36 MARCH 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL “I could never understand how a junior officer could do that. I was just like, wow! But he pulled it off. I wonder now if he was being pushed by the Cubans,” said Peter Romero, the desk officer for El Salvador at the time. Negroponte was impressed by Rocha’s pluck but also wondered where it came from. “I always thought he was a bit of an odd duck,” Negroponte told the Journal. “He had that Rodney Dangerfield syndrome—I don’t get no respect.” He was a weak writer in English but made up for it with strong social and analytical skills, developing useful local contacts and delivering valuable information to his bosses, according to several former colleagues. Rocha was transferred to Florence to join his wife, who was assigned as the financial economist at the U.S. embassy in Rome. He struggled in Florence, and his previously arranged transfer to Rome came under doubt. He was also unfaithful and drinking heavily, former colleagues say. He then got the call to go to Honduras. His move to Tegucigalpa ended the marriage. The “Contra” War at a Turning Point Honduras was a treasure trove of U.S. secrets. In 1986 covert White House funding for the Contras erupted in a major scandal for the Reagan administration. There was also a scandal over CIA ties to the Intelligence Battalion 3-16, a Honduran army unit accused of political assassinations and torture of political opponents. By the time Rocha arrived, the Contra war had shifted from covert to overt, with $100 million in congressional funding. In 1987 U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz ordered the creation of the Special Liaison Office (SLO), a unique embassy unit formed to keep a close eye on the Contras. Because of the sensitivity of its work, it was walled off from the rest of the embassy, according to David Lindwall, one of two officers in the SLO. “This upset a lot of officers in the traditional political section who were not even allowed to read our cables,” said Lindwall. “That said, Manny Rocha never hit me up for info on the Contras. He was about the only political officer who didn’t,” he added. It is possible Rocha had other means of access. While not directly involved in the Contra effort, Rocha was intimately involved in delicate negotiations with the Honduran government, including secret access to military bases where logistics for the Contras were being handled, including the supply of surface-to-air “Red Eye” missiles. The Red Eyes changed the course of the war by grounding Nicaragua’s fleet of Soviet Mi-24 helicopter gunships, helping push the Sandinistas to the negotiating table in 1987 and leading to the end of the war. Rocha also participated in some important meetings with top Contra officials and the Honduran military, according to Manuel Rocha at breakfast in July 2023, a few months before his arrest. COURTESY OF DAVID ADAMS Rocha pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States and acting as an agent of a foreign country for decades while serving in the State Department.
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