John Negroponte
Frank del Olmo artfully pierces the wall of silence in Washington regarding the background of the nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte (Commentary, April 8). I remember two incidents between myself and Negroponte vividly.
The first, in 1979, involved his recommendation to his superiors at the State Department that it oppose granting Operation California, a Los Angeles-based international relief agency, a license under the then-existing trade embargo to bring aid to famine victims in Cambodia--the first U.S. aid group to ask to do so after the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge.
While in Honduras in 1981 delivering relief supplies to U.N.-run camps full of refugees from El Salvador, I had a long dinner at then-Ambassador Negroponte’s residence. His responses to my arguments regarding Salvadoran death squads causing the refugee flow into Honduras were callous and evasive. This is not the man to carry the American people’s banner at the United Nations.
RICHARD M. WALDEN, Pres.
Operation USA, Los Angeles
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