South America

Washington, D.C., March 15, 2005 - Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive tonight posted key documents released on March 15 by the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs showing conclusively that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had used multiple aliases and false identification to maintain over 125 secret bank accounts at the Riggs National Bank and eight other financial institutions in the United States.

Washington, D.C., December 14: With the decision by Chilean judge Juan Guzmбn to indict Augusto Pinochet for ten crimes relating to Operation Condor, the National Security Archive reposted a series of declassified U.S. documents relating to Condor's acts of international terrorism--including the September 1976 carbombing assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C. The documents record the progression of U.S. intelligence gathering on Condor and U.S. foreign policy actions.

WASHINGTON D.C.: For the first time in forty years, CIA and White House documents on covert political intervention in the 1964 Chilean election were declassified yesterday. The documents, which detail Washington's political and operational decisions on covert action "directed at the defeat of Salvador Allende" by "increasing the organizational efficiency and campaigning ability of the Christian Democratic Party," provide a comprehensive historical record of U.S. efforts to sway the election to candidate Eduardo Frei between January and September 1964.

Washington, August 27, 2004 - A newly declassified document obtained by the National Security Archive shows that amidst vast human rights violations by Argentina's security forces in June 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti: "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you should get back quickly to normal procedures." Kissinger's comment is part of a 13-page Memorandum of Conversation reporting on a June 10 meeting between Secretary Kissinger and Argentine Admiral Guzzetti in Santiago, Chile.

Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Бlvaro Uribe Vйlez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellнn [drug] cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Washington D.C. June 10: Despite denials by the office of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the argument advanced by Council on Foreign Relations Latin American specialist Kenneth Maxwell that the September 1976 car-bombing in Washington D.C. might have been prevented is bolstered by declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The declassified State Department records chart U.S.

Washington D.C., 31 March 2004 - "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do," President Johnson instructed his aides regarding preparations for a coup in Brazil on March 31, 1964. On the 40th anniversary of the military putsch, the National Security Archive today posted recently declassified documents on U.S. policy deliberations and operations leading up to the overthrow of the Goulart government on April 1, 1964. The documents reveal new details on U.S. readiness to back the coup forces.

Washington, D.C. - Military officials of Uruguay, who were members of a secret Southern Cone intelligence alliance called Operation Condor, threatened to assassinate U.S. Congressman Edward Koch in mid-1976, according to a just published book, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press 2004). Written by investigative journalist John Dinges, the book reveals that the CIA intercepted the threat but failed to take any actions in response to it or to warn Congressman Koch for more than two months.

WASHINGTON D.C. - President Richard Nixon acknowledged that he had given instructions to "do anything short of a Dominican-type action" to keep the democratically elected president of Chile from assuming office, according to a White House audio tape posted by the National Security Archive today. A phone conversation captured by his secret Oval Office taping system reveals Nixon telling his press secretary, Ron Zeigler, that he had given such instructions to then U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry, "but he just failed, the son of a bitch….

Washington, D.C., 4 December 2003 - Newly declassified State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and high ranking U.S. officials gave their full support to the Argentine military junta and urged them to hurry up and finish the "dirty war" before the U.S. Congress cut military aid.