BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – A Washington-based research group said it had obtained a declassified transcript of a staff meeting in which former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger expressed support for Argentina’s past military regime soon after a 1976 coup.
The National Security Archive, a Washington foreign policy study group that has periodically released declassified documents covering the 1976-83 dictatorship in Argentina, said Thursday the documents showed Kissinger convened a weekly staff meeting two days after the March 24, 1976, coup in Argentina.
The NSA did not say how or when it obtained the transcript made public a day ahead of the coup’s 30th anniversary.
Kissinger Associates, Kissinger’s lobbying firm in New York, was closed late Thursday and did not respond to telephone calls. An e-mailed request for comment was not immediately answered.
Kissinger has in the past denied condoning abuses.
According to the NSA’s transcript, Kissinger was informed in the meeting by then-Assistant Secretary for Latin America William Rogers, that if the Argentine military regime succeeded, it would make a “considerable effort to involve the United States – particularly in the financial field.”
Kissinger, the NSA’s transcript further stated, responded, “Yes, but that is in our interest.”
Rogers, according to the transcript, advised that “we ought not at this moment rush out and embrace this new regime.”
“I think also we’ve got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long … ” Rogers is quoted by the document.
Kissinger, after further discussion about the new government, is quoted in the transcript as stating: “Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement from us.”
Argentina’s military rulers seized power on March 24, 1976, beginning seven years of rule in which prosecutors say they waged a systematic crackdown on dissidents. An official report said some 13,000 people disappeared during that period while human rights groups put the figure at around 30,000.
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