Negroponte, John Dimitri

Negroponte, John Dimitri, 1939–, U.S. public official, b. London, England. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1960, and during his long diplomatic career was posted to Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. He served in Hong Kong and Vietnam during the 1960s and in Ecuador and Greece in the 1970s. As ambassador to Honduras (1981–85) he was the subject of some controversy when critics accused him of ignoring human rights abuses. He became President Ronald Reagan's assistant secretary of state for environmental and scientific affairs in 1985 and deputy assistant for national security affairs in 1987. He was ambassador to Mexico (1989–93) and the Phillipines (1993–96), but left the Foreign Service for the private sector in 1997. In 2001, he became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, serving until 2004, when he was named ambassador to Iraq. A year later he was appointed to the newly created post of director of national intelligence, with oversight over 15 different intelligence agencies, but he served in that post less than two years before he was appointed deputy secretary of state by President Bush in 2007.