"The populations of Central America are very, very small indeed, so that while no one was denying and this was one of the great debates we used to have, whose fault was it that there were communists were able to do so well down there, well, that wasn't the point"
About this Quote
Then comes the rhetorical feint: “no one was denying… whose fault was it… that wasn’t the point.” He acknowledges the “great debates” about responsibility for communist gains, but only to wave them away as beside the point. That move matters. In the Cold War playbook, “fault” invites uncomfortable talk about U.S.-backed dictatorships, inequality, and repression - the conditions that made insurgencies attractive. By declaring causation irrelevant, he preserves the right to act while suspending the need to justify why the situation exists.
The subtext reads like institutional muscle memory: treat ideology as a contagion rather than a political response, treat local agency as background noise, treat U.S. intervention as a technical problem-solving exercise. The context - Negroponte’s career in the Reagan-era Central America apparatus, shadowed by the Contra war and human-rights controversies - makes the phrasing feel less accidental. This isn’t a slip; it’s a practiced posture. His language doesn’t argue a case so much as it narrows the admissible questions, moving the conversation from accountability to logistics. That’s how power talks when it wants history to stop asking follow-ups.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Negroponte, John. (2026, January 18). The populations of Central America are very, very small indeed, so that while no one was denying and this was one of the great debates we used to have, whose fault was it that there were communists were able to do so well down there, well, that wasn't the point. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-populations-of-central-america-are-very-very-12252/
Chicago Style
Negroponte, John. "The populations of Central America are very, very small indeed, so that while no one was denying and this was one of the great debates we used to have, whose fault was it that there were communists were able to do so well down there, well, that wasn't the point." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-populations-of-central-america-are-very-very-12252/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The populations of Central America are very, very small indeed, so that while no one was denying and this was one of the great debates we used to have, whose fault was it that there were communists were able to do so well down there, well, that wasn't the point." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-populations-of-central-america-are-very-very-12252/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
