As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Share <Embed>

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the Author

John Dinges

The Condor Years: How Pinochet And His Allies Brought Terrorism To Three Continents Paperback – June 1, 2005

by John Dinges (Author)

75 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.14

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$21.00

$64.50

$5.95

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.99

$14.69

$7.48

A “compelling and shocking account” of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald).

Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early “war on terror” initially encouraged by the CIA―which later backfired on the United States.

Hailed by Foreign Affairs as “remarkable” and “a major contribution to the historical record,” The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America’s darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries.

“Scrupulous, well-documented.” ―The Washington Post

“Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges.” ―Seymour Hersh

Print length

332 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The New Press
Publication date

June 1, 2005
Dimensions

6.34 x 1.05 x 8.02 inches
ISBN-10

9781565849778
ISBN-13

978-1565849778
See all details

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Luke A. Nichter
96
Hardcover
$37.13
Craig Whitlock
139
Hardcover
in Political Corruption & Misconduct
$23.99
Greg Grandin
60
Hardcover
$15.07
Peter Kornbluh
69
Paperback
$16.75
Vincent Bevins
614
Paperback
in Chilean History
$18.99
J. Patrice McSherry
15
Paperback
$37.95

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Oscar Martinez
84
Paperback
25 offers from $10.91
Mark Danner
155
Paperback
132 offers from $1.66
Peter Kornbluh
69
Paperback
$16.75
Vincent Bevins
614
Paperback
in Chilean History
$18.99
Charles River Editors
6
Paperback
$9.99
Stephen G. Rabe
44
Paperback
$28.95

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reads like an exciting spy novel, but reports on the real-life activities of Latin American dictatorships to silence their critics, including assassinations. I read the book with special interest, since I was one of the intended victims.

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.

About the Author

John Dinges, former managing editor of NPR News and Latin American special correspondent for the Washington Post, is the author of Our Man in Panama. He teaches journalism at Columbia University and lives in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1565849779
Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; Reprint edition (June 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 332 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781565849778
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1565849778
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.34 x 1.05 x 8.02 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #612,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16 in Uruguayan History
- #20 in Paraguayan History
- #39 in Bolivian History

Customer Reviews:
75 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload video

Customer reviews

5 star		78%
4 star		11%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Bobby K. Daugherty

Written by a communist

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

There is little information about Pinochet in this book. He mostly tries to glorify the communist trash that the Chilean government worked to remove from it's country.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Victor L

A "must read" for anyone interested in 20th Century Latin American history

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

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.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

A detailed, superbly documented study of dictatorship and international terrorism

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2012

Verified Purchase

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.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Allan Bumgartner

Extradite Kissinger.....

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

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!!!

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Richard

Latin America

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

Excellent book to read if you are looking to gain some knowledge about the US involvement and looking the other way during South America's Dirty Wars.
The author presents and lot first hand evidence to support his ideas and theories.

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

Detailed story of Operation Condor.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Charley

On one hand and on the other!

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2013

Verified Purchase

Well written book with documentation of a textbook.
Living now in Chile I have had conversations with a number of Chileans who remind me of my conversations many years ago with Germans who
had many excuses for what happened. There can be no excuses for what took place in either case. They are not equal except for " on one hand this happened but it was necessary or other things good occurred ( autobahn, pan american highway, etc.)

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Fred

Good book but a little dry

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2005

Verified Purchase

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!

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Dr. R. Brandon

A Magnificently Researched Book on the South American Terrorism of the Condor Years

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2016

Verified Purchase

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.

2 people found this helpful

john boyle

Pinochet and Kissinger and a South American bloodbath

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

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.

Ann Stodberg

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

one of the best books written on this subject

Franz Bieberkopf

Justice is a dish best eaten cold.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2010

Verified Purchase

Dinges is an American journalist who covered Latin America in the era of hope,fear,resistance and repression of the late 1960s-early 70s.He lived in Chile for a while and was arrested in the aftermath of the overthrow of Allende and his Popular Unity government.He survived-many others did not.
He traces the internationalisation of the repression in Latin America's Southern Cone after 1973,with Project Condor reaching out from Chile into Argentina,Uruguay,Paraguay and,for a time Brazil and even Peru."Subversives" were traded across borders-few survived.Then Condor went global,with the 1976 killing of Letelier in Washington,and plans for actions in Europe(called off after they were leaked) and even an abortive attempt to kill Ed Koch,later mayor of New York.
After the return to democracy in the 1980s,the new civilian givernments were hampered by laws that gave retrospective amnesties to many-not all-human rights violators.Bits and bobs of information dribbled out.
And then came the arrest of Pinochet in London.As a result the Clinton Administration released extensive archival material from the CIA and State Department describing the structure and activities of the Condor nations.Much of this material ended up being used in fresh trials of the opressors of the 1970s-80s.Because of the transnational structure of Condor,many of these repressors could now be charged with crimes against humanity using the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1946-47.Many of those killers and torturers had to call off their hopes for a relaxing retirement and more than a few have been tried and convicted for their part in the brutalities of the 1970s-80s.
Well worth reading if you're interested in international or human rights law,or Latin American history.

10 people found this helpful

Anthony Burford

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

The truth is all coming out !

See all reviews

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Oscar Martinez
84
Paperback
25 offers from $10.91
Mark Danner
155
Paperback
132 offers from $1.66
Pamela Constable
61
Paperback
85 offers from $2.37
Peter Kornbluh
69
Paperback
$16.75
Charles River Editors
6
Paperback
$9.99
Vincent Bevins
614
Paperback
in Chilean History
$18.99

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: history of chile

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Follow the Author

Similar authors to follow

The Condor Years: How Pinochet And His Allies Brought Terrorism To Three Continents Paperback – June 1, 2005

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?