Jack R. Binns

Jack R. Binns was the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1980 to 1981. He is the author of The United States in Honduras, 1980-1981: An Ambassador's Memoir (2000).

On Being Replaced in Honduras

Stephen Kinzer writes that: "Honduras has fallen far from the world’s attention, which may be a good thing. During the 1980s it was the base for a marauding army of anti-Sandinista fighters from neighboring Nicaragua, the platform for American military maneuvers in which thousands of soldiers and paratroopers staged mock invasions, and a dangerous place for dissidents. Guerrilla war raged across all three of its borders. Jack Binns, the American ambassador who arrived in 1980, was horrified by what he saw. In June 1981 he sent a cable to Washington saying he was “deeply concerned at increasing evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned assassinations” and warning that “repression has built up a head of steam much faster than we had anticipated.” That was not what the Reagan administration wanted to hear. Binns fell from favor and was soon recalled. John Negroponte became the new sheriff in town." also see