The Condor Years

A compelling and shocking account of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald).   Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early war on terror initially encouraged by the CIA-which later backfired on the United States.   Hailed by Foreign Affairs as remarkable and a major contribution to the historical record, The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America's darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries.   Scrupulous, well-documented. -The Washington Post   Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges. -Seymour Hersh