Kenneth Maxwell

All of this would provide little more than a moderately interesting insight into the inner workings of an influential institution, were it not for the historical subject matter that occasioned the dispute: Kissinger's possible role in the 1970 assassination of Chilean General René Schneider and in the Chilean coup of 1973, and Kissinger's possible relationship to Operation Condor. Kornbluh is the lead researcher on Chile at the National Security Archive (NSA), a research group at George Washington University. NSA has been the leader in using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain U.S. government documents related to the U.S. role in Chile in the 1970s, and his book dealt in large part with what can be learned from these documents.

When Kornbluh's book came out, Kissinger and Rogers attempted to get Foreign Affairs to run an article by Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute minimizing Kissinger's role in the events in Chile. Foreign Affairs rejected the article. According to Maxwell, Hoge found it "too narrow a defense of Kissinger," and then asked Maxwell to write a review. (Falcoff's rejected article was subsequently published in Commentary as "Kissinger & Chile: The Myth That Will Not Die.") Maxwell points out several places in which Falcoff misquoted documents in ways favorable to Kissinger, for example changing a remark of Kissinger's, talking to Nixon on the phone about the coup, from "Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn’t show on this one though," to simply "We didn't do it." [Maxwell, 2004, 5]

Maxwell argues that Foreign Affairs has attempted to whitewash even the nature of the historical controversy: "In his editorial response Hoge claims that Kissinger's and Rogers' unhappiness was prompted by the 'damaging implication' in my review that 'Rogers and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had contributed to the creation of a permissive environment for political violence by the Chilean government under Augusto Pinochet.' This was not the issue at the center of the controversy. In fact, I can think of very few objective historians who would dissent from such an overall assessment." He points out that this conclusion was reached as early as the Church Committee in the 1970s and that even a "heavily hedged" 2000 report from the CIA states, "Although the CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of the plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters and – because the CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970 – probably appeared to condone it." [Maxwell, 2004, 17]

Paramount among the specific matters at issue: Maxwell points out that U.S. policymakers were aware not only of Operation Condor in general, but in particular "...that a Chilean assassination team had been planning to enter the United States." A month before the Letelier assassination, Kissinger ordered "... that the Latin American rulers involved be informed that the 'assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad ... would create a most serious moral and political problem.'" Maxwell wrote in his review of Kornbluh's book, "This demarche was apparently not delivered: the U.S. embassy in Santiago demurred on the ground that to deliver such a strong rebuke would upset the dictator," and that on September 20, 1976, the day before Letelier and his assistant Ronni Moffitt were killed, "the State Department instructed the ambassadors 'to take no further action' with regard to the Condor scheme." [Maxwell, 2004, 18]

Rogers, in his first response, refers to "...the stern human rights warning Kissinger delivered directly to Pinochet at their only meeting... " (the meeting took place in Santiago June 8, 1976), points to "...Kissinger’s statement, made in an address to the region’s foreign ministers, that the regime's human rights violations '[had] impaired our relationship with Chile and [would] continue to do so,'" and that "Kissinger’s warning was delivered in robust fashion to the Argentine president–there are cables to prove it...–and probably to Pinochet’s underlings in Santiago," and claims that Kissinger did not send, and probably did not even see, the "take no further action" cable. [Maxwell, 2004, 18–19] [Rogers and Maxwell, 2004]. Declassified documents obtained and posted by the National Security Archive on April 10, 2010 confirm that Kissinger sent a cable to his assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs on September 16, 1976 rescinding delivery of the Condor demarche and terminating diplomatic efforts to warn the Condor military regimes against planned assassinations. These declassified documents definitively contradict Kissinger's and Roger's account and confirm that Kissinger was not only aware of the rescission of the Condor demarche but personally responsible for it.

With reference to the human rights speech, Maxwell argues in reply, that Kissinger there is clear documentary evidence that Kissinger "...personally assured Pinochet that he was giving it for U.S. domestic consumption," and quotes the notes from a meeting at which Rogers was present to validate this. He further points out that the delivery of the message to Argentina has no bearing on the matter, and that the declassified copy of the cable Rogers claims Kissinger never saw shows it addressed to "secstate washdc". He also points out that the declassified record is clear that, at the time, Rogers viewed Pinochet's Chile as "...a symbol of right-wing tyranny" and referred to the U.S.'s "strong interest in getting the GOC [Government of Chile] to pursue acceptable human rights practices" because "Like it or not, we are identified with the regime's origins and hence charged with some responsibility for its action." Maxwell writes, "Rogers' loyalty to his former boss and current business associate is commendable, but it was not reciprocated at the time, with Kissinger saying privately to Chilean foreign minister Patricio Carvajal, "the State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there are not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State." [Maxwell, 2004, 19–20] [Rogers and Maxwell, 2004]

Rogers, in his second response, tries to present Maxwell as claiming that Kissinger or the U.S. State Department gave a direct go-ahead for the Letelier assassination. Maxwell, in his further reply that Foreign Affairs refused to print, points out that he made no such claim, simply referring to the "cruel coincidence" of the timing of the assassination relative to the "take no further action" cable. He also presents a circumstantial argument as to why the cable should be seen as representing policy emanating from the highest level. [Maxwell, 2004, 21]

Maxwell summarizes by saying that his argument is simply that lives might have been saved if the State Department had steadfastly pursued its intent to have U.S. ambassadors inform the "...heads of state of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay... that the American government knew of their Condor assassination plans and condemned them wherever they might take place." [Maxwell, 2004, 24]