THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER

Chapter 5:  CHILE

IN A FAMOUS expression of his contempt for democracy, Kissinger once
observed that he saw no reason why a certain country should be allowed to
"go Marxist" merely because "its people are irresponsible." The country
concerned was Chile, which at the time of this remark had a justified rep-
utation as the most highly evolved pluralistic democracy in the southern
hemisphere of the Americas. The pluralism translated, in the years of the
Cold War, into an electorate that voted about one-third conservative, one-
third socialist and communist, and one-third Christian Democratic and
centrist. This had made it relatively easy to keep the Marxist element from
having its turn in government, and ever since 1962 the CIA had -- as it had
in Italy and other comparable nations -largely contented itself with fund-
ing the reliable elements. In September 1970, however, the Left's candidate
actually gained a slight plurality of 36.2 percent in the presidential elec-
tions. Divisions on the Right, and the adherence of some smaller radical
and Christian parties to the Left, made it a moral certainty that the Chilean
Congress would, after the traditional sixty-day interregnum, confirm Dr
Salvador Allende as the next president. But the very name of Allende was
anathema to the extreme Right in Chile, to certain powerful corporations
(notably ITT, Pepsi Cola and the Chase Manhattan Bank) which did busi-
ness in Chile and the United States, and to the CIA.

This loathing quickly communicated itself to President Nixon. He was
personally beholden to Donald Kendall, the President of Pepsi Cola, who
had given him his first corporate account when, as a young lawyer, he had
joined John Mitchell's New York firm. A series of Washington meetings, held
within eleven days of Allende's electoral victory, essentially settled the fate of
Chilean democracy. After discussions with Kendall and with David
Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan, and with CIA director Richard Helms,
Kissinger went with Helms to the Oval Office. Helms's notes of the meeting
show that Nixon wasted little breath in making his wishes known. Al1ende
was not to assume office. "Not concerned risks involved. No involvement of
embassy. $10,000,000 available, more if necessary. Full time job -- best men
we have. ... Make the economy scream. 48 hours for plan of action."

Declassified documents show that Kissinger -- who had previously nei-
ther known nor cared about Chile, describing it offhandedly as "a dagger
pointed at the heart of Antarctica" -- took seriously this chance to impress
his boss. A group was set up in Langley, Virginia, with the express purpose
of running a "two track" policy for Chile: one the ostensible diplomatic one
and the other -- unknown to the State Department or the US ambassador
to Chile, Edward Korry a strategy of destabilization, kidnap and assassi-
nation, designed to provoke a military coup.

There were long and short-term obstacles to the incubation of such an
intervention, especially in the brief interval available before Allende took
his oath of office. The long-term obstacle was the tradition of military
abstention from politics in Chile, a tradition which marked off the coun-
try from its neighbors. Such a military culture was not to be degraded
overnight. The short-term obstacle lay in the person of one man -General
Rene Schneider. As chief of the Chilean General Staff, he was adamantly
opposed to any military meddling in the electoral process. Accordingly, it
was decided at a meeting on 18 September 1970 that General Schneider
had to go.

The plan was to have him kidnapped by extremist officers, in such a way
as to make it appear that leftist and pro-Allende elements were behind the
lot. The resulting confusion, it was hoped, would panic the Chilean
Congress into denying Allende the presidency. A sum of $50,000 was
offered around the Chilean capital, Santiago, for any officer or officers
, enterprising enough to take on this task. Richard Helms and his director of
covert operations, Thomas Karamessines, told Kissinger that they were
not optimistic. Military circles were hesitant and divided, or else loyal to
General Schneider and the Chilean constitution. As Helms put it in a later
account of the conversation, "We tried to make clear to Kissinger how
small the possibility of success was." Kissinger firmly told Helms and
Karamessines to press on in any case.

Here one must pause for a recapitulation. An unelected official in the
United States is meeting with others, without the knowledge or authoriza-
tion of Congress, to plan the kidnapping of a constitution-minded senior
officer in a democratic country with which the United States is not at war,
and with which it maintains cordial diplomatic relations. The minutes of
the meetings may have an official look to them ( though they were hidden
from the light of day for long enough) but what we are reviewing is a
"hit" -a piece of state-supported terrorism.

Ambassador Korry has testified that he told his embassy staff to have
nothing to do with a group styling itself Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and
Freedom), a quasi-fascist group intent on defying the election results. He sent
three cables to Washington warning his superiors to have nothing to do with
them either. He was unaware that his own military attaches had been told to
contact the group and keep the fact from him. And when the outgoing pres-
ident of Chile, the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, announced that he was
opposed to any US intervention and would vote to confirm the legally elected
Allende, it was precisely to this gang that Kissinger turned. On 15 October
1970, Kissinger was told of an extremist right-wing officer named General
Roberto Viaux, who had ties to Patria y Libertad and who was willing to
accept the secret us commission to remove General Schneider from the
chessboard. The term "kidnap" was still being employed at this point, and is
often employed still. However, Kissinger's Track Two group authorized the
supply of machine guns as well as tear gas grenades to Viaux's associates, and
never seems to have asked what they would do with the general once they
had kidnapped him.

Let the documents tell the story. A CIA cable to Kissinger's Track Two
group from Santiago dated 18 October 1970 reads (with the names still
blacked out for "security" purposes and cover identities written in by
hand in my square brackets -- by the ever-thoughtful redaction service):

1. [Station cooptee] met clandestinely evening 17 Oct with [two Chilean
armed forces officers] who told him their plans were moving along better
than had thought possible. They asked that by evening 18 Oct [cooptee]
arrange furnish them with eight to ten tear gas grenades. Within 48 hours
they need three 45 calibre machine guns ("grease guns") with 500 rounds
ammo each. [One officer] commented has three machine guns himself but
can be identified by serial numbers as having been issued to him therefore
unable use them.

2. [Officers] said they have to move because they believe they now under sus-
picion and being watched by Allende supporters. [ One officer] was late to
meeting having taken evasive action to shake possible surveillance by one or
two taxi cabs with dual antennas which he believed being used by opposition
against him.

3. [Cooptee] asked if [ officers] had Air Force contacts. They answered they
did not but would welcome one. [Cooptee] separately has since tried contact
[a Chilean Air Force General] and will keep trying until established. Will
urge [Air Force General] meet with [other two officers] a.s.a.p. [Cooptee]
commented to station that [Air Force General] has not tried contact him
since ref a talk.

4. [Cooptee] comment: cannot tell who is leader of this movement but
strongly suspects it is Admiral [Deleted]. It would appear from [his contact's]
actions and alleged Allende suspicions about them that unless they act now
they are lost. Trying get more info from them evening 18 Oct about support
they believe they have.

5. Station plans give six tear gas grenades (arriving noon 18 Oct by special
courier) to [cooptee] for delivery to [armed forces officers] instead of having
[false flag officer] deliver them to Viaux group.  Our reasoning is that
[cooptee] dealing with active duty officers. Also [false flag officer] leaving
evening 18 Oct and will not be replaced but [cooptee] will stay here, Hence
important that [cooptee] credibility with [ armed forces officers] be strength -
ened by prompt delivery what they requesting. Request headquarters
agreement by 1500 hours local time 18 Oct on decision delivery of tear gas
to [cooptee] vice [false flag officer].

6. Request prompt shipment three sterile 45 calibre machine guns and ammo
per para 1 above, by special courier if necessary. Please confirm by 2000
hours local time 18 Oct that this can be done so [cooptee] may inform his
contacts accordingly.

The reply, which is headed "IMMEDIATE SANTIAGO (EYES ONLY [DELETED])" is
dated 18 October and reads:

Sub-machine guns and ammo being sent by regular [ deleted] courier leav-
ing Washington 0700 hours 19 October due arrive Santiago late evening 20
October or early morning 21 October. Preferred use regular [ deleted] courier
to avoid bringing undue attention to op.

A companion message, also addressed to "Santiago 562," went like this:

1. Depending how [cooptee] conversation goes evening 18 October you may
wish submit Intel report [deleted] so we can decide whether should be
dissemed.

2. New subject. If [cooptee] plans lead coup, or be actively and publicly
involved, we puzzled why it should bother him if machine guns can be traced
to him. Can we develop rationale on why guns must be sterile? Will continue
make effort provide them but find our credulity stretched by Navy [ officer ]
leading his troops with sterile guns? What is special purpose for these guns?
We will try send them whether you can provide explanation or not.

The full beauty of this cable traffic cannot be appreciated without a read-
ing of another message, dated 16 October. (It must be borne in mind that
the Chilean Congress was to meet to confirm Allende as president on the
24th of that month.)

1. [Deleted/handwritten code name Trick turn] policy, objectives and actions
were reviewed at high USG [United States Government] level afternoon 15
October. Conclusions, which are to be your operational guide, follow:

2. It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It
would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but
efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to
continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every
appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clan-
destinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden.
[italics added] While this imposes on us a high degree of selectivity in
making military contacts and dictates that these contacts be made in the
most secure manner it definitely does not preclude contacts such as reported
in Santiago 544 which was a masterful piece of work.

3. After the most careful consideration it was determined that a Viaux coup
attempt carried out by him alone with the forces now at his disposal would
fail. Thus, it would be counterproductive to our [deleted; handwritten insert
"Track Two"] objectives. It was decided that [deleted; handwritten insert
"CIA"] get a message to Viaux warning him against precipitate action. In
essence our message is to state, "We have reviewed your plans, and based on
your information and ours, we come to the conclusion that your plans for a
coup at this time cannot succeed. Failing, they may reduce your capabilities
for the future. Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch. The time will
come when you together with all your other friends can do something. You
will continue to have our support."  You are requested to deliver the message
to Viaux essentially as noted above. Our objectives are as follows: (A) To
advise him of our opinion and discourage him from acting alone; (B)
Continue to encourage him to amplify his planning; (C) Encourage him to
join forces with other coup planners so that they may act in concert either
before or after 24 October. (N.B. Six gas masks and six CS cannisters [sic] are
being carried to Santiago by special [deleted] courier ETD Washington 1100
hours 16 October.)

4. There is great and continuing interest in the activities of Tirado, Canales,
Valenzuela et al and we wish them maximum good fortune.

5. The above is your operating guidance. No other policy guidance you may
receive from [indecipherable: State?] or its maximum exponent in Santiago,
on his return, are to sway you from your course.

6. Please review all your present and possibly new activities to include prop-
aganda, black operations, surfacing of intelligence or disinformation,
personal contacts, or anything else your imagination can conjure which will
permit you to press forward our [deleted] objective in a secure manner.

Finally, it is essential to read the White House "memorandum of conversa-
tion;' dated 15 October 1970, to which the above cable directly refers and of
which it is a more honest summary. Present for the "high USG level" meet-
ing were, as noted in the heading: "Dr Kissinger, Mr Karamessines, Gen.
Haig." The first paragraph of their deliberations has been entirely blacked
out, with not so much as a scribble in the margin from the redaction serv-
ice. (Given what has since been admitted, this twenty-line deletion must be
well worth reading.) Picking up at paragraph two, we find the following:

2. Then Mr Karamessines provided a run-down on Viaux, the Canales meet-
ing with Tirado, the latter's new position [after Porta was relieved of
command "for health reasons"] and, in some detail, the general situation in
Chile from the coup possibility viewpoint.

3. A certain amount of information was available to us concerning Viaux's
alleged support throughout the Chilean military. We had assessed Viaux's
claims carefully, basing our analysis on good intelligence from a number of
sources. Our conclusion was clear: Viaux did not have more than one chance
in twenty perhaps less -- to launch a successful coup.

4. The unfortunate repercussions, in Chile and internationally, of an unsuc-
cessful coup were discussed. Dr Kissinger ticked off his list of these negative
possibilities. His items were remarkably similar to the ones Mr Karamessines
had prepared.

5. It was decided by those present that the Agency must get a message to
Viaux warning him against any precipitate action. In essence our message
was to state: "We have reviewed your plans, and based on your information
and ours, we come to the conclusion that your plans for a coup at this time
cannot succeed. Failing, they may reduce your capabilities for the future.
Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch. The time will come when you
with all your other friends can do something. You will continue to have our
support. "

6. After the decision to defuse the Viaux coup plot, at least temporarily, Dr
Kissinger instructed Mr Karamessines to preserve Agency assets in Chile,
working clandestinely and securely to maintain the capability for Agency
operations against Allende in the future.

7. Dr Kissinger discussed his desire that the word of our encouragement to
the Chilean military in recent weeks be kept as secret as possible. Mr
Karamessines stated emphatically that we had been doing everything possi-
ble in this connection, including the use of false flag officers, car meetings
and every conceivable precaution. But we and others had done a great deal
of talking recently with a number of persons. For example, Ambassador
Korry's wide ranging discussions with numerous people urging a coup
"cannot be put back into the bottle." (Three lines of deletion follow.] [Dr
Kissinger requested that copy of the message be sent to him on 16 October. ]

8. The meeting concluded on Dr Kissinger's note that the Agency should
continue keeping the pressure on every Allende weak spot in sight: -now,
after the 24th of October, after 5 November, and into the future until such
time as new marching orders are given. Mr Karamessines stated that the
Agency would comply.

So Track Two contained two tracks of its own. Track Two/One was the
group of ultras led by General Roberto Viaux and his sidekick Captain
Arturo Marshal. These men had tried to bring off a coup in 1969 against
the Christian Democrats; they had been cashiered and were disliked even
by conservatives in the officer corps. "Track Two/Two" was a more ostensi-
bly "respectable" faction headed by General Camilo Valenzuela, the chief of
the garrison in the capital city, whose name occurs in the cables above and
whose identity is concealed by some of the deletions. Several of the CIA
operatives in Chile felt that Viaux was too much of a mad-dog to be
trusted. And Ambassador Korry's repeated admonitions also had their
effect. As shown in the 15 October memo cited above, Kissinger and
Karamessines developed last-minute second thoughts about Viaux, who as
late as 13 October had been given $20,000 in cash from the CIA station and
promised a life insurance policy of $250,000. This offer was authorized
direct from the White House. However, with only days to go before Allende
was inaugurated, and with Nixon repeating that "it was absolutely essential
that the election of Mr Allende to the Presidency be thwarted," the pressure
on the Valenzuela group became intense. As a direct consequence, espe-
cially after the warm words of encouragement he had been given, General
Roberto Viaux felt himself under some obligation to deliver also, and to
disprove those who had doubted him.

On the evening of 19 October 1970, the Valenzuela group, aided by some
of Viaux's gang, and equipped with the tear gas grenades delivered by the
CIA, attempted to grab General Schneider as he left an official dinner. The
attempt failed because he left in a private car and not the expected official
vehicle. The failure produced an extremely significant cable from CIA head-
quarters in Washington to the local station, asking for urgent action because
"Headquarters must respond during morning 20 October to queries from
high levels." Payments of $50,000 each to General Viaux and his chief asso-
ciate were then authorized on condition that they made another attempt. On
the evening of 20 October, they did. But again there was only failure to
report. On 22 October, the "sterile" machine guns above-mentioned were
handed to Valenzuela's group for another try. Later that same day, General
Roberto Viaux's gang finally murdered General Rene Schneider.

According to the later verdict of the Chilean military courts, this atroc-
ity partook of elements of both tracks of Track Two. In other words,
Valenzuela was not himself on the scene but the assassination squad, led by
Viaux, contained men who had participated in the preceding two attempts.
Viaux was convicted on charges of kidnapping and of conspiring to cause
a coup. Valenzuela was convicted of the charge of conspiracy to cause a
coup. So any subsequent attempt to distinguish the two plots from each
other, except in point of degree, is an attempt to confect a distinction with-
out a difference.

It scarcely matters whether Schneider was slain because of a kidnapping
scheme that went awry (he was said, but only by the assassins, to have had
the temerity to resist) or whether his assassination was the objective in the
first place. The Chilean military police report, as it happens, describes a
straightforward murder. Under the law of every law-bound country
(including the United States), a crime committed in the pursuit of a kid-
napping is thereby aggravated, not mitigated. You may not say, with a
corpse at your feet, "I was only trying to kidnap him." At least, you may not
say so if you hope to plead extenuating circumstances.

Yet a version of "extenuating circumstances" has become the paper-
thin cover story with which Kissinger has since protected himself from
the charge of being an accomplice, before and after the fact, in kidnap and
murder. And this sorry cover story has even found a refuge in the written
record. The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its investigation of the
matter, concluded that since the machine guns supplied to Valenzuela had
not actually been employed in the killing, and since General Viaux had
been officially discouraged by the CIA a few days before the murder, there
was therefore "no evidence of a plan to kill Schneider or that United States
officials specifically anticipated that Schneider would be shot during the
abduction."

Walter Isaacson, one of Kissinger's biographers, takes at face value a
memo from Kissinger to Nixon after his meeting on 15 October with
Karamessines, in which he reports to the President that he had "turned off"
the Viaux plot. He also takes at face value the claim that Viaux's successful
hit was essentially unauthorized.

These excuses and apologies are as logically feeble as they are morally
contemptible. Henry Kissinger bears direct responsibility for the Schneider
murder, as the following points demonstrate.

1. Brian MacMaster, one of the "false flag" agents mentioned in the
cable traffic above, a career CIA man carrying a forged Colombian
passport and claiming to represent American business interests in Chile,
has told of his efforts to get "hush money" to jailed members of the
Viaux group, after the assassination and before they could implicate
the Agency.

2. Colonel Paul M. Wimert, a military attache in Santiago and chief
CIA liaison with the Valenzuela faction, has testified that after the
Schneider killing he hastily retrieved the two payments of $50,000 that
, had been paid to Valenzuela and his partner, and also the three "sterile"
machine guns. He then drove rapidly to the Chilean seaside town of
Vina del Mar and hurled the guns into the ocean. His accomplice in this
action, CIA station chief Henry Hecksher, had assured Washington only
days before that either Viaux or Valenzuela would be able to eliminate
Schneider and thereby trigger a coup.

3. Look again at the White House/Kissinger memo of 15 October, and
at the doggedly literal way it is retransmitted to Chile. In no sense of the
term does it "turn off" Viaux. If anything, it incites him a well-known
and boastful fanatic -- to redouble his efforts. "Preserve your assets. We
will stay in touch. The time will come when you together with all your
other friends can do something. You will continue to have our support."
This is not exactly the language of standing him down. The remainder
of the memo speaks plainly of the intention to "discourage him from
acting alone," to "continue to encourage him to amplify his planning"
and to "encourage him to join forces with other coup planners so that
they may act in concert either before or after 24 October" (italics
added). The last three stipulations are an entirely accurate, not to say
prescient, description of what Viaux actually did.

4. Consult again the cable received by Henry Hecksher on 20 October,
referring to anxious queries "from high levels" about the first of the
failed attacks on Schneider. Thomas Karamessines, when questioned by
the Senate Intelligence Committee about this cable, testified of his cer-
tainty that the words "high levels" referred directly to Kissinger. In all
previous communications from Washington, as a glance above will
show, that had indeed been the case. This on its own is enough to
demolish Kissinger's claim to have "turned off" Track Two (and its inte-
rior tracks) on 15 October.

5. Ambassador Korry later made the obvious point that Kissinger was
attempting to build a paper alibi in the event of a failure by the Viaux
group. "His interest was not in Chile but in who was going to be blamed
for what. He wanted me to be the one who took the heat. Henry didn't
want to be associated with a failure and he was setting up a record to
blame the State Department. He brought me in to the President because
he wanted me to say what I had to say about Viaux; he wanted me to be
the soft man."

The concept of "deniability" was not as well understood in Washington in
1970 as it has since become. But it is clear that Henry Kissinger wanted two
things simultaneously. He wanted the removal of General Schneider, by any
means and employing any proxy. (No instruction from Washington to
leave Schneider unharmed was ever given; deadly weapons were sent by
diplomatic pouch, and men of violence were carefully selected to receive
them.) And he wanted to be out of the picture in case such an attempt
might fail, or be uncovered. These are the normal motives of anyone who
solicits or suborns murder. However, Kissinger needed the crime very
slightly more than he needed, or was able to design, the deniability. Without
waiting for his many hidden papers to be released or subpoenaed, we can say
with safety that he is prima facie guilty of direct collusion in the murder of
a democratic officer in a democratic and peaceful country.

There is no particular need to rehearse the continuing role of the
Nixon-Kissinger administration in the later economic and political sub-
version and destabilization of the Allende government, and in the creation
of favorable conditions for the military coup that occurred on 11
September 1973. Kissinger himself was perhaps no more and no less
involved in this effort than any other high official in Nixon's national-
security orbit. On 9 November 1970 he authored the National Security
Council's "Decision Memorandum 93;' reviewing policy towards Chile in
the immediate wake of Allende's confirmation as President. Various routine
measures of economic harassment were proposed (recall Nixon's instruc-
tion to "make the economy scream") with cutoffs in aid and investment.
More significantly, Kissinger advocated that "close relations" be maintained
with military leaders in neighboring countries, in order to facilitate both
the coordination of pressure against Chile and the incubation of opposi-
tion within the country. In outline, this prefigures the disclosures that have
since been made about Operation Condor, a secret collusion between mil-
itary dictatorships across the hemisphere, operated with United States
knowledge and indulgence.

The actual overthrow of the Allende government in a bloody coup d'etat
took place while Kissinger was going through his own Senate confirmation
process as Secretary of State. He falsely assured the Foreign Relations
Committee that the United States government had played no part in the
coup. From a thesaurus of hard information to the contrary, one might
select Situation Report #2, from the Navy Section of the United States
Military Group in Chile, and written by the US Naval Attache, Patrick
Ryan. Ryan describes his close relationship with the officers engaged in
overthrowing the government, hails 11 September 1973 as "our D-Day"
and observes with satisfaction that "Chile's coup de et at [sic] was close to
perfect." Or one may peruse the declassified files on Project FUBELT -- the
code name under which the CIA, in frequent contact with Kissinger and
the Forty Committee, conducted covert operations against the legal and
elected government of Chile.

What is striking, and what points to a much more direct complicity in
individual crimes against humanity, is the microcosmic detail in which
Kissinger kept himself informed of Pinochet's atrocities.

On 16 November, Assistant Secretary of State Jack B. Kubisch delivered
a detailed report on the Chilean junta's execution policy which, as he notes
to the new secretary of state, "you requested by cable from Tokyo." The
memo goes on to enlighten Kissinger in various ways about the first nine-
teen days of Pinochet's rule. Summary executions during that period, we
are told, total 320. (This contrasts with the publicly announced total of 100,
and is based on "an internal, confidential report prepared for the junta" to
which US officials are evidently privy.) Looking on the bright side, "On
November 14, we announced our second CCC credit to Chile $24 million
for feed corn. Our longstanding commitment to sell two surplus destroy-
ers to the Chilean navy has met a reasonably sympathetic response in
Senate consultations. The Chileans, meanwhile, have sent us several new
requests for controversial military equipment." Kubisch then raises the
awkward question of two US citizens murdered by the junta -Frank
Teruggi and Charles Horman -- details of whose precise fate are still, more
than a quarter-century later, being sought by their families. The reason for
the length of the search may be inferred from a later comment by Mr
Kubisch, dated 11 February 1974, in which he reports on a meeting with
the junta's foreign minister, and notes that he raises the matter of the miss-
ing Americans "in the context of the need to be careful to keep relatively
small issues in our relationship from making our cooperation more
difficult."

To return, via this detour, to Operation Condor. This was a machinery of
cross-border assassination, abduction, torture and intimidation, coordi-
nated between the secret police forces of Pinochet's Chile, Stroessner's
Paraguay, Videla's Argentina and other regional caudillos. This internation-
alization of the death-squad principle is now known to have been
responsible, to name only the most salient victims, for the murder of the
dissident general Carlos Prats of Chile (and his wife) in Buenos Aires, the
murder of the Bolivian general Juan Jose Torres, and the maiming of a
Chilean Christian Democrat senator, Bernardo Leighton, in Italy. A Condor
team also detonated a car bomb in downtown Washington, DC, in
September 1976, killing the former Chilean foreign minister Orlando
Letelier and his aide Ronni Moffitt. United States government complicity
has been uncovered at every level of this network. It has been established, for
example, that the FBI aided Pinochet in capturing Jorge Isaac Fuentes de
Alarcon, who was detained and tortured in Paraguay, then turned over to the
Chilean secret police, and "disappeared." Astonishingly, the surveillance of
Latin US dissident refugees in the United States was promised to Condor fig-
ures by US intelligence.

These and other facts have been established by the work of "truth and
reconciliation" commissions set up by post-dictatorship forces in the coun-
tries of the southern hemisphere. Stroessner has been overthrown, Videla
is in prison, Pinochet and his henchmen are being or have been brought to
account in Chile. The United States has not so far found it convenient to
establish a truth and reconciliation commission of its own, which means
that it is less ready at present to face its historical responsibility than are the
countries once derided as "banana republics."

All of the above-cited crimes, and many more besides, were committed
on Kissinger's "watch" as secretary of state. And all of them were and are
punishable, under local or international law, or both. It can hardly be
argued, by himself or by his defenders, that he was indifferent to, or
unaware of, the true situation. In 1999 a secret memorandum was declas-
sified, giving excruciating details of a private conversation between
Kissinger and Pinochet in Santiago, Chile, on 8 June 1976. The meeting
took place the day before Kissinger was due to address the Organization of
American States. The subject was human rights. Kissinger was at some
pains to explain to Pinochet that the few pro forma remarks he was to
make on that topic were by no means to be taken seriously. My friend
Peter Kornbluh has performed the service of comparing the "Memcon"
(Memorandum of Conversation) with the account of the meeting given by
Kissinger himself in his third volume of apologia, Years of Renewal:

The Memoir: "A considerable amount of time in my dialogue with Pinochet
was devoted to human rights, which were, in fact, the principal obstacle to
close United States relations with Chile. I outlined the main points in my
speech to the OAS which I would deliver the next day. Pinochet made no
comment."

The Memcon: "I will treat human rights in general terms, and human rights
in a world context. I will refer in two paragraphs to the report on Chile of the
OAS Human Rights Commission. I will say that the human rights issue has
impaired relations between the US and Chile. This is partly the result of
Congressional actions. I will add that I hope you will shortly remove these
obstacles. ... I can do no less, without producing a reaction in the US which
would lead to legislative restrictions. The speech is not aimed at Chile. I
wanted to tell you about this. My evaluation is that you are a victim of all
left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you
overthrew a government that was going Communist."

The Memoir: "As Secretary of State, I felt I had the responsibility to encour-
age the Chilean government in the direction of greater democracy through
a policy of understanding Pinochet's concerns. ... Pinochet reminded me
that 'Russia supports their people 100 percent. We are behind you. You are
the leader. But you have a punitive system for your friends.' I returned to my
underlying theme that any major help from us would realistically depend on
progress on human rights."

The Memcon: "There is merit in what you say. It is a curious time in the
us. ... It is unfortunate. We have been through Vietnam and Watergate. We
have to wait until the [1976] elections. We welcomed the overthrow of the
Communist-inclined government here. We are not out to weaken your
position."

In an unpleasant way, Pinochet twice mentioned the name of Orlando
Letelier, the exiled Chilean opposition leader, accusing him of misleading
the United States Congress. Kissinger's response, as can be seen, was to
apologize for the Congress and (in a minor replay of his 1968 Paris tactic
over Vietnam) to suggest that the dictator should hope for better days after
the upcoming elections. Three months later, a car bomb in Washington
killed Letelier; today still it remains the only such outrage ever committed
in the nation's capital by agents of a foreign regime. (This notable incident
is completely absent from Kissinger's memoirs.) The man responsible for
arranging the crime, the Chilean secret policeman General Manuel
Contreras, has since testified at trial that he took no action without specific
and personal orders from Pinochet. He remains in prison, doubtless won-
dering why he trusted his superiors.

"I want to see our relations and friendship improve," Kissinger told
Pinochet (but not the readers of his memoirs). "We want to help, not
undermine you." In advising a murderer and despot, whose rule he had
helped impose, to disregard his upcoming remarks as a sop to Congress,
Kissinger insulted democracy in both countries. He also gave the greenest
of green lights to further cross-border and internal terrorism, of neither of
which he could have been unaware. (In his memoirs, he does mention
what he calls Pinochet's "counterterrorist intelligence agency.") Further col-
luding with Pinochet against the United States Congress, which was
considering the Kennedy amendment cutting off arms sales to human
rights violators, Kissinger obsequiously remarked:

I don't know if you listen in on my phone, but if you do, you have just heard
me issue instructions to Washington to [ defeat the Kennedy amendment] .If
we defeat it, we will deliver the F-5Es as we agreed to do.

The above passage is worth bearing in mind. It is a good key for decoding
the usual relationship between fact and falsehood in Kissinger's ill-crafted
memoir. (And it is a huge reproach to his editors at Simon and Schuster,
and Weidenfeld and Nicolson.) It should also act as an urgent prompting
to members of Congress, and to human rights organizations, to reopen the
incomplete inquiries and thwarted investigations into the multifarious
crimes of this period. Finally, and read in the light of the return to democ-
racy in Chile, and the decision of the Chilean courts to pursue truth and
justice, it repudiates Kissinger's patronizing insult concerning the "irre-
sponsibility" of a dignified and humane people, who have suffered very
much more than verbal insult at his hands.

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