NSA – The Coup in Chile: What Did Nixon Know and When Did He Know it?

49 Years After Pinochet’s Putsch, Presidential and CIA Documents Remain Secret

The National Security Archive Calls for Full Disclosure of Covert History as Countdown to 50th Anniversary of Military Coup Begins

Washington D.C., September 12, 2022 – One day after the violent, U.S.-backed, coup d’état in Chile, the very first item in President Richard Nixon’s September 12, 1973, CIA intelligence report—known as the President’s Daily Brief (PDB)—was the overthrow of Salvador Allende. “Chile’s President Allende is dead and the armed forces, together with the carabineros, are working to consolidate their successful coup,” stated a short summary of principal developments around the world. On page 1 of the PDB, the CIA informed Nixon that the members of the new military junta “are all respected and experienced leaders,” indicating they were not supporters of democracy. According to the PDB, “the new rulers have declared [the Chilean] Congress to be in recess.”

But, on the actual day the military moved to overthrow Salvador Allende, September 11, 1973, what the CIA informed President Nixon remains TOP SECRET. Forty-nine years after one of the most infamous military coups in Latin American history, the intelligence report in Nixon’s 9/11/1973 PDB on Chile continues to be classified as sensitive national security information. Nixon’s PDB on September 8, 1973, which is believed to contain initial CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency reporting on specific coup preparations by the Chilean military, also remains completely redacted, almost half a century later.

As the countdown to the 50th anniversary of the coup next year begins, the National Security Archive called on the Biden administration and the CIA to fully declassify the PDBs and all remaining records related to covert operations in Chile. “Secrecy over time erodes credibility, especially regarding national security,” according to John Dinges, author of The Condor Years and a member of the Archive’s advisory board. “Continuing to hide key documents from public view after half a century,” he noted, “prevents finding a credible answer to the questions about U.S. actions in Chile.” 

Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project said the Archive would use the Freedom of Information Act and all legal means to press for full disclosure of the controversial history of U.S. ties to the coup before the 50th anniversary. “There is still more to be learned about this dark and sordid episode of covert intervention,” Kornbluh stated, “in order to finalize the judgement of history on the U.S. role in Chile.”

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2022-09-12/coup-chile-what-did-nixon-know-and-when-did-he-know-it?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=67d93458-a525-4a80-ba9a-d2b5e41feb4e

 

On the eve of the 45th anniversary of Argentina’s Military Coup of 1976: what the U.S. Knew

Briefing Book #751 Edited by Carlos Osorio





 

U.S. had ample forewarning of coup plotting, Documents Show

Officials maintained channel of communications with plotters

Ford Administration knew Argentine military planned to commit human rights violations

U.S. Ambassador aborted pre-coup visit by a former CIA deputy director

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2021 – On the eve of the 45th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive is today posting declassified documents revealing what the U.S. government knew, and when it knew it, in the weeks preceding the March 24, 1976, overthrow of Isabel Peron’s government. The documents provide evidence of multiple contacts between the coup plotters and U.S. officials. “[Admiral] Massera sought opportunity to speak privately with me,” U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill reported in a cable sent one week before the putsch after meeting with a leading coup plotter. “[H]e said that it was no secret that military might have to step into political vacuum very soon.”

The documents posted today record the U.S. government knowledge of the plotters, their preparations for the coup, and their potential plans for what State Department officials described as “military rule for an extended duration and of unprecedented severity.” They show that the U.S. “discreetly” advised the military more than a month before the actual coup that Washington would recognize the new regime.

In the first substantive report to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on a “Possible Coup in Argentina,” in mid-February 1976, Assistant Secretary of State William Rogers flagged the likelihood of human rights violations after a military takeover (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/southern-cone/2021-03-23/argentinas-military-coup-what-us-knew?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9fcb5efb-937e-4c13-9e3a-90897fe629e7

España – La ley de memoria declara “nulos de pleno derecho” los juicios sumarios del franquismo

 
La vicepresidenta primera y ministra de la Presidencia, Relaciones con las Cortes y Memoria Democrática, Carmen Calvo (en primer término), y la ministra de Hacienda y portavoz del Gobierno, María Jesús Montero, este martes. En vídeo, Calvo explica que la ley de memoria declarará "nulos de pleno derecho" los juicios sumarios del franquismo.FOTO: EUROPA PRES

La norma cambiará la forma de enseñar la dictadura en colegios e institutos: “Nuestros jóvenes necesitan saber de dónde venimos”, dice Calvo. Las multas por incumplirla llegan a los 150.000 euros
 
El País – Madrid15 SEP 2020 –

Casi un año después de la exhumación de los restos de Francisco Franco, uno de los hitos del mandato de Pedro Sánchez, el Gobierno reactiva el debate sobre la memoria histórica con una exhaustiva ley de 66 artículos que remata el trabajo comenzado por la primera norma de este tipo, la de 2007, con José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero en La Moncloa. Esta nueva ley prohíbe la exaltación del franquismo y fija multas de hasta 150.000 euros por actos de homenaje al dictador. Además, cambiará la forma de explicar la dictadura en las escuelas y creará una fiscalía especial para investigar las violaciones de derechos humanos en ese régimen.

Carmen Calvo finiquita el trabajo iniciado por María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, entonces vicepresidenta primera, para homologar, según sus palabras, la democracia española a otras muchas en el mundo que han sufrido dictaduras y se enfrentan al dilema de cómo afrontar desde el presente un pasado trágico. “No seríamos una gran democracia si no somos capaces de enfrentarnos con justicia a nuestro pasado”, sentenció Calvo en la presentación del anteproyecto, que este martes aprobó el Consejo de Ministros y que según el secretario de Estado de memoria democrática entrará en vigor en 2021.

El texto contiene novedades legales de calado para honrar a las víctimas y cerrar el paso a todos los grupos, como la Fundación Francisco Franco, que siguen dedicándose a exaltar la dictadura, algo inviable en muchas democracias del entorno español con sus respectivos dictadores (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://elpais.com/espana/2020-09-15/la-ley-de-memoria-declara-nulos-de-pleno-derecho-los-juicios-sumarios-del-franquismo.html?utm_source=Facebook&ssm=FB_CM&fbclid=IwAR3T2IuG2Rwl0enEj8dd9sMuvzqSu6H6c5uVYwZ_asKxAUVmQnSIrosiRO4#Echobox=1600172385

Argentina’s House of Horrors

CIA Document Leads Human Rights Investigators to Previously Unidentified Clandestine Torture Center. Declassified U.S. Records Reveal Address of House Used by State Intelligence Service to Interrogate, Disappear Victims after March 1976 Military CoupU.S. Citizen was Detained, Abused at Black Site on Bacacay street in Buenos Aires

Washington D.C., July 21, 2020 – Forty-four years after the Argentine military began disappearing thousands of citizens following the March 24, 1976, coup, human rights investigators have located one of the first clandestine torture sites used by state intelligence operatives. The clandestine center was identified after the declassification of thousands of U.S. intelligence records last year, among them a secret CIA report on the disappearance of an Argentine diplomat which stated that he had been kidnapped by agents of the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) and “taken to a house at Bacabay (sic) 3570 in the Federal Capital which SIDE rents and uses for official operations….”.

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/southern-cone/2020-07-21/argentinas-house-of-horrors?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6e9ccb94-15d9-4a0a-8008-30359cf38485

 

Reseña: Marina Franco, El final del silencio. Dictadura, sociedad y derechos humanos en la transición (Argentina, 1979-1983) (Buenos Aires, FCE, 2018)

Auteure de nombreux travaux consacrés à l’histoire récente du Cône sud et tout particulièrement de Un enemigo para la nación. Orden interno, violencia y subversión 1973-1976 (également publié au FCE en 2012), Marina Franco ne se contente pas avec ce nouvel ouvrage de débroussailler un champ de recherche sujet à maints débats car centré sur un passé récent, qui ne « passe pas » toujours. Elle poursuit ici une réflexion sur les conditions de la sortie de dictature, du retour à la démocratie et du modèle transitionnel adopté dans le cas de l’Argentine, en liaison avec la question persistante des droits humains dont les échos persistent dans le temps présent. Mères de la Place de Mai, bébés volés devenus des adultes recherchant leurs parents, souvent des militants assassinés par la dictature, centres d’emprisonnement et de torture transformés en musées ou mémoriaux, l’histoire du temps présent argentin et plus généralement des dictatures du Cône sud renvoie indéniablement à ce que l’auteur qualifie, sous forme de questionnement ouvert, de « culture des droits humains ». La seule mention des archives utilisées, ainsi du ministère de la Défense et de sa « direction des droits humains » (sic) atteste de l’intérêt porté à ce passé récent, douloureusement inscrit dans les mémoires, à ses victimes et à ses formes de justice et de réparation. D’autres images contribuent de fait à ce déplacement de focale. Comme en attestent les véritables « récits mémoriels » que constituent les images, la guerre des Malouines elle-même (1983) passe en effet à un second plan face à la rupture constitutionnelle et politique du 10 décembre 1983. Cette date signe en effet la fin de la dictature, la reconnaissance des luttes pour les droits humains et le triomphe d’Alfonsín. D’autres aspects furent, en revanche, oubliés voire durablement occultés en cette sortie de dictature, que cet ouvrage vise précisément à (re)mettre en lumière (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://journals.openedition.org/caravelle/6146

Chile : Letelier-Moffitt Assassination: State Department Officials Pushed for Pinochet’s Ouster (National Security Archive)

Published: Sep 20, 20  – Briefing Book #685 – Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Santiago Mendoza

‘Dissent Channel’ Memorandum Called for U.S. Policy to Force Pinochet From Power 

43 Years after State-Sponsored Terrorist Act in Washington, New Details Emerge on Effort to Hold General Pinochet Accountable 

Washington D.C., September 20, 2019 — In the aftermath of the September 21, 1976, car-bombing that killed former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffitt, in Washington D.C., four State Department officers began pressing for a policy to force General Augusto Pinochet from power, according to a declassified “Dissent Channel” memorandum published today by the National Security Archive. “It is probable that President Pinochet ordered the assassination of Letelier and others,” the authors wrote in their appeal for an aggressive policy of ending normal relations with Chile until Pinochet was removed.  “Our only hope for justice is for the U.S. to take action that will bring it about.”

The “Dissent Channel” is a special–and carefully used–mechanism for State Department officials to provide constructive opposition to established policies. Department procedural regulations define it as“a serious policy channel reserved only for consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues that cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels and procedures.”

The National Security Archive obtained the Dissent Channel memorandum on the Letelier-Moffitt assassination through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

The secret memorandum, titled “The Letelier/Moffitt Assassinations: Policy toward Chile,” was filed on October 1, 1979, shortly after the Chilean Supreme Court rejected a U.S. Justice Department petition to extradite the top two officials of the Chilean secret police, DINA, for their role in the terrorist attack in Washington D.C. CIA intelligence reports revealed that Gen. Pinochet had personally interceded with the chief justice on the court to assure that the extradition request was denied (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2019-09-20/letelier-moffitt-assassination-state-department-officials-pushed-pinochets-ouster

 

 

Imminent Threat to Guatemala’s Historical Archive of the National Police

Published: May 30, 2019 – Update for Guatemala Police Archive under Threat posting

Morales Government Tightens Grip on Massive Human Rights Records Trove 

Washington, D.C., May 30, 2019– The National Security Archive joins our international and Guatemalan colleagues in calling for the protection of the Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) of Guatemala, which faces new threats to its independence and to public access to its holdings.

In a press conference on Monday, May 27, Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart signaled his intent to assert his agency’s control of the AHPN including the prospect of new restrictions on access to the archived police records and possible legal action against “foreign institutions” holding digitized copies of the documents. Degenhart made his statements as a crucial deadline approached to renew an agreement that for a decade has kept the archive under the authority of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The agreement now appears to be in jeopardy.

The hollowing out of the AHPN is taking place at a time when justice and human rights initiatives are broadly under siege in Guatemala and follows months of uncertainty for the celebrated human rights archive, which has been institutionally adrift since its long-time director, Gustavo Meoño Brenner, was abruptly dismissed in August 2018.

Since its discovery in 2005, the AHPN has played a central role in Guatemala’s attempts to reckon with its bloody past. Its records of more than a century of the history of the former National Police have been relied upon by families of the disappeared, scholars, and prosecutors.  The institution has become a model across Latin America and around the world for the rescue and preservation of vital historical records (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/guatemala/2019-05-30/imminent-threat-guatemalas-historical-archive-national-police-ahpn

Declassification Diplomacy: Trump Administration to Turn Over Trove of Declassified Records to Argentina on Human Rights Violations Committed During Military Dictatorship

National Security Archive Hails Forthcoming Transfer of Formerly Secret Intelligence Records National Security Archive Hails Forthcoming Transfer of Formerly Secret Intelligence Records

Documents like this one pertaining to the fate of Ana Maria Pérez will be among those in the upcoming release. Photo courtesy of Berta Elvira Sanchez.

Washington D.C., March 24, 2019– On the 43rd anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the Argentine government of Mauricio Macri has announced that the Trump Administration will provide “the largest delivery to another [nation] of declassified documents in volume and file quality” relating to human rights abuses committed during the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. 

The official transfer of the records is planned for mid-April during a visit by Argentina’s minister of justice, Germán Garavano, to Washington D.C. The turnover of formerly secret U.S. intelligence records—the collection will include CIA, FBI, NSC, and Defense Intelligence Agency documents—will culminate a special U.S. government declassification project authorized three years ago today by then-President Barack Obama during a visit to Buenos Aires, and implemented by the Trump administration.

In support of the Argentina declassification project, the National Security Archive hailed the forthcoming documents transfer. “We praise the Trump administration as well as President Macri for their concrete contribution to the cause of truth and human rights,” said Carlos Osorio, Director of the National Security Archive’s Southern Cone Documentation Project.

Para seguir leyendo: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/southern-cone/2019-03-24/declassification-diplomacy-trump-administration-turn-over-trove-declassified-records-argentina-human

España: Defensa abrirá los archivos secretos de la Guerra Civil y el franquismo

 


Un informe interno del Ministerio apoya hacer públicos los documentos militares anteriores a 1968. Miguel González, El País, 17 SEP 2018.

El Ministerio de Defensa ha dado los primeros pasos para que los documentos militares de la Guerra Civil y la posguerra, considerados hasta ahora secretos, estén al alcance de estudiosos, investigadores y del público en general. La Comisión Calificadora de Documentos de Defensa aprobó el pasado día 4 un informe, al que ha tenido acceso EL PAÍS, en el que recomienda a la ministra Margarita Robles que “autorice con carácter general la consulta pública de la documentación anterior a 1968” del Archivo General Militar de Ávila.

El cerrojo que mantiene vetados para los historiadores miles de documentos clave para entender la reciente historia de España empieza a ceder. La comisión del Ministerio de Defensa sobre calificación de documentos, que preside el secretario general técnico del departamento, ha pedido que se permita el acceso público a un inmenso fondo documental, hasta ahora de difícil o imposible consulta por llevar marcas de reserva o confidencialidad, sobre la Guerra Civil (partes de operaciones, despliegue de unidades), la represión franquista (campos de concentración, batallones de trabajo), la posguerra (fortificación de los Pirineos, Marruecos) o los boletines de la sección de inteligencia del Estado Mayor Central.

Estos documentos abarcan desde el golpe de Estado de 1936 hasta 1968, cuando entró en vigor la todavía vigente ley de Secretos Oficiales, y están depositados en el Archivo General Militar de Ávila, centro de referencia para el estudio de la Guerra Civil junto al de Salamanca (…)

Para seguir leyendo: https://elpais.com/politica/2018/09/16/actualidad/1537121723_032402.html

 

SECRET CIA REPORT: Pinochet “Personally Ordered” Washington Car-Bombing

bookPInochetPRESIDENT REAGAN INFORMED THAT PINOCHET’s ROLE WAS “a blatant example of a chief of state’s direct involvement in an act of state terrorism”
National Security Archive Seeks Declassification of CIA Assessment in the Letelier-Moffitt Assassinations
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 532
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Posted – October 9, 2015

Washington D.C., October 8, 2015 – The CIA concluded that there was “convincing evidence” that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet “personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murder” of exiled critic Orlando Letelier in Washington D.C., according to a SECRET memo prepared for President Ronald Reagan in 1987. “Pinochet decided to stonewall on the US investigation to hide his involvement,” the CIA review also noted, and as part of the cover-up considered “even the elimination of his former intelligence chief,” DINA director Manuel Contreras, who had overseen the assassination plot.
The CIA intelligence review remains classified. But it was quoted in a dramatic report to President Reagan, dated on October 6, 1987, from his Secretary of State, George Shultz, as part of his efforts to convince the president to cut U.S. ties to Pinochet and press for the return of democracy in Chile. “The CIA has never before drawn and presented its conclusion that such strong evidence exists of his [Pinochet’s] leadership role in this act of terrorism,” the Secretary of State informed the President. Continuar leyendo “SECRET CIA REPORT: Pinochet “Personally Ordered” Washington Car-Bombing”

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