AUGUSTO PINOCHET

Describing the right under the Constitution for the deposed military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, as a former head of state to become a Lifetime Senator:

Referring to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet:

See {610338} Henry Kissinger for the demarche

Chile under Pinochet was the center for Operation Condor, and in addition it included Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. These countries all were committing wholesale murders and disappearances of, in Scherrer’s words, “leftists, communists and Marxists”. The Condor agents assassinated many abroad who just opposed their methods including a Chilean national in the Untied States and an American friend. Scherrer discovered the identity of some of the Condor terrorist criminals. The US government was very ambivalent as an innocent American had been murdered together with a visiting foreign visitor in Washington DC, by being blown up by a car bomb. At the same time the CIA and others in the government had been aiding the Condor governments but generally did not realize how far these right wing governments were going although some Americans knew, For example, the military through the School of the Americas {588838} taught the South Americans interrogation techniques including torture methods that were illegal in America. The desire to keep the extent of the atrocities secret and the extent of American support of the governments conflicted with the desire to find and punish the terrorists who were killing Americans and others on American soil.

The popularly elected president Salvador Allende was a left leaning socialist and Nixon wanted a right wing Government in place who would deal more firmly with the communists. General Augusto Pinochet thus came to power, murdered Allende, and instituted a reign of terror with death squads, torture and disappearances, that eventually led him to be indicted for crimes against humanity.

Nixon had ordered the CIA to destabilize the economy of Chile. See {615581}.

2 weeks before a military junta, with the knowledge of America, overthrew the popularly elected, left wing President, Salvador Allende (see {640618}). America was very supportive of the new military junta. However, whereas the coup itself was not very bloody as all the military forces were on one side. However, General Pinochet and the other coup leaders, under the guise of “cleanup operations” murdered thousands of supporters of the deposed President, including many academics and writers. The total number will never be known, but this CIA cable was the harbinger of things to come in the new Chilean regime where any dissident or critic of the government under the military could lead to arrest, torture and often murder or “disappearance”. Years later Pinochet and others were convicted for crimes against humanity. The American silence during this period has always been a very controversial moral and political policy. It was in the midst of the Cold War and the Chilean Junta was strongly anti-Communist. The Junta kept denying the accusations crimes against political opponents and claimed that the reports were communist inspired to discredit them. The CIA knew much of the truth and never shared it with all of the Congress or the public. It is not clear which politicians knew and remained silent and which never knew nor knew that the CIA knew much of the criminal activity.