Senate Was Wrong to Confirm Negroponte

Re “Senate Confirms Ambassador to U.N.,” Sept. 15: One of the least noticed and most regrettable spinoffs from Sept. 11’s national tragedies is the Senate confirmation of John D. Negroponte as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. His nomination was rightfully opposed and held up for six months because of his shameful career as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s. He was then a knowing and eager accomplice in the illegal arming of the Nicaraguan Contras.

In its effort to “do something,” the U.S. Senate has done the wrong thing in confirming this discredited individual. An egregious mistake has followed in the wake of terror.

Frances Spielberg

Pacific Palisades

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I think Negroponte’s Senate confirmation is a travesty. A man who, at the least, suppressed information about the operation of a death squad in Honduras in the 1980s, when he was our ambassador there, and may have played a more active role in the activities of the death squads, is now our ambassador to the U.N. Apparently, the Senate confirmation was unanimous, without debate. The events of the last week and a half mandate that our leaders act with strength, circumscribed by morality. This action by the Senate is shameful.

Mary E. Davis

Los Angeles