Operation Condor Verdict: GUILTY!

This summary of Operation Condor's inaugural meeting, hosted by the Chilean secret police, DINA, in Santiago, Chile, provides substantive detail on the mission, coordination, communications, intelligence sharing, joint operations and Latin American intelligence officers involved in initiating a regional effort to suppress the left in the Southern Cone. It also identifies the origins of the name of this cross-border collaboration – Chile's national bird, the Condor. "This organization will be called CONDOR, by unanimous approval of a motion presented by the Uruguayan Delegation to honor the host country," the document concludes. The founding document is signed by five of the highest-ranking intelligence officers in the Southern Cone, representing the original Condor nations: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. (Later Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador joined Condor.) The document was originally obtained by National Security Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh from human rights investigators in Chile who discovered it in the Foreign Ministry archives; Carlos Osorio's testimony marked the first time it was formally introduced as evidence for the legal proceedings on Condor crimes in Argentina.

During a June 1976 OAS meeting in Santiago, Chile, (which corresponded with the second Condor meeting, also held in Santiago at the same time), Henry Kissinger met privately with Admiral Cesar Guzzetti, foreign minister of Argentina's military regime. This declassified "memcon" reveals that Kissinger not only encouraged the ongoing internal repression in Argentina, but also endorsed the "joint efforts" with other Southern Cone regimes, which Guzzetti described, to address "the terrorist problem." In what appears to be the very first time Kissinger is told of the Condor collaboration, Guzzetti informs him that Argentina wants "to integrate with our neighbors … All of them: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil," to fight subversion. In response, Kissinger advises him to step up diplomatic efforts to explain the repression and offset international condemnation: "You will have to make an international effort to have your problems understood. Otherwise, you, too, will come under increasing attack. If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures." When Guzzetti suggests that "The terrorists work hard to appear as victims in the light of world opinion even though they are the real aggressors," Kissinger agrees. "We want you to succeed," he concludes. "We do not want to harass you. I will do what I can … "

This 14-page memo was written by Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry Shlaudeman, who had been following the reporting on intelligence coordination in recent months and had several times solicited reports on the subject from regional ambassadors. He combines the information on Condor and other disturbing trends in a report addressed directly to Secretary of State Kissinger. Shlaudeman states that the Southern Cone governments see themselves as engaged in a Third World War against terrorism and that they "have established Operation Condor to find and kill terrorists … in their own countries and in Europe." “ … [T]hey are joining forces to eradicate ‘subversion’, a word which increasingly translates into non-violent dissent from the left and center left.” Their definition of subversion is so broad as to include "nearly anyone who opposes government policy."

This action cable signed by Secretary of State Kissinger reflects a decision by the Latin American bureau in the State Department to try to stop the Condor plans known to be underway, especially those outside of Latin America. Kissinger instructs the ambassadors of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to meet as soon as possible with the chief of state or the highest appropriate official of their respective countries and to convey a direct message, known in diplomatic language as a "demarche." The ambassadors are instructed to tell the officials the U.S. government has learned that Operation Condor goes beyond information exchange and may "include plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad." Further, the ambassadors are to express the U.S. government's "deep concern," about the reports and to warn that, if true, they would "create a most serious moral and political problem." Special instructions are sent for the U.S. Ambassador in Argentina. “For Buenos Aires,” reads the cable, “…[Y]ou should include a statement of our profound concern regarding attacks on refugees from whatever quarter in Argentina and make a specific reference to some 30 Uruguayans who have disappeared…” The Uruguayans survived and are amongst the plaintiffs in the Condor trial.

In this cable, sent from Lusaka where Kissinger is traveling, the Secretary of State refuses to authorize sending a telegram to U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay Ernest Siracusa, instructing him to proceed with the Condor demarche. Kissinger then broadens his instructions to cover the delivery of the demarche in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay: "The Secretary has instructed that no further action be taken on this matter." These instructions effectively end the State Department initiative to warn the Condor military regimes not to proceed with international assassination operations, since the demarche has not been delivered in Chile or Argentina.

Kissinger's assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Harry Shlaudeman, received his instructions on turning off the Condor demarche on September 16. Three days later, while in Costa Rica, Shlaudeman receives another cable, which remains secret to this day, from his deputy, William Luers, regarding how to proceed on the demarche. At this point, on September 20, Shlaudeman directs Luers to "instruct the [U.S.] ambassadors to take no further action noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme." Condor's most infamous "scheme" comes to fruition the very next day when a car-bomb planted by agents of the Chilean secret police takes the life of former Chilean diplomat, and leading Pinochet opponent, Orlando Letelier, and his 26-year old American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in downtown Washington D.C.

This cable, written by the FBI's attaché in Buenos Aires, Robert Scherrer, summarizes intelligence information provided by a "confidential source abroad" about Operation Condor, described here as a South American joint intelligence operation designed to "eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in the area." The cable reports that Chile is the center of Operation Condor, and provides information about "special teams" which travel "anywhere in the world ... to carry out sanctions up to assassination against terrorists or supporters of terrorist organizations." Several passages in the document relating to these special teams have been excised. The cable suggests that the assassination of the Chilean ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, on September 21, 1976, may have been carried out as an element of Operation Condor.

This military form records, in bureaucratic language, the repression of Battalion 601. It states that Uruguayan citizens Jorge Zaffaroni and Maria Emilia Islas de Zaffaroni have been captured in Buenos Aires and handed over to the Uruguayan government's Anti-Subversive Operations Coordinating Organization (OCOAS - Organismo Coordinador de Operaciones Anti-Subversivas). "Military Intelligence Battalion 601… Handed to OCOAS… From: State Intelligence Secretariat. To: Intelligence Battalion 601... Primary objective: Jorge Zaffaroni [and] Maria Zaffaroni, Results: Positive…" The Zaffaroni couple disappeared on September 27 in Buenos Aires. The record shows that information coming from abroad (the word "Exterior" most likely means from Uruguayan intelligence) prompted the Argentine State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE - Secretaria de Inteligencia del Estado) to request the capture of the Zaffaroni couple. Battalion 601 then records that the operation was successfully completed on September 27 or 29. A SIDE agent, Miguel Angel Furci, one of those condemned during the Argentine trial, appropriated the Zaffaroni couple’s baby, Mariana. Mariana would recover her identity in 1993, thanks to the work of the Grand Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. The document was obtained by the National Security Archive through a confidential source in Argentina.

This Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Intelligence Information Report (IIR) provides information on Operation Condor. "During the period 24-27 September 1976," according to the document, "members of the Argentine State Secretariat for Information (SIDE), operating with officers of the Uruguayan Military Intelligence Service, carried out operations against the Uruguayan terrorist organization, the OPR-33 in Buenos Aires. As a result of this joint operation, SIDE officials claimed that the entire OPR-33 infrastructure in Argentina has been eliminated ... " The introduction to the IIR states: "Information was provided by US Embassy Legal Attaché who has excellent contacts within the State Secretariat for Information and Federal Police Force." The document has been presented at trials in Argentina and constitutes evidence of the responsibility of government agencies in the disappearance of Uruguayans Jorge Zaffaroni, Maria Emilia Islas de Zaffaroni, and their daughter Mariana on September 27, 1976.

The CIA issues a detailed cable on a secret, three-day, Condor meeting held in Buenos Aires between December 13-16, 1976, when representatives of the Condor nations met "to review past activities and discuss future plans." A source, who appears to have attended the meeting, informs the CIA that Condor has increased its internal security after French intelligence became aware of plans for Condor operations in Europe. The December meeting, according to the source, focused on increasing "psychological warfare operations" against leftist groups in the Condor nations.

In this cable, Ambassador White relates a conversation with General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, who told him that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor "keep in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which covers all of Latin America." This installation is "employed to co-ordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries." White, whose message was sent to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, is concerned that the U.S. connection to Condor might be revealed during the then-ongoing investigation into the deaths of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, who were killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. "It would seem advisable," he suggests, "to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in U.S. interest."

This rare document reveals the fate of a disappeared person. It was introduced in the Condor trial as a key piece of evidence in the Case of Horacio Campiglia and Susana Binstock. In this memorandum to Ambassador Castro, James J. Blystone, regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, details his April 2 meeting with an Argentine intelligence source. The anonymous Argentine source describes to the Embassy officer how Campiglia and Binstock, who were part of a special Montonero unit called the TEI (Special Infantry Troops) embarked on an offensive at the time, were captured by Argentine officers of Battalion 601 (in coordination with Brazilian intelligence), taken to Argentina, and held at the Campo de Mayo Army base. Campiglia and Binstock were never seen again.