ANOTHER DICTATOR TEETERING?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504000002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 3, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504000002-4
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Another Dictator Teetering'?
-
s another no,-
COLMAN MCCARTHY
reWnce on U.S. support_
forces in Santiago, focused the woron theerrawto have
hatefulness of Gen. Augusto
Pinochet for his people.
That, and his defiance. Pinochet
states that not only are the current
st
dicutorship not going to rikes and protests against his
drive
from office that he win survive
~ the mess because the Chilean
constitution says so. In 1989, he
Plans to run for another eight-year
term, with a 1980 constitutional
provision saying that the junta's
candidate can seek reelection
unopposed. Pinochet is fanatically
anticommunist, except that his
technique of guaranteed electoral
victory is Kremlinesque.
Soviet's and ideology r also hated
the of elections, 1986 i is liked their
style Year of the fallen dictators,
P
of the seeming inochet could well be next. Many
and
afalie~r longevity that Marcos and
believed would keep then
entrenched are now being used by
Pinochet: rampant hun an-rights
violations, the silencing of political
opponents, killing citizens involved
in street demonstrations and a
witAessp Bay was beaten and set
on fire by government se -i i
M Kcal exorcism eye of fellow intellectual Ronald
under way-this time the
"po argued in
satanic Pinochet of Chile, to Reagan, Kirkpatrick
follow the riddance of Du favor of backin
valier positively
Haiti and Marcos of the ! of friendly" g authoritarians.
The July 6 death of Rodrigo RoinJas Right-wing autocracies," she
the Washington resident who , insisted, sometimes evolve into
democracies.,
WASHINGTON POST
3 August 1986
Two years before, in a New York
Times interview, Pinochet said the
same: "I think that many times hard
and strong authority is necessary
because that strong and hard
authority allows democracy later."
gh
Sixteen years and crimes after, this "later' has s yet t high
evolve.
The state terror and repression
were ignored by Kirkpatrick on her
1981 trip. She said in Santiago that
the Reagan administration intended
t
"
o
normalize completely its
relations with Chile in order to
work together in a pleasant way."
Two days after Kirkpatrick's
bouquet of pleasantries fell into
Pinochet's lap, Chilean security
forces expelled four opposition
Politicians, including the president
of the country human rights. s commission on
The Kirkpatrick legacy is worth
remembering because one of its
most shameless heirs is Sen. Jesse
Helms (R-N.C.). Last month he was
in Santiago and, like Kirkpatrick
before hies, was untroubled by the
government's Policies of murder
and torture as long as communism
was being fought. Helms, all but
celebrating the Pinochet polic;m
has been fulso ' support pressuring Chile to investigate the
Jeans me. In August 1981, death of Rodrigo Rojas. Helms was
Kirkpatrick, then the Reagan asking for no more than
administration's ambassador to the consistency. In five years, the
United Nations, visited the dictator administration has remained
in Santiago and found him to her unalarmed by the reign of Pinochet
liking. Why not? The pair thought brutalities. Why a raised eyebrow
alike. In 1980, in the Commentary, now? Let's stick by our man in
magazine article that caught the Santiago.
Unwittingly, Helms raised the
question that is repeatedly thrown
in the face of the United States:
Once you support a monster, how
large must the monstrosities of
death and torture become before
the support is withdrawn? The
South African crisis is that. George
Shultz told the Senate last week
that under the regime in Pretoria "a
sharp turn for the worse" has
occurred. What did he expect, a
sharp turn for the better?
Repressive turns are always for the
worse, in South Africa, the
Philippines, Haiti and now Chile.
Our complicity in the crimes of
Pinochet is greater than with the
others. In the early 1970s, Richard
Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled
that the Chileans' choice of the
Allende government was not
acceptable. Instead of sending in
the Marines, tJjje sent ur t e ,
Pinoc et resu to .
In 1977, Richard Helms, the CIA
director ;;`;J
e tune is a nts o
emocracy were estroymg
emocracy in e, was convicted
o no es rig y an occurs e
t Hate committee.
in the case told Helms at the time
of his conviction: "You dishonored
Your oath and you now stand before
this court in disgrace and shame."
After his sentencing, Helms said, "I
don't feel disgraced at all."
That might well be the motto of
American policy toward Pinochet.
From Richard Helms to Jesse
Helms, and with Kirkpatrick and
Reagan in between, no brutality has
been too great. In 1976, the
Pinochet regime killed a former
Chilean diplomat and an American
woman on a Washington street. In
1986, it killed a Washington youth
on a Santiago street. Relations
between Pinochet and Reagan
continue "in a pleasant way."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504000002-4