Reviews for Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability

The average rating for Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-12-31 00:00:00 Jeremy Lagant Comprehensive recounting of the crimes of Augusto Pinochet, military dictator of Chile from 1973 through 1990, and the United States' role in his regime. Kornbluh presents a damning mixture of declassified documents and analysis, demonstrating American meddling in Chilean elections dating back at least to 1961, when Kennedy decided to make the country a test case for his Alliance for Progress - which meant blocking Salvador Allende's progressive alliance and undermining Chilean democracy in the name of freedom. The utter callousness and naked criminality of American officials, from CIA chiefs Richard Helms and William Colby ("Make economy scream"), to various businessmen hoping to plunder post-coup Chile, to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon's Cold War obsessions are striking; it's impossible to read this book and doubt that American intervention was instrumental in destroying Allende's government. Not that Pinochet is without blame or agency; as Kornbluh shows, despite massive American aid he became a loose cannon, unleashing death squads against dissenters at home and enemies abroad through Operation Condor, culminating in the murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC. Accounts of torture, assassination and political chicanery make for painful reading, yet demonstrate a human cost beyond figures and abstract rhetoric. As a case study of amorality in American foreign policy the book's without peer, though it's valuable as well at showing how a reckless, evil client can exceed even the worst expectations.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-10 00:00:00 Thomais Johnston In this astonishingly well-written and comprehensive book, one may find, in part, THE answer. Why did the "CIA obstruct" the declassification of various intelligence documents prior to release by the NARA. I don't know probably because the USG forty committee was attempting to "foster a military coup" and otherwise aiming to prevent, by any means necessary, the election and potential positive achievements of the first democratically elected Marxist/socialist president in the western hemisphere, Salvador Allende. This book not only provided interesting facts especially about the corrupt actions of Nixon, Kissinger, and many others, it also inspired commitment to freedom of information and investigative research; increased interest and sympathy for/in Marx and his writing and living as well as incorporeal figures who carry/carried the Marxist legacy, i.e. Neruda, Castro, Trotsky and quite a few others I cannot think of; and finally enhanced lyrics to a song I'm writing called 'the other side of propaganda:' "Economic strangulation brought about by ethical disintegration, linked to the people's exacerbation through covert defamation for the purpose of radical inflammation..."