Overview
John Dimitri Negroponte (; born July 21, 1939) is an American diplomat. He is currently a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is a former J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Prior to this appointment, he served as a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, United States Deputy Secretary of State (2007–2009), and the first ever Director of National Intelligence (2005–2007).
Negroponte served in the United States Foreign Service from 1960 to 1997. From 1981 to 1996, he had tours of duty as United States ambassador in Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. After leaving the Foreign Service, he subsequently served in the Bush administration as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004, and was ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005.
Early life and education
Negroponte was born in London, United Kingdom, on July 21, 1939, to Greek parents Dimitrios Negrepontis (1915–1996) and Catherine Coumantaros (1917–2001). His father was a shipping magnate and alpine skier who competed in the 1936 Winter Olympics. Negroponte attended the Allen-Stevenson School and The Buckley School and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1956 and Yale University in 1960. He was a member of Fence Club (Psi Upsilon fraternity), alongside William H. T. Bush, the brother of President George H. W. Bush, and Porter Goss, who served as Director of Central Intelligence and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Negroponte from 2005 to 2006.
After less than a semester at Harvard Law School, Negroponte joined the Foreign Service in 1960. He served at eight different Foreign Service posts in Asia (including the U.S. Embassy, Saigon), Europe and Latin America, and he also held important positions at the State Department and the White House. As a young Foreign Service officer—one of the few men in Washington who dared to openly disagree with Henry Kissinger's secret handling of the Vietnam peace talks—Negroponte attempted to convince his superior that any peace agreement negotiated without the consent of South Vietnam's leader Nguyen Van Thieu would be doomed to failure.
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