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.
After a series of pleasantries,
Guzzetti went into the substance of the meeting by stating: "Our
main problem in Argentina is terrorism. It is the first priority of the
current government that took office on March 24. There are two aspects
to the solution. The first is to ensure the internal security of the
country; the second is to solve the most urgent economic problems over
the coming 6 to 12 months. Argentina needs United States understanding
and support…."
Replying to Guzzetti's report on
the situation, Secretary Kissinger said: "We have followed events
in Argentina closely. We wish the new government well. We wish it will
succeed. We will do what we can to help it succeed."
At a time when the international
community, the U.S. media, universities, and scientific institutions,
the U.S. Congress, and even the U.S. Embassy in Argentina were
clamoring about the indiscriminate human rights violations against
scientists, labor leaders, students, and politicians by the Argentine
military, Secretary Kissinger told Guzzetti: "We are aware you are
in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when political, criminal,
and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear separation. We
understand you must establish authority."
Only two weeks earlier, on May
28, Ambassador Robert Hill had presented a U.S. demarche on human
rights to Admiral Guzzetti. The Embassy was deeply concerned about the
kidnapping and torture of three American women, among them the
Fulbright coordinator for Argentina, Elida Messina, and the wave of
attacks against political refugees from the Southern Cone. In contrast
to Hill's efforts, according to the memorandum of conversation
Secretary Kissinger told Guzzetti:"In the United States we have
strong domestic pressures to do something on human rights… We want you
to succeed. We do not want to harrass [sic] you. I will do what I can…."
Another document recently
unearthed by the National Security Archive and posted for the first time here, shows
that on July 9, 1976, Secretary Kissinger was explicitly briefed on the
rampant repression taking place in Argentina: "Their theory is
that they can use the Chilean method," Kissinger's top aide on
Latin America Harry Shlaudeman informed him, "that is, to
terrorize the opposition - even killing priests and nuns and others."
Documents published earlier by
the National Security Archive show that in September 1976 Ambassador
Hill complained again to Guzzetti about the astounding human rights
violations occurring in Argentina. Guzzetti rebuffed him saying that, "When
he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he
'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control
as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to
President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been
that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that
GOA "get it over quickly."
Kissinger reiterated this message
during another meeting with Guzzetti in New York on October 7 telling
him "the quicker you succeed the better." Later, Ambassador
Hill sent a bitter complaint to the Department of State that Guzzetti
had returned to Argentina in a "state of jubilation" after
meeting the Secretary. [See Kissinger to Argentines on Dirty War: "The quicker you
succeed the better", December 4, 2003]
"The Memorandum of Conversation
explains why the Argentine generals believed they got a clear message
from the Secretary that they had carte blanche for the dirty war," said
Carlos Osorio, Director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project at
the National Security Archive. "It appears that Secretary Kissinger
gave the 'green light' to the Argentine military during the June 1976
meeting with Guzzetti in Santiago," he added.
The June10 Memorandum of
Conversation was obtained by the National Security Archive's Southern
Cone Documentation Project through a Freedom of Information Act request
to the Department of State filed in August 2002 and appealed in
February 2004. The document was misdated June 6, 1976. The meeting took
place during the morning of June 10, 1976, when Secretary Kissinger met
with several foreign dignitaries attending the OAS General Assembly in
Santiago. That afternoon he traveled to Mexico City [See Secretary
Kissinger's travels at the
Department of State Historian's web page and the Secretary's calendar of events
for that day].
In Santiago, Guzzetti told
Secretary Kissinger of the difficulties the Argentine security forces
faced in dealing with the refugees, mostly because of lack of
information: "[refugees] do not want to register… We have no
names. Only the refugee committees know something in detail…"
A day earlier, on June 9, 1976
clandestine Argentine security forces had ransacked the Catholic
Commission for Refugees in Buenos Aires and stolen refugee records. The
day after Guzzetti and Secretary Kissinger met, on June 11, twenty-four
Chilean and Uruguayan refugees were kidnapped, held illegally for two
days, and tortured by a combined Argentine-Chilean-Uruguayan squadron.
Guzzetti also described the
intelligence coordination with neighboring dictatorships: "The
terrorist problem is general to the entire Southern Cone. To combat it,
we are encouraging joint efforts to integrate with our neighbors… All
of them: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil." This
collaboration was codenamed Operation Condor.
At the time of the meeting, the
Department of State suspected that the Southern Cone military regimes
were carrying out a coordinated attack against refugees in Argentina;
indeed Kissinger received a special telegram from Washington briefing
him on this issue just before he met with Guzzetti that morning. But
the Memorandum of Conversation contains no reference by Secretary
Kissinger regarding the human rights concerns posed by the Southern
Cone security cooperation.
By the end of 1976, 10,000
Argentines had been disappeared or assassinated by the Argentine
security forces; half a dozen American citizens had been kidnapped and
tortured. On the international front, the cooperation between Argentine
military and intelligence forces and other Southern Cone militaries
left hundreds of Uruguayans, Chileans, Bolivians, Paraguayans, and
Brazilians disappeared, tortured, and/or dead.
What follows are excerpts from
the Memorandum of Conversation
and a chronology of events
surrounding the June 10 meeting, based on previously declassified
documents.
Chronology of events surrounding the June 10, 1976
Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting
Includes links to source documents
Excerpts
from the meeting:
"Guzzetti: Our
main
problem in Argentina is
terrorism. It is the first priority of the current government that took
office on March 24. There are two aspects to the solution. The first is
to ensure the internal security of the country; the second is to solve
the most urgent economic problems over the coming 6 to 12 months.
Argentina needs United States understanding and support…
KISSINGER: We have
followed events in
Argentina closely. We wish the new government well. We wish it will
succeed. We will do what we can to help it succeed. We are aware you
are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when political,
criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear
separation. We understand you must establish authority.
Guzzetti: The
foreign
press creates many
problems for us, interpreting events in a very peculiar manner. Press
criticism creates problems for confidence. It weakens international
confidence in the Argentine government…
KISSINGER: The
worst
crime as far as the
press is concerned is to have replaced a government of the left.
Guzzetti: It is
even
worse than that.
KISSINGER: I
realize
you have no choice but
to restore governmental authority. But it is also clear that the
absence of normal procedures will be used against you.
…
Guzzetti [on thousands of refugees in
Argentina]: They have come from
all our neighboring countries: Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, as well as
Chile… Many provide clandestine support for terrorism. Chile, when the
government changed, resulted in a very large number of leftist exiles.
The Peronist government at the time welcomed them to Argentina in large
numbers.
KISSINGER: You
could
always send them back.
Guzzetti: For
elemental
human rights reasons we
cannot send them back to Chile… No one wants to receive them. There are
many terrorists.
KISSINGER: Have
you
tried the PLO? They need
more terrorists. Seriously, we cannot tell you how to handle these
people. What are you going to do?
…
KISSINGER: I
understand the problem. But if
no one receives them, then what can you do?
Guzzetti: We are
worried
about their involvement
in the terrorism problem. But many fear persecution, and do not want to
register.
…
KISSINGER: And how
many of these do you feel
are engaged in illegal activities?
Guzzetti: It is
difficult
to say. Perhaps
10,000. Only 150 Chileans are legal. We have no names. Only the refugee
committees know something in detail. But their problems create unrest,
and sometimes even logistic support for the guerrillas
KISSINGER: We wish
you success.
…
Guzzetti: The
terrorist
problem is general to
the entire Southern Cone. To combat it, we are encouraging joint
efforts to integrate with our neighbors… All of them: Chile, Paraguay,
Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil.
KISSINGER: I take
it
you are talking about
joint economic activities?
Guzzetti: Yes.
Activities
on both the terrorist
and the economic fronts.
KISSINGER: Oh. I
thought you were referring
only to security. You cannot succeed if you focus on terrorism and
ignore its causes.
…
KISSINGER: Let me say, as a friend, that I have
noticed that
military governments are not always the most effective in dealing with
these problems…
So after a while, many
people who don't
understand the situation begin to oppose the military and the problem
is compounded.
The Chileans, for
example, have not succeeded in
getting across their initial problem and are increasingly isolated.
You will have to make an
international effort to
have your problems understood. Otherwise, you, too, will come under
increasing attack. If there are things that have to be done, you should
do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures.
…
KISSINGER: It is
certainly true that
whatever the origin, terrorism frequently gains outside support. And
this outside support also creates pressures against efforts to suppress
it. But you cannot focus on terrorism alone. If you do, you only
increase your problems.
Guzzetti: Yes,
there is a
need for balance
between political rights and authority.
KISSINGER: I
agree.
The failure to respect
it creates serious problems. In the United States we have strong
domestic pressures to do something on human rights.
Guzzetti: The
terrorists
work hard to appear as
victims in the light of world opinion even though they are the real
aggressors.
KISSINGER: We want
you to succeed. We do not
want to harrass [sic] you. I will do what I can…
…
[At 9:10 the Secretary
and Guzzetti leave for a
word alone. At 9:14 they re-emerge, and the meeting ends.]"
Thanks to:
Martin Andersen, author of Dossier Secreto: Argentina's
Desaparecidos and the Myth of the 'Dirty War' (Westview, 1993) and
first to report on Secretary Kissinger's "green light" in The
Nation in 1987; John Dinges, author of The Condor Years
(The New Press, 2004); and Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet
File (The New Press, 2003) for their instructive books and advice.
For
more information contact:
Carlos Osorio: 202 994 7061 - cosorio@gwu.edu
Peter Kornbluh: 202 994 7116
photo and story of Pinochet's new legal status from the New York Times
found at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/082704-pinochet.html
