The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press 2004, 2005)

*Documents from John Dinges “Condor” Archive

Foreign Affairs suppressed debate about Kissinger and Condor

*News about Condor-related court cases in Spain, Italy, France, Argentina and Chile (English and Spanish)

*Pinochet Consulted Kissinger about Attack on Peru

*Operacion Condor: The Plan that Backfired on Pinochet and his Allies;
Operación Cóndor: El Plan que volvió contra Pinochet y sus aliados

Peru was member of Condor/
Nuevo: Perú: Socio de Cóndor

* Recommended Books

This is the underground history of the international Dirty Wars by U.S. allies in South America. The years 1973-1983, which I have called the “Condor Years,” brought the first “War on Terrorism” to Latin America.

For much of a decade, six allied military governments engaged in secret warfare intended to wipe out their enemies, kidnapping and murdering more than thousands of people in their own countries. At the initiative of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet,  they set up a multinational terrorist organization, Operation Condor, to pursue and murder the most prominent exile leaders who were organizing opposition to the dictatorships from bases in other Latin American countries, Europe and the United States. The author, award-winning investigative journalist John Dinges, using newly available U.S. documents and the dictatorships’ own files, tells this gripping story from the point of view of those who have tried to keep it secret. He dispassionately lays bare the true extent of U.S. complicity in the crimes of the dictators, who called the United States “the leader” in what they called their anti-Marxist crusade. Revolutionaries, intelligence operatives, U.S. officials–many speaking for the first time–recount the brutal struggle between Condor and its enemies. Revelations in the book include the never before told story of U.S. intelligence lapses that failed to prevent an assassination by our anticommunist allies on Embassy Row in Washington, DC.

Now, after decades of relentless pursuit, investigators and judges are using the international trail of Condor’s crimes to reverse the impunity the generals have enjoyed for so long, starting with Pinochet’s own arrest in London. Condor prosecutions in both Chile and Argentina–recounted in the updated Spanish edition Los Años del Cóndor (2021), have resulted in convictions of dozens of military officers.

Order The Condor Years directly from The New Press by mail or on line. Order on Amazon. (Please keep in mind that authors receive no income from used books sold on Amazon.)

Previous Spanish edition: Operación Cóndor: Una Década de Terrorismo Internacional en el Cono Sur (Ediciones B 2004/2005).

Index terms: Operacion Condor, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Brasil, Bolivia; Human Rights, torture, repression, CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, Junta Coordinadora Revolucionaria, MIR, ERP, Tupamaros, ELN, Che Guevara, Roberto Santucho, Henry Kissinger, DINA, Military intelligence, inteligencia militar, revolution, Salvador Allende, Stroessner, Hugo Banzer, Jorge Videla, Aparicio Mendez, Juan Jose Torres, SIDE, SID, SIE, Batallon 601, Robert Scherrer, Carlos Prats, Zelmar Michelini, Hector Gutierrez Ruiz, Michael Townley, FBI, Ed Koch, Orlando Letelier, PVP, OPR33, Bernardo Leighton, Baltasar Garzon, Baltazar, assassination, terrorism, war on terror, intelligence failure, Andres Pascal Allende, Edgardo Enriquez, Miguel Enriquez, Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, Jose Osvaldo Riveiro, Jorge Osvaldo Rawson.

Reviews of The Condor Years:

El Mostrador: “John Dinges lanza ‘libro definitivo’ sobre la alianza del terror.”

La Republica (Peru): “Polemico libro de John Dinges”(text version)

Toronto Now: CRUEL CONDOR “Dinges writes that echoes of the Condor campaign reverberate today in the massive pooling of intelligence, the compromised intelligence relationships, the gleaning of information from the torture centres run by U.S. allies and even cross-border targeting for assassinations.”

The Miami Herald: John Dinges lifts the lid on Operation Condor in this compelling and shocking account� As Dinges reveals, Condor was far more sinister than once thought. “As a secret treaty,” he says, “Condor elevated human rights crimes to the highest level of state policy, under the direct control and manipulation of the heads of state and ministers of government.” And he backs it up.

San Francisco Chronicle: “Dinges is able to go into remarkable detail in exposing the actions of both the opposition groups and the military strongmen who battled them.”

The Washington Post: “Dinges assembles a scrupulous, well-documented and indignant prosecutor’s brief, all the more arresting for its judiciousness and restraint.”

Foreign Affairs: “This is a remarkable book and a major contribution to the historical record.”

Publishers Weekly: “Soon enough … vivid stories and details emerge: double agents, the euphemisms of the spy trade (e.g. “wet work” for assassinations, bumbling murderers and rebels, and cynical U.S. diplomats. Dinges’s meticulously documented study is a cautionary tale for today’s war on terror…”