KISSINGER TO ARGENTINES ON DIRTY WAR:
"THE QUICKER YOU SUCCEED THE BETTER"
Newly declassified documents show Secretary of State gave green light to junta, Contradict official line that Argentines "heard only what [they] wanted to hear."
While military dictatorship committed massive human rights abuses in 1976, Kissinger advised "If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better."
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 104
Edited by Carlos Osorio, Assisted by Kathleen Costar
Posted December 4, 2003
Washington, D.C., 4 December 2003 - Newly declassified State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and high ranking U.S. officials gave their full support to the Argentine military junta and urged them to hurry up and finish the "dirty war" before the U.S. Congress cut military aid. A post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000.
The new documents are two memoranda of conversations (memcons) with the visiting Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti - one with Kissinger himself on October 7, 1976. At the time, the U.S. Congress was about to approve sanctions against the Argentine regime because of widespread reports of human rights abuses by the junta.
More at the GWU National Security Archive