In 1960, the CIA funneled in $21 million to help elect Eduardo Frei, a conservative Christian Democrat, in order to continue American pro-corporate relations with Chile. The major bulk of the American money was designated to promote a disinformation campaign on radio and television. This enabled Frei to defeat Allende by 56 to 39 percentage points.

THE ELECTION OF ALLENDE. However, in 1970, the tide turned when a socialist candidate, Salvador Allende, campaigned for the presidency. His primary goal was to transform the country from an oligarchy to a true functioning republic by initiating social programs. Allende took unused land from the big estates and divided it among the peasants. This was part of a 1967 statute which never was carried out by the previous rightist regimes. Allende was able to obtain property for one-third of the country's 100,000 landless peasants. As a result agricultural production increased; inflation was cut in half; and beef and bread consumption jumped by 15 percent between 1971 and 1972. Additionally, the government provided one-half liter of milk each day to every Chilean baby. The country's economy quickly improved, as the GNP increased by 8.5 percent in two years, enabling Chile to rank as the second highest Latin American country. Allende also abolished the death penalty, and became the first head of state to recognize all political parties, most of which leaned to the far right.

Not only did these social and economic reforms anger the United States, but the nationalization of American Anaconda Copper Mine and IT&T was intolerable to corporate America. Senator Jesse Helms stated, "$10 million is available, more if necessary. ...Make the economy scream." President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made it clear that an assassination would not be unwelcome.

The United States first planned for the 1970 election in June of that year when the Forty Committee convened. CIA Director Richard Helms promised John McCone $400,000 of CIA funds to assist the anti-Allende news media. The CIA also contributed $1 million to Allende's opponents. Allende's election went to the Chilean congress sitting as an electoral college, where an additional $350,000 was paid out by the CIA in an attempt to buy votes.

After Allende's victory, Nixon met with Henry Kissinger, Helms, and John Mitchell to plot to bring down Allende. Then Chilean Agustin Edwards, the owner of El Mercurio, conferred with top officials of the Nixon administration. The El Mercurio maintained a monopoly on Chile's media, consisting of newspapers, radio station, advertising agencies, and a wire service. Between 1971 and 1972, the CIA spent $1.5 million on El Mercurio. All total, the CIA about $8 million between 1970 and 1973, including $1.5 million to rightist candidates in the March 1973 congressional election.

The CIA had a strong presence within Chile before the coup. Almost one-third of the staff at the American embassy in Santiago were on the CIA payroll and included 13 officials. An American Foreign Service officer told Richard Fagen in 1972 that the embassy had succeeded in infiltrating all parties of the Popular Unity coalition except Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). This was confirmed by Colby's secret testimony in October 1973.

On the early morning of October 22, 1970, several Chilean army officers picked up submachine guns and ammunition from the military attache at the American embassy in Santiago. They plotted to kidnap General Rene who was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. Six hours later the officers ambushed Schneider's car and killed him.

In 1975, author Daniel Brandt evaluated American economic policy in Chile and covert operations carried out by the Nixon administration. Brandt wrote that the Department of Commerce reported at the end of 1968 that American corporate holdings in Chile amounted to $964 million with an investment of $200 million. During that year, United States corporations averaged 17.4 percent profit on invested capital, and mining enterprises alone turned an average of 26 percent. Copper companies, notably Anaconda and Kennecott, accounted for 28 percent of American holdings. These copper firms were extremely vital, since Chile was home to 21 percent of the world's copper.

During the 1970 election process, ITT, with consultants in the CIA, funneled $700,000 into the campaign of candidate Jorge Allesandri. Additionally, ITT president Harold Geneen offered $1 million to the CIA to help defeat Allende. When CIA Director John McCone stepped down five years later, he was appointed to ITT's board of directors. The anti-Allende movement also consisted of officials at Anaconda and Kennecott. Two years after Allende was elected, Kennecott tied up Chilean copper exports with lawsuits in France, Sweden, Italy, and Germany, and the firm forced the Chilean government to spend $150,000 in legal expenses. The campaign continued even after Allende agreed, in February 1972, to pay a Kennecott subsidiary $84 million and after the government made a down payment of $5.7 million.

Just a day prior to the inauguration of Allende in 1970, NIBSA, a subsidiary of Northern Indiana Brass Company and the leading producers of brass valves and other fittings, shut down its plant and laid off 280 workers. A representative of the parent company, Northern Indiana Brass, allegedly promoted the murder of the "communists." Finally, Purina, a subsidiary of Ralston Purina and the country's largest producer of animal feed, also cut production sharply.

A year after Allende was elected president, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that ITT vice- president William Merriam testified that he had attempted to establish a "united front," consisting of representatives of American corporations, to strategize how they should deal with the new democracy. The committee also consisted of Treasury Secretary John Connally and his assistant John Hennessy, a Wall Street broker.

American banks also plotted to disrupt the economy of Chile. By October 1971 the State Department also took a hard line against Allende. Chase Manhattan, Chemical, First National City, Manufacturers Hanover, and Morgan Guaranty all canceled their credits to Chile in an attempt to stifle the nation's economy. In a closed meeting with representatives of ITT, Ford, Anaconda, Ralston Purina, First National City bank, and Bank of America, Secretary of State William Rogers stated that the United States would cut off aid unless Chile provided prompt compensation.

The United States also pressured international agencies to participate in an economic boycott of Chile. The World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Agency for International Development (AID), and the Export-Import Bank either cut programs in Chile or canceled credits. The Allende government continued to pay off old loans from the IDB and the World Bank, but neither made new loans to Chile.

Between 1970 and 1972, Chile's foreign-exchange reserves fell from $335 million to $100 million. The country's imports with the United States began to plummet, declining from 40 percent to 15 percent in a three year span. In December 1972 Allende spoke to the United Nations General Assembly and complained of Chile's inability to purchase food, medicine, equipment, and spare parts. Almost one-third of the privately-owned buses, taxis, and state-owned buses had been immobilized by early 1972 because of the lack of spare parts. The scarcity of parts also fueled the truckers' strike, which in turn provoked more economic chaos.

THE ALLENDE COUP AND THE BRUTAL PINOCHET REGIME. After the successful 1973 coup, numerous American multinationals quickly jumped at the opportunity to attempt to bolster the Chilean economy. Manufacturers Hanover loaned $44 million to Chile, and ten other American and two Canadian banks loaned $150 million. In 1975 First National City, Bank of America, Morgan Guaranty, and Chemical Bank provided a $70 million renewable credit to Chile. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and six other firms sent representatives to Chile to bid for control of the country's automobile assembly industry. In addition ITT donated $25 million for a planned science research center.

All 323 firms that were nationalized constitutionally under Allende were returned to private ownership. ITT came out the biggest winner. Originally, the corporation requested that the Allende government compensate them with $95 million. However, after the 1973 coup the new military dictatorship rewarded ITT with a whooping $235 million.

A week before the coup the United States refused to issue credits to Chile for the purchase of 300,000 tons of wheat. Chile had been importing half of the amount annually for several years prior to 1970, but in 1971 and 1972, American exports to Chile declined to negligible amounts. Then immediately after the downfall of Allende, the military regime was given 120,000 tons of wheat credits. In addition AID, IDB, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank all chimed in, as they provided the new right wing regime with an economic package which included funds for refinancing, and Chile's debt was guaranteed in 1975.

According to author Fred Landis, the CIA planned to "blow up bridges, railway lines, and kill people." The idea was to increase pressure on the military to act. There were 40 terrorist attacks daily in Santiago provinces which gave the military an excuse to enforce the Weapons Act with frequent searches for leftist arms before the coup. Women demonstrated at army barracks to get some action to show their opposition of the military. The CIA implemented Plan Z which was an effort to liquidate the armed forces and their families.

The CIA even purchased a radio station for its anti-Allende crusade. According to author Fred Landis, the El Mercurio network was used by the CIA to "launder propaganda, disinformation, fake themes and scare stories which were then circulated through 70 percent of the Chilean press and 90 percent of the Chilean radio. The USIA and the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in turn circulated these stories all over the world."

The CIA presumably helped to finance the truckers' strikes in 1972 and 1973 through the International Transport Workers Federation and may have funded and trained the Patria y Libertad,an right wing party in Chile. Michael Townley, a former Peace Corp volunteer in Chile recruited by the CIA, directed groups of Patria y Libertad to paint anti-Allende signs in Santiago.

On May 20, 1973, a member of the American embassy met at 1 a.m. on a navy cruiser in the port of Arica with "the high command of the navy and various officers of high rank in the northern army division," and in the months of June and July an American Naval Intelligence officer accompanied every ship of the Chilean fleet. American warships stood by off the coast of Valparaiso to give symbolic support for the military rebels. Three Chilean right wing leaders traveled to Washington prior to the abortive coup attempt in June 1973, and American Ambassador Nathaniel Davis met with Kissinger several days before the September coup.

In 1973, the United States moved to infiltrate the Chilean military. Many of these soldiers were trained on American military bases. Although American involvement was not direct, lower officers were paid off by the CIA. However, when the commander-in-chief of Chilean forces objected, he was kidnapped and killed. The United States Senate confirmed a CIA coup attempt after an American navy fleet appeared off the coast of Chile. Additionally, 32 American war planes landed in neighboring Argentina, helping to enable a successful coup by the pro-CIA Argentine officers.

After the assassination of Allende, a new military regime was established under General Augusto Pinochet. All political parties were suppressed, all newspapers -- except two to the far right -- were banned, and all trade unions were abolished. Thousands of suspected Allende sympathizers were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. When Pinochet was advised that the bodies were buried two to a coffin, he replied, "What a great saving." The tortures, as carried out by the Pinochet regime, included electric shock to different parts of the body, particularly the genitals; forcing friends to witness the torture of others; raping women in the presence of family members; burning sex organs with acid and boiling water; and mutilating, cutting off, and puncturing various body parts. The American media portrayed General Pinochet as a "powerfully built six-footer ... energetic and well disciplined ... and until recently he never talked politics."

Operation Condor was an "international organization" whereby the Pinochet regime carried out murders and tortures. A 1976 FBI report pointed to Manuel Contreras, head of Chile's secret police known as the DINA, as "the center of Operation Condor." In telexes to his counterparts, Contreras referred to himself as "Condor One."

Of the dozens of atrocities conducted by the DINA, several Condor operations have become infamous: the September 1974 car-bombing in Buenos Aires that killed Pinochet's only significant rival, former Chilean Commander in Chief General Carlos Prats, and his wife; the October 1975 shooting in Rome of Bernardo Leighton, the former vice president of the Christian Democratic Party, and his wife; and the September 1976 Letelier-Moffitt car-bomb assassination in downtown Washington, DC. Investigations into these attacks produced circumstantial and concrete evidence directly implicating Pinochet. According to former DINA agent Michael Townley, who arranged the Chilean regime's major international assassinations, Contreras and Pinochet used the occasion of Francisco Franco's funeral to meet with the Italian hit men whom the DINA had hired to kill Leighton. Townley wrote: "There were meetings between (Contreras) his excellency (Pinochet) and the Italians in Spain after Franco died." In an affidavit filed before the Chilean Supreme Court a year ago, Contreras confirmed the meeting and identified the Italian as "the terrorist who a month earlier participated in the attempt in Rome against Bernardo Leighton and his wife."

Additionally, American investigators learned that Pinochet directed a cover-up of the Chilean military's involvement in the Letelier-Moffitt assassination. When Major Armando Fernandez Larios was about to confess to American officials, Pinochet summoned him to the Defense Ministry. American investigators reviewed classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents on the military command structure in Chile and were convinced that the DINA could not have carried out its murderous attacks without Pinochet's direct approval. An April 1975(DIA report read: "Colonel Contreras has reported exclusively to, and received orders only from, President Pinochet."

Two American supporters of Allende were killed in Chile under circumstances that stirred suspicions of CIA involvement. American officials categorically denied any role in their deaths which were dramatized in the 1982 movie "Missing." Under the Freedom of Information Act, the government in 1980 released the results of classified internal investigations, heavily censored in black ink, that appeared to clear the American and Chilean governments of any responsibility. Then in February 2000 the State Department released further documents suggesting for the first time that the United States government was implicated in the murders of Charles Horman, 31, and Frank Teruggi, 24.

One memo read, "U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the government of Chile. At worst, U.S. intelligence was aware the government of Chile saw Horman in a rather serious light and U.S. officials did nothing to discourage the logical outcome of government of Chile paranoia." But the State Department refused to address questions about the two deaths, saying few of the people involved in the case still work for the government. The former officials, most of them retired, disavowed any responsibility for what happened.

Teruggi belonged to a group of young left-of-center Americans who supported Allende's democratic government. He and his wife worked for a newsletter that reprinted articles and clippings from American newspapers critical of United States policy. When Pinochet seized power, Horman was at Viña del Mar, a coastal resort, where American warships hovered off the coast in support of the coup.

Two days later, Pinochet's forces arrested thousands of people, including Horman. Around the same time, security forces also arrested Teruggi and took him to the national stadium where thousands of other political prisoners were held. No one saw Teruggi again.

The search for Horman was more tortuous. His body was never recovered. According to the New York Times (February 13, 2000), the American embassy claimed that it was doing everything in its power to locate Horman. But it was not until 1976 that the State Department investigated the murders. Rafael González, a Chilean intelligence officer who had defected, told reporters that he had witnessed Horman being held prisoner by Chile's chief of intelligence. González quoted the intelligence chief as saying Mr. Horman "had to disappear" because he "knew too much," and said a man he presumed was American was in the room.

Facing pressure from Congress, the State Department ordered two internal reviews in 1976. Investigators first examined only documents either publicly released or already available in the State Department. The documents showed that an embassy official had received a tip that Horman had already been killed before his father arrived in Chile. That tip was not followed up. Instead, embassy officials said that leftists may have kidnapped Horman, and this contradicted their own cables which quoted neighbors who said they had witnessed Chilean security forces taking Horman away. Documents also showed that the Pinochet government ignored numerous requests from the United States for an autopsy report on Horman.

The second investigation drew a similar conclusion. It blamed the Chilean government for both deaths and said it was difficult to believe that the Pinochet government would have carried out the killings. The report concluded that González not be interviewed again and that the actions of the CIA not be investigated.

Never having been democratically elected, Pinochet stepped down as the de jure head of state. In 1990, Eduardo Frei, who had been elected president back in 1960, returned and was elected president. After Pinochet abdicated his presidency, he was assured that he would maintain his constitutional role as commander-in-chief of the Chilean army where he could continue to wield his enormous power.

Three years later, the Chilean government tried to investigate a corruption case involving Pinochet's son, but that was quickly squelched. Then in March 1998, 25 years after taking power after the CIA coup, Pinochet turned his command over to General Ricardo Izurieta. He was immediately sworn in as "senator for life," a position which he created for himself. Presumably, Pinochet created the senatorial position for himself so as to evade prosecution. In his farewell address, Pinochet defended his 17 year dictatorship during which over 3,000 Chileans disappeared and thousands more were tortured, kidnapped, and imprisoned.

THE ARREST OF PINOCHET. In October 1998, the 88 year old Pinochet was arrested at a London medical clinic where he had just undergone surgery on a herniated disc. Chile's center-left coalition, Concertacion, was split over Pinochet's arrest. The Socialist party, which was the Christian Democrats' most important partner, maintained that Chile should not intervene in Pinochet's problems with foreign courts. Ultimately, the Chilean government filed a formal protest against the arrest by British authorities, arguing that Pinochet had diplomatic immunity as "senator-for-life" and that he traveled to London on his official passport. However, British officials said that diplomatic immunity did not apply in this case. Immediately, Spain, Switzerland, France, and Belgium called for Pinochet's extradition from Great Britain, while investigations were initiated in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and Norway.

However, events unfolded differently in Spain where Supreme Court Justice Baltasar Garzon informed Interpol, the international police organization, that he was filing a formal extradition motion in the British courts. Interpol relayed the announcement to London which detained Pinochet pending action on the motion.

Spain began a coordinated effort through their courts to formally question, detain, and extradite Pincohet. Spain issued an arrest warrant, saying that Pinochet was "in charge of creating an international organization that conceived, developed, and carried out a systematic plan of illegal detentions, abductions, tortures, forcible transfers of persons, murders, and/or disappearances of many people, including citizens from Argentina, Spain, the United Kingdom, the U.S., Chile and other countries. These actions were carried out in different countries ... mainly to exterminate the political opposition."

On October 13, Spain sent two magistrates to London and requested that Scotland Yard detain Pinochet. Then Spain invoked the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism -- a mutual cooperation treaty which mandates countries to identify, locate, and hold suspected international terrorists.

Garzon said that he intended to charge Pinochet with genocide, torture, and terrorism, involving 94 people. About 80 of the victims were Spanish citizens, but Garzon's list also included Britons, Americans, and Chileans. The Spanish government made a request for his extradition, requesting that British authorities detain Pinochet for crimes of genocide, terrorism, and torture carried out between 1973 and 1990.

At first, Pinochet won his battle against extradition in a lower British court, but he was ordered to stay in detention in London pending legal appeals. British prosecutors and the Spanish government appealed to the country's highest court in the House of Lord's reversed the initial decision in a 3-2 vote. Lord Justice Donald Nicholls wrote, "It hardly needs saying that torture of his own subjects or of aliens would not be regarded by international law as a function of a head of state." Meanwhile, Spain's National Court, the country's highest court, ruled that it did have the jurisdiction to prosecute Pinochet for crimes committed during his reign. Meanwhile, the Swiss government also filed papers to extradite Pinochet.

Pinochet issued a 13 page letter, claiming that he was "the target of a judicial, political plot which lacks moral values. I have never desired death for anybody, and I feel a sincere pain for all Chileans who lost their lives during those years." He offered condolences to the victims of his regime.

Spain's Judge Garzon hoped to build a case against Pinochet from information documented in the Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. The Rettig Commission was established when Patricio Aylwin, Chile's first civilian president in the post-Pinochet era, had been elected. Named for its chairman, Raul Rettig, the commission listed 3,178 cases of execution, murder, and disappearance of Chileans during Pinochet's regime. The report detailed thousands of cases of the most sadistic forms of torture, including "unnatural acts involving animals."

However, the Rettig Commission failed to find anyone accountable for the atrocities. This inability to identify human rights abusers made the proceedings in Spain all the more necessary and important. Under Spanish law, groups and individuals can initiate "popular actions" -- legal proceedings deemed in the public interest. The United Left, Spain's third largest political party, asked the National Audience, Spain's judiciary, to investigative the allegations made against the Pinochet regime.

The Spanish investigators ran into several roadblocks. First, there was the political opposition of the conservative Spanish government under Prime Minister José Maria Aznar. As relations between Chile and Spain turned sour, the chief prosecutor repeatedly sought to shut down the investigation. Only after Pinochet was detained in London did the Spanish high court rule definitively that the National Audience had full and lawful jurisdiction to pursue extradition.

Second, Spanish prosecutors had difficulty compiling evidence to prosecute Pinochet. Evidence was gathered from numerous witnesses and many victims, but Chile refused to cooperate, so concrete documentation exposing those who committed atrocities under Pinochet's command proved difficult to obtain.

Then the Spanish judiciary asked the United States to cooperate. A large bulk of evidence on human rights abuses in Chile were sealed in Washington D.C.'s secret archives, but a large amount of secret documents was declassified in early 1999. On February l1 the White House directed American national security agencies to collect and review for release documents "that shed light on human rights abuses, terrorism, and other acts of political violence in Chile." Then on June 30, 1999, the National Security Archive, Center for National Security Studies and Human Rights Watch released more than 20,000 pages of documents on Chile.

One secret report, "Chilean Executions," was prepared for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in November 1973. It summarized the bloody atrocities that took place in the 19 days following the 1973 coup. "Chilean Executions" detailed the summary executions of 320 people, 1,500 murders, and 13,500 arrests.

But "Chilean Executions" also revealed that the United States was expediting economic and military aid to Chile while it had intimate knowledge of gross human rights violations under Pinochet's new military junta. Even though some evidence was declassified, much still remained secret, presumably because the United States had too much to hide while overthrowing the Allende government and installing the Pinochet regime. The CIA had records that detailed the atrocities carried out by the DINA. The CIA also knew about Operation Condor -- the campaign of kidnappings and assassinations of political opponents carried out by led by Chile. According to a United States Senate committee report, the DINA asked the CIA in 1974 whether it could open a Condor office in Miami, but the CIA refused to do so. CIA officials told the Senate investigators that they learned of assassination plots against Pinochet's opponents in France and Portugal. They alerted government officials there, thus preventing the attacks. While the DINA sponsored acts of international terrorism, the CIA's Santiago station chief, Stuart Burton, maintained "a close relationship" with DINA commander Colonel Manuel Contreras. As former embassy official John Tipton said. They "used to go on Sunday picnics together with their families."

Since the Spanish investigators knew that the United States had massive evidence implicating the Pinochet regime, they invoked a bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in February 1997. Spain's judiciary asked the Clinton administration to turn over its records on Operation Condor and other human rights abuses by the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. But the White House stonewalled for more than a year before producing any records. Finally, in mid-1998 the Justice Department turned over four boxes of "files" to the Spanish judiciary. One box was filled with 1,000 pages of Chilean newspaper clips, which the Spanish judge had not requested. Another held Pentagon documents on a Contra operation in Honduras called "Condor" that was unrelated to Chile's Operation Condor. The other boxes contained thousands of pages of legal files on the prosecution of anti-Castro Cubans who participated in a car-bombing.

Despite the fact that the Spanish prosecutors were not given much assistance by the Clinton administration, they continued to attempt to dig up more evidence against Pinochet. Spanish law forbids trials in absentia, and the prosecutors knew that extradition was highly unlikely, even though a Spanish-Chilean treaty was intact.

In March, Britain's high court announced that Pinochet could face extradition only on torture charges after 1988 when Britain adopted an international anti-torture convention. Only one of the original cases that the Spanish judge had presented against Pinochet fell into that category, but he subsequently added the others. The Chilean government maintained that 3,197 people were killed and 1,000 disappeared in the political violence that marked Pinochet's reign.

In September, nearly one year after Pinochet was placed under house arrest, extradition hearing began in London. Thirty-five allegations of torture -- including conspiracy to torture, beatings, burnings, and suffocation -- were brought against Pinochet during his 1973-1990 rule in Chile.

The initial charges brought against Pinochet by the Spanish government included intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering on:

-- Marta Lidia Ugarte Roman, by suspending her from a pole in a pit; pulling out her finger nails and toe nails, and burning her.

-- Meduardo Paredes Barrientos, by systematically breaking his wrists, pelvis, ribs, and skull; burning him with a blowtorch or flamethrower.

-- Adriana Luz Pino Vidal, a pregnant woman, by applying electric shocks to her vagina, ears, hands, feet, and mouth, and stubbing out cigarettes on her stomach.

-- Antonio Llido Mengual, a priest born in Valencia, Spain, by applying electric current to his genitals and repeatedly beating his whole body.

In March, Britain's highest court rejected Pinochet's claim of immunity from prosecution, but it drastically reduced the charges that could be brought against him and the chances that he would be extradited to Spain for trial. In a 6-1 decision, the Law Lords upheld Pinochet's arrest and determined that he could escape judgment solely because he was a former head of state. The decision was much narrower than one issued by another panel of Law Lords four months earlier.

This tribunal said that Pinochet could be tried only for torture offenses committed after September 29, 1988 -- the year before he stepped down as the Chilean dictator -- when Britain signed the International Convention Against Torture. Chile, Spain, the United States, and 108 other nations were also signatories. Pinochet could be extradited to Spain based on only three crimes after the September 1988 international law went into effect. Marcos Quezada Yanez, a 17-year-old student, was killed by Chilean police, and two conspiracies of torture occurred in this time frame. Quezada's death was a result of state policy, and Spanish authorities contended that Pinochet was responsibility because he tolerated, instigated, and covered up the crimes.

While Pinochet's legal battles proceeded, the "Memcon," communications between Pinochet and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were released by journalist Lucy Komisar. This transcript revealed Kissinger's "friendship" and "sympathy" at the height of the dictator's repression in Chile. This communique showed that Pinochet raised the name of former Chilean ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, twice. It also accused Kissinger of giving "false information" to Congress. In response, Kissinger said nothing when he had the opportunity to defend free speech and dissent in the United States. Ultimately, Letelier and his associate Ronni Moffitt were assassinated in Washington D.C. three months later.

In Kissinger's third volume of his memoirs, he gave an account of a meeting with Pinochet just a day before the secretary of state gave a speech on human rights at an OAS conference in Santiago. However, Kissinger's accounts of his meeting with the dictator was considerably less candid than the memo of their conversation revealed. Kissinger portrayed himself as pushing the issue of democracy and human rights, while the transcript made it clear that he was briefing Pinochet that the speech was intended to appease the American Congress and that the Chileans should all but ignore it. During the meeting Kissinger never used the word "democracy."

In the memo to Pinochet, Kissinger said, "I will treat human rights in general terms, and human rights in a world context. I will refer in two paragraphs to the report on Chile of the OAS Human Rights Commission. I will say that the human rights issue has impaired relations between the United States and Chile. This is partly the result of Congressional actions. I will add that I hope you will shortly remove those obstacles. ... I can do no less, without producing a reaction in the United States which would lead to legislative restrictions. 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."

Pinochet responded to Kissinger: "We are returning to institutionalization step-by-step. But we are constantly being attacked by the Christian Democrats. They have a strong voice in Washington. ... They do get through to Congress. Gabriel Valdez has access. Also Letelier."

In October, a London magistrate ruled that Pinochet should be extradited to Spain to stand trial. Pinochet released a statement declaring his innocence: "Spain has not produced a single piece of evidence which shows that I am guilty." Pinochet's attorneys immediately appealed the verdict to Britain's High Court, claiming that too much time has elapsed since the alleged crimes. They also charged that Pinochet's extradition would be "unjust and oppressive" and that the extradition request was made in bad faith. They argued that Spain failed to connect Pinochet -- even indirectly -- to the alleged crimes, that the charges did not constitute extraditable crimes, and that Spain did not have jurisdiction to try him. Pinochet's attorneys also sought the dismissal of all but two charges of torture and conspiracy to torture, saying only those charges left standing by the House of Lords could be considered.

The arrest warrant lists one count of conspiracy to torture and 34 specific incidents of torture against Chileans that allegedly occurred during Pinochet's final two years in power.

Pinochet's next step was to appeal to the High Court which could return the ruling to Home Secretary Jack Straw -- who initially ruled the extradition case could go forward in the courts -- for a final decision.

Meanwhile in the United States, Democratic representative Maurice Hinchey of New York proposed a legislative provision requiring the CIA to submit a report to Congress on all agency activities in Chile related to the Allende coup. Hinchey said, "I think that after the passage of all this time, it is appropriate that the United States Congress and the people of the United States and the people of the world understand ... the specific events which took place in Chile." His amendment was passed as part of the Fiscal 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act which required the CIA file a report on covert operations in Chile within 120 days and attach to it "copies of unedited documents in the possession of any ... element of the intelligence community with respect to such events."

However, the Hinchey amendment that emerged from a House-Senate conference committee, beyond extending the CIA's due date from four to nine months, deleted the requirement that all unedited documents on Chile be included. Members of the conference committee substituted non-binding report language stating that they expected Congress to be given access to Chile documents by two ongoing reviews: one by the Justice Department for a Spanish court prosecuting Pinochet and the other by the National Security Council as part of a special declassification initiative ordered by President Clinton in February 1999.

A team of four British physicians examined Pinochet in January 2000 and unanimously agreed that he was not medically fit to stand trial. But the British government refused to release the physicians' findings, claiming that Pinochet's medical files were patient confidentiality. Home Secretary Straw said on January 11 that he was "minded" or inclined to set Pinochet free immediately because of his advanced age and deteriorating health.

Several weeks later, High Court Judge Maurice Kay also supported Straw's stance to release Pinochet from house arrest and let him return home to Chile. Kay turned down appeals from six human rights groups and the Belgian government contesting the government's finding that the general was medically unfit to stand trial. She was emphatic in rejecting the arguments presented in two days of hearings, saying they were "inappropriate (and) utterly without merit." Kay added that Straw acted "lawfully, fairly and rationally" in not disclosing the medical documents.

Reed Brody, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, responded to the judge's statement. He said, "We are dismayed by today's decision, which is a setback for Pinochet's thousands of victims in their quest for justice. It is a shame that the attempt to prosecute General Pinochet for the worst international crimes may be halted on the basis of secret medical evidence examined behind closed doors."

On January 31, 2000, the London High Court rejected on humanitarian grounds the attempts by six human rights groups and the Belgian government to block the release of Pinochet. Since mid-January a Chilean jet was parked at a British air base northwest of London waiting to take Pinochet back to the Chilean capital, Santiago.

Straw said he had accepted the findings of a panel of eminent British doctors that a series of strokes last year had left Pinochet unable to understand or contribute to complex legal proceedings and that he was, therefore, unfit to stand trial. The governments of Spain, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, asked for further medical tests for the ex-strongman, but Straw rejected their requests. In March Straw announced that Pinochet would be returned to Chile because of "brain damage." Judge Garzon made a last attempt by the Spanish at blocking Pinochet's release. He argued that he had a right to appeal Straw's decision on the grounds that the case was still before British courts. The 17 months of house arrest and legal maneuvering finally ended, and Pinochet flew home to Chile on March 2, 2000 on a jet which had been waiting at a British air force base for weeks.

Foreign Minister Juan Valdes declared that Pinochet's ordeal was his own fault. And President Eduardo Frei, who had pledged to bring about Pinochet's return before leaving office, said: "No Chilean can be above the rule of law and justice. It will be the Chilean courts, without any other intervention, that decide whether Senator Pinochet is responsible for the crimes of which he is accused." And Chile's two right-wing parties kept their distance from Pinochet, continuing a significant policy shift in which prominent rightist leaders have gone so far as to say that he must face justice in his home country.

Surprisingly, Chile's Supreme Court stripped Pinochet's immunity in August, clearing the way for the former dictator to be tried on human rights charges. The court voted 14-6 to allow him to be prosecuted on charges stemming from his 1973-1990 rule. The court turned down Pinochet's appeal of a lower court decision in June stripping him of the immunity he had as a senator-for-life. As reported in the New York Times (August 8, 2000), defense lawyer Gustavo Collao claimed, "This is not a defeat. Our next step, if a trial actually takes place, is to prove the complete innocence of General Pinochet."

Chile's Supreme Court dismissed the kidnapping and murder charges against Pinochet. But the court ordered that Pinochet be interrogated in 20 days. In a 4-to-1 decision, the judges upheld an appeals court decision that an investigative judge had improperly ordered the general's house arrest because he did not first seek a detailed deposition. But the Supreme Court effectively ordered the judge, Juan Guzmán Tapia, to move forward with a process that could lead to a proper arrest under rules of due process. That ruling suggested that the Supreme Court did not respond to pressures from the military and right-wing congressmen, as some human rights advocates had feared.

In late January 2001, Pinochet was placed under house arrest once again. According to the New York Times (January 31, 2001), Judge Juan Guzmán charged Pinochet with being a co-conspirator in the murders and kidnappings of 75 leftists after the coup that brought him to power in 1973 and ordered that he be placed under house arrest for the second time in two months. Judge Guzmán determined that Pinochet was mentally unfit to stand trial and halt the proceedings. An examination found that the general suffered from "moderate dementia," a loss of some memory from a series of minor strokes. In his deposition last week, Pinochet declared his innocence to Judge Guzmán. But the judge said he had enough evidence to proceed.

In December, lawyers for Pinochet filed a court motion to block a house arrest order against the former dictator on charges of kidnapping and murder. But in March 2001, a Chilean appellate court dismissed charges of homicide and kidnapping but ruled that he could be tried on charges that he covered up abuses by a military death squad after his 1973 coup. Although Chile's government insisted that the justice system acted independently in the Pinochet prosecution, the 2-1 ruling was seen as a compromise.

In a 2-to-1 decision by the Santiago Court of Appeals, charges were dropped against Pinochet in July 2001. The court ruled that he could not be brought to trial because of his deteriorating health and mental condition. The ruling said that Pinochet suffered from such severe dementia that he could not be prosecuted. (Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2001)

DECLASSIFYING CIA DOCUMENTS. Clinton announced the declassification effort after the arrest of Pinochet in 1998, ordering agencies across the federal government to review and broadly release secret American documents relating to political violence and human rights abuses in Chile from 1968 to 1991. The CIA's Directorate of Operations initially declassified 600 documents in June 1999 during the first of four scheduled release dates under Clinton's Chile declassification initiative.

A year alter, the CIA promised to declassify more classified information about CIA operations in Chile, but senior CIA officials still refused to give up hundreds of documents compiled under a declassification process ordered by Clinton. In August 2000, Director Tenet decided against declassifying hundreds of documents inside the agency's secretive Directorate of Operations on grounds that releasing them would reveal too much about CIA sources and methods.

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said that hundreds of other CIA documents will be released as scheduled on September 14, including some pertaining to covert operations in 1970 aimed at keeping Allende from taking power. But Harlow said that CIA officials decided hundreds of others could not be released without damaging intelligence sources and operational methods.

Another senior intelligence official said in the Washington Post (August 11, 2000) that "a compelling case (has) been made with regard to how methods would be affected" if certain documents related to later covert activities in Chile were released. "No one is hiding a human rights abuse in what's left. This was not a frivolous (decision). At the end of the day, we could only go so far."

But the CIA's reluctance to release documents compiled by its own personnel triggered criticism inside and outside the Clinton administration. P. J. Crowley, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said, "We have built an inter-agency process to declassify as many documents as possible, consistent with protecting sources and methods. Between now and next month, we will be pushing everyone involved to make sure we declassify as much as we can." Another administration official, demanding anonymity, offered a harsher assessment. "The credibility of the whole project has been hurt by the way the CIA has handled it."