[4] He served at eight different Foreign Service posts in Asia (including the U.S. Embassy, Saigon),[5] Europe and Latin America, and he also held important positions at the State Department and the White House.

[citation needed] The previous U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Jack Binns, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, made numerous complaints about human rights abuses by the Honduran Army under the government of Policarpo Paz García.

[8]Substantial evidence subsequently emerged to support the contention that Negroponte knew serious violations of human rights were being committed by the Honduran government, but despite this he 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 suspicions 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.

[citation needed] The documents, cables that Negroponte sent to Washington while serving as ambassador to Honduras, indicated that he played a more active role than previously known in managing US efforts against the leftist Sandinista government next door in Nicaragua.

According to the Post, the image of Negroponte that emerges from the cables is that of an: exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to downplay 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.

They show he sent admiring reports to Washington about the Honduran Army chief, who was blamed for human rights violations, warned that peace talks with the Nicaraguan government might be a dangerous "Trojan horse" and pleaded with officials in Washington to impose greater secrecy on the Honduran role in aiding the contras.The cables show that Mr. Negroponte worked closely with William J. Casey, then director of central intelligence, on the Reagan administration's anti-Communist offensive in Central America.

He helped word a secret 1983 presidential "finding" authorizing support for the Contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels were known, and met regularly with Honduran military officials to win and retain their backing for the covert action.

George Washington University's National Security Archive writes of: dozens of cables in which the Ambassador sought to undermine regional peace efforts such as the Contadora initiative that ultimately won Costa Rican president Oscar Arias a Nobel Prize, as well as multiple reports of meetings and conversations with Honduran military officers who were instrumental in providing logistical support and infrastructure for CIA covert operations in support of the contras against Nicaragua—"our special project" as Negroponte refers to the contra war in the cable traffic.

[14]Negroponte was opposed to early drafts of peace settlements on the ground that they would have left undisturbed what he described as an enormous threat presented by expansion of the Nicaraguan armed forces with Soviet and Cuban aid.

In his tenure in Honduras, Negroponte steered a middle course between State Department and journalistic critics who favored a policy of nonresistance to the militarization of the Sandinista regime to power Nicaragua and its aid to rebel movements in Honduras and El Salvador and 'hard line' persons within the Reagan administration who would have involved the United States in Central America through actions such as blockades, bombing of Nicaraguan airfields, the provision of offensive weapons, and the installation of permanent military bases.

By the same token, strong North American opposition to President Suazo's attempt to remain in power in 1985 helped preserve the fragile legitimacy that had been built over the preceding five years ... massive economic aid prevented the economy's collapse ... without the United States, it might well have disintegrated into chaos.

Senator Bill Bradley regarded the whole episode as "a minor issue--the supply of arms to the Nicaraguan contras, a policy that took on monumental proportions inside the Beltway and upon those liberals who saw another quagmire in every exercise of military power.

"[16] In this posting, Negroponte together with Ambassador Richard Benedick negotiated the Montreal Protocol on Ozone, the most successful modern environmental treaty, overcoming opposition from Europe, Russia, and China and from some Reagan administration officials.

According to CBS News: At the United Nations, Negroponte, 64, was instrumental in winning unanimous approval of a Security Council resolution that demanded Saddam Hussein comply with U.N. mandates to disarm.

[20] In the New York Review of Books, Stephen Kinzer reported that the messages sent by nominating Negroponte were that "the Bush administration will not be bound by diplomatic niceties as it conducts its foreign policy."

He advised the Bush administration that security had to precede reconstruction in Iraq, organized a peaceful election, and gave advice, equally unwelcome to Secretary Rumsfeld and Democrats in Congress, that a five-year commitment would be required.

[25] A memorandum in the Federal Register signed May 5, 2006. by President Bush states that Negroponte, as intelligence czar, be delegated the authority to exempt companies from accurate accounting standards, a power previously reserved for the chief executive under the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.

According to a senior intelligence official quoted in U.S. News & World Report, "In the days after North Korea's recent nuclear test, the DNI put mission manager and CIA veteran Joseph DeTrani at the center of the developing crisis.

"[23] In a November 2006 cover story in U.S. News & World Report, it was noted that Negroponte and his office, "have made a promising start – and, remarkably, encountered an apparent willingness to embark on the necessary reforms.

"[23] Progress made included the White House approval of more than 30 DNI recommendations on improving the flow of intelligence and terrorism data to state and local authorities; requiring intelligence agencies to accept each other's clearance; "open[ing] up the analytic process to new ideas and new people" to prevent groupthink – and the creation of an analytic ombudsman; the establishment of an Open Source center, "designed to broaden the flow of ideas to analysts"; and more "red teams" to challenge conventional thinking.

"[31] According to Newsweek, "Under Negroponte, the intel czar's office was praised by both congressional and executive-branch officials for greatly improving—via its National Counterterrorism Center—the sharing among relevant agencies of intelligence reports about terror threats.

[37] He serves on the Leadership Council of Concordia,[38] a nonpartisan, nonprofit based in New York City focused on promoting effective public–private collaboration to create a more prosperous and sustainable future.