Coming Clean About Pinochet

It may have been an agonizing decision, but the Clinton administration did right by agreeing to declassify and release secret U.S. files that could help Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon document his case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Some of the information from the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, Pentagon and Federal Bureau of Investigation may prove to be embarrassing, showing that Washington not only knew well what was going on with the brutal military dictatorships in South America but also the extent of U.S. involvement.

Past silence should not deter the administration in acting now. Release of the materials could steer this and other U.S. administrations away from silent or open acquiescence to dictatorial regimes. More immediately, the release of material should help British Home Secretary Jack Straw make his decision on whether to accede to the Spanish request to try Pinochet, who remains in London, for crimes committed against Spanish citizens.

Uncovering the truth could help exorcise some of our nation’s own demons, for instance the role of the Nixon administration in the military overthrow of the Salvador Allende regime in Chile in the early 1970s. Justice demands that more information be made public on efforts by military regimes in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil to suppress leftist political movements through assassination and imprisonment.

U.S. files undoubtedly hold information on Pinochet’s personal involvement in Chile’s military reign of terror, which swept up the innocent along with the involved. Washington obviously knew that he was a central player in this bloody business. Now the old dictator has been caught in a net of both intrigue and justice. America owes nothing to him or his followers and should move expeditiously to reveal the truth as it knows it.