they did the bombing in Lebanon. (Timing of announcement).
It is saying that the only thing Latinos are good for is torture and executions on behalf of the United States honchos. (appointing Gonzales and then a known sponsor of terrorist death squads in Latin and South America).
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 1:45:50 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 8:44:50 GMT -5
relegated to the last two paragraphs of a 22 paragraph story: "During consideration of his U.N. nomination, critics suggested he had played a key role in carrying out the Reagan administration's covert strategy to crush the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, an element of the Iran-Contra scandal. Human rights groups also alleged that Negroponte acquiesced in rights abuses by Honduran death squads funded and partly trained by the CIA. Negroponte said during his U.N. confirmation hearings that he did not believe death squads were operating there." Katherine Shrader, Associated Press |
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 8:48:26 GMT -5
Top Bush aide says Negroponte the right choice <br> WHITE HOUSE A top aide to President Bush says John Negroponte is the perfect choice to serve as the government's first national intelligence director and will have "all the authority" he needs. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card tells N-B-C says one of Negropont's advantages is his experience as a consumer of intelligence. Card says that means Negroponte knows what type of information the president needs. Card says Bush's choice also has the ability to oversee the 15 agencies and (b) billions of dollars he'll control while dealing with the "bureaucratic turf." Card insists Negroponte will tell the president what he needs to know and not what others want him to know. And Card says the new intelligence chief will work well with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who at one time opposed the idea of an overall intelligence head. Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 10:29:40 GMT -5
Last 4 paragraphs of a 14 paragraph story: Critics said Mr Negroponte had a record of political loyalty overwhelming accurate reporting. His promotion would further politicise intelligence, they said. Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official, pointed to his Honduras ambassadorship. "I think of the Negroponte of the 1980s covering up humans rights abuses, and then I think of the role of intelligence in telling truth to power, and it doesn't fit," Mr Goodman said. In Baghdad, Mr Negroponte is also reported to have disagreed with CIA reports on the strength of the insurgency, and sent more optimistic views back to Washington. "Negroponte is tough enough," Mr Goodman said. "The question is, is he independent enough?" The New York Times, Reuters,The Guardian www.smh.com.au/news/World/Critics-attack-new-spy-tsar-for-blind-eye/2005/02/18/1108709439210.html |
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Post by Moses on Feb 18, 2005 11:30:16 GMT -5
No one on CNN this morning mentioned his Death Squad Days; only the [Usraeli] 911 commish approve of his appointment
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Post by Moses on Feb 19, 2005 11:05:09 GMT -5
February 19, 2005
Intelligence Nominee Comes Under Renewed Scrutiny on Human Rights
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 - Human rights advocates repeated longstanding criticisms on Friday of John D. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee as director of national intelligence. They said accusations that he covered up abuses as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980's had a new importance after recent cases of American abuse of detainees. In Honduras, Mr. Negroponte "looked the other way" when evidence of rights violations came to light, said Reed Brody, counsel to Human Rights Watch. "Unfortunately," Mr. Brody said, "today the United States is involved in serious human rights crimes committed in the process of collecting intelligence. Is he just going to look the other way again?"Sandra Coliver, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights law center in San Francisco that has aided Honduran torture victims, said the nomination would hurt the United States' image in Central America. [And, I would add, among those Americans who are here from Central America] "In Central America," Ms. Coliver said, "Negroponte is indelibly remembered for his role in increasing the amount of U.S. aid to the Honduran military at the very time that the military's role in supporting brutal death squads was becoming abundantly clear. What kind of a message will this appointment send to the people of Central America? That the U.S. is willing to overlook massive human rights atrocities in the name of collecting intelligence in pursuit of U.S. national interests." [not even national interests-- corporate interests] Mr. Negroponte, 65, now ambassador to Iraq, is a career diplomat who has worked all over the world in his 40-year career. He has faced repeated scrutiny for his work as envoy to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when Honduran military units, some trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, carried out kidnappings, torture and killings.As the first director of national intelligence, Mr. Negroponte would oversee the C.I.A. and the other 14 agencies that are part of the nation's estimated $40 billion spying enterprise. [This figure that they keep giving is far too low-- the CIA budget alone is estimated to be around $40 billion-- the Pentagon- controlled intelligence budget is far greater than this] The post is the centerpiece of intelligence reorganization undertaken chiefly because of the failure to warn of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [But they WERE warned!!!!!!!-- this was the PRETEXT, not the reason. ] The C.I.A. and military are also under intense scrutiny because of evidence that detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere have been tortured in questioning and in a few cases have died in custody. Questions have also been raised about whether the intelligence agency has handed over prisoners to third countries, where they might be tortured. [Questions?-- no-- it has been established that they have] At confirmation hearings for previous posts, Mr. Negroponte has adamantly denied that he tolerated or covered up any abuses. He said at a hearing in 2001 that his top priority as envoy to Honduras was "encouraging Honduras's return to civilian democratic rule, including protection of human rights." Efforts to contact Mr. Negroponte through the State Department were not successful. He has won easy confirmations in the past, and the Honduras record is not likely to be a major obstacle to his confirmation in the new position. Senator [Standard Oil money] John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was not particularly troubled by Mr. Negroponte's record there. "People grow and change over 20 years," Mr. Rockefeller said, adding that the panel would conduct a "thorough" review of the nominee. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who pursued the Honduran questions in 2001, when Mr. Negroponte was confirmed as delegate to the United Nations, issued a statement on Thursday praising him and not mentioning Honduras. [What's with the turnabout w/ Dodd? -- he also praised Negroponte when he was appointed as "Ambassador" to Iraq-- and this after he did numerous end-runs around his "friend" Colin Powell, on behalf of Cheney, at the UN, and engineered the illegal and massively deadly and costly war in Iraq! This is not an issue?! Dodd LIKES what he did subsequently? ] Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee, described Mr. Negroponte in a telephone interview as "a person who has a great deal of credibility." Jack R. Binns, who preceded Mr. Negroponte as ambassador to Honduras, said he opposed the confirmation because he believed that Mr. Negroponte had misled Congress in past testimony and because he might slant intelligence to suit administration policies."Based on his performance in Honduras, there's that possibility," said Mr. Binns, who was ambassador from 1980 to 1991 and is now retired and living in Arizona. Oscar Reyes, whom the Honduran military seized in 1982 and tortured along with his wife, Gloria, said he was dismayed to learn of Mr. Negroponte's nomination."He'll say, 'I didn't know,' " said Mr. Reyes, 69, who now publishes a Spanish-language newspaper in Washington. "But the U.S. embassy knew everything that was going on."Douglas Jehl contributed reporting for this article. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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Post by Moses on Feb 19, 2005 21:38:53 GMT -5
<br> Hail, Hail The Gang's All Here
Ray McGovern
February 18, 2005The appointment of John Negroponte to be director of National Intelligence is the latest evidence that President Bush is strengthening his cabinet's capacity to mislead Congress and trample civil liberties. Ray McGovern, 27-year veteran of the CIA, examines the meaning of the Negroponte appointment and the dark trend it confirms. Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He chaired National Intelligence Estimates in addition to preparing the president’s Daily Brief.The nomination of John Negroponte to the new post of director of National Intelligence (DNI) caps a remarkable parade of Bush administration senior nominees. Among the most recent: * Alberto Gonzales, confirmed as attorney general: the lawyer who advised the president he could ignore the US War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions on torture and create a “reasonable basis in law...which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.”<br> * Michael Chertoff, confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security: the lawyer who looked the other way when 762 innocent immigrants (mostly of Arab and South Asian descent) were swept up in a post-9/11 dragnet and held as “terrorism suspects” for several months. The dictates of PR trumped habeas corpus; the detentions fostered an image of quick progress in the “war on terrorism.”<br> * John Negroponte: the congenial, consummate diplomat now welcomed back into the brotherhood. Presently our ambassador in Baghdad, Negroponte is best known to many of us as the ambassador to Honduras with the uncanny ability to ignore human rights abuses so as not to endanger congressional support for the attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of Nicaragua in the '80s. Negroponte’s job was to hold up the Central American end of the Reagan administration’s support for the Contra counterrevolutionaries, keeping Congress in the dark, as necessary. Introducing...Elliot’s ProtégéStateside, Negroponte’s opposite number was Elliot Abrams, then assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, whose influence has recently grown by leaps and bounds in the George W. Bush administration. Convicted in October 1991 for lying to Congress about illegal support for the Contras, Abrams escaped prison when he was pardoned, along with former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger (also charged with lying to Congress), former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and three CIA operatives. Indeed, their pardons came cum laude , with President George H. W. Bush stressing that “the common denominator of their motivation...was patriotism.” Such “patriotism” has reached a new art form in his son’s administration, as a supine Congress no longer seems to care very much about being misled.President George W. Bush completed Elliot Abrams’ rehabilitation in December 2002 by bringing him back to be his senior adviser for the Middle East, a position for which the self-described neoconservative would not have to be confirmed by Congress. Immediately, his influence with the president was strongly felt in the shaping and implementation of policy in the Middle East, especially on the Israel-Palestine issue and Iraq. Last month the president promoted him to deputy national security adviser, where he can be counted on to overshadow—and outmaneuver—his boss, the more mild-mannered Stephen Hadley.It is a safe bet that Abrams had a lot to do with the selection of his close former associate to be director of National Intelligence, and there is little doubt that he passed Negroponte’s name around among neocon colleagues to secure their approval. As mentioned above, like Abrams, Negroponte has a record of incomplete candor with Congress. Had he been frank about serious government-sponsored savagery in Honduras, the country would have forfeited U.S. aid—thwarting the Reagan administration’s use of Honduras to support the Contras. So Negroponte, too, has evidenced Abrams-style “patriotism.” Those in Congress who still care, beware. Civil Liberties At StakeThe liberties that Gonzales, Chertoff and Negroponte have taken with human rights are warning signs enough. The increased power that will be Negroponte’s under the recent intelligence reform legislation makes the situation still more worrisome.How many times have we heard the plaintive plea for better information sharing among the various intelligence agencies? It is important to understand that the culprit there is a failure of leadership, not a structural fault.I served under nine CIA directors, four of them at close remove. And I watched the system work more often than malfunction. Under their second hat as director of Central Intelligence, those directors already had the necessary statutory authority to coordinate effectively the various intelligence agencies and ensure that they did not hoard information. All that was needed was a strong leader with integrity, courage, with no felt need to be a “team player,” and a president who would back him up when necessary. (Sadly, it has been 24 years since the intelligence community has had a director—and a president—fitting that bill.)Lost in all the hand-wringing about lack of intelligence sharing is the fact that the CIA and the FBI have been kept separate and distinct entities for very good reason—first and foremost, to protect civil liberties. But now, under the intelligence reform legislation, the DNI will have under his aegis not only the entire CIA—whose operatives are skilled at breaking (foreign) law—but also a major part of the FBI, whose agents are carefully trained not to violate constitutional protections or otherwise go beyond the law. (That is why the FBI agents at Guantanamo judged it necessary to report the abuses they saw.) This is one area that gives cause for serious concern lest, for example, the law enjoining CIA from any domestic investigative or police power be eroded. Those old enough to remember the Vietnam War and operation COINTELPRO have a real-life reminder of what can happen when lines of jurisdiction are blurred and “super-patriots” are given carte blanche to pursue citizen “dissidents”—particularly in time of war.Aware of these dangers and eager to prevent the creation of the president’s own Gestapo, both the 9/11 Commission and Congress proposed creation of an oversight board to safeguard civil liberties. Nice idea. But by the time the legislation passed last December, the powers and independence of the “Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board” had been so watered down as to be a laughingstock. For example, the Board’s access to information from government agencies requires the approval of the DNI and the attorney general, who can withhold information from the Board for a variety of reasons—among them the familiar “national security interests.” In addition, the Board lacks subpoena power over third parties. Clearly, if the Board does not have unfettered access to information on sensitive law enforcement or intelligence gathering initiatives, the role of the Board (primarily oversight and guidance) becomes window dressing. In short, the Board has been made lame before it could take its first step. “What the hell do we care; what the hell do we care” is the familiar second line of “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.” Suffice it to say that, with Chertoff, Abrams and now Negroponte back in town, those concerned to protect civil liberties here at home and to advance them abroad need to care a whole lot. (rest at link)
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Post by Moses on Feb 21, 2005 12:23:00 GMT -5
INTELLIGENCE
Fourth Time's A CharmAfter being turned down by Robert Gates, Sam Nunn and William Barr, George W. Bush settled for no better than his fourth choice for the new position of national intelligence director – John Negroponte. All the papers report Negroponte – currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq – should be confirmed to the new post easily. It's unclear why. Negroponte has a troubling record of unethical conduct and incompetence. (Read the American Progress statement). Here's a brief look at his record: NEGROPONTE – COMPLICIT IN EGREGIOUS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: As ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, Negroponte was told repeatedly about Battalion 316, a Honduran army intelligence unit that kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of Honduran citizens. But because Battalion 316 was seen as useful to fighting Communism in the region, Negroponte not only tolerated it but covered up its abuses. In a series of reports to Congress – used to determine whether Honduras should continue to receive military aid – Negroponte fabricated conditions in the country. (For details, read this Baltimore Sun expose.) Confronted with his fabrications by the Sun, Negroponte denied he knew about the abuses, a claim contradicted by members of his staff and over 300 press reports. NEGROPONTE – DEFINITIVELY WRONG ABOUT IRAQ: Negroponte has precious little intelligence experience. And the experience he does have has been characterized by abject failure. As an ambassador to the U.N., he pushed inaccurate intelligence about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war. In December 2002, he called an Iraqi declaration that they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction "an insult to our intelligence." In January 2003 he said, "we are convinced that Iraq maintains and continues to pursue its WMD programs." At the same press conference, asked whether the administration knew Iraq was using aluminum tubes to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapons program, Negroponte replied, "the answer is definitively yes." But hey, everyone was doing it, so no big deal, right? NEGROPONTE – CUTTING AND RUNNING: John Negroponte was looking for an excuse to leave Iraq. A senior administration official quoted in the New York Times said Negroponte "made clear to everyone every time he came back that 'I've got to get out of there.'" According to the official, Negroponte said, "I want to get out of Baghdad as soon as possible. They want me to come back for something, but I want to do the private sector." Just 10 months ago, in accepting his ambassadorship to Iraq, Negroponte said our success in Iraq required "resolve, constancy and unity of purpose." Now, at this critical juncture, Iraq is without an ambassador – and the administration has yet to nominate a successor.
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Post by Moses on Mar 5, 2005 20:24:42 GMT -5
Who Now Will Read to the President in the Morning? By Ray McGovern t r u t h o u t | Perspective Saturday 05 March 2005 Senate skids have been greased for John Negroponte to be confirmed as the first director of national intelligence. Never mind that he deliberately misled Congress about serious human rights abuses in Honduras where he was ambassador from 1981 to 1985. That dissembling enabled the White House to circumvent the congressional restrictions that would have denied use of Honduras as the primary base for the "Contras"-the counterrevolutionaries organized and armed by the US to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. Negroponte's opposite number in Washington during those rogue-elephant, Iran-Contra days, then-Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, was convicted for lying to Congress but then promptly pardoned by George H. W. Bush, who explained that Abrams was motivated by "patriotism." No less "patriotic," Negroponte had simply been luckier, in that he was not required to testify as frequently to Congress. Abrams is now deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs, and it is a safe bet he had a hand in recruiting his erstwhile partner-in-crime, so to speak- for the top intelligence job. On the day Negroponte was nominated, Fox News Channel commentator Charles Krauthammer noted that Negroponte "was ambassador to Honduras during the Contra War...and he didn't end up in jail, which is a pretty good attribute for him. A lot of others practically did." Mornings With Bush That our supine Senators should choose to ignore all this is scary enough. But it is the scene visualized by President Bush for his morning briefing routine, once Negroponte is confirmed, that stands my hair on end. And White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has said that Negroponte's portfolio will include responsibility for producing, as well as briefing, the President's Daily Brief. At the announcement of Negroponte's nomination, the president made it clear that Negroponte would control who and what gets to the president, adding: "He will have access on a daily basis in that he'll be my primary briefer. In other words, when the intelligence briefings start in the morning, John will be here. And John and I will work to determine how much exposure the CIA will have in the Oval Office. I would hope more rather than less." Bush did some backtracking yesterday during his visit to CIA headquarters, saying "Porter Goss comes every morning with the CIA briefer to deliver the briefing. And that, of course, will go on." But the president then immediately noted that Negroponte had not been confirmed yet, raising once again the question as to how much longer the CIA director will have daily access to the Oval Office. Small wonder that Goss allowed himself just the day before to complain publicly that the intelligence reform rushed to passage by Congress in December has "a huge amount of ambiguity in it," and that he was not sure what his relationship with Negroponte is supposed to be. The president's remarks have not been much help. He may be waiting for Vice President Dick Cheney to tell him how to sort this all out. The President's Daily Brief Until now the PDB has been not only CIA's premier intelligence publication, but also its best assurance of access to the White House. That entree gave intelligence officers unique, first-hand insight into the most pressing foreign policy concerns of senior US policymakers and made it possible for those concerns to drive both collection and analysis. I did such morning briefings for the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Assistant from 1981 to 1985, each of them one-on-one-a procedure begun under President Ronald Reagan at the suggestion of then-Vice President (and earlier CIA director) George H. W. Bush. Our small team of briefers was comprised of senior analysts who had been around long enough to earn respect and trust. We had the full confidence of the CIA director, who, though himself very opinionated, rarely inserted himself into the PDB process. When I first learned that former director George Tenet had chosen to piggyback on those briefings, hitching a ride to the oval office with the morning briefer, I asked myself, "What is that all about?" The last thing we briefers needed was the director breathing down our necks. And besides, didn't he have other things to do in the morning? We were there to tell it like it is and, perhaps best of all, in those days we had career protection for doing so. And so we did. If, for example, one of those senior officials asked if there was good evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we knew that professional analysts we trusted thought not, we would say "No sir." But, you ask, "Even if the director had said it was a 'slam dunk?'" Yes. Even after the director had said it was a slam dunk. But bear in mind that in those days the task was not so heroic. We did not have the director looking over our shoulder. The president's assertion that his "primary briefer" will be Negroponte-the man farthest removed from substantive intelligence analysis, not to mention from the sourcing and other peculiarities of the PDB articles chosen for a given day-is cause for concern. Is the director of national intelligence to be super-analyst as well as intelligence czar reigning over 15 intelligence agencies? Will he not have other things to do in the morning? President Bush reportedly does not read the President's Daily Brief, but rather has it read to him. Will Negroponte choose which items to read on a given day? Who will do the actual reading? Will Goss be there? Does he, too, not have other things to do in the morning? Will there be a senior analyst there, with career protection, should it be necessary to correct Negroponte when he attempts to answer the president's questions? And, with Negroponte as gatekeeper, who else will get an early-bird crack at the president? Is it likely that courtiers/partisans like Elliot Abrams will be there to "help" at the PDB briefings? And who is the president more likely to listen to concerning, say, the status of Iran's nuclear program? It is impossible to overstate how much rides on the answers to those questions. Someone should tell President Bush to listen to what his earthly father has to say on all this. He knows.
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Originally an analyst of Soviet foreign policy, he spent several years preparing and briefing the President's Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates. This article appeared in abbreviated form as an op-ed in Friday's Miami Herald. <br> © Copyright 2005 by TruthOut.org
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Post by Moses on Apr 12, 2005 12:52:10 GMT -5
washingtonpost.com
Papers Illustrate Negroponte's Contra Role Newly Released Documents Show Intelligence Nominee Was Active in U.S. Effort By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page A04 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. A State Department FOIA official said yesterday that about 100 documents from the collection are still being "processed." 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. "I have my doubts about a dinner at the residence for a man who is in the business of overthrowing a neighboring government," cabled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Anthony Quainton, after Negroponte played host to the political leader of the contra rebels, Adolfo Calero. Quainton made it clear that he was not a fan of Negroponte's "gastronomic diplomacy." Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used "quiet diplomacy" to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.The contrast with his immediate predecessor, Jack R. Binns, who was recalled to Washington in the fall of 1981 to make way for Negroponte, is striking. Before departing, Binns sent several cables to Washington warning of possible "death squad" activity linked to Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Negroponte dismissed the talk of death squads and, in an October 1983 cable to Washington, emphasized Alvarez's "dedication to democracy."The cables show that the two men typically met once a week, and sometimes several times a week. Although the Honduran military had ostensibly turned over power to a civilian government headed by President Roberto Suazo, Negroponte and the U.S. Embassy viewed Alvarez as the go-to person on security matters. The ambassador supported an April 1983 request by Alvarez for more weapons for the contra rebels, and he predicted that the size of the contra force "could be doubled in next five months if we provided necessary weapons."Negroponte's support for Alvarez remained unwavering until March 30, 1984, when fellow officers ousted Alvarez from office, accusing him of corruption and authoritarian tendencies. The cables show that Negroponte enjoyed a close relationship with senior Washington policymakers, such as then-CIA Director William J. Casey, that was unusual for career diplomats. He used a back-channel system of communication through the CIA to send messages to Casey and others that he did not want widely distributed, offering advice on how to sell the "special project" to an increasingly suspicious and skeptical Congress.The secret message traffic suggests that Negroponte was highly attuned to the political and public relations ramifications of embassy and State Department reporting. He occasionally berated colleagues for their lack of discretion and worked hard to maintain the fiction that Honduras was not serving as the logistical base for as many as 15,000 anti-Sandinista rebels known as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN. "We request that Department no longer clear out cables for Codels [Congressional Delegations] which of late almost invariably have included 'meet with FDN' or 'visit contra camps,' as one of the desired schedule items," Negroponte cabled then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz in July 1984. The cables show that Negroponte was unremittingly skeptical of a regional peace initiative for Nicaragua known as the Contadora process, which would have left the Sandinista government in power. In a private cable to Shultz in May 1982, six months after taking over as ambassador, he expressed fears that peace negotiations could lead to the consolidation of communist influence in Nicaragua. As reports of U.S. covert support for the contra war swept Washington in 1982, Negroponte became a controversial symbol of Reagan administration policies. The ambassador kept a separate file documenting his efforts to combat the negative press coverage, and he fired off letters to editors and newspaper owners to complain about their correspondents' reporting.
In a letter to Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham in November 1982, Negroponte complained about an unflattering profile in Newsweek -- which the company owns -- that depicted him as "a bit imperious" and an admirer of Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar." Not true, insisted Negroponte. "What little leisure time I have for casual reading does not incline in the direction of English literature but rather towards 19th and 20th century history," he wrote. Evidently, the Julius Caesar reference got to Negroponte, because six months later he was referring to the play in a back-channel message that relayed complaints from Honduran leaders about being "taken for granted by Uncle Sam." To emphasize his point, the ambassador quoted from the play to illustrate the relationship between the Honduran and U.S. governments: "Cassius: You love me not. "Brutus: I do not like your faults. "Cassius: A friendly eye could never see such faults."
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