Product Description
Published on the 30th anniversary of General Pinochet's military coup, declassified documents that reveal the startling facts behind US collusion with the notorious Chilean dictator.

In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here....We want to help, not undermine you.—Henry Kissinger speaking confidentially to General Augusto Pinochet

The 1998 arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in Britain brought renewed attention to the dark days of his dictatorship and raised questions about America's role in bringing the General and his henchmen to power.

As a result of the efforts of Peter Kornbluh and the National Security Archive, thousands of the government records that spell out US government support of Pinochet have recently been declassified. The Pinochet File makes public many of the key and formerly secret records of the atrocity and complicity that are at the heart of the international campaign to hold this Chilean general legally accountable for murder, torture, and terrorism.

Peter Kornbluh's investigative narrative puts the documents in their historical context—exposing the efforts of Henry Kissinger, the White House and the CIA to conceal this history—and fills in the gaps of one of the most infamous chapters in the history of American foreign policy.

Among the formerly top-secret records in The Pinochet File are:
• Top-secret transcripts of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and other cabinet members discussing how to "bring Allende down."
• Minutes of top secret meetings, chaired by Kissinger, to determine covert operations in Chile.
• CIA Chile Task Force organizational and strategy documents.
• White House Situation Room cables welcoming General Pinochet to power.
• Defense Intelligence Agency organizational diagrams of Chile's repressive secret police, DINA.
• Chilean secret police records on Operation Condor.
• Intelligence reporting to Henry Kissinger on Condor.
• Comprehensive CIA, NSC and State Department reports on the September 1976 car bombing assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 10 reviews)

An Important Document

"The Pinochet File" exposes in stunning detail the truth behind the infamous September 11, 1973 coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile and the United States' guilt in the event. Peter Kornbluh has produced a vast, important, priceless document about how the United States happily sponsored the destruction of democracy in a small South American country and helped install a dictatorship of death and terror. This is a horror story, no question, and it must indeed have been frightening to live in Chile during the reign of Augusto Pinochet if you were a free thinker. Kornbluh shows disclassified documents that detail how the CIA, under orders by President Richard Nixon (who else?), conducted covert operations in Chile to destroy the country's economy once Allende, a socialist, was elected president. Of course the White House could not accept a socialist government in the Americas, much less an ELECTED one. Henry Kissinger is reported here as stating that we should not allow countries to go Communist because of the irresponsibility of their own people, a chilling look into the thinking processes of men not only like Kissinger and Nixon, but like Bush and Cheney. In a sense that is the most important aspect of this book, the way it is still so relevant to our current situation in the world. The April 2002 coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez's government, which luckily failed, has all the fingerprints of U.S. involvement, much like the Chile case. Kornbluh meticulously documents both the rise and fall of Allende and the installment of the vicious military junta headed by Pinochet. Kornbluh goes on to report on the various detention centers and concentration camps spread through-out Chile during the regime's years in power, including Colonia Dignidad, an infamous German community said to house Nazi war criminals where Pinochet made alliances to use the spot as a horrific torture center. One of the most surprising chapters in the book, which will be a revelation to many readers unfamiliar with the Chilean story, is the one dealing with American citizens who were unfortunate enough to be in Chile during the coup and were either arrested, tortured or killed. The infamous Operation Condor is described here as well, a clandenstine terrorist network set-up by the military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina to kill any resistance in the hemisphere, all of this ignored by the CIA. "The Pinochet File" will shock many, anger others, it is a darker chapter of not just Latin American history but of our own as well. In a time when we are asking questions about terrorism and foreign policy, it is important to look into the not so distant past because it will tell us how we got here.
February 05, 2007

Great overview of Pinochet

This book provides all of the relevant documents on Pinochet and is an excellent addition to a study of Chile. Pinochet was a brutal dictator who held his country hostage with the support of the United States. If you are looking for a book that covers this time period I would recommend A nation of Enemies. If you are looking fore the original research though this book cannot be beat.
January 01, 2007

Very Dark Time in U.S. History

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.

March 31, 2006

"A handful were regrettably persecuted and tortured."

In his review of "The Pinochet File" below, Mr. Ryan Setleiff blithely concedes that a "handful were regrettably persecuted and tortured." Viewing life through rose colored glasses allows one to summarily dismiss the history of mayhem and death that have been the result of shoring up corrupt client regimes worldwide through force of arms, and, tutelage in the methods of torture.

While--state--interests (protecting overseas investments) can be seen as having served in the overthrow and murder of President Allende, perhaps a little diplomacy, and, a great deal more of urging our favorite dictatorial regimes to extend the franchise to the "least among (them)" would forestall the appeal of the very "leftist" movements Mr. Setleiff and others dismiss so readily.

Rather than fostering the lining of corrupt official's pockets (on-deposit in Manhattan) by force of arms, and, through state-torture, American interests would be better served through broadening the franchise of prosperity by way of inclusion through economic development. (inclusion, incorporation, cooptation, etc.) Nothing other than economic development--a shared stake fostering an obligation to an ordered society--has ever worked.

Any rigorous libertarian historian soundly condemns state torture. In "The Pinochet File" the proof is in the pudding.
March 09, 2006

El Pueblo Unido...

This book is heavy reading -- heavy in the sense that it helps to fill in a missing part of American and world history. It can be a bit overwhelming, like any good history book, but we are nevertheless indebted to Peter Kornbluh for his hard work in bringing this hidden history to light.

History shows us today that the U.S. government was not so much worried about stemming the tide of communism in Chile as it was concerned that other nations, especially in Latin America, would be inspired enough by the "independent, rational socialist state" under Chilean President Salvador Allende to try something similar on their own. Witness this statement in Kornbluh's book from a secret Nov. 5, 1970 memo that Henry Kissinger prepared for then-president Richard Nixon (three years before the Pinochet coup): "In fact, as noted, an 'independent' rational socialist state linked to Cuba and the USSR can be even more dangerous for our long-term interests than a very radical regime."

This book's historical value is undeniable. It would have been good if Kornbluh could have shared more copies of the secret documents and less of the story narrative. But this book, as it stands, is excellent. Highly recommended.
May 19, 2005

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