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

John Dinges (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2004

Behind the covert, international anti-terrorist network responsible for South America's worst human rights abuses.

President Nixon had decided that an Allende regime was not acceptable to the United States. The President asked the agency to prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.—1970 CIA internal memo

Operation Condor, set up by Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, was a secret alliance among six Southern Cone intelligence agencies that waged an international dirty war against internal enemies. Between 15,000 and 30,000 people were tortured and murdered as the operation, with funding and operational support from the CIA, ranged across national borders to destroy "subversion."

Award-winning journalist John Dinges, who was himself interrogated at a secret Chilean torture camp, draws on hundreds of interviews and newly opened secret police files to prove the extent of cooperation between Operation Condor and the United States government. Revolutionaries, spies and military officers—many speaking out for the first time—retell the brutal struggle between Condor and its enemies, alongside the suspenseful present-day narrative of the lawyers and judges whose relentless efforts to end the impunity of Condor's perpetrators led to Pinochet's arrest and changed international human rights law forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When a Spanish judge pressed charges against Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1998, the case broke an international code of silence on the fates of the tens of thousands of Latin Americans who were tortured and killed during more than a decade of dictatorship in Chile and neighboring countries. The United States agreed to Spain's request for 60,000 pages of secret files on Chile, including CIA operational files. Former NPR news managing editor Dinges (Our Man in Panama), who lived in Chile and was interrogated in a secret torture camp during the Pinochet dictatorship, pored through those files and has uncovered the chilling story of Operation Condor, a Chilean-led conspiracy among six South American dictatorships to hunt down and eliminate leftist rebels and their sympathizers. Condor was responsible for the 1973 murder in Washington, D.C., of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier, which U.S. diplomats were aware of and failed to stop. Indeed, the picture that emerges of U.S. policy is frightening. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's "green light, red light" human rights policy for the first time presented a public U.S. stance in favor of human rights, yet behind closed doors, he was reassuring Latin America's dictators of U.S. support. Hampered by the weight and significance of its revelations, the book gets off to a slow start. Soon enough, however, vivid stories and details emerge: double agents, the euphemisms of the spy trade (e.g., "wet work" for assassinations), bumbling murderers and rebels, and cynical U.S. diplomats. Dinges's meticulously documented study is a cautionary tale for today's war on terror-which shares a major anniversary with the 1973 Chilean coup that brought Pinochet to power: September 11.
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Review

Goes a long way toward bringing the truths of that dark time into the light. -- San Francisco Chronicle

I read the book with special interest, since I was one of the intended victims. -- Edward Koch, former New York City mayor

Scrupulous, well-documented and indignant. -- The Washington Post

Touches directly upon the center of today's debate over US foreign policy—like secrecy in the name of national security. -- The Nation --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (February 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565847644
• ISBN-13: 978-1565847644
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Chile

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Splendid Book, February 16, 2004

By 

Giulia Barrera (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (Hardcover)

The Condor Years it's a superb piece of work. It often happens to me that the more I know about an issue, the more I am unsatisfied with what I read about it, because I am able to detect mistakes and inaccuracies. With John Dinges' book, right the opposite happened. Precisely because I am familiar with quite a few of the documents that he is using, I could appreciate how sound and well grounded are each and every statement that he makes, and how thoughtful, balanced and insightful is his reading of his sources. John Dinges' book has helped me to fully understand the implications and meanings of documents I was already familiar with. And now I am much more confident about the big picture, than what I used to be before reading the book. Needless to say, it also reads beautifully. To read it was a real intellectual pleasure.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well detailed and researched book, August 16, 2006

By 

Alvaro R. Sanchez (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Condor Years: How Pinochet And His Allies Brought Terrorism To Three Continents (Paperback)

The first thing we have to make clear in these types of books is who the author is and the author of this book is John Dinges. Dinges is a serious journalist who worked as the editorial director for National Public Radio for over ten years (1985 to 1996). He has worked as a foreign correspondent for Time, ABC, and most notably the Washington Post. And he is currently a Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

This book is well-researched, documented, and in it Dinges is himself extremely careful about what he states as fact and is not afraid to acknowledge when there simply is not enough documentation to make clear judgments. He frequently cites cables sent between the White House and the U.S. embassy in Santiago and as well as information from his own interviews with major players within Condor and embassy/government officials during the period.

He makes clear how important Operation Condor was in the context of South American politics such as the fact that traditional enemies like Argentina and Chile were co-operating fully for the first time in contemporary history. And, initially at least, the real fear amongst the military dictatorships of guerilla movements united under the "Revolutionary Co-ordinating Junta".

Dinges shows how DINA (the Chilean secret police) was created with U.S. support and turned from a small intelligence department to the hand of Pinochet under the leadership of Manuel Contreras. More interesting is how the book documents how operations were run in Europe headed by American-born DINA operative Michael Townley along with Italian fascists to eliminate the exiled Christian Democratic/Socialist Party opposition. All of this, of course, climaxs with the Letelier assasination in D.C.

This is perhaps the best book you will find on the subject of Operation Condor. Documents obtained by Dinges in making this book are frequently cited by institutions such as the National Security Archive at George Washington University. It deserves all five stars I am giving it.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's evenhandedness gives this book remarkable power, February 7, 2004

By 

James M. Morris "James McGrath Morris" (Tesuque, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (Hardcover)

What's so remarkable about this book is the incredible fairness of its author. The reader will find that as he or she discovers one outrage after another, one violation of human rights after another, it will be almost impossible to remain calm. But Dinges calm tone, incredible evidence, and judicious manner makes the indictment of his book all the more powerful. Anyone worried about the conduct of the United States on the world stage today must read this book.