Henry Alfred Kissinger turns 100 this Saturday. To mark his birth, the United States National Archives for Security has released a selection of declassified documents that reveal “the darker side” of the powerful former US Secretary of State (1970-1977) during the tenure of Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. One of the issues highlighted in the historical record is the role Kissinger played in overthrowing the socialist government of Salvador Allende and helping to consolidate Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990). In the minutes of a private meeting in Santiago in 1976, the American, whose advisors had recommended he criticize the dictator for human rights violations, gave him encouragement: “We want to help him, not harm him.”
“We understand what you are saying here,” Kissinger said on behalf of the Nixon administration. “He did the West a great service by overthrowing Allende.” And he adds his personal vision: “My assessment is that you are a victim of all left groups in the world and that your greatest sin was to have a government to overthrow that which became communist.” The meeting in Santiago took place as part of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Chilean capital. The foreign minister informed Pinochet that he postponed his speech the day before to warn him in advance that in his speech he would briefly refer to the report prepared by the multilateral organization’s human rights commission on the situation in the South American country. Kissinger apologizes that he will do this to prevent the US Congress from endorsing sanctions against Chile where there are “problems” on the human rights issue. “I wanted him to understand my position. We want to deal with moral persuasion, not legal sanctions,” he adds before Pinochet.
A page of the transcript of the private meeting between Kissinger and Pinochet. US National Security Archives
During the call, Kissinger told the dictator that it would be “a great help” if he announced the human rights measures they were taking. The first thing Pinochet replies to is that the country is “returning to institutionalization step by step”. “But we are constantly attacked by Christian Democrats. You have a strong voice in Washington. Not the people in the Pentagon, but they’re reaching Congress. [El diplomático Juan] Gabriel Valdés has access. Also [el excanciller de Allende, Orlando] Letelier,” he claims. Letelier was murdered in Washington in September of the same year by a bomb attached to his car. It was years before US authorities acknowledged that Pinochet had ordered his death, the first foreign-government-sponsored terrorist attack in the power capital.
At the meeting in the Chilean capital, Kissinger told the dictator that the human rights announcements he could “use” at the political level were constitutional guarantees, the exact number of prisoners and the right to habeas corpus (right to immediate consignment) act presence of the judge). He advises reporting them as a package of measures so they have a “better psychological impact.” To allay Pinochet’s fears about the Christian Democrats, the Secretary of State claims that they are not used and that he has not seen one in Washington since 1969. “I want our relationships and friendship to improve. I encouraged the OAS to hold their General Assembly here (in Santiago). He knew this would boost Chile’s prestige. That’s what I came for,” he continued.
“Chile is Kissinger’s Achilles’ heel,” said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst for the South American country at the Washington-based organization National Security Archive, over the phone from Vancouver. “Everyone is talking about the Kissinger legacy on his 100th birthday. The transcripts of these recordings are his legacy, the true testament to the dark side of his impact on the world. These documents remind us of that. “You’re like a fly that sits on the wall and listens to what’s being said in your office,” says Kornbluth, who analyzed documents released by the US after Pinochet’s 1998 London arrest.
Kornbluh will publish the book Pinochet, Declassified (Catalonia) at the end of June, in which he breaks down Kissinger’s role in the Chilean dictatorship and promises “numerous revelations”. “This is one of the most powerful men in the world, whose reputation is stained with blood from Chile to Cambodia,” he says.
The National Security Archives have more than 30,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger’s telephone conversations, many of which he secretly recorded. The declassified historical records leave no doubt that he was the Allende government’s “principal architect of US destabilization efforts,” posits the NGO that studies and disseminates the documents. In the weeks leading up to Allende’s inauguration in 1970, CIA records show that Kissinger oversaw covert operations to stage a military coup that led directly to the assassination of Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider. One of the documents shows that on September 15, Kissinger held a meeting with President Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms at the White House about Chile. The CIA director’s notes record Nixon’s orders to “make the economy scream” and bar Allende from taking office.
When the socialist doctor came to power, Kissinger authorized a covert intervention to “exacerbate Allende’s problems,” thereby either missing his target or setting the stage for the coup to be viable, according to the minutes of a meeting with the Security Council No. 3 days after Allende took over the presidency.