The Diplomat Who Wouldn’t Lie

[Judi Lynn]

The Diplomat Who Wouldn’t Lie

Robert White was the rare official who chose to lose his job to keep his integrity.

By RAYMOND BONNER
April 19, 2015

An ambassador is a gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” It was an English poet, as well as diplomat, Sir Henry Wooten, who coined this aphorism, over four hundred years ago. Through the ages, many a diplomat—too many—has observed the maxim. Robert White was not one. White, who worked for seven presidents, served America by refusing to lie—holding firm even when pressured to sweep murder under the rug by the Reagan Administration—an act of principle and integrity that cost him his career.

White, who died in January at the age of 88, was sent by President Carter to El Salvador in 1980. As hard as it is to fathom today, at that time the tiny nation—White was fond of observing that it was possible to see the entire country from a helicopter at 9000 feet—was on the front burner of American foreign policy, as Syria, Iraq, ISIS, are today. The fear then was Communism. In neighboring Nicaragua, the Sandinistas had overthrown the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose family had ruled and looted the country for decades, with American acquiescence.

Washington was now worried that El Salvador would be the next domino to fall into the Moscow-Havana-Managua orbit. The country had long been ruled by an alliance of the military and the oligarchy. With support from the country’s peasants, a leftist-revolution led by students was growing.

Carter tasked White with preventing a civil war by assembling a political center, something between the extremist right and revolutionary left. During White’s confirmation hearings, Senator Jacob Javits, the moderate Republican from New York, urged him to be more than a traditional ambassador. “You really have to be an activist and take a chance with your career,” Javits told White. He was and he did.

More:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/robert-white-diplomat-el-salvador-117089.html#ixzz3Y4tKHp8p