The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability

When first published last year on the thirtieth anniversary of the Chilean coup, Peter Kornbluh's The Pinochet File was hailed on the editorial page of the New York Times —no doubt to the aggravation of Henry Kissinger and all those who would deny the U.S. role in undermining Chilean democracy and supporting the advent of General Pinochet's brutal dictatorship. "Thanks to Peter Kornbluh," Marc Cooper wrote, "we have the first complete, almost day-to-day and fully documented record of this sordid chapter in Cold War American history."

Peter Kornbluh led the campaign for the declassification of some 24,000 secret CIA, White House, NSC, and Defense Department records on Chile. The paperback edition includes new information and documents released since the hardcover went to press. This material is incorporated into a powerful retelling of the events that Newsweek magazine calls "a remarkable reconstruction of the secret U.S. foreign policy that transformed Chile into a dictatorship."

Seth J. Frantzman


Very important book, specially for americans   May 28, 2004
FERNANDO CASSIA (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
21 out of 23 found this review helpful

This book is VERY well documented, based on declassified documents obtained by the George Washington University's National Security Archive library under the Freedom of Information Act.

That this book is edited in english language and for sale through Amazon.com is very important, so americans themselves can learn how their own government supported military governments in South America and tolerated human rights abuses, to sustain their foreign policy goals.


Very Dark Time in U.S. History   March 31, 2006
E. David Swan (South Euclid, Ohio USA)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

After September 11th 2001 the big question on the mind of American's was, `Why do they hate us?' Although the bloody military coup of Gen. Augusto Pinochet was over 30 years ago (ironically September 11th 1973) the lessons and ramifications still resound today. The main villain of the story is Nixon National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger but more so it's the belief that a purity of ideology trumps all other foreign relations concerns. Kissinger is quoted as saying "We [the United States] set the limits of diversity" and in Chile allowing a democratically elected Socialist to remain in power was unacceptable. The author writes, "This would be the first record of an American president [Nixon] ordering the overthrow of a democratically elected government".

I am no fan of neo-conservativism but one aspect of the movement I can appreciate is the desire to merge foreign policy with morality. Whether this has actually occurred is a debate for another book. Kissinger took such an amoral approach to foreign policy with his `realpolitik' that it's no wonder so many people around the world despise the United States. The United States did everything it could, including imposing economic sanctions using the World Bank, financing propaganda and fostering discontent among the military in order to bring down popularly elected president Salvador Allende. The goal was to wreck the economy and create conditions for a right wing takeover. So desperate to destroy Allende were Kissinger and Nixon that the CIA formed a working relationship with Patria y Libertad, a self-proclaimed neo-fascist paramilitary group that engaged in acts of terrorism including bombings who modeled themselves after Hitler's Brownshirts. After the violent coup that cost the lives of thousands of Chileans the U.S. government supported the brutally repressive Pinochet regime by reopening the spigot of foreign money and even selling military hardware while Pinochet's supporters rounded up and executed leftists. Chile wasn't just supported by the U.S. it was favored to the point where it was receiving 80% of all Title I Food for Peace in Latin America and $30 million from AID in housing guarantees compared to $4 million for the rest of Central and South America. Chile became the fifth largest customer of U.S. military weaponry falling just behind Iran.

There were at least as many people in government against what the United States was doing as for and the Republican leadership felt compelled to deliver endless and blatant lies to Congress in order to cover up their actions. This was a nasty, filthy piece of work that did incredible damage to the credibility of the United States and its place as a moral guidepost for emerging countries. So now Chile has come full circle with the election of Socialist Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria to the presidency. Venezuelian president Hugo Chavez has already learned that the United States still intends to set the limits of diversity with a U.S. backed coup attempt in 2002.

This is such an important book and if more American's were aware of history we might be less inclined to automatically blame others and spend more time correcting our own moral failings. When American's remain ignorant they become confused by the anger and resentment of others particularly in South America and the Middle East because people in those regions remember American actions quite well. This is not a blame America book but it is a look at actions that no American should be proud of. Chile is but one example of an amoral U.S. foreign policy and the more American's become aware the more we can improve in the future.



Important record of State Terrorism   October 9, 2003
kymm
16 out of 26 found this review helpful

As Pinochet will probably never be tried for his crimes, this is an important book. There will never be justice for the victims, survivors and their families - books like this offer some explanation for the betrayal and crimes.


Finally, The Truth   July 28, 2004
Brett Dillahunt (Washington State)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

From http://www.ragingliberal.org

It was in 1973 that the world's only democratically elected marxist leader, in Chile, was assassinated in a bloody takeover by Augusto Pinochet. In the years that followed, 3000-5000 people were murdered and thousands more imprisoned and tortured at the hands of an autocratic regime installed by the United States government under Nixon.

If you have trouble believing the stories coming out of abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq, read this book. We have experience in these matters. Thirty years after the coup, a mountain of cables, memos and internal documents became declassified as a matter of course, and Peter Kornbluh has artfully and masterfully put them into order to paint what may be the first complete picture of what happened in Chile during those dark years.

It's not your typical tell all book, like those coming out of Washington nowadays. There isn't finger pointing or the innuendo. The blame game is not played. It's simply evidence. Proof. Piles of it, neatly organized and painting a complete indictment of the United States as the perpetrator and supporter of crimes against humanity in 1970's Latin America.

In one section, Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying, "We can't let a country go communist simply because its people are irresponsible." This idea set wheels in motion as the policy of containment morphed into something more horrible and inhumane. Was the US directly involved in the assassination and takeover? Yes. Did Kissinger and Nixon no how bloody it had become, and quietly acquiesce? Most definitely. Did arms shipments and financial aid help solidify the Pinochet regime? 'Fraid so. How soon after the coup were American businessmen back in the country to begin new resource export deals? Within six weeks.

Perhaps the most powerful and compelling aspect of Kornbluh's book is that it's not him who's making the accusations and revelations. It's the evidence itself. It's Kissinger and Nixon in their own words, their own handwriting. It truly is a dossier as much as its title suggests. It's worth reading simply to set the record straight once and for all, and to dispel the myth that we, as a nation, are incapable of anything so horrible as what is happening now.