Democracy Now! - Make the Economy Scream Secret Documents Show Nixon, Kissinger Role Backing 1973...

7/29/2019 Democracy Now! - Make the Economy Scream Secret Documents Show Nixon, Kissinger Role Backing 1973 Chile

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"Make the Economy Scream": Secret Documents ShowNixon, Kissinger Role Backing 1973 Chile Coup

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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We continue our coverage of the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of ChileanPresident Salvador Allende with a look at the critical U.S. role under PresidentRichard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Peter Kornbluh,who spearheaded the effort to declassify more than 20,000 secret documents thatrevealed the role of the CIA and the White House in the Chilean coup, discusses how

Nixon and Kissinger backed the Chilean militarys ouster of Allende and then offeredcritical support as it committed atrocities to cement its newfound rule. Kornbluh is

author of the newly updated book, "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier onAtrocity and Accountability," and director of the Chile Documentation Project at the

National Security Archive. In 1970, the CIAs deputy director of plans wrote in asecret memo: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup.... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so thatthe USG [the U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden." That same yearPresident Nixon ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "preventAllende from coming to power or to unseat him." Were also joined by Juan Garcs, aformer personal adviser to Allende who later led the successful legal effort to arrestand prosecute coup leader Augusto Pinochet.

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AARON MAT: I wanted to ask about the U.S. role in all of this, and lets turn to arecording of President Richard Nixon speaking in a March 1972 phone call,acknowledging hed given instructions, quote, to "do anything short of a Dominican-type action" to keep the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, from assumingoffice. The phone conversation was captured by his secret Oval Office taping system.In this clip, you hear President Nixon telling his press secretary, Ron Ziegler, he hadgiven orders to undermine Chilean democracy to the U.S. ambassador, but, quote, "he

just failed. ... He should have kept Allende from getting in." Listen closely.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Yeah.


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OPERATOR: Mr. Ziegler.

RON ZIEGLER: Yes, sir.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: What did youhave you said anything, Ron,

with regard to the ITT in Chile? How did you handle

RON ZIEGLER: The State Department dealt with that today.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, they did?


PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: What did they do? Deny it?

RON ZIEGLER: They denied it, but they were cautious on how they dealt with theKorry statement, because they were afraid that might backfire.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Why? What did Korry say?

RON ZIEGLER: Well, Korry said that he had received instructions to do anythingshort of a Dominican-typealleged to have said that.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Korry did?

RON ZIEGLER: Right.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: So how didhow did that go? He put that out?

RON ZIEGLER: Well, Anderson received that from some source. Al Haig is sittingwith me now.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, yeah.

RON ZIEGLER: It was a report contained in an IT&T

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, yeah.

RON ZIEGLER: thing, but

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Well, he was. He was instructed to.

RON ZIEGLER: Well, but

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: I hopedbut he just failed, the son of a [bleep].Thats his main problem. He should have kept Allende from getting in. Well

RON ZIEGLER: In any event, State has denied

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Has State Department handled it?


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RON ZIEGLER: it today, and they referred toto your comments about LatinAmerica and Chile and

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Yeah, fine.

RON ZIEGLER: and so, you just refer to that on that one.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Fine, OK.


PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Right.

AARON MAT: Thats President Nixon speaking in 1972. Peter Kornbluh of theNational Security Archive, can explain to us what Nixon is talking about here, and putit in context of the U.S. role in destabilizing Chile?

PETER KORNBLUH: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger launched a preemptivestrike against Salvador Allende. They decided to stop him from being inaugurated as

president of Chile. He hadnt even set foot in the Moneda Palace, when Nixon andKissinger just simply decided to change the fate of Chile. Nixon instructed the CIA tomake the Chilean economy scream, to use as many men as possible. The first planwas to actually keep Allende from being inaugurated as president. And then, whenthat plan failed, after the assassination of the Chilean commander-in-chief that theUnited States was behind, General Ren Schneider, Kissinger then went to Nixon andsaid, "Allende is now president. The State Department thinks we can coexist withhim, but I want you to make sure you tell everybody in the U.S. government that wecannot, that we cannot let him succeed, because he has legitimacy. He isdemocratically elected. And suppose other governments decide to follow in hisfootstep, like a government like Italy? What are we going to do then? What are wegoing to say when other countries start to democratically elect other SalvadorAllendes? We willthe world balance of power will change," he wrote to Nixon in asecret document, "and our interests in it will be changed fundamentally."

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Kissingers role. Most recently, people may haveseen Stephen Colbert dancing around him, theHenry Kissinger, of course, stillalive, considered an elder statesmen by most of the press in the United States. Give us

a thumbnail sketch of his role.

PETER KORNBLUH: I just got back from Chile, and I did a number of TV showsthere, and everybody said, "Were trying to hold our own people accountable here forthe atrocities that took place during the Pinochet regime, but why isnt HenryKissinger being held accountable? Why isnt the United States held accountable forthe role that they played in the atrocities that were committed in Chile, starting withthe coup itself and then going on with the repression that followed?" And Kissingerreally is thenot only the key survivor of the policy-making team of that era, buttruly when you go through the declassified documents that are laid out in the book,The Pinochet File, you see that he is the singular most important figure in engineering

a policy to overthrow Allende and then, even more, to embrace Pinochet and thehuman rights violations that followed.


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He had aides who were saying to him, "Its unbecoming for the United States tointervene in a country where we are notour national security interests are notthreatened." And he pushed them away. "Nope, we cantwe cant let this imitative

phenomenawe have to stop Allende from being successful." He had aides that cameto him the day after the coup and said, "Im getting reports that theres 10,000 bodies

in the streets. People are being slaughtered." And he said, "Go tell Congress that thisnew military regime is better for our interests than the old government in Chile." Andwe have this fabulous document of him talking to Pinochet, a meeting in 1976, inwhich his aides have told him, "You should tell Pinochet to stop violating humanrights." And instead he says to Pinochet, "You did a great service to the West inoverthrowing Allende. We want to support you, not hurt you."

AMY GOODMAN: In The Pinochet File, you quote an assessment by the CIAsdirectorate of operations, who advised President Nixon and Henry Kissinger on covertaction in Chile. He argued that far from being a pawn of the communists, Allendewould, quote, "be hard for the Communist Party and for Moscow to control." He also

said covert operations to stop Allende from becoming president would be, quote,"worse than useless. Any indication that we are behind a legal mickey mouse or somehardnosed play exacerbate relations even further. ... I am afraid we will be repeatingthe errors we made in 1959 and 1960 when we drove Fidel Castro into the Sovietcamp." You also quote Kissingers top aide on Latin America, Viron Vaky, whowrote in a top-secret cable, "it is far from given that wisdom would call for covertaction programs; the consequences could be disastrous. The cost-benefit-risk ratio isnot favorable." Peter Kornbluh?

PETER KORNBLUH: Thats my point. There were people inside the U.S.government pressing Kissinger not to take this course, and he completely shuntedthem aside, pushed Nixon forward to as aggressive but covert a policy as possible tomake Allende fail, to destabilize Allendes ability to govern, to create what Kissingercalled a coup climate.

In the new edition ofThe Pinochet File, we have the actual transcript of Nixon andKissingers conversation, their first phone conversation after the coup took place, inwhich Nixon says to Kissinger, "Well, our hand doesnt show in this one, does it?"And Kissinger said, "We didnt do it," referring to direct participation in the coup."We helped them." He says, "I mean, we helped them. [Blank]," which I am sure is areference to the CIA, "created the conditions as best as possible." And this is the first

conversation between Nixon and Kissinger after the coup. Theyre basically layingout the role of the United States and settingcreating a coup climate in Chile,facilitating the coup.

Whats even worsethis was long before your program existed, but Richard Nixon isalready complaining about the liberal crap in the media, and Kissinger says, "Yeah,the liberalthe media is bleeding because a communist government wasoverthrown," you know, like as if the media is on the side of Allende. Theyrefocusing on the atrocities that are taking place. And Kissinger says, "In theEisenhower period, we would be heroes."

AMY GOODMAN: In this last minute, Juan Garcs, it is interesting, though youexperienced the intensity of what happened 40 years ago with Salvador Allende


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ultimately killing himself in the palace as the bombs rained down, you are focused ontoday and what is happening todayyou brought Pinochet to justice. You hadBaltasar Garzn, through the famous Spanish judge, issue an arrest warrant for himwhen he took a visit to London, and he was held there, although ultimately sent backto Chile. What lesson can we learn, in these last 25 seconds? And well continue the

conversation after the show.

JUAN GARCS: A matter of how do you understand the world. Should you gothrough peaceful means or using bombs and invasions? The law is very clear. Since40, 45, 1945, the United Nations Charter, after a big World WarWorld Wardecided that the sovereignty and independence of the countries should be respectedand that all the nations should fight to avoid genocidal policies.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but part two well post atdemocracynow.org. Juan Garcs, Spanish lawyer, ex-aide to Salvador Allende, andPeter Kornbluh. The latest book, The Pinochet File.

http://www.democracynow.org/

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chiles_9_11#
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The Pinochet File: How U.S. Politicians, Banks andCorporations Aided Chilean Coup, Dictatorship

September 10, 2013

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Part 2 of our conversation on the 40th anniversary of the Chilean coup with Spanishlawyer Juan Garcs, a former personal adviser to ousted Chilean President SalvadorAllende, and Peter Kornbluh, author ofThe Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on

Atrocity and Accountability.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War andPeace Report. Im Amy Goodman, with Aaron Mat. Our guests are Juan Garcs,who also has written a book, simply calledAllende, about the president who headvised, his closest adviser until September 11th, 40 years ago, 1973, when the palacewas being bombed by the Pinochet forces and Salvador Allende took his own life. Hewas surrounded by his other advisers, but he walked Juan Garcs to the door and said,"Tell the world." Juan Garcs went on as a Spanish lawyer to work to hold Pinochetresponsible, and ultimately, through Baltasar Garzn, the Spanish judge, had himhad him call for Augusto Pinochets extradition to Spain to be tried. Augusto Pinochetwas in London, and Augusto Pinochet was held for about a year there beforeultimately he was allowed to return home to Chile.

Were also joined by Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File: A DeclassifiedDossier on Atrocity and Accountability.

I was just speaking about Joyce Horman, the widow of the freelance journalist CharlieHorman. Peter Kornbluh, tell us what Charlie discovered in those days leading up tothe coup, why he was so dangerous, and what you learned in declassification ofdocuments of Kissinger.

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, Charles Horman and his wife Joyce were part of alarge group of Americans who went to Chile during the Allende years. Chile was, as

Juan Garcs will tell us, was a dynamic, exciting place. The whole world waswatching what was happening there. It was something new and vibrant. And


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AMY GOODMAN: What was it? What was happening? I mean, so a new presidentwas elected.

PETER KORNBLUH: The viathe famous via pacifica oftoward socialchangenot armed revolution to bring fundamental change to a Third World country,

but democratic revolution, in which the people would vote, and institutions wouldgradually be changed to spread the wealth equally, to nationalize resources so thatU.S. copper companies and corporations like IT&T then suck the money right out ofthe country. This was an exciting, new model of change for Latin America and theworld. Thats what made it so dangerous for the Nixon and Kissingers of the world.

So, Charlie and his wife Joyce were there. Charles Horman was actually, as part of hisjournalistic approach, he was actually investigating the murder of the Chileancommander-in-chief, General Ren Schneider, that took place in October of 1970 andwas part of a CIA operation to foment a coup, to create a coup climate in Chile thatmight stop Allende from actually being inaugurated the first week of November. This

was an atrocity, a bald assassination of the commander-in-chief of Chilean armedforces right in broad daylight on the streets. There was a trial that had taken place inChile. There were documents, that really did focus on the contacts with the UnitedStates and the coup plotters. In my book, The Pinochet File, I have one still-secretCIA document, which reveals that the agency paid the people that killed RenSchneider $35,000 to close their mouths about the U.S. role and to help them escapefrom Chile to get beyond the grasp of justice. But some people were arrested, tried.Charlie Horman was investigating that, looking at the trial file. He also happened to

be in Valparaso on the day of the coup and met a number of U.S. officials

AMY GOODMAN: Where is Valparaso?

PETER KORNBLUH: Valparaso is a coastalvery famous coastal town. He wentto Via del Mar. He went to Valparaso. It was where the U.S. Navy group that wasadvising the Chilean military was based.

AMY GOODMAN: Known as the U.S. MILGROUP.

PETER KORNBLUH: The U.S. MILGROUP was there. He met the head of theU.S. MILGROUP, Captain Ray Davis, who actually drove him and a companion backto Santiago because there was a curfew. And so the implication was, is that he had

talked to these Americans, that he might actually know something about the coup. It isstillthe details of his death and why he was killed are still murky, and the case isgoing forward. And actually, almost 40 years later, a Chilean judge actually indictedCaptain Ray Davis, the head of the U.S. MILGROUP, for his death. So, we arehoping in the months to come that we learn more about the circumstances underwhich he died.

AARON MAT: Peter, the role of the ITT Corporation, this huge U.S. firm that hada lot of interest in Chile?

PETER KORNBLUH: ITT owned the telephone companies in Chile, owned the

Sheraton Hotel. They were a very aggressive company in Latin America. And theydecided they should have their own foreign policy, and they started pushing for


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meetings with thewith the CIA. It helped that they had on their board of directors aformer CIA director, John McCone. And he was able to gain access to the CIA rathereasily. There was more than 40 meetings between CIA officials and ITT officials. ITTwanted to start funneling secret funds to Allendes opponent in the 1970 election. Oneof thefor students of this history, the first real documents that came out on U.S.

intervention in Chile were ITT internal memos that recorded their meetings with theCIA and the U.S. ambassador, as your audience heard in the tape that was played onyour program. So, this was the first kind of real inkling of what was happening. Thescandal aroseJuan Garcs can remember what happened, because Allende was

president at the time, and he simply declared, "Well, we were negotiating tonationalize and compensate ITT, but now that we see that theyre a completelycriminal enterprise intervening with the CIA in our internal state of affairs, weregoing to expropriate their holdings in Chile."

AMY GOODMAN: And how, Juan Garcs, was Allende dealing with ITT?Kissinger, Nixonwhat did he understand was their role in supporting Pinochet? Did

he?

JUAN GARCS: Well, Allende wanted always a good agreement with the UnitedStates. And certainly, he said that he should govern in conformity with the willingnessof the Chilean people, of the Chilean Congress, but looking for a way to preserve thegood relations with the United States. And, in fact, several months before the coup, ahigh delegation from Chile came to Washington to open formal negotiations to try tosolve the differences thatin terms of investments or in terms of economicdifferences that were present in this period. And the doors of the U.S. government inWashington were practically closedno dialogue, no negotiation, coup dtat.

So, what is40 years later, what is interesting is that you see this coup dtat againsta very active democratic society articulated by an operation where one of the legs is amass media group, El Mercurio, asking the intervention of the U.S. governmentthrough Secret Services, in relation with some corporations that have privateinvestments in Chile. And with those three leaksexcuse me, legs, the coup and thedestabilization of the society was done. Now, with the technological means thatcurrently are at our disposal, at the disposal of the governments, you realize that thethree legs are still workingcorporations that are linkedhave links with SecretServices and the articulation with the government, the government, to prepareinterventions in other countries, invasions. And that has been the case particularly

after the tragedy of the attack to New York in 2001. But the violence that we can do,and many countries do, and the United States citizens are doing also, is what is thecost of those options, to follow this path, for the economy of other countries and forthe health of our democratic system.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask about something remarkable that you did in yourefforts to bring justice to the people of Chile and to hold Pinochet accountable. Andthat was to get at his money, which was the peoples money of Chile, the millions ofdollars he had stashed away. Peter, firstPeter Kornbluh, sort of lay this out for anAmerican audience. Talk about the story of Riggs Bank.

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, let me just say its such a pleasure to be on this showwith Juan Garcs, for what he did during the Allende period and what he did to bring


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Pinochet to justice, and then what he did to really try and recover the money thatPinochet had clearly stolen and hidden away in secret bank accounts. The CIAdocuments on Pinochet described him as "hard-working" and "honest." But it turnsout that he was completely corrupt, asin addition to be murderous. And he secretlytook more than $26 million of Chilean money, hid it in 120 bank accounts, some

many of them offshore accounts, using false passports, the images of which are in thenew edition ofThe Pinochet File, and using kind of variants of his name, but withoutthe name Pinochet, to try and hide the fact that these were his assets.

AMY GOODMAN: Like?

PETER KORNBLUH: He used the name Augusto Ugarte P., or simply AugustoUgarte, or Ramn Ugarte, because his full name was Augusto Ramn UgartePinochet, no? Or Pinochet Ugarte.

JUAN GARCS: Yeah.

PETER KORNBLUH: Right. And some other false names. And he had some of hisaides names, and he had some of hisvariants of his childrens names on theseaccounts. And Riggs Bank, the famous bank of Washington, D.C., owned by JosephAllbritton, had approached Pinochet for years. And at someone point, they actuallyheld the secretthe accounts of the Chilean secret police, DINA, in theirin their

bank in Washington. But eventually, U.S. Senatethis was the most amazing thing.U.S.the Senate investigation kind of looking at whether banks had tight enoughregulations on money laundering by terrorists after 9/11 stumbled across the fact thatRiggs Bank was hiding all of these funds from Pinochet and then recovered thealmost the entire file that

AMY GOODMAN: How did they discover it?

PETER KORNBLUH: They were investigating banks and whether they weretheirregulations were so loose that terrorists, in the post-9/11 world, could launder moneyfor terrorist activities. They were looking forat the financial side of terrorism in the

post-9/11 world. And so they were looking for accounts that were suspicious, andthey started an investigation. And immediately, they were told that in Riggs Bank,there were a series of people that knew that there was this very suspicious accountthat belonged to Augusto Pinochet. And they asked for the file on it, and eventually

they got the entire file, which was so incredible, because it included all thecorrespondence between Joseph Allbritton, the chairman of the board of the bank, andPinochet himself, and the memorandum on the visits by bank officials to Pinochet andother Chilean officials in Santiago, including going to horse clubs and equestrianshows and exchanging gifts and cufflinks and

AMY GOODMAN: And who was Joseph Allbritton? I mean

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, Joseph Allbritton was one of the big banking corporatemoguls of Washington, D.C. He owned the sports team. I forget whether it was the

basketball team or the Redskins. At one point he owned a bunch of newspapers and

radio stations. He owned Riggs Bank. But fundamentally, he participated in aconspiracy to hide Augusto Pinochets money. And hethey evaded the assetsJuan


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Garcs managed to get Pinochets assets frozen, but Riggs Bank violated that courtorder to freeze his assets by secretly starting to funnel back to him all of his money in$50,000 cashiers checks. They had a courrier that would bring literally bundles ofthese checks to Pinochets house in Santiago. And the story returns to Juan Garcs,

because more than $8 million of this $20-plus million stash of money was given back

to Pinochet illegally by Riggs, and Juan Garcs stepped in and said, "That moneybelongs to the Chilean people and to the victims of Pinochet." And he recovered it.

AMY GOODMAN: Allbrittons son now runs Politico.

PETER KORNBLUH: Allbritton ownedstarted Politico, created Politico. Andthen, when he passed away, his son

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Allbritton.

PETER KORNBLUH: took over. So theres still a presence of the family, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you got, Juan Garcs, millions of dollars of Chiles moneyfrozen, and then how was it distributed back to the people of Chile?

JUAN GARCS: Thanks to an investigation in the U.S. Senate, as Peter wasexplaining

PETER KORNBLUH: Which was led by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a terrificsenator.

JUAN GARCS: Yeah, their committee on investigations. And they accepted tocooperate with a court of justice that was prosecuting Pinochet. And thanks to thiscooperation between the U.S. Senate and the Spanish court, we reached to indict theowners of Riggs Bank. That is something that is without precedent, from their own

pocket

PETER KORNBLUH: Right.

JUAN GARCS: paid the totality of the money that went through the bankchannels hiding the Pinochet money. And we distributed that to the victims ofPinochet that were considered such with the institution of the court. It is the only

money that related directly to Pinochet has never been distributed to the victims.

AMY GOODMAN: But that money, the millions of dollars, how did you identify thevictims, the survivors, and have it distributed?

JUAN GARCS: That wasthe victims were recognized as such in the court,because thousands of them have been the object of an inquiry inside Chile by anofficial commission, committee Riggs, that established the list of thousands of peoplethat were murdered, also forcibly disappeared. And we in Spain, with the cooperationof Chileans inside Chile, created a new commission for victims of torture, victims thatsurvived the torture. And we found, through this commission, identified more than

20,000 persons. And then they have their right to receive a part of the indemnities.


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AMY GOODMAN: Taking this forward, how you got Pinochet, how you got himarrested in England? We just went all to a big event last night where you, JuanGarcs, you, Peter Kornbluh, Baltasar Garzn, the Spanish judge, and others werehonored in this 40th anniversary of this other 9/11, September 11, 1973, whenPinochet rose to power in Chile. You left the palace, taking the word of what

happened there, September 11, 1973, as President Allende asked you to do, and youwent forth. You were actually born in Spain. You ultimately went to Spain. You are alawyer. How did you get Pinochet arrested in England?

JUAN GARCS: Its a matter of conviction. This man was a criminal, of course, anddeserves to maketo be made accountable for those crimes. So, someone essayed tokill him. There was an attempt against his life. My way of thinking is different. Its towork to collect, to gather evidences about his crimes, to look for a court of justice,and wait for the moment in which the political conditions could make himaccountable. And that happened after the end of the Cold War. And we appliedinternational treatiesEuropean Convention on Extradition and the international

Convention Against Tortureand we found a court in Europe and applied theprinciples of universal jurisdiction. And we got Pinochet.

And the difference between a killing, a murder, and a legal proceeding, you can seehere the consequences. Had he been killed in the attempted assassination in 19601986, things in Chile will be very different of what came after legal proceedings,where the crimes were openly explained in front of an independent court. And theChilean society since then, as Pinochet was arrested in 1999, and since then until now,the big majority of Chileans agree that the transition to democracy in Chile begins theday in which Pinochet was put in front of a court of justice.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kornbluh, if you can talk about this remarkable event froma U.S. perspective, what actually took place? So, '73, Pinochet rises to power. Herules for 17 years. In 1989, he goes to the doctor in London. He's also, what, meetingwith the former prime minister, Thatcher, and he is certainly treated as a dignitary.Where were you when he was arrested?

PETER KORNBLUH: No, in 1998, October 16th, it was a day that everybody in theChile community remembers. General Pinochetbecause of the work of Juan Garcsand Baltasar Garzn and some key people in London, take advantage of the fact thatPinochet is having a kind of minor surgery at a place called the Clinic in London, and

they file a request for his arrest under the European counterterrorism convention,because Pinochet committed major acts of international terrorism. He spearheadedOperation Condor, which was a rendition, kidnapping and assassination programaround the world, murdered Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C.

AMY GOODMAN: The former Chilean ambassador to the United States.

PETER KORNBLUH: The former Chilean ambassador, a friend of Juan Garcss.

AMY GOODMAN: In 1976

PETER KORNBLUH: In 19


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AMY GOODMAN: on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.

PETER KORNBLUH: Thats exactly right. So, these new laws that have come intoplace facilitated a request for his interrogation and arrest. And this was atransformational moment. It was a transformational moment for Chileans. It was a

transformational moment for people in the United States. It was a transformationalmoment for the human rights movement, which became inspired. And what we callthe Pinochet precedent or the Pinochet effect now has led to prosecutions of peoplelike Alberto Fujimori in Peru and Ros Montt in Guatemala and cases in Spain againstthe murderers of the Jesuits in El Salvador, just a cascade of efforts

AMY GOODMAN: Hissne Habr now in Senegal, the former dictator of Chad.

PETER KORNBLUH: A cascade of efforts to hold the Pinochets of the worldaccountable for their atrocities. So, it couldnt have been a more important,fundamental event in our recent history. And, you know, I just want to take the

opportunity to be on your show and say that Juan Garcs is a hero, and what happenedin Spain was a heroic, heroic effort. And the fact that theres this straight line from 40years ago, to being at La Moneda to then being in Spain and being able to holdPinochet accountable and create a very different set of circumstances for the dictatorsof the futures is just a tremendous achievement.

AARON MAT: Peter, what has been the U.S. government response to this conceptof universal jurisdiction?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, theres a bunch of issues. In the aftermath ofPinochets arrest, we in Washington took advantage of pressing the Clintonadministration to declassify the deepthe deep, dark holdings of the U.S. governmenton Chile, on the Pinochet era, and eventually the CIA operations in Chile itself. Andthe Clinton administration actually deserves a lot of credit. People inside thatadministration despised Pinochet. Some of them had been Allende supporters in theiryouth. And the president was convinced to order a special declassification of 24,000documents, including, in the end, 2,000 operational CIA documents, which we neverwould have seen otherwise, that recorded the U.S. role in Chile, Nixon andKissingers role in undermining democracy and supporting dictatorship. So this wasthe initial response of the United States.

Overall, the United States doesnt like the concept of universal jurisdiction, becausethey dont want other countries to prosecute U.S. officials for atrocities committedaround the world. And, of course, we now have a whole team from the Bushadministration who could easily be prosecuted just as Pinochet was prosecuted.

AMY GOODMAN: So how are they affected when they go abroad, includingPresident Bush, former President Bush?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, I mean, certainly there have been efforts made inEurope to question George Bush, to question Donald Rumsfeld. There have beenwewere with people last night, Juan and I, from the Center for Constitutional Rights,

Michael Ratner and others, who have tried to bring cases against former Bush


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administration officials for torture, for rendition, for death, in the name of fightingterrorism.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you see could happen to Henry Kissinger?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, Henry Kissinger is 91 years old. And let me just takethe opportunity to say that as Chileans are pushing theirtheir society to atone forwhat happened 40 years ago, the issue is whether Kissinger will step up andacknowledge and apologize for the crimes that he supported and helped to perpetratein Chile. Hes the last surviving member of that team.

TheresKissinger and, to some degree, Bush have been what we call Pinocheted.This is a new verb in the lexicon of the human rights movement since Juan Garcssaccomplishment in getting Pinochet arrested. They have faced the issue of, when theytravel abroad, will they be subpoenaed and questioned for crimes that they supportedor participated in or instigated? And so, you have a different situation for people like

Henry Kissinger. He doesnt freely travel abroad. He nowparticularly after Pinochetwas arrested in 1998, he would send emissaries to make sure there wasnt going to bea problem. He went to France at one point, in 1999, I think, or 2000, and was servedwith a subpoena and promptly left. He was going to go to Brazil to receive a huge

prize, and a judge in Brazil said, "Im going to question him on Operation Condor,"and Kissinger cancelled his trip. Soand Bush himself, George Bush, has also faced,to some degree, this issue. I think the question isyou know, as Juan Garcs will say,Pinochet seemed untouchable for years and years and years, and then, suddenly, hewasnt, because of the hard work.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan Garcs, what do you think should happen with HenryKissinger? By the way, I should also just say, for folks who are called Juan in thiscountry, it is spelled Juan Garcs, but the Catalonian form of Juan is Juan. So, JuanGarcs, what should happen with Henry Kissinger?

JUAN GARCS: Well, some of the victims of those crimes that we are talking aboutfiled in the district court of Washington, D.C., a claim against Kissinger.Unfortunately, the date was not positive. That was the day before 9/11/2001. So

PETER KORNBLUH: Thirteen years ago today.

JUAN GARCS: Yes, exactly. And so, this claim didntwas not successful,because the district court said that the U.S. court of justice cannot review thedecisions taken by the State Department high officers, even if those decisions arerelated to crimes against humanity and genocidal acts. This decision was confirmed

by the appeal court. The Supreme Court of justice didnt accept to review thosedecisions. I hopeI think that this is very unfortunate. The leaders of the UnitedStates have extraordinary powers. If they are accomplices or commit crimes againsthumanity, they shouldabroad, using the power of the United States to commit bigcrimes abroad, they should be made accountable. They couldntthey cannot be triedabroad, because no country, no court in the world dares to open a serious criminalcase against a highera high officer of the United States. And if the U.S. courts say

that because of the separation of power they can no more investigate those crimes, the


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outcome is absolute impunity. And I think that is unacceptable, and that is a dangerfor we all.

And, in fact, you are talking about this Pinochet caselet me tell you that I am justfollowing the path that was opened by the U.S. government in 1945. When the World

War II was ending, there was a discussion among the leaders of the United Nations:What to do with those big criminals that used the power of the Third Reich and forcommitting massive crimes? And then there was a discussion. For the prime ministerof Britain, Churchill, the answer was very clear: You put them against the wall, ta-ta-ta-ta, finish, you kill them. That is all. Stalin agreed with that. But not Roosevelt northe administration, the American administration. They said, "No, no. These peopleshould face a tribunal, where their crimes should be exposed." And then there was the

Nuremberg trial. That is the beginning of the current international criminal law. Sothe roots of the international law presently are in the United States strategicalthinking for the world after World War II.

AMY GOODMAN: As you talk about international law, can I digress for oneminute, before we talk about the current election in Chile, and ask you about yourthoughts on Syria? Because whats often raised right now is that its a violation of ahundred-year-old law about the use of chemical weapons. And President Obama drewthis red line. He says the international community drew it in the ban against the use ofchemical weapons. What are your thoughts on what should happen in Syria? Do youthink the U.S. should respond to this, though its not completelythe facts are not inon exactly who did this in Syria, but should strike Syria militarily?

JUAN GARCS: Well, in my view, the United States, Syria and the world is facingnow the consequences of a bad strategical options two years ago in Libya. Accordingto the international legal norms, the United Nations Charter, the legitimacy for usingforce against a sovereign government in an independent country is in the SecurityCouncil of the United Nations. Its the only organ that can take those decisions. Andthe United States asked the permission from the United Nations Security Council to

protect the civilians in the eastern side of Libya against bombing by the Gaddafigovernment. And the Security Council agree on thatgreat. And then an exclusionzone was created for protecting the civilians.

What was a mistake, in my point of view, that they turned this authorization from theSecurity Council in a regime change, accepting to use this authorization from the

Security Council to bomb other areas of Chileof Libya and permitting theoverthrow of the Gaddafi regime. Then the Russians and the Chinese, they werelooking: What has been done with the authorization?

AMY GOODMAN: That they agreed to.

JUAN GARCS: Use of forcethat theyLibya. They [inaudible] it. "That is thelast time. We will not accept that once again that we give the authorization for that,and that is a pretext for something that we didnt authorize." And that is the tragedyfor the Syrian people since two years ago, when the Security Council is blocked.

Now, what I realize that is a proposal for solving the situation in Syria, you have here

the position that has been taken by the U.S. executive, and a great [inaudible] in othercountries about the use of force outside authorization of the Security Council,


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legitimate force. And I realize that some governmentsfor example, the Germangovernmentis saying that the people that is responsible for these chemical attacksshould be made responsible in the International Criminal Court of justice. The

AMY GOODMAN: Which the U.S. has not signed onto.

JUAN GARCS: But the Security Council can order that these people in Syria thathas committed these crimes be sent to the International Criminal Court. This is a legalsolution. And certainly, the diplomatic possibilities are not exhausted. And I considerthat after the experiences, the fiascos in Iraq invasion, and the answer to the attack to

New York, invading another countrywell, look at what happened here in New York10 years ago. There was a terrorist attack. To answer to this terrorist attack, there wereseveral ways. The option was to invade a country, make the violence. What is 10years later the number of terrorists, of jihadists, that are today in the world there? Ithink that this attack has multiplied the number of people that are ready to commitnew crimes. So, I think that the use of force should be done, but through legitimate

means. And the use of force outside the legitimacy of international law, the sideeffects arein this case, its evidentmore negative than positive. That is my

balance.

AARON MAT: Peter Kornbluh, turning back to 73, can you talk about the role ofthe CIA in supplying lists of dissidents to the Chilean military?

PETER KORNBLUH: Theres some evidence, although it doesnt really show up inthe documents that we have. It was discovered by the Senate committee led bySenator Frank Church, the so-called Church Committee, that investigated U.S.intervention in Chile in the mid-1970s, that the CIA funded a particular institute thatwas preparing for a coup, that did compile lists of both civilians and people inside theAllende government that would need to be taken care of, if you will, in the event of acoup. The CIA eventually came in, sent a team to help create the Chilean secret

police, DINA. I was just in Chile, and there are very few DINA documents available.DINA disappeared their archives, just like they disappeared so many victims.

AMY GOODMAN: The head of DINA was arrested and imprisoned?

PETER KORNBLUH: Manuel Contreras was first prosecuted for the assassinationof Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to Washington, and his colleague

Ronni Karpen Moffitt. And then he was prosecuted again and again and again, and henow is in a prison, has been in a prison, and has an overall sentence of more than 200years to serve.

But I was saying that the CIA actually sent a team to help advise DINA oninfrastructure, on human resources, on kind of thehow you do intelligenceoperations. And one of the things I found when I was in Chile two weeks ago is thatthere was actually a manual that the DINA had on how to conduct intelligence thatappears to be completely translated from an old U.S. manual from the 1950s. Andobviously somebody gave the DINA that manual to use. So theres a history here ofthe CIA being involved with Chilean impression, up to the point when Pinochet sends

his assassins to Washington, D.C., to commit an act of international terrorism. Wereapproaching 9/11 tomorrow. The Letelier assassination car bombing in downtown


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Washington, D.C., was the first act of state-sponsored international terrorism in thecapital city of Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quicklywe just have a minute to gothe currentelection thats going on right now in Chile is remarkable. You have two women, one

the former president, Michelle Bachelet, right? Two daughters of generals. One mayhave been responsible for the torture and death of the other, Michelle Bacheletsfather killed. And they were childhood best friends, now running against each other.

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, its a historic election, because you have two womencontending for the presidency. Its the first in Latin America. It may be the first in theworld, where two women are the leading contenders forto be president. And

because of their backgrounds, of course, and because of the confluence of the 40thanniversary arriving tomorrow in the middle of this election, the history of the coup iskind of front and center in the debate over the issues and the issue of atoning,apologizing for, taking responsibility for those who supported Pinochet. It has

suddenly become politically expedient to apologize from the right-wingers, andpeople even pushing Evelyn Matthei to apologize for her father, to apologize for herfamily, for their participation in the repression. And this is a sea change politically inChile, where the country has been divided. But now, really, theres just very littlespace for anybody to have supported the coup anymore and feel like they can everadvance politically in Chile. The population has changed. The commemorationsaround the 40th anniversary, which is tomorrow, have been overwhelming in the

press, in the media, cultural events. A beautiful concert called Vctor sin Vctor, onVctor Jaras music, just took place last week. It was wonderful and inspirational tosee. And its a large part due to the effort of Chileans and the effort of the worldcommunity to make sure that the coup and its atrocities were repudiated.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Peter Kornbluhand Juan Garcs. Juan Garcs, by the way, is also winner of the Right LivelihoodAward and was at a gathering in Bonn a few years ago, when we also interviewedhim, a gathering of about 75 Right Livelihood Award winners who won that award. Itwas awarded in the Swedish Parliament. Juan Garcs, again, the closest adviser toPresident Allende. President Allende died in the palace September 11, 1973, 40 yearsago. Juan Garcs left the palace, and from that point to today has been not only tellingthe world about what happened, but holding the forces that deposed Salvador Allendeaccountable. Thank you so much, both, for being with us.

PETER KORNBLUH: Pleasure.

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