February 27, 2024 • 38 mins
Peter Kornbluh is a Senior Analyst who was has worked at the National Security Archive since April 1986. He currently directs the Archive's Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. He was co-director of the Iran-Contra documentation project and director of the Archive's project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs. He is the author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (UNC Press, 2014), a Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year, and The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, which the Los Angeles Times selected as a "best book" of the year. His articles have been published in Foreign Policy, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He has also worked on, and appeared in, numerous documentary films, including the Oscar-winning "Panama Deception," the History Channel's "Bay of Pigs Declassified," "The Trials of Henry Kissinger," and most recently the Netflix documentary, “Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, Conspiracy."
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/
Brazil is going through challenging times. There’s never been a more important moment to understand Brazil’s politics, society, and culture. To go beyond the headlines, and to ask questions that aren’t easy to answer. 'Brazil Unfiltered,' does just that. This podcast is hosted by James N. Green, Professor of Brazilian History and Culture at Brown University and the National Co-Coordinator of the U.S. Network for Democracy in Brazil.
Brazil Unfiltered is part of the Democracy Observatory, supported by the Washington Brazil Office. This podcast is edited and produced by Camilo Rocha in São Paulo.
https://www.braziloffice.org/en/observatory#activities
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/
Brazil is going through challenging times. There’s never been a more important moment to understand Brazil’s politics, society, and culture. To go beyond the headlines, and to ask questions that aren’t easy to answer. 'Brazil Unfiltered,' does just that. This podcast is hosted by James N. Green, Professor of Brazilian History and Culture at Brown University and the National Co-Coordinator of the U.S. Network for Democracy in Brazil.
Brazil Unfiltered is part of the Democracy Observatory, supported by the Washington Brazil Office. This podcast is edited and produced by Camilo Rocha in São Paulo.
https://www.braziloffice.org/en/observatory#activities
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hi. I'm James Nella Green,Professor of Brazilian history and Culture at Brown
University and the national co coordinator ofthe US Network for Democracy in Brazil.
This program is supported by the WashingtonBrazil Office. This is Brazil Unfiltered today.
I have the pleasure of interviewing PeterCornblu, who is a senior analyst
at the National Security Archive in Washington, d C. Where he has worked
(00:24):
since April of nineteen eighty six.He currently directs the Archives Cuba and Chile
documentation documentation projects. He was aco director of the Iran Contra Documentation Project
and director of the Archives Project onUS Policy towards Nicaragua. From nineteen ninety
to nineteen ninety nine, he taughtat Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor
(00:44):
of International and Public Affairs. Heis the author of Back Channel to Cuba,
The Hidden history of negotiations between Washingtonand Havana, published by the University
of North Carolina Press in twenty fourteen, a Foreign Affairs Best book of the
Year, and The Pinochet, adeclassified Dosier on atrocity and accountability, which
the Los Angeles Times selected as thebest book of the Year. Congratulations Peter.
(01:07):
His articles have been published in ForeignPolicy, The Nation, The New
York Review of Books, The NewYorker, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and The Los AngelesTimes. He has worked on and appeared
in numerous documentary films, including TheOscar Winning Panama Deceptions, The History Channel's
Bay of Pigs, Classified, TheTrial of Henry Christinger, and most recently
the Nets Fixed documentary Crack Cocaine,Corruption and Conspiracy. He also was on
(01:33):
a documentary that I also was on, called A Day That Lasted Twenty one
Years, which was about the nineteensixty four coup in Brazil. Peter,
Welcome to Brazil and filtered. Oh, it's just a pleasure to be here,
Professor Green. I so enjoy talkingto you about these issues. So
we're approaching the sixtieth anniversary of theMarch thirty first April first Brazilian military coup
(01:56):
of nineteen sixty four, which wasfollowed by authoritarian coups in Chile sixty six,
Excuse me in Argentina and sixty six, Bolivia nineteen seventy one or Touguayan
seventy three, and the more wellknown September Eleventh Coups of nineteen seventy three,
in which Savadora Yendi was overthrown byAgusta Pinochet, then followed by the
Argentine dictatorship in nineteen seventy six.These repressive regimes mark the low point in
(02:19):
democratic regimes in South America, aswe shall discuss today. So first of
all, Peter, what is theNational Security Archive and what does it do?
The National Security Archive sounds like itcould be the private library of the
Central Intelligence Agency, but it's actuallythe leading advocate of freedom of information and
(02:42):
access to information and the right toknow, the right to know that we
have as US citizens, the rightto know that Brazilians have as Brazilian citizens,
and Chileans have as Chilean citizens,et cetera. We can't really have
an informed electorate or real democracy ifif the citizens of those countries, of
our countries are not informed. Andso many things that the government does takes
(03:05):
place in secret. We need toknow what our government has done in our
name but without our knowledge, andthat is the mission of the National Security
Archive. We basically do three things. We are an archive. We gather
together documents on countries like Chile andBrazil and US policy towards the Latin America
(03:28):
region, and we index those documentsand create collections that students and professors can
can use. We are also thekind of a leading advocate around the world
of freedom of information, working withother advocacy groups and governments around the world
to create freedom of information laws.And finally, this is more what I
(03:52):
spend my time on. Finally,I think we are what I like to
call forensic historians. We dig upthe class that the secret documents, we
excavate them from where they've been buried, and we make them part of history
and we give them, particularly thosethat concern human rights issues, to the
(04:14):
victims, to the victims families,to the judges, to the lawyers,
to the press, to make surethat this history, particularly histories of repression,
are known and used in both historicaland judicial pursuits. And that's what
the Archive does and is Peter.I know this is a long, long
(04:35):
answer to a question I'm going toask you, but I'm very curious to
know how you could, how yougot involved in the interest about archives,
documentations, the security issues, humanrights. What's the story there? Well,
as I think you know, I'verecently participated in the fiftieth anniversary of
the coup and Chile last September.I'm talking to a lot of groups,
(04:57):
a lot of reporters, a lotof a officials about that history and what
really happened, contributing to the debateover that history that took place. A
lot of people ask me how Igot my start in this, and the
of course, the answer is aChilean girl, a Chilean woman, Hua
Chileana and who I met in myMichigan high school the day after the coup
(05:25):
fifty years ago, September twelfth.I met her on the morning of September
twelfth, nineteen seventy three, aChilean girl whose parents were teaching at the
University of Michigan. It was fromher that I first saw the horrors of
the overthrow of the Ida government,the fears that it had generated. And
she worked on the issue of Chile. We got together, we pololos is
(05:50):
the Chilean say, we got married, we had a son, we got
divorced, all those things. Butwhile she worked on Chile, I tried
to work on what US policy towardsChile had been in the US role in
the overthrow of Allende and the adventof the pinoch dictatorship. And literally now
(06:12):
it's been fifty years of that work, and it's expanded to other countries nicaragu
Or, Brazil, Cuba and elsewhere. And now it seems, you know,
fifty years ago it began and fiftyyears later it's you know, looking
like it's coming to an end.But it's been incredible, incredible work,
(06:34):
and I've got to meet incredible people, including yourself. So, Peter,
what are some of the main challengesyou've learned over the years for investigating documents
about Latin American dictatorships. What havebeen the most difficult things for you to
have to deal with in getting thisinformation. Well, there's so many factors
(06:54):
that are difficult. For one thing, in countries like Brazil and Chile,
you know, the documents from theirown militaries and their own intelligence and secret
police services have disappeared, just likeso many victims, and it's almost impossible
to get Chilean documents. Brazilian documentsout there are some, but very few.
(07:20):
And you know, I had theincredible honor of meeting the President of
Chile, Gabriel Borich, when Iwas there for the fiftieth anniversary, and
we were talking about a new planthat he had just announced. Plan It's
(07:41):
called, which is a major statebacked effort to find the still fifteen hundred
or so disappeared Chileans. And Iasked him, why can't you just order
the military to give you the documentson what they did with them. I
literally had the opportunity to sit withhim faced of and say, why can't
(08:01):
you simply tell the military, aspresident of this country that you want the
records of what they did with thosepeople? And he, you know,
admitted that, of course he haddiscussed this with them, with the military
leaders many times. They insist thatthey've already given all the documents that they
(08:22):
have, that they have no moredocuments, that they destroyed, the documents
that they don't know And to orderthem to do this and then have no
response, would you know, notbe a particularly effective thing to do.
So it's it's a it's a verydifficult thing, and that, of course
is replicated in other countries. Uh. I remember when when when Lula was
(08:48):
president for the first time, hedecided not to issue a decree to the
military to release documents on the repressionduring the dictatorship, you perform to have
the Congress pass a law mandating themilitary to do that, and he flew
a bunch of US in to Braziliato to kind of help draft that law.
(09:15):
This was a number of years ago, and the law created the Truth
Commission and started that investigation, which, of course some Brazilian documents showed up,
but really a lot of the TruthCommission had to rely on anecdotal testimonies,
interviews, and some declassified u USdocuments which we were able to get
(09:37):
for them. So, Peter,you know, there's it's pretty well known
now that the United States was verymuch involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government
in Brazil in sixty four. TheSelva and the government in seventy three did
not have a good record fifty sixtyyears ago in terms of supporting democracy aline
(09:58):
them. America in fact ended upsupporting dictatorial regimes. What is your what
have been your finding? What havebeen the fundings of the National Security Archive
around the US involvement in the authoritarianregimes of Latin America in the nineteen sixties
and seventies. Of course, thisis an obstacle to getting the history out
that I should have added, it'snot only that we want Brazilian documents in
(10:24):
Chilean documents, we want US documents. But because a number of these operations
to overthrow governments, regime change isit's now called since the administration of George
George Bush Junior. The regime changeoperations are often done covertly with the CIA,
and getting the CIA to release thosedocuments is very, very difficult.
(10:48):
The CIA engineered an exemption to theFreedom of Information Act in the early nineteen
eighties. It got Congress to exemptit from being forced to even reply to
request for documents on these kinds ofoperations. And the only way these documents
(11:09):
have surface is through Senate and Houseand congressional investigations and through the mandate of
various presidents who have been concerned andcourageous enough to order specialty classifications of documents.
The United States is the hegemonic power, or was at least during you
(11:33):
know, from the eighteen hundreds throughto more recently in the region of Latin
America, and it basically decided fromone administration to the next, going all
the way back to you know,the Monroe doctrine that it was US influence
that should play the controlling role inthe region, and every other influence from
(11:56):
including internal influences, be be dammed. The United States, basically, I
believe, you know, exercise thatmight makes right type of approach to the
smaller countries of the region. Thatgot very complicated after World War Two.
When it was easier. Let mejust say it was easier before World War
(12:16):
two. It was easier for theUnited States to just conduct what was called
gunboat diplomacy. If we didn't likea government that came to power in countries
like nicaragu or Haiti, or Cubaor Mexico, we would send in the
Marines or just position boats off thecoast in the Caribbean region as a display
(12:39):
of power and displeasure and put in, you know, and install the person
we wanted. And that got morecomplicated after World War Two, when the
United States and so many other countrieshelped create the United Nations, sign on
to international legal commitments and declarations ofrespect for sovereignty for other countries and non
(13:05):
intervention in the internal affairs of othercountries. And then of course, the
United States created the Central Intelligence Agencyso they could continue to influence and intervene
in the internal affairs of other countries, but have what presidents called a plausible
denial of that type of policy.So in the case of Brazil, in
(13:26):
the case of Chile and so manyother countries, you know, these tensions
were We're done largely through the CentralIntelligence Agency. It's been very hard to
get the records out. In thecase of Brazil, I think the CIA,
much like the dictatorship, has destroyeda lot of its documents and it's
(13:46):
been very hard to get them out. In the case of Chile, it
was somewhat different. That became ascandal almost immediately. The US Senate launched
an investigation very quickly and secured orat least saw a few documents early on
that became part of the famous ChurchCommittee report. The report name for a
(14:07):
Senator Frank Church, who headed aselect committee in the Senate that investigated not
just US operations in Chile, butthe whole Central Intelligence Agency for the first
time, as well as the FBIand other intelligence parts of the intelligence community.
So we know a lot more aboutChile in some ways, and it
continued to learn more about Chile becauseit hit such a nerve all the way
(14:33):
back fifty years ago and that hasnot ended. There's still a great deal
of global attention and interest in Chileover the years. Issue bringing pinochaded justice
and his henchmen to justice has beensomething that has been debated and part of
the deliberations and policy approach to USChilean relations that continues to yield new records,
(14:58):
even as recently as last September.So, the Washington Brazil Office,
working with human rights organizations in Braziland the support of recent presidents of the
Brazilian Historical Association on POOL, isorganizing a campaign to request that the Biden
administration de classify key documents related tothe Brazilian dictatorship, especially related to the
coup and events surrounding it. Couldyou tell us a little bit about your
(15:20):
efforts to get documents about the Chileancoup released during the Clinton and later the
Obama administrations, and then more specifically, what the success you've had recently with
the Biden administration. That's a long, rich, complicated and intriguing history.
But of course the work on Chilewas aided considerably by the international human rights
(15:46):
efforts to bring Augusto Pinochet to justice. You know, the Pinochet, the
name pino Che became synonymous with humanrights violations and when he findinly was forced
from power and made himself a senatorfor life so that he would be immune
(16:07):
to prosecution, protected from prosecution inChile. There became there was a pretty
major international effort, in part ledby this extraordinary lawyer, Spanish lawyer named
Juan Garcis in Madrid to track himdown and bring him to justice. And
the opportunity came when he was inLondon in the fall of nineteen ninety eight
(16:34):
October, having back surgery at aprivate clinic there and acting under the European
Anti Terrorism Convention, a Spanish judgeasked for Pinoch to be detained because of
his role in what's known as OperationCondor, which Brazil was part of as
(16:56):
well, kind of a multilateral ofsecret police effort to track down opponents around
the world and eliminate them. Andpot was arrested under that convention and then
and then extradition papers were filed throughthrough Interpol for crimes against humanity, and
you know, he became a prisonerplaced under house arrest while these legal operations
(17:22):
played out in London for over ayear, and that year changed everything.
I mean, his arrest changed thehistory of the human rights movement as we
know it. There was a newlexicon, a new word in the lexicon
of the human rights work to bePinochade, a new verb. Because the
whole concept of universal jurisdiction of countriesoutside the country where the human rights crimes
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had taken place, actually stepping into try and hold the human rights violator
accountable. That that concept really reallybanded with the arrest of Pinochet. It
applied to Pinochet in London. Itwas quite the moment, and with him
outside of Chile for the first time, the Chilean press started to actually report
(18:11):
on the truth of what he haddone, and we seized this opportunity.
A number of his victims who livedin the United States, the family of
Orlando LeTellier, family of Ronnie Moffatt, both of whom were killed by the
Chilean secret police, and a carbombing in Washington nineteen seventy six, Joyce
Horman, whose husband Charlie was assassinated, murdered, executed in the National Stadium,
(18:36):
and days after the coup. Someof the prominent families of victims stepped
in started to push Bill Clinton andmy office also led an advocacy campaign,
both kind of an inside strategy anda publicity strategy to basically say, the
Clinton administration, why would you wantto protect this guy? You know,
you don't owe Henry Kissinger and RichardNixon anything. You should let the documents
(19:00):
go on what the United States didn'tChilean. You should release all the documents
on pino Chase human rights violations thatthe United States has been secretly holding for
all these years. What better timethan now to give the Spanish the evidence
that they are need to prosecute Pinochetfor crimes against humanity. And Bill Clinton,
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you know, to his great creditand the team around him, thought
this was a good idea, andhe issued a very very strong kind of
presidential decree ordering the bureaucracy, thesec secrecy bureaucracy, and the declassification bureaucracy
to find all these documents, toreview them, and release as many as
(19:48):
they they could. And it tookalmost two years, the CIA kicking and
screaming, refusing to release documents,being pushed and forced by you know,
people inside the Clinton administration who understoodthat if the sea I didn't release their
documents, then just be a futileeffort the whole thing, and the clint
(20:10):
administration would be accused of covering upkind of a US role in human rights
violations. And eventually we did getabout twenty three thousand documents, including a
couple of thousand CI operational documents,of their efforts to overthrow a Yende and
their early efforts to support the consolidationof the Pinochet regime. These were never
(20:36):
before seen documents or never before publicizeddocuments. They really changed the landscape of
the broad twenty year history in nineteenseventy nineteen ninety of US Chilean relations with
Allende and with the Pinochet dictatorship.They created a precedent for the release of
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other documents on countries like Argentina andBrazil, and they're still being analyzed today,
you know, decades after they werereleased. It's now been almost twenty
three years since those documents came out, and they're still invaluable. They've been
added to The Obama administration also dida special release of documents on the Tellier
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assassination, which showed explicitly that theCIA had concluded from its intelligence that General
Pinoche personally ordered an active international terrorismin Washington, DC that took the lives
of Orlando Lettelier and Ronnie Moffatt,and that became invaluable material as well,
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which we should discuss why it's stillrelevant. But these documents have continued to
come out. The Biden administration forthe fiftieth anniversary released just two more documents.
We had hoped they would release quitea few more that still our secret,
but only were able to release twothat didn't much change the history of
of the US role in the coup. How do you how do you know
(22:07):
about documents that are secret? Howdo you how do you go about requesting
documents that are secret? How doyou find out that the document exists?
Well, you know, you youdo the legwork of of traditional scholarship,
the type of historical work that youand I and your students and the people
around me just just do you knowwhat has happened over the years, and
(22:33):
you familiarize yourself with what has beenreleased, and you know that there are
things that should have been released thatweren't. You know that there were investigations
into this and that, and you'vewe've never seen them. I am familiar
with every congressional investigation into into atrocitiescommitted by the Pinochet regime and US role
(22:56):
in Chile, and I know what'scome out of those and what has it.
For example, you know, Pinoj was discovered to be completely corrupt.
He had stolen twenty eight million dollarsof Chilean state funds and he'd put
them in more than one hundred secretbank accounts and offshore accounts using false passports
(23:18):
and false aliases. And this wasall discovered by a US Senate investigation into
money laundering and terrorism, quite appropriatefor for Pinochet really and a lot of
involved bank records. Those reports havelots of footnotes. We know which documents
have been released, and we knowfrom the footnotes which documents are still not
(23:42):
out there. In this case oneexample, that's just one example of many
many. So in this case,it's an example of a report being issued
and there being either things that werenot declassified or indications there's more material that
in the archives that we don't haveaccess to. I think you. I
mean, we met actually around thethat I was doing founding the Opening the
(24:02):
Archives project at the National Archive Numbertwo in College Park, Maryland, where
the last ten years a group ofbrown students have been going to the National
Archive in and scanning, indexing,and making available documents about Brazil during the
military regime from nineteen sixty four,but even actually going back to sixty one,
all the way to the Regged administration, and we have identified over a
(24:25):
thousand documents that have either been partiallyor entirely withdrawn from the arch available availability
for people who want to do thatresearch. I'm sure there are many more.
These are the ones that we wereable to identify over the last ten
years of working intensively with State Departmentdocuments and Defense Department documents and other archival
(24:45):
materials in the National Archive. I'mreally curious to know what you would recommend
is a strategy in terms of requestingfrom the Biden administration they released documents.
What would you advise, what's thebest pathword forward? What would you say?
You know, it's an interesting history. The Truth Commission that was constructed
(25:11):
during the first term of Lula didan official request to the Obama administration for
documents and got, you know,a relatively positive response. The bureaucracy resists
spending a lot of time working onthings just for basically bureaucratic and resource reasons,
(25:36):
not for any real political reasons,and not a lot of resources were
put into the Brazil release it reallymost of the documents, there were some
a couple of good State Department documents, but there weren't any intelligence documents were
leased as part of that. Reallylet me let me jump in there just
to kind of help them refresh bothof our memories. I think that the
Truth Commission idea came through the Gilmanpresident presidency, although it was discussed in
(26:02):
the Lula presidency and was actually aproposal in the Human Rights conference in the
in the Ltlle administration, but itwas actually the General did that, and
the Truth Commission actually got from Bidenit the second her second inauguration from Obama.
From Obama exactly in twenty fourteen,six hundred and eighty some documents,
(26:23):
as you just mentioned, but aswe looked at them and you did the
same, there are very few thathave really interesting new revelations. To be
told, Some of them have noidea how they manage to get into the
mix, because there's totally one isa remember of the authorization to buy a
tape recorder in Belain to Bata.Now what they did with the tape recorder.
Who knows, But the only documentthat was there was that please,
(26:45):
could you let us have purchase ofa tape recorder? And that's what I'm
saying. What your listeners don't remember, though, is that this incredible spy
scandal brokeessay documents being leaked that showedthat the United States have been spying on
Dilma, including like hacking her cellphone, and they were supposed to hand
(27:10):
her these documents at a state dinneras part of what I call declassification diplomacy,
and when the scandal broke, shecanceled the dinner, She did not
come to the United States, andthe documents were not shared with her at
the time, and in fact gotto the Truth Commission somewhat after they had
finished drafting their report and six hundreddocuments. I would say, is if
(27:33):
those if that's ten percent of whatthe United States actually has on us role
in Brazil and the repression of theBrazilian military, you know, I'd be
surprised if it's really any more thanthat. You know that the United States
is still sitting on the vast majorityof documents that it must have, and
(27:56):
we know the difference because during theObama administration. Obama ordered a special classification
of documents on Argentina that were justintelligence documents, not State Department documents,
but but c I, A,FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency records and NSC
(28:18):
records, and those who were incrediblyrevealing, as would a similar order on
Brazil be revealing, and getting thatorder now it would be very difficult because
there's not there's less staffing, there'sless resources, there's no budget, and
(28:41):
you don't have an opportunity quite likethe arrest of a Gusto Pinochet in London.
You have a sixtieth anniversary and Lula'sgovernment should definitely make the case and
make the official request for a gestureof classification diplomacy. It shouldn't be for
(29:03):
everything that's still that's still secret.It should be more specific so that it's
manageable. We found out in thecase of the fiftieth anniversary of the coup
and Chile that even a short listproved to be unmanageable. I mean,
I'm glad that the US Embassy initiallymade it a really strong effort. I
(29:26):
need to credit them for making strongeffort to press for the declassification of the
documents that the Chilean government of gabrielleBorg asked for for the fiftieth anniversary,
but in the end, the Bidenbureaucracy of secrecy only at least two documents
out of us of you know,maybe eighty documents, and so you know,
(29:48):
you get a sense that it's justnot that easy. So definitely we
need to keep working to get everysingle page out, you and me and
everybody else. But from what Lulacould do for the sixtieth anniversary, it
would be to provide a specific listof the most important episodes and issues that
(30:11):
US documents could shed light on,whether that's the coup itself, specific human
rights cases that remain unresolved, operationcondor issues relating to Brazil, etc.
What's most relevant now is what's mostimportant, And of course Brazil is just
(30:32):
now dealing with the issue of prosecutingits former president alscenario. Chile is in
the throes of the rise of theright. The United States is suffering some
of the same political issues. Weneed these documents because they shed light not
just on a history, but onwhat's going on today and what could happen
(30:56):
tomorrow, And we need to bereminded of the horrors of authoritarianism and military
dictatorships, so that all the countriesinvolved, Brazil, Chile, the United
States and more around the world rememberthat the Pinochet route and the military route
(31:18):
and the authoritarian kind of you know, path to power is inimical to the
interests of the vast majority of worldcitizenry. So that's why we need to
continue to do this work, andnot just so that we know what happened
in the past, so everybody remembersthat we don't want this to happen again
in the future. Absolutely. Youknow, it's interesting our listeners, the
(31:41):
people who subscribe to this podcast,people who received the Washington Brazil Office newsletter,
are very aware of the fact thatthe United States government was involved in
the overthrow of the Gulag government innineteen sixty four. But they also followed
the work that the WBO did intwenty twenty two, working right closely with
civil society in Brazil to educate theUS Congress and the public is to extent
(32:06):
possible about the threat of Bolsonadu andthe threat to the possibility of having an
election overturned as Trump tried to doin the United States and Bulsonata did attempt
to carry out a coup two yearsand two days after the invasion of the
capital on January sixth, twenty twentyone. So it's clear that there's this
change in policy from one of unquestionablesupport of the military taking power in nineteen
(32:31):
sixty four and the Biden administration immediatelyrecognizing the election results and congratulating on his
presidency. So the possibility of goodwillwill is theoretically there between the Biden administration
and the Brazilian government of Lula daSilva. The question is whether will it
(32:52):
be able to leverage the Biden administrationin a very difficult electoral year to do
something in this regard it Because we'refacing all a very unfavorable situation in the
United States. What would you whatwould you recommend to be the pathway forward
for our work? Well, Iwould I would concentrate on two kind of
(33:16):
parallel tracks. One is using thesixtieth anniversary as a as a peg to
call attention to that past and tomake the request too through the Brazilian government
if they're willing to do that,because that would make it official. Trying
to call as much attention to thatrequest as possible. This is what we
(33:38):
did in Chile. I went toChile in January of last year, knowing
that nine months later would be thefiftieth anniversary of the of the coup.
I met with the Foreign ministry aboutthem requesting documents to from the United States
(34:00):
as a gesture of declassification diplomacy.I did a long interview with the leading
newspaper La Tercera about the documents thatwere still secret, the fact that other
countries had collaborated with the United States, including Australia and overthrowing Allende, and
that record of history had never beenreleased, and you know, basically trying
(34:23):
to highlight what was still secret.The Chilean Congress caught note of this message
and drew up a resolution urging theirgovernment to ask the United States to release
all the remaining documents on the USrole in the coup. I kid you
not. It almost passed the ChilainCongress unanimously. Congress is polarized between left
(34:46):
and right, but everybody, exceptfor two senators, I think we're the
only ones that voted against it.Everybody wanted to see these records come out.
So you know, the issue grewgrew and grew until the fiftieth anniversary,
and I think that that's the wayyou do it. You use the
(35:07):
anniversary to create a momentum, aprocess, and a public pressure on this
issue. At the same time youstart the longer term strategy. Those withdrawal
sheets that you have found in thearchives, you look at those carefully,
you see which one seem to beimportant, and you use them. You
(35:28):
know, the mechanism is what's calleda mandatory classification review. You ask for
every single one using those withdrawal sheets. But you know, as I say,
the bureaucracy because of the pandemic,has been really undercut. People left
work, did not come back,the budgets were changed, not enough people
(35:49):
have been hired. It is aninexplicable and outrageous delay in getting these requests
satisfied. I was at the NixonLibrary one year ago this week trying to
get the remaining US documents on NixonKissinger's role in Chile released, and I
(36:13):
was told that yes, these filesthat were still secret fifty years later,
but it was going to take themtwelve years to process my request. I
was like, well, what kindof democracy are we living in that you're
you know, fifty years later youstill these documents are still secret, and
you wanted to have another twelve yearsfor them to be secret before you ll
(36:34):
even you know, look at myrequest and well, you know you have
to There's a long line and notenough people to review these records. That's
the answer that I get given.But my organization is kind of pushing back
against this and trying to find anavenue to get these documents. You could
find a sympathetic voice in the Senateand in the House to push this also.
(37:00):
Basically, you do need to tryand get some kind of special release
as if possible, and that sixtiethanniversary, which of course is just a
few weeks from now, is iscan be can be part of that.
It certainly can start the ball rollingon that. Peter, I want to
just thank you so much for thefabulous vision that you've given us about how
(37:22):
to do the work, and Ihope that the WBO will be able to
partner with the National Security Archive infuture efforts in this regard. Even though
both you and I are somebody goingto semi retirement, I know neither of
us is going to give up ourpassion for politics and our commitment to social
justice In Latin America and your caseprimarily Chile, in my case primarily Brazil.
(37:42):
But I want to thank you somuch for joining us on Brazil and
Filtered Well. It's a great honor, it's a great pleasure. I've learned
so much from you, and Iwant to learn more. So let's get
these documents out and do what wecan. That's wonderful. Well, I
hope you enjoy the inner you.If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget
to like the video, and ifyou have not yet subscribed, please do
(38:04):
so. If you're listening on ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen
to your podcast, please leave usa five star review. It helps other
people find the program. Have agreat week. Until next time at Tepprasimo.
Hi. I'm James Nella Green,Professor of Brazilian history and Culture at Brown
University and the national co coordinator ofthe US Network for Democracy in Brazil.
This program is supported by the WashingtonBrazil Office. This is Brazil Unfiltered today.
I have the pleasure of interviewing PeterCornblu, who is a senior analyst
at the National Security Archive in Washington, d C. Where he has worked
(00:24):
since April of nineteen eighty six.He currently directs the Archives Cuba and Chile
documentation documentation projects. He was aco director of the Iran Contra Documentation Project
and director of the Archives Project onUS Policy towards Nicaragua. From nineteen ninety
to nineteen ninety nine, he taughtat Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor
(00:44):
of International and Public Affairs. Heis the author of Back Channel to Cuba,
The Hidden history of negotiations between Washingtonand Havana, published by the University
of North Carolina Press in twenty fourteen, a Foreign Affairs Best book of the
Year, and The Pinochet, adeclassified Dosier on atrocity and accountability, which
the Los Angeles Times selected as thebest book of the Year. Congratulations Peter.
(01:07):
His articles have been published in ForeignPolicy, The Nation, The New
York Review of Books, The NewYorker, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and The Los AngelesTimes. He has worked on and appeared
in numerous documentary films, including TheOscar Winning Panama Deceptions, The History Channel's
Bay of Pigs, Classified, TheTrial of Henry Christinger, and most recently
the Nets Fixed documentary Crack Cocaine,Corruption and Conspiracy. He also was on
(01:33):
a documentary that I also was on, called A Day That Lasted Twenty one
Years, which was about the nineteensixty four coup in Brazil. Peter,
Welcome to Brazil and filtered. Oh, it's just a pleasure to be here,
Professor Green. I so enjoy talkingto you about these issues. So
we're approaching the sixtieth anniversary of theMarch thirty first April first Brazilian military coup
(01:56):
of nineteen sixty four, which wasfollowed by authoritarian coups in Chile sixty six,
Excuse me in Argentina and sixty six, Bolivia nineteen seventy one or Touguayan
seventy three, and the more wellknown September Eleventh Coups of nineteen seventy three,
in which Savadora Yendi was overthrown byAgusta Pinochet, then followed by the
Argentine dictatorship in nineteen seventy six.These repressive regimes mark the low point in
(02:19):
democratic regimes in South America, aswe shall discuss today. So first of
all, Peter, what is theNational Security Archive and what does it do?
The National Security Archive sounds like itcould be the private library of the
Central Intelligence Agency, but it's actuallythe leading advocate of freedom of information and
(02:42):
access to information and the right toknow, the right to know that we
have as US citizens, the rightto know that Brazilians have as Brazilian citizens,
and Chileans have as Chilean citizens,et cetera. We can't really have
an informed electorate or real democracy ifif the citizens of those countries, of
our countries are not informed. Andso many things that the government does takes
(03:05):
place in secret. We need toknow what our government has done in our
name but without our knowledge, andthat is the mission of the National Security
Archive. We basically do three things. We are an archive. We gather
together documents on countries like Chile andBrazil and US policy towards the Latin America
(03:28):
region, and we index those documentsand create collections that students and professors can
can use. We are also thekind of a leading advocate around the world
of freedom of information, working withother advocacy groups and governments around the world
to create freedom of information laws.And finally, this is more what I
(03:52):
spend my time on. Finally,I think we are what I like to
call forensic historians. We dig upthe class that the secret documents, we
excavate them from where they've been buried, and we make them part of history
and we give them, particularly thosethat concern human rights issues, to the
(04:14):
victims, to the victims families,to the judges, to the lawyers,
to the press, to make surethat this history, particularly histories of repression,
are known and used in both historicaland judicial pursuits. And that's what
the Archive does and is Peter.I know this is a long, long
(04:35):
answer to a question I'm going toask you, but I'm very curious to
know how you could, how yougot involved in the interest about archives,
documentations, the security issues, humanrights. What's the story there? Well,
as I think you know, I'verecently participated in the fiftieth anniversary of
the coup and Chile last September.I'm talking to a lot of groups,
(04:57):
a lot of reporters, a lotof a officials about that history and what
really happened, contributing to the debateover that history that took place. A
lot of people ask me how Igot my start in this, and the
of course, the answer is aChilean girl, a Chilean woman, Hua
Chileana and who I met in myMichigan high school the day after the coup
(05:25):
fifty years ago, September twelfth.I met her on the morning of September
twelfth, nineteen seventy three, aChilean girl whose parents were teaching at the
University of Michigan. It was fromher that I first saw the horrors of
the overthrow of the Ida government,the fears that it had generated. And
she worked on the issue of Chile. We got together, we pololos is
(05:50):
the Chilean say, we got married, we had a son, we got
divorced, all those things. Butwhile she worked on Chile, I tried
to work on what US policy towardsChile had been in the US role in
the overthrow of Allende and the adventof the pinoch dictatorship. And literally now
(06:12):
it's been fifty years of that work, and it's expanded to other countries nicaragu
Or, Brazil, Cuba and elsewhere. And now it seems, you know,
fifty years ago it began and fiftyyears later it's you know, looking
like it's coming to an end.But it's been incredible, incredible work,
(06:34):
and I've got to meet incredible people, including yourself. So, Peter,
what are some of the main challengesyou've learned over the years for investigating documents
about Latin American dictatorships. What havebeen the most difficult things for you to
have to deal with in getting thisinformation. Well, there's so many factors
(06:54):
that are difficult. For one thing, in countries like Brazil and Chile,
you know, the documents from theirown militaries and their own intelligence and secret
police services have disappeared, just likeso many victims, and it's almost impossible
to get Chilean documents. Brazilian documentsout there are some, but very few.
(07:20):
And you know, I had theincredible honor of meeting the President of
Chile, Gabriel Borich, when Iwas there for the fiftieth anniversary, and
we were talking about a new planthat he had just announced. Plan It's
(07:41):
called, which is a major statebacked effort to find the still fifteen hundred
or so disappeared Chileans. And Iasked him, why can't you just order
the military to give you the documentson what they did with them. I
literally had the opportunity to sit withhim faced of and say, why can't
(08:01):
you simply tell the military, aspresident of this country that you want the
records of what they did with thosepeople? And he, you know,
admitted that, of course he haddiscussed this with them, with the military
leaders many times. They insist thatthey've already given all the documents that they
(08:22):
have, that they have no moredocuments, that they destroyed, the documents
that they don't know And to orderthem to do this and then have no
response, would you know, notbe a particularly effective thing to do.
So it's it's a it's a verydifficult thing, and that, of course
is replicated in other countries. Uh. I remember when when when Lula was
(08:48):
president for the first time, hedecided not to issue a decree to the
military to release documents on the repressionduring the dictatorship, you perform to have
the Congress pass a law mandating themilitary to do that, and he flew
a bunch of US in to Braziliato to kind of help draft that law.
(09:15):
This was a number of years ago, and the law created the Truth
Commission and started that investigation, which, of course some Brazilian documents showed up,
but really a lot of the TruthCommission had to rely on anecdotal testimonies,
interviews, and some declassified u USdocuments which we were able to get
(09:37):
for them. So, Peter,you know, there's it's pretty well known
now that the United States was verymuch involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government
in Brazil in sixty four. TheSelva and the government in seventy three did
not have a good record fifty sixtyyears ago in terms of supporting democracy aline
(09:58):
them. America in fact ended upsupporting dictatorial regimes. What is your what
have been your finding? What havebeen the fundings of the National Security Archive
around the US involvement in the authoritarianregimes of Latin America in the nineteen sixties
and seventies. Of course, thisis an obstacle to getting the history out
that I should have added, it'snot only that we want Brazilian documents in
(10:24):
Chilean documents, we want US documents. But because a number of these operations
to overthrow governments, regime change isit's now called since the administration of George
George Bush Junior. The regime changeoperations are often done covertly with the CIA,
and getting the CIA to release thosedocuments is very, very difficult.
(10:48):
The CIA engineered an exemption to theFreedom of Information Act in the early nineteen
eighties. It got Congress to exemptit from being forced to even reply to
request for documents on these kinds ofoperations. And the only way these documents
(11:09):
have surface is through Senate and Houseand congressional investigations and through the mandate of
various presidents who have been concerned andcourageous enough to order specialty classifications of documents.
The United States is the hegemonic power, or was at least during you
(11:33):
know, from the eighteen hundreds throughto more recently in the region of Latin
America, and it basically decided fromone administration to the next, going all
the way back to you know,the Monroe doctrine that it was US influence
that should play the controlling role inthe region, and every other influence from
(11:56):
including internal influences, be be dammed. The United States, basically, I
believe, you know, exercise thatmight makes right type of approach to the
smaller countries of the region. Thatgot very complicated after World War Two.
When it was easier. Let mejust say it was easier before World War
(12:16):
two. It was easier for theUnited States to just conduct what was called
gunboat diplomacy. If we didn't likea government that came to power in countries
like nicaragu or Haiti, or Cubaor Mexico, we would send in the
Marines or just position boats off thecoast in the Caribbean region as a display
(12:39):
of power and displeasure and put in, you know, and install the person
we wanted. And that got morecomplicated after World War Two, when the
United States and so many other countrieshelped create the United Nations, sign on
to international legal commitments and declarations ofrespect for sovereignty for other countries and non
(13:05):
intervention in the internal affairs of othercountries. And then of course, the
United States created the Central Intelligence Agencyso they could continue to influence and intervene
in the internal affairs of other countries, but have what presidents called a plausible
denial of that type of policy.So in the case of Brazil, in
(13:26):
the case of Chile and so manyother countries, you know, these tensions
were We're done largely through the CentralIntelligence Agency. It's been very hard to
get the records out. In thecase of Brazil, I think the CIA,
much like the dictatorship, has destroyeda lot of its documents and it's
(13:46):
been very hard to get them out. In the case of Chile, it
was somewhat different. That became ascandal almost immediately. The US Senate launched
an investigation very quickly and secured orat least saw a few documents early on
that became part of the famous ChurchCommittee report. The report name for a
(14:07):
Senator Frank Church, who headed aselect committee in the Senate that investigated not
just US operations in Chile, butthe whole Central Intelligence Agency for the first
time, as well as the FBIand other intelligence parts of the intelligence community.
So we know a lot more aboutChile in some ways, and it
continued to learn more about Chile becauseit hit such a nerve all the way
(14:33):
back fifty years ago and that hasnot ended. There's still a great deal
of global attention and interest in Chileover the years. Issue bringing pinochaded justice
and his henchmen to justice has beensomething that has been debated and part of
the deliberations and policy approach to USChilean relations that continues to yield new records,
(14:58):
even as recently as last September.So, the Washington Brazil Office,
working with human rights organizations in Braziland the support of recent presidents of the
Brazilian Historical Association on POOL, isorganizing a campaign to request that the Biden
administration de classify key documents related tothe Brazilian dictatorship, especially related to the
coup and events surrounding it. Couldyou tell us a little bit about your
(15:20):
efforts to get documents about the Chileancoup released during the Clinton and later the
Obama administrations, and then more specifically, what the success you've had recently with
the Biden administration. That's a long, rich, complicated and intriguing history.
But of course the work on Chilewas aided considerably by the international human rights
(15:46):
efforts to bring Augusto Pinochet to justice. You know, the Pinochet, the
name pino Che became synonymous with humanrights violations and when he findinly was forced
from power and made himself a senatorfor life so that he would be immune
(16:07):
to prosecution, protected from prosecution inChile. There became there was a pretty
major international effort, in part ledby this extraordinary lawyer, Spanish lawyer named
Juan Garcis in Madrid to track himdown and bring him to justice. And
the opportunity came when he was inLondon in the fall of nineteen ninety eight
(16:34):
October, having back surgery at aprivate clinic there and acting under the European
Anti Terrorism Convention, a Spanish judgeasked for Pinoch to be detained because of
his role in what's known as OperationCondor, which Brazil was part of as
(16:56):
well, kind of a multilateral ofsecret police effort to track down opponents around
the world and eliminate them. Andpot was arrested under that convention and then
and then extradition papers were filed throughthrough Interpol for crimes against humanity, and
you know, he became a prisonerplaced under house arrest while these legal operations
(17:22):
played out in London for over ayear, and that year changed everything.
I mean, his arrest changed thehistory of the human rights movement as we
know it. There was a newlexicon, a new word in the lexicon
of the human rights work to bePinochade, a new verb. Because the
whole concept of universal jurisdiction of countriesoutside the country where the human rights crimes
(17:48):
had taken place, actually stepping into try and hold the human rights violator
accountable. That that concept really reallybanded with the arrest of Pinochet. It
applied to Pinochet in London. Itwas quite the moment, and with him
outside of Chile for the first time, the Chilean press started to actually report
(18:11):
on the truth of what he haddone, and we seized this opportunity.
A number of his victims who livedin the United States, the family of
Orlando LeTellier, family of Ronnie Moffatt, both of whom were killed by the
Chilean secret police, and a carbombing in Washington nineteen seventy six, Joyce
Horman, whose husband Charlie was assassinated, murdered, executed in the National Stadium,
(18:36):
and days after the coup. Someof the prominent families of victims stepped
in started to push Bill Clinton andmy office also led an advocacy campaign,
both kind of an inside strategy anda publicity strategy to basically say, the
Clinton administration, why would you wantto protect this guy? You know,
you don't owe Henry Kissinger and RichardNixon anything. You should let the documents
(19:00):
go on what the United States didn'tChilean. You should release all the documents
on pino Chase human rights violations thatthe United States has been secretly holding for
all these years. What better timethan now to give the Spanish the evidence
that they are need to prosecute Pinochetfor crimes against humanity. And Bill Clinton,
(19:23):
you know, to his great creditand the team around him, thought
this was a good idea, andhe issued a very very strong kind of
presidential decree ordering the bureaucracy, thesec secrecy bureaucracy, and the declassification bureaucracy
to find all these documents, toreview them, and release as many as
(19:48):
they they could. And it tookalmost two years, the CIA kicking and
screaming, refusing to release documents,being pushed and forced by you know,
people inside the Clinton administration who understoodthat if the sea I didn't release their
documents, then just be a futileeffort the whole thing, and the clint
(20:10):
administration would be accused of covering upkind of a US role in human rights
violations. And eventually we did getabout twenty three thousand documents, including a
couple of thousand CI operational documents,of their efforts to overthrow a Yende and
their early efforts to support the consolidationof the Pinochet regime. These were never
(20:36):
before seen documents or never before publicizeddocuments. They really changed the landscape of
the broad twenty year history in nineteenseventy nineteen ninety of US Chilean relations with
Allende and with the Pinochet dictatorship.They created a precedent for the release of
(20:57):
other documents on countries like Argentina andBrazil, and they're still being analyzed today,
you know, decades after they werereleased. It's now been almost twenty
three years since those documents came out, and they're still invaluable. They've been
added to The Obama administration also dida special release of documents on the Tellier
(21:22):
assassination, which showed explicitly that theCIA had concluded from its intelligence that General
Pinoche personally ordered an active international terrorismin Washington, DC that took the lives
of Orlando Lettelier and Ronnie Moffatt,and that became invaluable material as well,
(21:44):
which we should discuss why it's stillrelevant. But these documents have continued to
come out. The Biden administration forthe fiftieth anniversary released just two more documents.
We had hoped they would release quitea few more that still our secret,
but only were able to release twothat didn't much change the history of
of the US role in the coup. How do you how do you know
(22:07):
about documents that are secret? Howdo you how do you go about requesting
documents that are secret? How doyou find out that the document exists?
Well, you know, you youdo the legwork of of traditional scholarship,
the type of historical work that youand I and your students and the people
around me just just do you knowwhat has happened over the years, and
(22:33):
you familiarize yourself with what has beenreleased, and you know that there are
things that should have been released thatweren't. You know that there were investigations
into this and that, and you'vewe've never seen them. I am familiar
with every congressional investigation into into atrocitiescommitted by the Pinochet regime and US role
(22:56):
in Chile, and I know what'scome out of those and what has it.
For example, you know, Pinoj was discovered to be completely corrupt.
He had stolen twenty eight million dollarsof Chilean state funds and he'd put
them in more than one hundred secretbank accounts and offshore accounts using false passports
(23:18):
and false aliases. And this wasall discovered by a US Senate investigation into
money laundering and terrorism, quite appropriatefor for Pinochet really and a lot of
involved bank records. Those reports havelots of footnotes. We know which documents
have been released, and we knowfrom the footnotes which documents are still not
(23:42):
out there. In this case oneexample, that's just one example of many
many. So in this case,it's an example of a report being issued
and there being either things that werenot declassified or indications there's more material that
in the archives that we don't haveaccess to. I think you. I
mean, we met actually around thethat I was doing founding the Opening the
(24:02):
Archives project at the National Archive Numbertwo in College Park, Maryland, where
the last ten years a group ofbrown students have been going to the National
Archive in and scanning, indexing,and making available documents about Brazil during the
military regime from nineteen sixty four,but even actually going back to sixty one,
all the way to the Regged administration, and we have identified over a
(24:25):
thousand documents that have either been partiallyor entirely withdrawn from the arch available availability
for people who want to do thatresearch. I'm sure there are many more.
These are the ones that we wereable to identify over the last ten
years of working intensively with State Departmentdocuments and Defense Department documents and other archival
(24:45):
materials in the National Archive. I'mreally curious to know what you would recommend
is a strategy in terms of requestingfrom the Biden administration they released documents.
What would you advise, what's thebest pathword forward? What would you say?
You know, it's an interesting history. The Truth Commission that was constructed
(25:11):
during the first term of Lula didan official request to the Obama administration for
documents and got, you know,a relatively positive response. The bureaucracy resists
spending a lot of time working onthings just for basically bureaucratic and resource reasons,
(25:36):
not for any real political reasons,and not a lot of resources were
put into the Brazil release it reallymost of the documents, there were some
a couple of good State Department documents, but there weren't any intelligence documents were
leased as part of that. Reallylet me let me jump in there just
to kind of help them refresh bothof our memories. I think that the
Truth Commission idea came through the Gilmanpresident presidency, although it was discussed in
(26:02):
the Lula presidency and was actually aproposal in the Human Rights conference in the
in the Ltlle administration, but itwas actually the General did that, and
the Truth Commission actually got from Bidenit the second her second inauguration from Obama.
From Obama exactly in twenty fourteen,six hundred and eighty some documents,
(26:23):
as you just mentioned, but aswe looked at them and you did the
same, there are very few thathave really interesting new revelations. To be
told, Some of them have noidea how they manage to get into the
mix, because there's totally one isa remember of the authorization to buy a
tape recorder in Belain to Bata.Now what they did with the tape recorder.
Who knows, But the only documentthat was there was that please,
(26:45):
could you let us have purchase ofa tape recorder? And that's what I'm
saying. What your listeners don't remember, though, is that this incredible spy
scandal brokeessay documents being leaked that showedthat the United States have been spying on
Dilma, including like hacking her cellphone, and they were supposed to hand
(27:10):
her these documents at a state dinneras part of what I call declassification diplomacy,
and when the scandal broke, shecanceled the dinner, She did not
come to the United States, andthe documents were not shared with her at
the time, and in fact gotto the Truth Commission somewhat after they had
finished drafting their report and six hundreddocuments. I would say, is if
(27:33):
those if that's ten percent of whatthe United States actually has on us role
in Brazil and the repression of theBrazilian military, you know, I'd be
surprised if it's really any more thanthat. You know that the United States
is still sitting on the vast majorityof documents that it must have, and
(27:56):
we know the difference because during theObama administration. Obama ordered a special classification
of documents on Argentina that were justintelligence documents, not State Department documents,
but but c I, A,FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency records and NSC
(28:18):
records, and those who were incrediblyrevealing, as would a similar order on
Brazil be revealing, and getting thatorder now it would be very difficult because
there's not there's less staffing, there'sless resources, there's no budget, and
(28:41):
you don't have an opportunity quite likethe arrest of a Gusto Pinochet in London.
You have a sixtieth anniversary and Lula'sgovernment should definitely make the case and
make the official request for a gestureof classification diplomacy. It shouldn't be for
(29:03):
everything that's still that's still secret.It should be more specific so that it's
manageable. We found out in thecase of the fiftieth anniversary of the coup
and Chile that even a short listproved to be unmanageable. I mean,
I'm glad that the US Embassy initiallymade it a really strong effort. I
(29:26):
need to credit them for making strongeffort to press for the declassification of the
documents that the Chilean government of gabrielleBorg asked for for the fiftieth anniversary,
but in the end, the Bidenbureaucracy of secrecy only at least two documents
out of us of you know,maybe eighty documents, and so you know,
(29:48):
you get a sense that it's justnot that easy. So definitely we
need to keep working to get everysingle page out, you and me and
everybody else. But from what Lulacould do for the sixtieth anniversary, it
would be to provide a specific listof the most important episodes and issues that
(30:11):
US documents could shed light on,whether that's the coup itself, specific human
rights cases that remain unresolved, operationcondor issues relating to Brazil, etc.
What's most relevant now is what's mostimportant, And of course Brazil is just
(30:32):
now dealing with the issue of prosecutingits former president alscenario. Chile is in
the throes of the rise of theright. The United States is suffering some
of the same political issues. Weneed these documents because they shed light not
just on a history, but onwhat's going on today and what could happen
(30:56):
tomorrow, And we need to bereminded of the horrors of authoritarianism and military
dictatorships, so that all the countriesinvolved, Brazil, Chile, the United
States and more around the world rememberthat the Pinochet route and the military route
(31:18):
and the authoritarian kind of you know, path to power is inimical to the
interests of the vast majority of worldcitizenry. So that's why we need to
continue to do this work, andnot just so that we know what happened
in the past, so everybody remembersthat we don't want this to happen again
in the future. Absolutely. Youknow, it's interesting our listeners, the
(31:41):
people who subscribe to this podcast,people who received the Washington Brazil Office newsletter,
are very aware of the fact thatthe United States government was involved in
the overthrow of the Gulag government innineteen sixty four. But they also followed
the work that the WBO did intwenty twenty two, working right closely with
civil society in Brazil to educate theUS Congress and the public is to extent
(32:06):
possible about the threat of Bolsonadu andthe threat to the possibility of having an
election overturned as Trump tried to doin the United States and Bulsonata did attempt
to carry out a coup two yearsand two days after the invasion of the
capital on January sixth, twenty twentyone. So it's clear that there's this
change in policy from one of unquestionablesupport of the military taking power in nineteen
(32:31):
sixty four and the Biden administration immediatelyrecognizing the election results and congratulating on his
presidency. So the possibility of goodwillwill is theoretically there between the Biden administration
and the Brazilian government of Lula daSilva. The question is whether will it
(32:52):
be able to leverage the Biden administrationin a very difficult electoral year to do
something in this regard it Because we'refacing all a very unfavorable situation in the
United States. What would you whatwould you recommend to be the pathway forward
for our work? Well, Iwould I would concentrate on two kind of
(33:16):
parallel tracks. One is using thesixtieth anniversary as a as a peg to
call attention to that past and tomake the request too through the Brazilian government
if they're willing to do that,because that would make it official. Trying
to call as much attention to thatrequest as possible. This is what we
(33:38):
did in Chile. I went toChile in January of last year, knowing
that nine months later would be thefiftieth anniversary of the of the coup.
I met with the Foreign ministry aboutthem requesting documents to from the United States
(34:00):
as a gesture of declassification diplomacy.I did a long interview with the leading
newspaper La Tercera about the documents thatwere still secret, the fact that other
countries had collaborated with the United States, including Australia and overthrowing Allende, and
that record of history had never beenreleased, and you know, basically trying
(34:23):
to highlight what was still secret.The Chilean Congress caught note of this message
and drew up a resolution urging theirgovernment to ask the United States to release
all the remaining documents on the USrole in the coup. I kid you
not. It almost passed the ChilainCongress unanimously. Congress is polarized between left
(34:46):
and right, but everybody, exceptfor two senators, I think we're the
only ones that voted against it.Everybody wanted to see these records come out.
So you know, the issue grewgrew and grew until the fiftieth anniversary,
and I think that that's the wayyou do it. You use the
(35:07):
anniversary to create a momentum, aprocess, and a public pressure on this
issue. At the same time youstart the longer term strategy. Those withdrawal
sheets that you have found in thearchives, you look at those carefully,
you see which one seem to beimportant, and you use them. You
(35:28):
know, the mechanism is what's calleda mandatory classification review. You ask for
every single one using those withdrawal sheets. But you know, as I say,
the bureaucracy because of the pandemic,has been really undercut. People left
work, did not come back,the budgets were changed, not enough people
(35:49):
have been hired. It is aninexplicable and outrageous delay in getting these requests
satisfied. I was at the NixonLibrary one year ago this week trying to
get the remaining US documents on NixonKissinger's role in Chile released, and I
(36:13):
was told that yes, these filesthat were still secret fifty years later,
but it was going to take themtwelve years to process my request. I
was like, well, what kindof democracy are we living in that you're
you know, fifty years later youstill these documents are still secret, and
you wanted to have another twelve yearsfor them to be secret before you ll
(36:34):
even you know, look at myrequest and well, you know you have
to There's a long line and notenough people to review these records. That's
the answer that I get given.But my organization is kind of pushing back
against this and trying to find anavenue to get these documents. You could
find a sympathetic voice in the Senateand in the House to push this also.
(37:00):
Basically, you do need to tryand get some kind of special release
as if possible, and that sixtiethanniversary, which of course is just a
few weeks from now, is iscan be can be part of that.
It certainly can start the ball rollingon that. Peter, I want to
just thank you so much for thefabulous vision that you've given us about how
(37:22):
to do the work, and Ihope that the WBO will be able to
partner with the National Security Archive infuture efforts in this regard. Even though
both you and I are somebody goingto semi retirement, I know neither of
us is going to give up ourpassion for politics and our commitment to social
justice In Latin America and your caseprimarily Chile, in my case primarily Brazil.
(37:42):
But I want to thank you somuch for joining us on Brazil and
Filtered Well. It's a great honor, it's a great pleasure. I've learned
so much from you, and Iwant to learn more. So let's get
these documents out and do what wecan. That's wonderful. Well, I
hope you enjoy the inner you.If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget
to like the video, and ifyou have not yet subscribed, please do
(38:04):
so. If you're listening on ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen
to your podcast, please leave usa five star review. It helps other
people find the program. Have agreat week. Until next time at Tepprasimo.
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