[News] Kissinger on Pinochet: The Human Rights Crowd Gives Realpolitik the Jitters

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Word for Word | Kissinger on Pinochet: The Human Rights Crowd Gives 
Realpolitik the Jitters

December 28, 2003
By LARRY ROHTER

HENRY KISSINGER, who had been President Richard Nixon's
national security adviser, became his secretary of state
less than a month after a bloody military coup in Chile
toppled its leftist president, Salvador Allende, on Sept.
11, 1973, and brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. The
Nixon administration had instigated and supported Allende's
overthrow, but the extensive human rights abuses that
resulted were to plague Mr. Kissinger until he left office
in 1977, along with President Gerald Ford.

Recently, after a long legal struggle, United States
government documents from that period were declassified
under the Freedom of Information Act, thanks to the efforts
of the National Security Archive, a private nonprofit group
based in Washington. Some of the most important papers have
already appeared in "The Pinochet File: A Declassified
Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability" (The New Press) by
Peter Kornbluh, an analyst for the National Security
Archive, and next month those and others will be posted on
the organization's Web site, nsarchive.org. Excerpts
follow.

The realpolitik approach Mr. Kissinger favored was
enunciated at an Oct. 1, 1973, meeting with officials from
the Latin American division of the State Department. Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Jack Kubisch had arrived
bearing news that at least 2,700 people were killed during
the coup and expressing concern that the United States
appeared too close to the Pinochet regime.

Secretary Kissinger: I agree that we should not knock down
stories that later prove to be true, nor should we be in
the position of defending what they're doing in Santiago.
But I think we should understand our policy - that however
unpleasant they act, the government is better for us than
Allende was. So we shouldn't support moves against them by
seemingly disassociating.

Congress felt differently, however, and led by Senator
Edward M. Kennedy soon began moving to cut off arms sales
to the Pinochet dictatorship. In a Dec. 3, 1974, meeting
also attended by the assistant secretary of state for
inter-American affairs, William D. Rogers, Mr. Kissinger
expressed frustration at what he saw as Congressional
meddling and naïveté.

Secretary Kissinger: Also, I'd like to know whether the
human rights problem in Chile is that much worse than in
other countries in Latin America or whether their primary
crime is to have replaced Allende and whether people are
now getting penalized, having gotten rid of an
anti-American government. Is it worse than in other Latin
American countries?

Mr. Rogers: Yes.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, I think the consequences could
be very serious, if we cut them off from military aid.

Later in the same meeting, Mr. Kissinger tried another
approach, suggesting that the Pinochet regime was an
improvement over Allende in the field of civil liberties.
Again, Mr. Rogers gently challenged his assumptions.

Secretary Kissinger: The worst crime of this government is
that it's pro-American in the eyes of many of these
supporters of these cut-offs. Is this government worse than
the Allende government? Is human rights more severely
threatened by this government than Allende?

Mr. Rogers: Well, I can't say that, Mr. Secretary. In terms
of freedom of association, Allende didn't close down the
opposition party. In terms of freedom of the press, Allende
didn't close down all the newspapers.

At a Dec. 23, 1974, meeting, Mr. Kissinger argued that
compromising with Senator Kennedy on the arms sales
prohibition would only lead to other Congressional demands.
He also worried that banning arms sales to Chile would
encourage General Pinochet, who was alarmed at the presence
of Cuban advisers and Soviet-made tanks and aircraft in
neighboring Peru, to seek an accommodation with China or
the Arab world.

Secretary Kissinger: We never cut off aid to them while
Allende was there. So now while they are in power, we cut
off aid to them. It is insane.

Mr. Rogers: It is insane. But, Mr. Secretary, it does
reflect an extraordinarily strong feeling amongst the
Congress, as you well know.

Later in the same conversation, Mr. Rogers said that "it is
very hard to make a national interest argument on Chile."
But Mr. Kissinger and Assistant Secretary of State Philip
C. Habib saw dominoes falling all over the world if they
gave Congress any ground.

Secretary Kissinger: If it happens in Chile now, it will be
Korea next year. There isn't going to be any end to it. And
if we are going to wind up in an unbelievably precarious
position, in which no country can afford to tie up with us,
unless it is a pure democracy, then we will find some other
reasons.

Mr. Habib: We will get it in the Philippines, in Vietnam.


Mr. Rogers: My diagnosis of the reason they stuck it on the
department in this case is because they didn't think we
were being sincere on the human rights issue. That is what
they all told me.

By 1975, Chile had become a virtual pariah state and was
seeking to alleviate that status by persuading the
Organization of American States to meet in Santiago. On
Sept. 29, Mr. Kissinger received the Chilean foreign
minister, Patricio Carvajal. Mr. Kissinger not only
expressed Washington's support for the idea, but opened the
meeting with a sarcastic jab at his own staff.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, I read the briefing paper for
this meeting and it was nothing but human rights. The State
Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the
ministry. Because there were not enough churches for them,
they went into the Department of State.

The O.A.S. meeting was held in Chile in June 1976. There
Mr. Kissinger met with General Pinochet, expressed support
and told him not to worry about the human rights criticisms
that would appear in the speech Mr. Kissinger would deliver
to his fellow foreign ministers.

Secretary Kissinger: The speech is not aimed at Chile. I
wanted to tell you about this. My evaluation is that you
are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and
that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government
that was going Communist.

General Pinochet complained about the arms buildup in Peru
and hinted that he might invade if American arms were not
forthcoming. In response, Mr. Kissinger apologized for
Congressional opposition and promised to step up efforts to
send F-5 fighters to Chile.

Secretary Kissinger: It is a phenomenon that we deal with
special severity with our friends. I want to see our
relations and friendship improve. I encouraged the O.A.S.
to have its General Assembly here. I knew it would add
prestige to Chile. I came for that reason. We have
suggestions. We want to help, not undermine you. You did a
great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.
Otherwise Chile would have followed Cuba.

In an account of the conversation with General Pinochet
that was published in his memoirs, Mr. Kissinger said that
the "underlying theme" of the meeting was that "any major
help from us would realistically depend on progress on
human rights.'' But the declassified transcript includes
only brief mentions of human rights, with Mr. Kissinger
presenting them to the general principally as a problem of
politics and public relations, rather than as a moral
problem. Mr. Kissinger, for example, talks of the need to
"remove the weapons in the arms of our enemies."

Secretary Kissinger: It would really help if you would let
us know the measures you are taking in the human rights
field. None of this is said with the hope of undermining
your government. I want you to succeed and I want to retain
the possibility of aid.

A month later, back in Washington and meeting with
Assistant Secretary of State Harry W. Shlaudeman, the
subject was Argentina, Chile's neighbor. A military
dictatorship led by Gen. Jorge Videla had taken power there
earlier that year, and the new government, inspired by
Chile's example and the lack of American sanctions, was
carrying out political killings and forced "disappearances"
that would eventually lead to the deaths of as many as
30,000 people in what became known as Argentina's "dirty
war."

Mr. Shlaudeman: Well, let me just say that it looks very
much that this group for Videla in Argentina - the security
forces are totally out of control. We have these daily
waves of murders. We get our human rights constituents -
who, it sometimes seems to me, are the only ones we have -
clamoring after us all the time about Argentina, because
they think it is another Chile - but it isn't.

Secretary Kissinger: It's worse.

Nevertheless, Mr.
Kissinger decided that the doctrine he had defined for
Chile should also be applied in Argentina. Meeting with the
Argentine foreign minister, Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti, in
New York on Oct. 7, 1976, he made it clear that the clamor
about human rights abuses would not affect relations, a
response that Robert Hill, the American ambassador to
Argentina, later said in a cable had left Admiral Guzzetti
"euphoric."

Secretary Kissinger: Look, our basic attitude is that we
would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view
that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood
in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read
about human rights problems, but not the context. The
quicker you succeed the better.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/weekinreview/28word.html?ex=1073633781&ei=1&en=f894a3d99d4b2fa5
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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