The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

While we can all agree that the dictatorships that flourished on the Southern Cone of South America were brutal and their methods ran counter to human rights, the author of this book sins by being one-sided and "romantic" in his assessment. True, Allende was elected democratically by the Chilean people, but as in many cases in history, the presence in his cabinet of communist ministers as well as the increased pressure in the streets by radical elements (such as strikes and forcible takeovers of factories) did not bide well for the continuity of democracy in Chile. While we cannot speculate on this matter, Allende's weakness would have become a liability in the longer term and a communist takeover could have occurred, which would have thrown off-balance this region of South America, already threatened by the massive presence of the Montoneros in Argentina, the remnants of the pro-Castro guerrillas in Bolivia, and the Tupamaros in Uruguay. Che Guevara's doctrine of "multiple vietnams" would have been catastrophic if it had been allowed to run its course (Vid. The FARC ongoing conflict in Colombia) and would have entangled the United States in a sovietization of Latin America, with all the socioeconomic disasters this would have brought (vid. The Cuban quagmire). Therefore, the historian has to have a dispassionate view of these events and understand that the actions of Kissinger and the state department during that period have to be read and understood in the context of the Cold War and the imbalance previously mentioned. Unfortunately, the author fails in that aspect and indicts Kissinger and the US administration of complicity in this drama. I, unfortunately, cannot agree with this assessment: if Kissinger is guilty of anything, it is of being a proponent of realpolitik and being a man of his time.

The book is meticulously researched and thoroughly written (despite some very small issues that an editor should have altered) The book traces and describes the hubris of the Chilean, Argentine, Uruguayan, and Paraguayan military leaders in the years of Augusto Pinochet's leadership in Chile. It is a hubris that was matched only by that of Secretary Henry Kissinger and the CIA handlers who coordinated with the nations of the Condor Operation in allowing those countries to pursue their own war against perceived Socialism throughout their own and other countries across the free world.It now seems inevitable that such hubris and widely spread criminal behavior would end with the destruction of those military dictatorships, but the human cost of all those concentration camps, torture chambers, extra legal killings and general destruction is incalculable.

If you want an idea of they types of governments our own government supports, read this book. The author has presented an authoritative book on the Pinochet era and Operation Condor. I just returned from Chile myself, and read the book while down there. The Truth and Reconciliation museum there should be seen by everyone. There should also be one in Greensboro, NC. If you don't know about that incident, you are an ill-informed AmeriKKKan. The band OMD wrote a song about it. What more can you say. The book is expertly documented and is a work that the author worked for nearly 30 years upon. And if you think that domestic terrorism started with 9-11, you should read this book. The Letelier assassination will clue you in. And the main assassin in that incident is living amongst us, under the witness protection program!!! Read this book!!! If there is at all any skepticism in you head about the way governments, and our government, works!!!

Mr. Dinges' book is a broad exposition of his earlier work "Assassination on Embassy Row" (co-written w/ Saul Landau), which disects the events surrounding the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC. This book details the background of the Pinochet regime, its planning and execution of Operation Condor, and its complex relationship with the United States. As an extremely right wing person, I was expecting the usual naive liberal histrionics one encounters with this subject matter. On the contrary, Mr. Dinges maintains an admirable level of journalistic distance and simply presents page after page of damning well-documented evidence detailing the crimes of the Pinochet regime, (surprisingly) the abuses of the Allende government and the Marxist guerilla groups active throughout the continent, and the waffling, morally ambiguous triangualtions of Kissinger's State Department. Mr. Dinges is obviously leftist in his sympathies, but he is a rare, shining example of journalistic professionalism and literary skill. This book is a must read for anyone trying to unravel the complexities of this largely hidden, strikingly brutal conflict.

I think this was a very good book.It gives you an excelent report on the atrocities committed by the military in countries like Chile,Argentina and Paraguay.Mr Dinges did a great work in gathering all the information and evidence necessary to present a clear and bullet-proof case against all the parties involved.I was fascinated by all the evidence and information that clearly connects Henry Kissinger with this military goverments and the uncontested proof of his knowledge about the situation in this countries.The only thing i didnt like about this book is that sometimes it gives you the impression that you are reading a goverment report.Because, at times, the author is just giving you facts, dates and names with a certain dryness that sometimes bored me.It felt like you were lectured like in a class room.But,again, the book is full of fascinating tales and information that makes you wonder about our own goverment and the way it manages information.Good work!

This is an interesting book and well worth the effort required to read it. The effort is required by English language readers to cope with all the Spanish and Portuguese names, and also to become familiar with the many acronyms for the intelligence services of the different South American countries and their Marxist rebel opponents. That being said, the author John Dinges of ‘The Washington Post’ and ‘Time’ magazine, has done an excellent job in unearthing the story of the ‘Condor’ agreement between the South American dictatorships. The dictatorships concerned were those of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and to some lesser extent Bolivia and Brazil. The Condor agreement, initially sponsored by the intelligence service of Chile under the Pinochet Government of the early 1970s, proposed and set-up a joint intelligence gathering and sharing network between these states. The Condor agreement went further and initiated the practice of states arresting and interrogating rebels and fugitives from neighbouring states, and facilitating the repatriation of these prisoners, this usually resulting in their death. This extremely effective system overreached itself and finally brought about its own downfall when it embarked upon the assassination of fugitives in Europe and the USA, the latter being a step too far for the normally tolerant and sympathetic American administration at the time of Secretary of State Kissinger.The evidence and detail assembled by Dinges has a gruesome fascination of its own and is the result of many years of research. It is all referenced and entirely convincing in its authenticity.I have a few reservations, however, about the tone and content of the book. The first is the use of acronyms mentioned previously and the second is the slight tendency toward repetition at times, but given the complicated nature of the story this is, perhaps, no bad thing. I am a little disturbed by the partisan nature of the book. The actions of the various right-wing dictators, especially Pinochet, Stroessner of Paraguay and Videla of Argentina come in correctly for sustained criticism for the extra-judicial killings and torture that they inflicted on their citizens. Some of the victims were not violent or terrorists but simply political activists. This is well and good, but I do not see a single word of censure for the Marxist terrorists and plotters who killed many innocent people. In the case of Argentina, under Isabelita Peron, the actions of terrorists make the country virtually ungovernable. I guess we are used to the ‘Right’ receiving a worse press than the ‘Left’, after all Castro of Cuba killed and tortured just about the same number of people as Pinochet but how many wear tee-shirts with pictures of Pinochet on them. Nevertheless, an excellent book and well worth reading.

The most informative book I have read on that bloody period of South American history. Truly a must read for anyone studying the dirt war in Argentina as well.

one of the best books written on this subject

The truth is all coming out !

BACKGROUNDIn 1970, a socialist called Salvador Allende became the president of Chile. He came to power by democratic and constitutional means, but was overthrown in a military coup in 1973. This marked the beginning of a long period of right-wing dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Allende is believed to have committed suicide during the coup. The United States administration had tried to undermine the Allende government. Whether or not it played a direct role in the coup, it certainly didn’t oppose it. Pinochet was seen by Washington as an anti-communist ally. Democracy was restored in Chile in 1990, but Pinochet retained some power, by holding the position of commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces until 1998.From the outset, the Pinochet regime initiated a crackdown on leftist elements and others who were perceived to be a threat to the new government. It’s estimated that this cost the lives of over 3,000 people in Chile during the Pinochet years. In March 1976, there was a military coup in neighbouring Argentina, which meant that all six countries of the 'Southern Cone' of South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) had right-wing, military dictatorships. In Chile, the crackdown on opponents had been conducted quite openly – at first, at least. But the new Argentine regime relied almost exclusively on secret detention centres and 'disappearances'. According to John Dinges’s book, the death toll in Argentina was, at a minimum, 22,000 (p. 262), with the 'disappearances' actually beginning before the 1976 military coup (p. 138).In August 1973, leftist revolutionary groups in the Southern Cone set up a body to co-ordinate their activities, the Junta Coordinadora Revolutionaria (JCR). In 1975, Manuel Contreras, the head of Chile’s Dirección de Intelligencia Nacional (DINA), instigated 'Operation Condor', a secret alliance of the military and intelligence services of the Southern Cone regimes. It aimed at destroying the JCR and associated revolutionary movements, and neutralizing other perceived threats. It came into being in November 1975, although Brazil didn’t formally join until the following year. In 1978, Ecuador and Peru also joined. The 'war on terrorism' was accompanied by assassinations of pro-democracy campaigners who had little or no association with the JCR.Dinges’s well-researched book provides a detailed history of Operation Condor. Its activities fell into three categories: (1) the gathering and exchange of information (for which computer technology was provided by the CIA); (2) 'operations' within the member countries (e.g. the elimination of terrorists); (3) surveillance and assassinations outside Latin America. Regarding the second element, the Condor alliance permitted intelligence and security personnel from member countries to operate in one another’s territory. But not all of the member countries participated in assassinations conducted outside Latin America.Operation Condor had success in breaking up the JCR and capturing and killing members of the associated leftist revolutionary movements in the Southern Cone. Its methods were brutal and included the use of torture to extract information from prisoners. However, it was responsible for a relatively small proportion of the total deaths and violence in the region during the time of the military dictatorships. The CIA generally had good access to information about Condor activity. Overall, the Nixon and Ford administrations in the USA were happy to give Condor a green light, despite some qualms on the American side about human rights violations. But the third element of Condor activity – operations conducted outside Latin America – aroused concern. A notable instance was the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC, in 1976. Letelier had been a member of Allende’s government, and had served as the Chilean ambassador to the USA. He was targeted by Condor because he was a prominent critic of the Pinochet regime. A remotely-controlled bomb was attached to the underside of Letelier’s car. It killed him and another person, with a third occupant of the car being injured. Dinges (Chapter 11) argues that the assassination could have been prevented if the US had been more forcible in expressing its disapproval of such operations by its South American allies. Operation Condor seems to have continued into the early 1980s, although Condor-linked assassinations or attempted assassinations outside Latin America ceased by the end of 1976.With the passing of the military dictatorships, there were moves, at both a national and an international level, to bring to justice people who had been involved in human rights violations in the Southern Cone. For example, Manuel Contreras, the former head of DINA, who had been instrumental in setting up Operation Condor, was imprisoned in Chile. However, Dinges’s book is inconsistent regarding the number of times that Contreras was jailed there. At the time of his death, in December 2006, Pinochet himself was facing charges.PROBLEMS WITH THE BOOKThe book contains a substantial number of endnotes, but there are no linking superscript numbers (or numbers in brackets) in the main text. This is a major fault, because it renders the endnotes more or less useless. Another oddity is that the endnotes start with the number 12 rather than 1! I don’t know whether these problems were present in Dinges’s submitted manuscript, or whether they arose at the publishers.I think that the book would have benefited from an appendix giving a concise timeline of the principal events. It might also have helped if there’d been a glossary, giving the meanings of the various abbreviations used throughout the book.The index is incomplete. There are two entries pertaining to a woman called Luz Arce (pp. 108-9, 164), but she’s also mentioned on p. 142. In a couple of places, at least, I noticed slight inconsistencies in the book.