John Negroponte is a diplomat and a former Director of National Intelligence, and former Deputy Secretary of State (under the Bush and Obama administrations), he was born in London in 1939 (July 21, 1939).
Negroponte served in the US Foreign Service from 1960 to 1997. He has served as the United States ambassador in Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. After leaving the Foreign Service in 1997 he served as the US permanent representative to the United Nations between 2001-2004 and was the US ambassador in Iraq between June 2004 – April 2005.
John’s parents were Dimitri Negroponte and Catherine Coumantaros Negroponte, both of Greek heritage. His father was a Greek shipping magnate. Negroponte graduated from Yale University in 1960 and joined the US Foreign Service.
Negroponte served at posts in Europe,Latin America and Asia. In the 1980s, Negreponte was involved in the campaign to remove from power General Manuel Noriega in Panama as the Deputy National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan.
“Very hard to represent a country,
or carry out a policy that does not have consensus support.”
Negroponte speaks five languages (Greek, English, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese). His younger brothers are all sucessful in their own rights: Nicholas Negroponte is the founder of MIT’s Media Lab, Michel Negroponte is an award-winning filmmaker, and George Negroponte, is an artist. Negroponte has five adopted children.
