Now why would anybody suspect a fellow like this of having an interest in regime change?
http://www.allgov.com/news/appointments-and-resignations/ambassador-to-colombia-who-is-kevin-whitaker-140503?news=853059
From 2002 to 2005, Whitaker headed the Cuban Affairs Desk for the State Department. During a visit to Havana in December 2002, he met with dissidents and was expelled by Fidel Castro’s government.
In 2005, he was named deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, another country with which the administration of President George W. Bush was at odds. Whitaker served there until 2007. At that point, he moved back to Washington to take a post as deputy executive secretary in the Office of the Secretary of State.
http://www.luxner.com/cgi-bin/view_article.cgi?articleID=1193
November 2003
Not every mid-level State Department official has had the honor of being personally singled out by Fidel Castro in an angry May Day speech before a million people in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución.
But that’s what happened earlier this year, when Castro scolded Kevin Whitaker, coordinator of the Office of Cuban Affairs, for warning Dagoberto Rodríguez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, that continued airline hijackings from Cuba constituted a serious threat to U.S. national security. . . .
“Our policy goal in Cuba is to seek a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy, a government characterized by respect for human rights and open markets, and a Cuba which is a good neighbor in the hemisphere,” said Whitaker. “I’d assert that this goal is widely shared in the United States, and in Europe as well — especially in Europe. People realize this is an irredeemable regime.” . . .
Whitaker praised Bush’s Oct. 10 announcement that an executive-branch Cuba transition committee would be established under the direction of Powell and Mel Martínez, a former board member of the Cuban American National Foundation and currently secretary of housing and urban development.
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