At the request of one reader, I am providing some online material with information on U.S. presidents Gerald Ford’s and Ronald Reagan’s records of sponsoring state terrorism in Latin America. What one can find online, especially in terms of archived documents and solid history, is profoundly limited. I encourage those who want to learn more about Ford’s and Reagan’s support of state terrorism to work themselves into a library or two where the truest substance is. What I provide here is only the tip of the iceberg, but nevertheless sketches an accurate picture of the betrayal of U.S. faith. I’ve written on U.S. involvement in supporting terrorist regimes here and here.
The United States covertly supported the “Dirty War” of Argentina, which lasted from 1976-1983, under the Ford and Reagan administrations. It was nearly a decade of violence carried out against Argentine citizens by presidents Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Eduardo Violaand, Leopoldo Galtieri and their successive military government. The government sought to obliterate all “leftist” resistance and influence within Argentine society. It is widely believed that up to 30,000 Argentine citizens and refugees from Chile and Uruguay disappeared during the Dirty War. They were arrested, tortured and killed, most of them being trade unionists and students. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wished to remain friendly and supportive of Argentina in the late 1970’s on account of Videla’s anti-communist leanings. Kissenger apparently felt that having a Cold War ally was more important than objecting to the wide-spread human rights violations being committed in Argentina by far-right organizations (read: death squads) such as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance.
A press release from the National Security Archive reveals that in 1976 the Argentine regime worked around the U.S. Embassy in Argentine and directly with Kissinger, who downplayed the embassy’s clarion on human rights abuse. The Argentine government believed it had the full backing of Kissinger and, by extension, the Ford administration. Along with the press release, one can find a number of documents revealing the relationship between Ford, Kissinger and Videla. Here is a snippet from the press release:
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 – State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina’s dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were “euphoric” over signals from high-ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
On 20 September 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill reported that Guzzetti said “When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he ‘hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.’ Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG’s overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA ‘get it over quickly’.”
After a second meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in Washington, on 19 October 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill wrote “a sour note” from Buenos Aires complaining that he could hardly carry human rights demarches if the Argentine Foreign Minister did not hear the same message from the Secretary of State. “Guzzetti went to U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government’s human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG over that issue,” wrote Hill.
The Embassy reported to Washington that after Mr. Kissinger’s 10 June 1976 meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti, the Argentine government dismissed the Embassy’s human rights approaches and referred to Kissinger’s “understanding” of the situation. The current State Department collection does not include a minute of Kissinger’s and Guzetti’s conversation in Santiago, Chile.
The United States’ long-standing support of Augusto Pinochet’s diabolically brutal regime is well documented since 1973. The oldest such record comes from recently declassified documents held at the National Security Archive. In September 1973, the U.S. indicated its support for Pinochet’s regime:
The USG [United States government] wishes make clear [sic] its desire to cooperate the military junta and to assist in any appropriate way. We agree that it is best initially to avoid too much public identification between us. In the meantime, we will be pleased to maintain private unofficial contacts as the junta may desire. We will have responses to other points raised by General Pinochet at an early date.
The National Security Archives likewise has records of Kissinger’s multiple covert trips to and conversations with Pinochet.
Regan’s moral and economic support for the violent and bloody Argentine regimes is well known to journalists and historians, but less known among his most avid supporters. Marta Gurvich writes:
Videla’s anything-goes anti-communism struck a responsive chord with the Reagan administration which came to power in 1981. President Reagan quickly reversed President Carter’s condemnation of the Argentine junta’s record on human rights. Reagan’s U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick even hosted the urbane Argentine generals at an elegant state dinner.
More substantively, Reagan authorized CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence service for training and arming the Nicaraguan contras. The contras were soon implicated in human rights atrocities and drug smuggling of their own. But the contras benefitted from the Reagan administration’s “perception management” operation which portrayed them as “the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers.”
In 1982, however, the Argentine military went a step too far. Possibly deluded by its new coziness with Washington, the army invaded the British-controlled Falkland Islands. Given the even-closer Washington-London alliance, the Reagan administration sided with Margaret Thatcher’s government, which crushed the Argentine invaders in a brief war.
It is known that Jimmy Carter cut off military aid to the Argentine regime during his term in office and that Reagan continued this embargo for a brief time. However, having reversed Carter’s policy against human rights violations in Argentine, Reagan worked to provide military aid through American allies until 1983. Here’s James Doa of the New York Times:
In 1981, the Reagan administration toned down criticism of Argentina and moved to restore military aid, arguing that rights abuses had declined. This March 1981 cable from the embassy in Buenos Aires described a visit by Roberto E. Viola, the regime’s newly appointed president, to Washington:
The visit is generally recognized as the opening of a new chapter in U.S.-Argentine relations. This development, it appears, is welcomed not only by the government but by the large majority of public opinion. There has been no open criticism of the visit and its results by any major figure or newspaper to date.
There have, however, been pronouncements by Argentine human rights advocates outside Argentina taking issue with administration statements that Argentina’s human rights situation has improved.
In late 1981, the Reagan administration persuaded Congress to restore military aid to Argentina. In 1983, civilian government was restored in elections.
Doa’s story is verified by Frederick H. Gareau in his book State Terrorism and the United States:
In 1976, backing the Humphrey-Kennedy amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1976, the Carter administration placed an embargo on the sale of arms and spare parts to Argentina and on the training of its military personnel. This resulted in the absence of military aid contracted by Washington in the period of the dirty war, including the Reagan years. Upon assuming office, the Reagan administration did not think the political climate was such that it could resume military aid. It did reverse the negative voting policy in multinational development banks of the Carter administration. And it continued with the “symbolic gestures” that helped to lessen the junta’s diplomatic isolation
Before too much is made of Washington’s cutting off military aid and maintaining nonmilitary aid at modest levels during the dirty war, aid replacement by its allies must be considered. The absence of aid from Washington was compensated for by its allies, no doubt at least in the Reagan years with encouragement from that administration. From 1978 to the early eighties these allies sold an estimated two billion in arms to Argentina. Notable among the suppliers was Israel. Argentina became Israel’s largest South American customer, accounting for over 30 percent of Israeli weapons.
For those who can read Spanish, a substantial article by María Seoane can be found at Clarín.com.
Reagan’s support for bloody regimes in Latin America was one of the reasons that Nicaragua was elected to the UN Security Council in 1982. Reagan’s administration had been pushing for the election of the Dominican Republic in order to block Nicaragua’s entry, but his record of aiding the regimes of Chile and Argentine and of sanctioning the training of terrorist soldiers throughout South America swung the vote in favor of Nicaragua. In an editorial on recent U.S. involvement in Nicaraguan politics, Toni Solo writes:
Perhaps the most embarrassing diplomatic debacle of Kirkpatrick’s career was the bungled attempt by US diplomacy to prevent the election of Nicaragua to the UN Security Council in 1982. Kirkpatrick and her colleagues desperately struggled to promote the candidacy of the Dominican Republic in order to prevent Nicaragua’s election. She and her team failed dismally. Nicaragua’s Chancellor at the time, Padre Miguel D’Escoto remembers,
“I spoke with all the foreign ministers of the world gathered there in the context of bilateral exchanges of about half an hour with each. But I was not alone. I could count on a marvellous support team from our foreign ministry and on Nora Astorga. But it was our heroic people under arms and Daniel (Ortega) who most accompanied us and made possible our victory thanks to the admiration and respect the world feels towards people of consequence.”
The vote was a personal triumph for D’Escoto and an almost unprecedented blow to US prestige. By rejecting the Reagan administration supported candidate, the vote indicated the contempt most of the world felt for the Reagan government’s advocacy of vicious terror regimes and groups around the world at that time.
But Reagan’s support for bloody regimes should not surprise anyone. The “Reagan Doctrine” of rollback in Latin America meant the establishment of liberal democracy at all costs in places potentially falling under Soviet influence. Reagan systematically ignored human rights issues, genocide and torture in favor of the prospects of gaining Cold War allies and confining local conflict to non-American soil. I think a 2004 editorial in The Nation sums up well the contradiction and confusion that was the Reagan administration:
It is also worth noting that this man who yearned so much for freedom and democracy in Soviet-bloc nations showed limited concern for democracy and human rights in other parts of the globe. After Democrats and Republicans in Congress passed sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, Reagan vetoed the measure. His Administration cuddled up with the fascistic and anti-Semitic junta of Argentina and backed militaries in El Salvador and Guatemala that massacred civilians. It moved to normalize relations with Augusto Pinochet, the tyrant of Chile. Reagan sent George Bush the First to the Philippines, where the Vice President toasted dictator Ferdinand Marcos for fostering “democracy.” Pursuing a quasi-secret war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration violated international law and circumvented Congress to support contra rebels engaged in human rights abuses and, according to the CIA’s own Inspector General, worked with suspected drug traffickers.
This is not about viewing Ford or Reagan from a partisan vantage. It’s about acknowledging the facts and events of administrations that did many great things, but committed horrible crimes against humanity. I submit here, without a degree of hesitancy, that no Catholic can in good conscience defend Reagan’s actions or support his legacy. And despite what some Catholics may say, Pope John Paul II’s faith in Reagan began at and terminated in the denunciation of abortion and the opposition to Soviet communism in Europe. When one considers John Paul II’s non-violent resistance to communism and Reagan’s violent and egregious disregard for human rights, the comparisons between the Great Pope and the Great Communicator quickly break down. Reagan was a supporter of death and terrorism, and so while his partisan fan base continues to check its brain at the door, at least informed Catholics–appalled at the murder and torture of thier own Catholic brothers and sisters in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and Nicaragua–can once more transcend the mindless masses and renounce any support for a president who was, indeed, the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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