The travel noose tightens around Kissinger

[Judi Lynn]

Thursday, July 08, 2010
The travel noose tightens around Kissinger
by Gaius Publius on 7/08/2010 06:07:00 PM

In his Harpers column, Scott Horton notes how the case against Henry Kissinger as complicit in a set of U.S.–ordered assassinations in Salvador Allende's Chile is moving relentlessly forward:

As I noted earlier, Christopher Hitchens’s two-part 2001 article, “The Case Against Kissinger,” built a strong though circumstantial case connecting Henry Kissinger to a series of assassinations in Chile around the time of the overthrow and killing of President Salvador Allende. The evidence has continued to grow since Hitchens’s arguments appeared. On Friday, the release of a taped conversation between Kissinger and President Richard M. Nixon added more.

He then quotes Jeff Stein's report in the Washington Post’s Spytalk blog:

(I)n 1971, Nixon and Kissinger were working to undermine the socialist administration of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who would die during a U.S.-backed military coup two years later. One of the key figures to stand in the way of Chilean generals plotting to overthrow Allende was the Chilean army commander-in-chief, Rene Schneider, who was killed during a botched kidnapping attempt by military right-wingers in 1970.

The new tapes won’t end the argument, but they add persuasive evidence that the CIA was at least trying to eliminate Schneider, and perhaps with the connivance of Nixon and Kissinger. The key exchange between the president and his national security adviser occurred on June 11, 1971.

Part of that exchange:

Kissinger: CIA’s too incompetent to do it. You remember—
Nixon: Sure, but that’s the best thing. .
Kissinger: —when they did try to assassinate somebody, it took three attempts—
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: —and he lived for three weeks afterwards.

More:
http://www.americablog.com/2010/07/travel-noose-tightens-around-kissinger.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog%29