Operation Condor Declassified:
A Case Study in International Terrorism
Marian Schlotterbeck, Yale History Department
PIER Summer Institute July 2009
Latin America & the Cold War
Operation Condor coordinated joint-intelligence and repression operations between
the military regimes of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
Peru and Ecuador later joined the alliance.
Questions for Declassified Documents
•
What kind of document do you have? Create a short title for the document, including agency
of origin (the creator of the document), recipient(s), date, type of document
(e.g. cable, memorandum of conversation, report, etc.), and brief title.
•
Briefly summarize the document’s main content. What relevance does the document have
for Operation Condor?
•
Why do you think this document was created? What purpose do you think it served for its
creators?
•
What is the relationship between the United States government and Southern Cone military
regimes as articulated by this document?
•
What reasoning is employed in the document? What weaknesses or biases on the part of the
author are revealed?
•
How does this document fit into larger narratives about Latin America and the Cold War?
•
Did anything in this document surprise you? How did the document challenge your prior
understanding of this history? What new questions do you have after reading this document?
Invitation by Chilean Intelligence Chief,
Manuel Contreras
to Paraguayan General Francisco Britez
to attend the first Condor meeting.
Invitation included eleven-page agenda
for first Working Meeting of National
Intelligence, October 1975.
“Closing Statement of the First Inter-American Meeting of National Intelligence,”
Santiago, Chile, November 28, 1975.
KISSINGER TO THE ARGENTINE
GENERALS IN 1976:
"IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE
TO BE DONE, YOU SHOULD DO
THEM QUICKLY"
Henry Kissinger Telelphone Conversation
[Telcon] with Latin America aide
Henry Schlaudeman, June 30, 1976.
U.S. Ambassador in Montevideo,
Ernest Siracusa,
to Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs,
Henry Shlaudeman,
“Trends in the Southern Cone,” July
20, 1976.
Department of State,
Report on Operation Condor
to Henry Kissinger,
“ARA Monthly Report (July):
The ‘Third World War’ and
South America,”
August 3, 1976.
Department of State to U.S.
Embassies in Argentina,
Uruguay, Chile, Brazil,
and Paraguay,
“Operation Condor,”
August 23, 1976.
Intelligence report by
FBI legal attache,
Robert Scherrer
September 28, 1976
Oral History Interview with
Hewson Ryan, April 27, 1988.
Ryan served as deputy to Asst
Secretary Harry Shlaudeman
The Association for
Diplomatic Studies and
Training Foreign Affairs Oral
History Project:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem
/collections/diplomacy/
http://www.nsarchive.org
http://foia.state.gov/SearchColls/
Search.asp