The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability [Paperback]

Peter Kornbluh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1565849361 | ISBN-13: 978-1565849365

Updated with newly declassified documents, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2003.

When first published last year on the thirtieth anniversary of the Chilean coup, Peter Kornbluh's The Pinochet File was hailed on the editorial page of the New York Times —no doubt to the aggravation of Henry Kissinger and all those who would deny the U.S. role in undermining Chilean democracy and supporting the advent of General Pinochet's brutal dictatorship. "Thanks to Peter Kornbluh," Marc Cooper wrote, "we have the first complete, almost day-to-day and fully documented record of this sordid chapter in Cold War American history."

Peter Kornbluh led the campaign for the declassification of some 24,000 secret CIA, White House, NSC, and Defense Department records on Chile. The paperback edition includes new information and documents released since the hardcover went to press. This material is incorporated into a powerful retelling of the events that Newsweek magazine calls "a remarkable reconstruction of the secret U.S. foreign policy that transformed Chile into a dictatorship."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For years, the United States government maintained top-secret archives detailing its policy in Chile and its role in aiding and securing General Pinochet's rise to dictatorial power in the early 1970s. In this examination of the thousands of records recently declassified by the CIA, White House, NSC, Pentagon and FBI, Kornbluh offers new revelations about America's development of a policy dedicated to overthrowing Chile's existing democratic government and to replacing it with a military leader reviled for his complete disregard for human rights. Throughout the book, Kornbluh-a director of the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library-buttresses his assertions with excerpts from the relevant documents, and attempts to shed light on some of the outstanding questions of the period that still beg for answers, including what motivated President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to authorize the bloody campaign and how involved the US government actually was in the September 1973 coup itself.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

For Chileans, September 11th marks a different tragedy—the anniversary of the 1973 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This timely book weaves together thirty years of declassified documents with a gripping narrative of America's involvement in the affair. At a National Security Council meeting in 1970, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird said of Allende, "We want to do everything we can to hurt him and bring him down," and a C.I.A. memo from the same year describes efforts of a key ally "to increase the level of terrorism in Santiago." This terrorism included the assassination of René Schneider, the constitutionalist commander-in-chief of Chile's armed forces, which was carried out with C.I.A.-provided funds and submachine guns. The evidence that Kornbluh has gathered is overwhelming. As Colin Powell recently remarked about the United States' role in the Pinochet coup, "It is not a part of American history that we are proud of."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 587 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (September 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565849361
• ISBN-13: 978-1565849365
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Chile

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Dark Time in U.S. History, March 31, 2006

By 

E. David Swan (South Euclid, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (Paperback)

After September 11th 2001 the big question on the mind of American's was, `Why do they hate us?' Although the bloody military coup of Gen. Augusto Pinochet was over 30 years ago (ironically September 11th 1973) the lessons and ramifications still resound today. The main villain of the story is Nixon National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger but more so it's the belief that a purity of ideology trumps all other foreign relations concerns. Kissinger is quoted as saying "We [the United States] set the limits of diversity" and in Chile allowing a democratically elected Socialist to remain in power was unacceptable. The author writes, "This would be the first record of an American president [Nixon] ordering the overthrow of a democratically elected government".

I am no fan of neo-conservativism but one aspect of the movement I can appreciate is the desire to merge foreign policy with morality. Whether this has actually occurred is a debate for another book. Kissinger took such an amoral approach to foreign policy with his `realpolitik' that it's no wonder so many people around the world despise the United States. The United States did everything it could, including imposing economic sanctions using the World Bank, financing propaganda and fostering discontent among the military in order to bring down popularly elected president Salvador Allende. The goal was to wreck the economy and create conditions for a right wing takeover. So desperate to destroy Allende were Kissinger and Nixon that the CIA formed a working relationship with Patria y Libertad, a self-proclaimed neo-fascist paramilitary group that engaged in acts of terrorism including bombings who modeled themselves after Hitler's Brownshirts. After the violent coup that cost the lives of thousands of Chileans the U.S. government supported the brutally repressive Pinochet regime by reopening the spigot of foreign money and even selling military hardware while Pinochet's supporters rounded up and executed leftists. Chile wasn't just supported by the U.S. it was favored to the point where it was receiving 80% of all Title I Food for Peace in Latin America and $30 million from AID in housing guarantees compared to $4 million for the rest of Central and South America. Chile became the fifth largest customer of U.S. military weaponry falling just behind Iran.

There were at least as many people in government against what the United States was doing as for and the Republican leadership felt compelled to deliver endless and blatant lies to Congress in order to cover up their actions. This was a nasty, filthy piece of work that did incredible damage to the credibility of the United States and its place as a moral guidepost for emerging countries. So now Chile has come full circle with the election of Socialist Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria to the presidency. Venezuelian president Hugo Chavez has already learned that the United States still intends to set the limits of diversity with a U.S. backed coup attempt in 2002.

This is such an important book and if more American's were aware of history we might be less inclined to automatically blame others and spend more time correcting our own moral failings. When American's remain ignorant they become confused by the anger and resentment of others particularly in South America and the Middle East because people in those regions remember American actions quite well. This is not a blame America book but it is a look at actions that no American should be proud of. Chile is but one example of an amoral U.S. foreign policy and the more American's become aware the more we can improve in the future.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very important book, specially for americans, May 28, 2004

By 

FERNANDO CASSIA "-Writer and Computer Geek-" (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (A National Security Archive Book) (Hardcover)

This book is VERY well documented, based on declassified documents obtained by the George Washington University's National Security Archive library under the Freedom of Information Act.

That this book is edited in english language and for sale through Amazon.com is very important, so americans themselves can learn how their own government supported military governments in South America and tolerated human rights abuses, to sustain their foreign policy goals.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars El Pueblo Unido..., May 18, 2005

By 

Brian Covert - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (Paperback)

This book is heavy reading -- heavy in the sense that it helps to fill in a missing part of American and world history. It can be a bit overwhelming, like any good history book, but we are nevertheless indebted to Peter Kornbluh for his hard work in bringing this hidden history to light.

History shows us today that the U.S. government was not so much worried about stemming the tide of communism in Chile as it was concerned that other nations, especially in Latin America, would be inspired enough by the "independent, rational socialist state" under Chilean President Salvador Allende to try something similar on their own. Witness this statement in Kornbluh's book from a secret Nov. 5, 1970 memo that Henry Kissinger prepared for then-president Richard Nixon (three years before the Pinochet coup): "In fact, as noted, an 'independent' rational socialist state linked to Cuba and the USSR can be even more dangerous for our long-term interests than a very radical regime."

This book's historical value is undeniable. It would have been good if Kornbluh could have shared more copies of the secret documents and less of the story narrative. But this book, as it stands, is excellent. Highly recommended.