191 lines
35 KiB
Markdown
191 lines
35 KiB
Markdown
---
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aliases:
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- Augusto Pinochet
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- Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
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- Augusto Jose Ramon Pinochet Ugarte
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- Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte
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- General Pinochet
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- General Augusto Pinochet
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- Senator Pinochet
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- Pinochet
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- KeyFigure
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- Person
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- Chile
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- CIA
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- OperationCondor
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- TrackII
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- DINA
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- Letelier
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- RiggsBank
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- ColoniaDignidad
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- Cardoen
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- LondonArrest
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- ColdWar
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summary: "Chilean Army commander who led the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende and ruled Chile until 1990, with the Letelier assassination and Operation Condor documented in declassified US records."
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location: "Valparaiso, Chile"
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created: 2026-05-14
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updated: 2026-10-08
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born: 1915-11-25
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died: 2006-12-10
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relations:
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Chile]]"
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start: 1973-09-11
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end: 1990-03-11
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role: "leader of the military junta that took power in the coup of September 11, 1973; resigned March 11, 1990"
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fn: 1
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- type: participant_in
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with: "[[Operation Condor]]"
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start: 1975
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role: "Chile named as the center of Operation Condor in the FBI legal attache's cable of September 28, 1976"
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fn: 4
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- type: reported_to
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with: "[[Manuel Contreras]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "DIA report of April 15, 1975 states that the DINA director reported exclusively to and received orders only from Pinochet"
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start: 1975-04-15
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fn: 4
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[Letelier-Moffitt assassination]]"
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start: 1976-09-21
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role: "a 1987 CIA assessment concluded that he personally ordered the murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt"
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fn: 11
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- type: investigated
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with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 2000-04
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end: 2000-05
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role: "formal FBI investigation into his guilt for the Letelier-Moffitt murders, as described in the 2016 release of CIA records"
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fn: 11
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[Riggs Bank]]"
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start: 1985
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role: "customer whose accounts the 2004 Senate subcommittee report found the bank helped conceal from regulators and courts"
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fn: 25
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- type: subject_of
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with: "[[House of Lords]]"
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start: 1998-10-16
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end: 1999-03-24
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role: "extradition proceedings on a Spanish warrant, decided by the Lords on March 24, 1999"
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fn: 1
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---
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Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was born on November 25, 1915, in [[Valparaiso]], [[Chile]], and entered the military in 1933. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army in August 1973 by President [[Salvador Allende]]. He was the leader of the military junta that evicted Allende on September 11, 1973, and the junta remained in power until March 11, 1990, when he resigned.[^1] He died on December 10, 2006, in [[Santiago]], Chile, of complications from a heart attack, which the [[National Security Archive]] notes was International Human Rights Day.[^2]
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### Track II and the killing of René Schneider
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On September 15, 1970, President [[Richard Nixon]] directed the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to organize a military coup in Chile to prevent the inauguration of Allende. The [[Church Committee]], whose successor body was the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]], wrote that the CIA was to take this action "without coordination with the Departments of State or Defense and without informing the U.S. Ambassador." The Committee's account of the meeting cites the handwritten notes of CIA director [[Richard Helms]], which contain the words "Make the economy scream."[^3][^4]
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On October 16, 1970, CIA deputy director of plans [[Thomas Karamessines]] cabled the Santiago station chief, [[Henry Hecksher]], conveying [[Henry Kissinger]]'s orders: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The cable directed that the operations be run so as to hide the "American hand," and that the station ignore orders to the contrary from Ambassador [[Edward Korry]], who had not been told of the operations.[^4] A memorandum of an October 15, 1970 meeting of Kissinger, Karamessines and [[Alexander Haig]] records a discussion of promoting a coup, known as [[Track II]], and the possibility that the plot of Chilean officer [[Roberto Viaux]] might fail with "unfortunate repercussions."[^4] Between October 5 and October 20, 1970, the CIA made 21 contacts with key Chilean military and Carabinero officials.[^5] Henry Hecksher and other operatives were in contact with coup plotters including Pinochet and General [[Gustavo Leigh]].
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The Church Committee's interim report on assassination plots records that the removal of the Army commander-in-chief, General [[Rene Schneider]], who insisted that the constitutional process be followed, became a necessary ingredient in the plans of the Chilean conspirators, and that the conspirators decided to kidnap him. It records unsuccessful attempts on October 19 and 20, 1970, a delivery of three submachine guns and ammunition by a CIA attache on October 22, 1970, and a third attempt that day in which Schneider was shot; he died on October 25.[^5] The report states that the guns used were "in all probability" not those supplied by the CIA, that the Chilean military court found Schneider had been shot with handguns, and that the Committee could not determine whether the machine gun at the scene was one of the three the CIA supplied.[^5] The Committee also records that a station cable of October 22, 1970 said the station had instructed the attache to "hand over $50,000 if Gen. Valenzuela requests."[^5]
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The National Security Archive's description of the October 1970 cables states that the CIA supplied a group of officers led by General [[Camilo Valenzuela]] with "sterile" weapons for the operation, which was to be blamed on Allende supporters, and that Schneider was killed by another group the CIA had been collaborating with, led by retired General Roberto Viaux.[^4] The CIA's 2000 report on its Chile activities, prepared under the Hinchey amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000, states that the Viaux group acted "independently of the CIA at that time" on October 22, that the three submachine guns, ammunition and tear gas grenades given to the Valenzuela group were "later returned unused to the Station," and that Valenzuela's representative insisted his group had nothing to do with Schneider's killing.[^6] The Church Committee also records that Kissinger and Haig testified that the White House stood down the CIA effort on October 15, 1970, while CIA officials, especially Karamessines, testified that they acted with White House knowledge and approval before and after that date.[^5]
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The 2000 report states that in November 1970 a member of the Viaux group who had avoided capture recontacted the CIA and requested financial assistance on behalf of the group. The report continues: "Although the Agency had no obligation to the group because it acted on its own, in an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons, $35,000 was passed."[^6] The National Security Archive describes the payment as one made to a group of coup plotters after that group had murdered Schneider, and states that it was apparently withheld in 1975 from the Senate committee investigating CIA involvement in assassinations.[^7]
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### The 1973 coup and US knowledge
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On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military, led by Pinochet, Gustavo Leigh and Admiral [[Jose Merino]], launched a coordinated coup. The presidential palace, [[La Moneda]], was bombed by [[Chilean Air Force]] jets. Allende died during the assault; the CIA's 2000 report describes La Moneda as under bombardment from tanks and airplanes and states that Allende took his own life.[^6] The junta, composed of Pinochet, Leigh, Merino and [[Carabineros of Chile|Carabinero]] chief General [[Cesar Mendoza]], was sworn in on the evening of September 11, 1973, and Pinochet was designated its first president; the report states that the CIA actively supported the junta but did not assist Pinochet to assume the presidency.[^6] By June 1974 Pinochet had become the dominant figure and head of state.[^3]
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A State Department cable of September 13, 1973, titled "USG Attitude Toward Junta," states that the "US government wishes to make clear its desire to cooperate with the military Junta and to assist in any appropriate way."[^2] A [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] biographic profile of Pinochet, dated August or September 1973, survives in a version with heavy deletions.[^4]
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A November 1973 State Department memorandum on executions, sent to the Secretary of State by [[Jack Kubisch]], records that summary executions in the nineteen days after the coup totaled 320, more than three times the publicly acknowledged figure.[^2] A CIA intelligence report of October 27, 1973 records that 13,500 prisoners had been registered as detained by the armed forces between September 11 and October 10, 1973, and estimates 1,600 civilian deaths from the coup.[^2]
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The 2000 report states that within a year after the coup the CIA and other US agencies were aware of bilateral cooperation among regional intelligence services to track the activities of and, in at least a few cases, kill political opponents, which it calls the precursor to Operation Condor.[^6] After Pinochet's arrest in London in October 1998, the Clinton administration released a collection of about 24,000 declassified records.[^2]
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### DINA and Manuel Contreras
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A Defense Intelligence Agency report of April 15, 1975 describes the [[DINA]] as "the sole responsible agency for internal subversive matters." It states that the head of DINA, Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]], "has reported exclusively to, and received orders only from, President Pinochet."[^4]
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The CIA's 2000 report states that between 1974 and 1977 the CIA maintained contact with Contreras, and that the policy community approved the contact despite concerns that it might lay the agency open to charges of aiding internal political repression. It records that in December 1974 the CIA concluded that Contreras was not going to improve his human rights performance, and that by April 1975 intelligence reporting showed that he was "the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta," but that an interagency committee directed the CIA to continue the relationship.[^6] In August 1975, with interagency approval, Contreras met Deputy Director of Central Intelligence [[Vernon Walters]] in Washington.[^6]
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On the payment, the report states: "In May and June 1975, elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet." It continues that the proposal was overruled, citing US policy on clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service notorious for human rights abuses, and that "given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras."[^6] The National Security Archive's summary of the report states that the CIA made Contreras a paid asset only several months after concluding that he was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy.[^7]
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The report records that the CIA sought information from Contreras on Operation Condor, that by October 1976 the CIA decided to approach him on the matter, and that he confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in extra-judicial killings. It states that during October 1976 "Contreras' possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue," that the CIA met him about half a dozen times during 1977 (three of them to request information on the Letelier assassination), and that on November 3, 1977 Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to intelligence and the CIA severed all contact.[^6]
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### Operation Condor
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The 2000 report describes Operation Condor as an intelligence-sharing arrangement among Chile, [[Argentina]], [[Brazil]], [[Paraguay]] and [[Uruguay]] established in 1975.[^6] A cable of September 28, 1976 from the FBI legal attache in [[Buenos Aires]], [[Robert Scherrer]], reports information from a "confidential source abroad" that Operation Condor was the code name for the collection, exchange and storage of intelligence on "leftists," communists and Marxists, recently established between cooperating intelligence services in South America "in order to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in the area." The cable states that Chile is the center for Operation Condor and that its members include Argentina, [[Bolivia]], Paraguay and Uruguay, with Brazil tentatively agreed to supply intelligence input; that Argentina, Uruguay and Chile had engaged in joint operations, primarily in Argentina; and that a third and most secret phase involves special teams from member countries who are "to travel anywhere in the world to non-member countries to carry out sanctions up to assassination against terrorists or supporters of terrorist organizations." France and Portugal are named as European countries specifically mentioned for possible third-phase operations. The cable states that no information had been developed indicating that third-phase sanctions were planned for the United States, and adds: "however, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the recent assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. may have been carried out as a third phase action of 'Operation Condor.'" Several passages about the special teams are excised.[^4]
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Scherrer also wrote to Chilean General [[Ernesto Baeza]] on June 6, 1975, reporting intelligence obtained through the interrogation of a captured Chilean leftist, Jorge Isaac Fuentes, who the National Security Archive states was detained through Operation Condor.[^4] An FBI summary dated January 21, 1982 of letters written from prison by [[Michael Townley]] reports, among other things, meetings between Pinochet and Italian terrorists and spies.[^4]
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The Archives of Terror, the Paraguayan police files from the dictatorship of [[Alfredo Stroessner]], are listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World register. The register entry states that on December 23 and 24, 1991, judges José Agustín Fernández and Luis María Benítez Riera searched and seized the files of the production department of the police in Asunción and the technical section of the Ministry of the Interior, following the investigation of the human rights defender Martín Almada; it dates the documents from 1927 to February 1989 and states that the files provide evidence of Operation Condor.[^8]
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### Letelier and Moffitt
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On September 21, 1976, a car bomb in [[Washington, D.C.]] killed the former Chilean ambassador [[Orlando Letelier]] and his American colleague [[Ronni Moffitt]].[^9] According to the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government's principal witness, Michael Townley, a United States citizen who entered the employ of DINA in 1974, admitted his complicity in the killings and struck a plea bargain with the government in return for his testimony.[^9]
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A CIA cable of October 6, 1976 reports that its source "believes that the Chilean government is directly involved in Letelier's death and feels that investigation into the incident will so indicate."[^2] The 2000 CIA report states that this was the CIA's first intelligence report containing the allegation.[^6] The indictments of August 1, 1978 named [[Guillermo Novo Sampol]], Alvin Ross Diaz, Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, [[Armando Fernandez Larios]], [[Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel]] and [[Virgilio Paz Romero]]. Guillermo Novo, Ross and Ignacio Novo Sampol were tried by jury beginning January 8, 1979, and were found guilty on February 14, 1979. The Court of Appeals decided the appeal on September 15, 1980 (rehearing denied December 9, 1980) and reversed the convictions of Guillermo Novo and Ross, because informant testimony was inadmissible under the Supreme Court's decision of June 16, 1980 in [[United States v. Henry]], and remanded for retrial.[^9] The killing was carried out by the DINA, under Contreras, and was a rare Condor operation on American soil. On May 30, 1995, the Chilean Supreme Court upheld the prison sentences of Contreras (seven years) and Espinoza (six years) for ordering the assassination.[^10]
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A CIA special intelligence assessment dated 1987 concluded that there was "convincing evidence that President Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murder." The assessment added that Pinochet later "decided to stonewall on the case to hide his involvement and, ultimately, to protect his hold on the presidency."[^11] A memorandum from [[George Shultz]] to [[Ronald Reagan]] dated October 6, 1987 reported the CIA conclusion to the president as part of an effort to terminate US support for the regime.[^12] The assessment and related documents were handed to Chilean President [[Michelle Bachelet]] by Deputy Secretary of State [[Heather Higginbottom]] on September 23, 2016. The National Security Archive states that the Justice Department had identified the intelligence records as evidence during a formal FBI investigation into Pinochet's guilt in April and May 2000, and that the FBI reportedly concluded there was enough circumstantial evidence to indict Pinochet.[^11]
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The CIA's 1978 intelligence report on Pinochet's strategy, as summarized by the National Security Archive, describes a four-point plan to protect Contreras from successful prosecution, stonewall US requests for evidence, prevent the Chilean Supreme Court from honoring US extradition requests, and persuade Chileans that the investigation was a politically motivated tool against the regime.[^2]
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### Colonia Dignidad
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A 2017 motion of the German [[Bundestag]] describes the [[Colonia Dignidad]] settlement in southern Chile, founded by the German [[Paul Schaefer]], as the scene of systematic, serious human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship, committed in part together with DINA.[^13] The crimes it lists include unlawful deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearance, forced labour and slavery, child abuse, and bodily harm.[^13] The motion records that Schaefer was arrested in 2005.[^13]
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In 1987 the Green Party group in the Bundestag asked the federal government what it knew of cooperation between the colony and DINA, and whether Contreras visited West Germany in the winter of 1975 and 1976, including stops in Augsburg, Wiesbaden, Nuremberg and Cologne.[^14]
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In April 2016 the then German Foreign Minister, [[Frank-Walter Steinmeier]], stated on behalf of the whole [[Auswärtiges Amt]] that German diplomats had clearly done too little to protect their compatriots in the colony; he said the ministry was not to blame for the military coup or the seventeen years of dictatorship and bore no responsibility for the colony's activities, but that it should have more decisively given Germans counsel and assistance. The Foreign Office states that political prisoners were tortured and murdered in the colony during the Pinochet dictatorship, that since 2018 the Bundestag and the federal government have worked in a joint commission to help victims, and that a victims' aid concept was presented in May 2019.[^15]
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### Carlos Cardoen and Iraq
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[[Carlos Cardoen]], a Chilean arms manufacturer who returned to Santiago after the 1973 coup to work for the government-owned [[Chilean Mining Corporation]], is described by [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] as selling cluster bombs to [[Iraq]] by 1985 with the help of individuals connected to the CIA, and as having been charged in Miami in April 1992 by the US Customs Service.[^16] A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned a twenty-one count indictment against Cardoen and [[Industrias Cardoen]] on May 26, 1993.[^17] [[Alan Friedman]] reports that Cardoen's plant at [[Iquique]] produced about a thousand cluster bombs a month, with a first shipment worth 21 million dollars reaching Iraq early in 1984 during the [[Iran-Iraq War]]; a former CIA contractor described Cardoen to Friedman as "an all-purpose asset, designed to be one of those offshore stockpilers of military equipment who could be used by the CIA to ship arms to the Afghan rebels, to the boys in Angola, or anywhere the U.S. needed some help." The White House said in July 1991 that there "never were any sales, overt or covert, to Iraq or Iran through a third country." The British journalist [[Jonathan Moyle]], who was inquiring into Cardoen's helicopter project, was found dead in a Santiago hotel on March 31, 1990.[^18]
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### Reagan administration reassessment, 1984 to 1985
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The United States ambassador in Santiago from March 1982 to August 2, 1985 was [[James D. Theberge]], a political appointee who had succeeded [[George Landau|George W. Landau]].[^19] A Central Intelligence Agency talking-points memorandum prepared for a January 28, 1985 meeting with Theberge, dated January 23, 1985, describes the visit as "primarily a personal visit." It lists as a point Theberge might raise the continuation in office of Pinochet, with a ninety-day state of siege that the memorandum records as "declared 6 November 1984" to assist the military government in combating a wave of terrorist incidents.[^20] The New York Times of December 16, 1984 also gives the state of siege as imposed on November 6; the same article reports that Theberge was present at a meeting of Representative [[Bill Richardson]] and two other members of the House Hispanic Caucus with Pinochet, which Richardson called "brutally frank and heated."[^21] An Associated Press dispatch from January 1985 by George Gedda, citing unnamed officials, reports that "Pinochet believes the CIA is out to overthrow him," in the words of one senior official, and that the Reagan administration planned to replace Theberge with [[Harry Barnes]], then ambassador in India, as the first step in a reassessment of its policy. The same dispatch dates the imposition of the state of siege to "Nov. 4."[^22]
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### London arrest and the House of Lords
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Pinochet landed at Heathrow on September 22, 1998, and underwent back surgery in [[London]]. On October 16, 1998 a Spanish warrant was issued by judge [[Baltasar Garzon]] and a London magistrate issued a provisional warrant the same day. The Lords judgment states that Pinochet was arrested in a London hospital on October 17, 1998; Home Secretary [[Jack Straw]] told the House of Commons that he was arrested "that evening" after the Bow Street warrant was issued on October 16.[^1][^23] On October 28, 1998 the Divisional Court quashed both provisional warrants, on the ground for the second that Pinochet was entitled to state immunity as former head of state.[^1]
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The House of Lords first ruled on November 25, 1998, by majority that Pinochet was not immune for crimes under international law. That judgment was set aside on January 15, 1999, because the committee that heard it was not properly constituted, and the appeal was reheard from January 18, 1999.[^1] In the judgment of March 24, 1999, [[Lord Browne-Wilkinson]] wrote: "I do not consider that torture committed outside the United Kingdom before 29 September 1988 was a crime under U.K. law." He would allow the appeal "so as to permit the extradition proceedings to proceed on the allegation that torture in pursuance of a conspiracy to commit torture, including the single act of torture which is alleged in charge 30, was being committed by Senator Pinochet after 8 December 1988 when he lost his immunity."[^1] Straw described the key majority finding of the second Lords hearing as being that torture was an international crime over which parties to the torture convention had universal jurisdiction and that a former head of state did not have immunity from such crimes.[^23]
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Straw issued a second authority to proceed on April 14, 1999; on October 8, 1999 a Bow Street magistrate committed Pinochet to await the Home Secretary's decision. On October 14, 1999 the Chilean embassy made representations supported by medical reports, and Straw commissioned an examination by Professor Sir John Grimley Evans, Professor Andrew Lees and Dr. Michael Denham, joined by the neuropsychologist Dr. Maria Wyke. Straw informed the interested parties on January 11, 2000 that he was minded to conclude that no purpose would be served by continuing the Spanish extradition request, and on January 25, 2000 Belgium and [[Amnesty International]] applied for judicial review of the refusal to disclose the medical report.[^23]
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On March 2, 2000, Straw told the Commons that he had discharged Pinochet from the Spanish request "on the grounds that he was unfit to stand trial and that no significant improvement in his condition could be expected," and that he would not issue an authority to proceed on the Belgian, French and Swiss requests because none disclosed an extradition crime. He stated: "All the decisions which I have taken have been mine alone, and have not been decisions of Her Majesty's Government." A plane provided by the Chilean government carrying Pinochet left RAF Waddington at about 1.10 pm that day.[^23] The Solicitor-General stated in a written answer of the same date, on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, that there was no realistic prospect of convicting Pinochet in England and Wales and that no court there would allow a trial of Pinochet to take place.[^23] A 35-page Home Office statement handed out in London set out reasons for the conclusion that Pinochet was not mentally or physically fit to stand trial in Britain or anywhere else.[^24] He returned to Chile, where he faced numerous criminal and civil charges until his death.
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### Riggs Bank accounts
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The minority staff of the Senate [[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]] released its report on [[Riggs Bank]] with a hearing on July 15, 2004. The report's title is "Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act, Case Study Involving Riggs Bank." Its first finding states that Riggs "assisted Augusto Pinochet, former president of Chile, to evade legal proceedings related to his Riggs bank accounts and resisted OCC oversight of these accounts."[^25]
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The report finds that Pinochet was a Riggs customer for at least eight years, with total deposits that varied from about $4 million to $8 million. In July 1996 a Spanish indictment charged him with crimes against humanity. In 1996 and again in 1998, Riggs helped him set up two Bahamian shell companies, Ashburton Company Ltd. and Althorp Investment Co., Ltd., listed as nominal owners of accounts and certificates of deposit benefiting him and his family.[^25] The report also states that the bank delivered over $1.9 million in cashier's checks to Pinochet in Chile.[^25]
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### Carlos Prats and Enrique Arancibia Clavel
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On September 30, 1974, a car bomb in Buenos Aires killed the exiled Chilean general [[Carlos Prats]] and his wife, [[Sofía Cuthbert]].[^26] Kornbluh's 2024 compilation states that Pinochet met Contreras in June 1974 and ordered him to eliminate Prats. The task first went to the DINA station chief in Argentina, [[Enrique Arancibia Clavel]], and then to DINA deputy director [[Pedro Espinoza]], who gave it to Townley, who constructed, placed and detonated the bomb.[^26]
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On August 24, 2004, the [[Supreme Court of Argentina]] upheld the life sentence that a federal tribunal had imposed on Arancibia Clavel for association and necessary participation in the double aggravated homicide of Prats and Cuthbert. The court held that the crimes could not be time-barred, because crimes against humanity are imprescriptible.[^27]
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[^1]: *Regina v. Evans and Another and the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and Others, Ex Parte Pinochet (No. 3)* [1999] UKHL 17 (24 March 1999), speech of Lord Browne-Wilkinson, paras. 7-12 (facts, warrants of October 16, 17, 18 and 22, 1998, Divisional Court of October 28, 1998, Lords judgments of November 25, 1998, set aside January 15, 1999, rehearing January 18, 1999) and conclusion. https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1999/17.html
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[^2]: National Security Archive, "Pinochet: A Declassified Documentary Obit," Electronic Briefing Book No. 212, Peter Kornbluh and Yvette White, posted December 12, 2006, with descriptions of documents including the September 13, 1973 State Department cable, the November 1973 "Chilean Executions" memorandum, the October 27, 1973 CIA report, the October 6, 1976 CIA cable, and the June 23, 1978 CIA report. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB212/index.htm
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[^3]: United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, "Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973" (staff report, 1975), section "2. Track II" and the chronology. https://archive.org/details/Covert-Action-In-Chile-1963-1973
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[^4]: National Security Archive, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973," Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, Peter Kornbluh, 1998, document descriptions including the September 15, 1970 Helms notes, the October 15 and 16, 1970 CIA records, the October 18, 1970 cables on the Schneider plot, the April 15, 1975 DIA report, the June 6, 1975 FBI letter and the January 21, 1982 FBI report on Townley; and FBI Buenos Aires cable to the Director, September 28, 1976 (reproduced in the briefing book as document 23, pp. 1-4). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm and https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/docs/doc23.pdf
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[^5]: United States Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders*, Interim Report, S. Rept. 94-465 (1975), Chile chapter beginning at p. 225 (Schneider sections, including the findings and the discussion of the shooting of General Schneider and CIA/White House communication during Track II). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94465.pdf
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[^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," September 18, 2000 (report under Section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, the Hinchey Amendment), sections "Relationship with Contreras," "The Schneider Assassination," "Accession of General Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency," "Knowledge of 'Operation Condor'" and "Knowledge of Human Rights Violations." https://permanent.fdlp.gov/websites/www.cia.gov/www.cia.gov/cia/reports/chile/index.html
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[^7]: National Security Archive, "CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet's Repression," Chile Documentation Project, September 19, 2000, summary of the Hinchey report. Sole source for the characterization of the Contreras payment as making him a "paid asset" and for the statement that the Schneider-related payment was apparently withheld from the Senate committee in 1975. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20000919/index.html
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[^8]: UNESCO, Memory of the World Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean, "Archives of Terror, XXth Century" (Paraguay, registration ID 66/2011; institution: Centro de Documentación y Archivos para la defensa de los derechos humanos, Corte Suprema de Justicia). https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/lac/archives-terror-xxth-century
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[^9]: *United States v. Sampol*, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (per curiam), argued June 10, 1980, decided September 15, 1980, rehearing denied December 9, 1980. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/u-s-v-sampol-886429361
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[^10]: "Chile Officers To Go To Prison For '76 Murder," Los Angeles Times, reprinted in The Spokesman-Review (Spokane), May 31, 1995. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/may/31/chile-officers-to-go-to-prison-for-76-murder/
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[^11]: National Security Archive, "CIA: 'Pinochet personally ordered' Letelier bombing," Electronic Briefing Book No. 560, September 23, 2016, quoting the CIA special intelligence assessment of 1987. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/node/3081
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[^12]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet File: U.S. Declassifies Missing Documents in the Letelier-Moffitt Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 532, October 8, 2015, describing the October 6, 1987 Shultz memorandum to Reagan. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/node/2899
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[^13]: Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 18/12943 (2017), motion on Colonia Dignidad (German; paraphrased). https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/18/129/1812943.pdf
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[^14]: Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 11/1409 (1987), minor interpellation of the Green Party group on Colonia Dignidad (German; paraphrased). https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/11/014/1101409.pdf
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[^15]: Auswärtiges Amt, "'Colonia Dignidad': Bilanzbericht der Gemeinsamen Kommission," September 21, 2021 (German; paraphrased), including the account of Steinmeier's April 2016 statement. https://auswaertiges-amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/laender/chile-node/bilanzbericht-colonia-dignidad/2483426
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[^16]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). Sole source for the passages so cited.
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[^17]: *United States v. Cardoen*, 898 F. Supp. 1563 (S.D. Fla. 1995), No. 93-241-CR, https://static.case.law/f-supp/898/cases/1563-01.json.
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[^18]: Friedman, Alan. *Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq*. Bantam, 1993, pp. 46-54, 64. Sole source for the passages so cited.
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[^19]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, "James Daniel Theberge (1930-1988)," https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/theberge-james-daniel; "Nomination of James Daniel Theberge To Be United States Ambassador to Chile," Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, November 6, 1981, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/11681a
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[^20]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Talking points for 28 January 1985 meeting with James D. Theberge, United States Ambassador to Chile," January 23, 1985, CREST document CIA-RDP87M00539R000801050046-5. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp87m00539r000801050046-5
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[^21]: Lydia Chavez, "Congressman Reports Tough Talk From Pinochet," *The New York Times*, December 16, 1984, section 1, page 20. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/16/world/congressman-reports-tough-talk-from-pinochet.html
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[^22]: George Gedda, Associated Press, "Pinochet fears CIA coup, officials say," January 1985, CREST document CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230009-6. Attributed to unnamed officials; sole source for the replacement plan as reported. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302230009-6
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[^23]: UK House of Commons, *Hansard*, "Senator Pinochet," HC Deb 02 March 2000 vol 345 cc571-88 (statement of the Home Secretary, Jack Straw), and written answer of the Solicitor-General, HC Deb 02 March 2000 vol 345 cc336-7W. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2000/mar/02/senator-pinochet and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/2000/mar/02/senator-pinochet
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[^24]: CNN, transcript of March 2, 2000 (report on Home Secretary Jack Straw's decision and the 35-page statement). https://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0003/02/nd.03.html
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[^25]: United States Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, minority staff, "Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act, Case Study Involving Riggs Bank" (report released with the July 15, 2004 hearing), Finding 1 (p. 7) and Section B (p. 18). https://archive.org/details/SenateSubcommitteeReportOnMoneyLaunderingAndRiggsBank
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[^26]: National Security Archive, "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," Electronic Briefing Book, Peter Kornbluh, October 1, 2024, narrative and CIA and DINA documents. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia
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[^27]: Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nacion (Argentina), *Arancibia Clavel, Enrique Lautaro s/ homicidio calificado y asociacion ilicita y otros*, recurso de hecho, Buenos Aires, August 24, 2004. https://www.cancilleria.gob.ar/userfiles/ut/fallo_arancibia_clavel_2004_01.pdf
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