The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (A National Security Archive Book)

Rating:
Summary: A new account
Review: A wonderful, although leftist, account of the Pinochet regime and America's involvement. The book bills itself as showing the secrets of the CIA involvement in bring Mr. Pinochet to power and it contains the documents to prove it. One quote describing the book says `The smoking Guns are all here' apparently indicating that America was directly responsible for every heinous act of Mr. Pinochet. A debatable thesis at best, this book does clearly link the CIA to Pinochet coup, but it must not be forgotten that the weapons and men who followed Pinochet to power were the responsible parties. The reality is that Mr. Reagan later ensured that Pinochet would leave power, so if `evil' America brought him to power then at least `evil' America got rid of him. An excellent book that is very interesting and exposes the excesses and brutal nature of the Pinochet regime. Few books are as thorough in documenting the American involvement, political science majors will be pleased.

Seth J. Frantzman

Rating:
Summary: A new account
Review: A wonderful, although leftist, account of the Pinochet regime and America's involvement. The book bills itself as showing the secrets of the CIA involvement in bring Mr. Pinochet to power and it contains the documents to prove it. One quote describing the book says 'The smoking Guns are all here' apparently indicating that America was directly responsible for every heinous act of Mr. Pinochet. A debatable thesis at best, this book does clearly link the CIA to Pinochet coup, but it must not be forgotten that the weapons and men who followed Pinochet to power were the responsible parties. The reality is that Mr. Reagan later ensured that Pinochet would leave power, so if 'evil' America brought him to power then at least 'evil' America got rid of him. An excellent book that is very interesting and exposes the excesses and brutal nature of the Pinochet regime. Few books are as thorough in documenting the American involvement, political science majors will be pleased.

Seth J. Frantzman

Rating:
Summary: Important record of State Terrorism
Review: As Pinochet will probably never be tried for his crimes, this is an important book. There will never be justice for the victims, survivors and their families - books like this offer some explanation for the betrayal and crimes.

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Summary: Finally, The Truth
Review: From http://www.ragingliberal.org

It was in 1973 that the world's only democratically elected marxist leader, in Chile, was assassinated in a bloody takeover by Augusto Pinochet. In the years that followed, 3000-5000 people were murdered and thousands more imprisoned and tortured at the hands of an autocratic regime installed by the United States government under Nixon.

If you have trouble believing the stories coming out of abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq, read this book. We have experience in these matters. Thirty years after the coup, a mountain of cables, memos and internal documents became declassified as a matter of course, and Peter Kornbluh has artfully and masterfully put them into order to paint what may be the first complete picture of what happened in Chile during those dark years.

It's not your typical tell all book, like those coming out of Washington nowadays. There isn't finger pointing or the innuendo. The blame game is not played. It's simply evidence. Proof. Piles of it, neatly organized and painting a complete indictment of the United States as the perpetrator and supporter of crimes against humanity in 1970's Latin America.

In one section, Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying, "We can't let a country go communist simply because its people are irresponsible." This idea set wheels in motion as the policy of containment morphed into something more horrible and inhumane. Was the US directly involved in the assassination and takeover? Yes. Did Kissinger and Nixon no how bloody it had become, and quietly acquiesce? Most definitely. Did arms shipments and financial aid help solidify the Pinochet regime? 'Fraid so. How soon after the coup were American businessmen back in the country to begin new resource export deals? Within six weeks.

Perhaps the most powerful and compelling aspect of Kornbluh's book is that it's not him who's making the accusations and revelations. It's the evidence itself. It's Kissinger and Nixon in their own words, their own handwriting. It truly is a dossier as much as its title suggests. It's worth reading simply to set the record straight once and for all, and to dispel the myth that we, as a nation, are incapable of anything so horrible as what is happening now.
 

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Summary: The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Ac
Review: The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (A National Security Archive Book)
by Peter Kornbluh (Editor) is anti pinochet nonsense at its worst. Chile was going absolutely nowhere when he overthrew this country, made the streets safe, put law and order back in fashion and rid the country of trouble makers. Pinochet was and is a great man, an awesome military leader, a superb leader and one the greats of the 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: Very important book, specially for americans
Review: This book is VERY well documented, based on declassified documents obtained by the George Washington University's National Security Archive library under the Freedom of Information Act.

That this book is edited in english language and for sale through Amazon.com is very important, so americans themselves can learn how their own government supported military governments in South America and tolerated human rights abuses, to sustain their foreign policy goals.

Rating:
Summary: a testimony
Review: This is not a critic of the book sorry
I have 40 years old and I lived in Chile all my youth under Pinochet.
Pinochet times:
I lived in general peace. I had the rigth to move where I want. I have the rigth to work. I have the rigth to go to the church (any). I could buy what I want when I want. Yes I saw peolple talking about about relatives lost. Yes I saw a few strange (uncleared) death on the news. I saw people talking against Pinochet even on TV without suffering, at most being expulsed from the country but just in first years.
Allende times:
I saw my country destroyed by Allende and theirs parts. I remmember me 10 years old staying in line 5 hour to buy a chicken while my mother was in another line to buy bread. I remmember my mother saying She had to be member of the Allende party to get some decent food. I remmeber people figthing in the streets. I remmember factories taken by Allende followers. I remmember farmers crying because their farms where taken for free and being expulsed by the takers. I remmember women throwing rice and grain to the army officers for being chickens and not to dare to do what they finally did.

I don't know who is rigth. that are just my memories so based on that I can't agree with the bad judgement on Pinochet. He did what was needed at that time and now is paying the price. Why do you think he is not in jail or even in trail?
Because a great part of the chilean people do recognize what he did as terrible but probably necessary.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary document of terrible times
Review: With the recent American occupation of Iraq, one can't help but remember the horrendous American involvement of the bloody coup d'etat on (ironically) Sept. 11th, 1973.

Peter Kornbluth has produced the definitive chronicle of the atrocities committed under the Pinochet regime, as well as the recent events surrounding his (hopeful) trial for crimes against humanity. It also reveals the American conspiracy in the coup, and how, once Pinochet took control, the United States soon realized that even they were powerless to control him. If you could imagine American forces helping the Nazis seize Paris and Poland sixty years ago, well...what happened in Chile in 1973 was pretty much the moral equivalent.