The Condor Years How Pinochet and his Allies brought Terrorism to three Continents

Synopsis
"Chile proposed operations to eliminate enemies all over the world,.... to eliminate people who were causing harm to our countries...." ?Uruguayan intelligence officer who participated in the creation of Operation Condor.

"The U.S. has long urged these countries to increase their cooperation for security. Now that they are doing so our reaction should not be one of opprobrium."?U.S. Ambassador's cable to Washington.

Operation Condor, set up by Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, was a secret alliance among six Southern Cone intelligence agencies that waged an international dirty war against internal enemies. Between 15,000 and 30,000 people were tortured and murdered as the operation, with funding and operational support from the CIA, ranged across national borders to destroy ?subversion.?

Award-winning journalist John Dinges, who was himself interrogated at a secret Chilean torture camp, draws on hundreds of interviews and newly opened secret police files to prove the extent of cooperation between Operation Condor and the United States government. Revolutionaries, spies and military officers?many speaking out for the first time?retell the brutal struggle between Condor and its enemies, alongside the suspenseful present-day narrative of the lawyers and judges whose relentless efforts to end the impunity of Condor?s perpetrators led to Pinochet?s arrest and changed international human rights law forever.

John Dinges, former managing editor of NPR News, is the author of Assassination on Embassy Row and Our Man in Panama. He is a professor of journalism at Columbia University.