The Condor Years Quotes

“Under the leadership of Henry Kissinger, first as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and later as secretary of state, the United States sent an unequivocal signal to the most extreme rightist forces that democracy could be sacrificed in the cause of ideological warfare. Criminal operational tactics, including assassination, were not only acceptable but supported with weapons and money. A CIA internal memo laid it out in unsparing terms:        On September 16, 1970 [CIA] Director [Richard] Helms informed a group of senior agency officers that on September 15, 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 and authorized up to $10 million for this purpose. . . . A special task force was established to carry out this mandate, and preliminary plans were discussed with Dr. Kissinger on 18 September 1970.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys. We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good. Europeans, certainly, hate Pinochet & Co. with a passion that rubs off on us.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“The U.S. military intelligence officers put DINA in the same category as Nazi and Soviet repressive apparatus, describing it as a “modern day Gestapo” and “a KGB-type organization”.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“The bombing on Sheridan Circle was in 1976 the most egregious act of foreign-inspired terrorism ever committed in the U.S. capital. The crime was aggravated by the fact that it was organized and carried out not by an enemy of the United States but by a government that was a firm ally, and by a security force trained and with intimate ties to the U.S. military and to the CIA.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“Kissinger’s deputy sent an “immediate action” cable to the embassies, ordering the ambassadors to provide more information and reply to him by June 7, the day he was to leave for Santiago. Titled “Possible International Implications of Violent Deaths of Political Figures Abroad,” the cable included these questions: Do you believe that the deaths of political refugees or asylees from your country abroad could have been arranged by your host government through institutional ties to groups, governmental or other, in the country where deaths took place? Do you have evidence to support or deny allegations of international arrangements among governments to carry out such assassinations or executions?”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“We were lucky. Perhaps my U.S. passport helped. It was the fourth time I had been detained since the coup. I reported the incident to the American Consulate. The vice consul who received me, John Hall, listened noncommittally. He told me he could file a protest if I wanted, but that I had to understand that it would anger the government and they would probably expel me. I later learned, doing research for my book on the Letelier assassination, that John Hall was actually an undercover officer for the CIA. The”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“In case there was any doubt about the new mandate, Armed Forces Chief General Jorge Videla made it even clearer in a statement at a meeting of fellow Latin American military leaders several weeks later in Montevideo: “If needed, in Argentina as many people will have to die as are necessary to achieve peace in the country.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“MIR had a practical contribution it was proud to offer to the JCR: a weapons factory. A team of Chilean engineers and metal workers had meticulously copied the design of the Swedish submachine gun, the Karl Gustav, which was a standard-issue weapon to Chile’s Carabinero police. Capable of automatic fire, it used relatively easy to obtain nine-millimeter bullets in a thirty-shot magazine. The MIR technicians also had worked up the manufacturing specifications for hand grenades, a grenade launcher, and light mortar. The clandestine factory”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“Operation Condor itself was responsible for a relatively small proportion of the total deaths and violence, but it represents the final, worst departure from the rules of law and civilized society.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“A word must be said about the secrecy of intelligence documents. Secret documents often have a special aura because they may provide an insider’s view of events or reveal actions that have never been made public. But secrecy does not inoculate them against inaccuracy and they are only as factual as the reporting and sourcing that went into them. Whenever possible, therefore, I have attempted to independently confirm events described in the intelligence documents. The fact that these documents have been kept secret for all these years, however, does tell us one important thing: it is highly unlikely the drafters of the intelligence reports were manipulating facts or crafting lies to deceive the public.”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

“For this he created a new intelligence force, answerable only to him: the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA).”
― John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents