We continue to examine the extremely high death toll that just so happens to lie in the wake of Dr. Henry Kissinger’s tenure as a “top U.S. advisor”. Now that the U.S. just so happens to be turning totalitarian, we have to ask ourselves if that was the plan all along.
THE [Kissinger] MEMOIR:
“As Secretary of State, I felt I had the responsibility to encourage 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."
Augusto Pinochet
THE MEMCON [Kissinger’s real account according to the Author]: “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."
Orlando Letelier
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.
Augusto Pinochet
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.
Orlando Letelier dies in attack.
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 wondering why he trusted his superiors.
General Manuel Contreras
"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.
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
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.")
Orlando Letelier
Further colluding 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 & Schuster and Weidenfeld & 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.
Orlando Letelier
Finally, and read in the light of the return to democracy in Chile, and the decision of the Chilean courts to pursue truth and justice, it repudiates Kissinger's patronizing insult concerning the "irresponsibility" of a dignified and humane people, who have suffered very much more than verbal insult at his hands.
Orlando Letelier
An Afterword on Chile
Augusto Pinochet
A rule of thumb in Washington holds that any late disclosure by officialdom will contain material that is worse than even the cynics suspected. One need not try and turn this maxim into an iron law.
Orlando Letelier
However, in September 2000 the CIA disgorged the results of an internal inquiry on Chile, which had been required of it by the Hinchey amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act for that fiscal year. And the most hardened critics and investigators were reduced to amazement. (The document was handed to me after I had completed the chapter above, and I let it stand so as to pre- serve the actual order of disclosure.)
First they media programmed us that communism is unpardonable and then they told us the terrible things they were doing were to prevent communism. Which was not true.
I reproduce the chief headings below, so as to preserve, also, the Agency's own prose:
Support for Coup in 1970. Under “Track II" of the strategy, CIA sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office after he won a plurality in the 4 September election and before, as Constitutionally required because he did not win an absolute majority, the Chilean Congress reaffirmed his victory.
In this file photo from August 26, 1971, Chilean President Salvador Allende, left, speaks with his ambassador in Washington, Orlando Letelier, right in Quito, Ecuador. Newly released US intelligence documents on October 8, 2015 reveal that Chilean General Augusto Pinochet directly ordered Letelier's assassination. The former foreign minister and defense minister under the government of President Salvador Allende - overthrown by a Pinochet-led coup in 1973 - was tortured and imprisoned, and then fled to the United States. (AP photo, file)
CIA was working with three different groups of plotters. All three groups made it clear that any coup would require the kidnapping of Army Commander René Schneider, who felt deeply that the Constitution required that the Army allow Allende to assume power.
CIA agreed with that assessment. Although CIA provided weapons to one of the groups, we have found no information that the plotters' or CIA's intention was for the general to be killed.
Orlando Letelier
Contact with one group of plotters was dropped early on because of its extremist tendencies. CIA provided tear gas, submachine guns and ammunition to the second group, mortally wounding [Schneider] in the attack.
Can you see who targets heroes?
CIA had previously encouraged this group to launch a coup but withdrew support four days before the attack because, in CIA's assessment, the group could not carry it out successfully.
Orlando Letelier
To be continued: