PrintApril 19, 2010
The Clinton-Llorens Tegucigalpa Tango Siniestra
In Monday's Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O' Grady details the continuing efforts of US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens to undermine democracy in Honduras . In this effort he was openly aided by two Hill staffers, the notorious Bolton basher Fulton Armstrong, presently on Senator John Kerry's staff, who once had a close working relationship with Cuban spy Ana Montes.
The second aide was Peter Quilter who works for California Congressman Howard Berman, the man who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in on this Kerry-Berman continuing effort to undermine those who achieved in full accordance with Honduran law removal of office of former president Zelaya? Isn't it time somebody asked her? Does she stand idly by while our Ambassadors engage in preposterously overbearing acts which seem inconsistent with our interests at home and in a democratic Central America?
If she disagrees with Ambassador Lloren's conduct, has she spoken to him to express her displeasure or is she too busy with Jerusalem real estate matters to be bothered? Has she spoken to her former colleague John Kerry or Congressman Berman about the seemingly rogue diplomatic ventures of their staffers?
Does she share Kerry's high regard for Armstrong who was last seen trying to block a fact-finding mission to Honduras by Senator De Mint? If so why? As O'Grady reminds us of him:
For much of his career as a Central Intelligence Agency analyst on Latin America, Mr.
Armstrong's work was shrouded in secrecy. That changed when Mr. Kerryblurted out his name during 2005 hearings on George W. Bush's nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton's adversaries claimed that he was unqualified for the job because he had tried to have Mr. Armstrong fired for political reasons.
Otto Reich, a former assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, went before staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify on Mr. Bolton's behalf. Mr. Reich says he told the staffers that he had found Mr. Armstrong's work consistently unreliable and that much of the national security bureaucracy saw it the same way. The late columnist Robert Novak wrote for Townhall.com at the time that Mr. Reich's views fit "complaints I have heard from Reagan administration officials about Armstrong's left-wing bias on Western Hemisphere questions in general, but particularly on Cuba."
Mr. Armstrong's name also comes up in the 2007 book "True Believer," by Defense Intelligence Agency "mole hunter" Scott Carmichael. It tells the story of how the U.S. busted Cuban spy Montes in 2001.
As the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America in 2000, Mr. Armstrong was "in frequent telephone and e-mail contact with Ana," Mr. Carmichael writes. "As NIO he was the senior subject-matter expert on Latin American affairs for the [director of central intelligence], and he welcomed Ana's participation in the fellowship program under his personal tutelage.
They had discussed the nature of her research project in some detail, and preparations were already underway to launch Ana further and deeper into the U.S. intelligence community." The book does not say that he knew she was a spy. Mr. Armstrong's office did not respond to my request for comments.
