Introduction

*Santos family in 1976, after arriving to the United States.* Boulder, Colorado. 1976. Courtesy of E. Santos and M. Cáceres Novoa.

¡Bienvenidos! This guide highlights items from the Library of Congress collections that pertain to the period leading up to, and the aftermath of, the September 11, 1973 coup d’état, a defining event in modern Chilean history. The guide was created as a collaboration between reference librarians in the Hispanic Reading Room of the Library of Congress and graduate students from the Center of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. These materials —newspapers, oral histories, legislation, photographs, and posters, etc.—demonstrate U.S. government support of the coup and the post-coup Chilean dictatorship and roiling debates within the U.S. Congress regarding human rights violations in Chile.

The guide also includes resources that document efforts by Chilean exiles and their allies in the U.S. to raise awareness of human rights violations under the Pinochet dictatorship and encourage international solidarity.

Introductory Materials

Begin your research by consulting books, such as the ones listed below, that discuss and document U.S. foreign policy toward Chile and Latin America more broadly. All the books listed below are available at the Library of Congress. If you cannot visit the Library in person, please contact us using Ask a Librarian for assistance. In many cases, you can also find these materials at your local library. Use the bibliographies or works cited within these books to find other published works relevant to your research.

The Chile Reader by Elizabeth Quay Hutchison (Editor); Thomas Miller Klubock (Editor); Nara B. Milanich (Editor); Peter Winn (Editor)
ISBN: 9780822353461
Published/Created: 2013-11-29
The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections are by Chileans; many have never before appeared in English. The history of Chile is rendered from diverse perspectives, including those of Mapuche Indians and Spanish colonists, peasants and aristocrats, feminists and military strongmen, entrepreneurs and workers, and priests and poets.
The Pinochet File by Peter Kornbluh
Published/Created: 2003-09-01
The newly declassified documents that reveal the startling facts behind the US collusion with the notorious Chilean dictator.
Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War by Tanya Harmer
Published/Created: 2011-10-10
Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. Tanya Harmer argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington.
Predatory States by J. Patrice McSherry
Published/Created: 2005-01-01
This powerful study makes a compelling case about the key U.S. role in state terrorism in Latin America during the Cold War. Drawing on a wealth of testimonies, declassified files, and Latin American primary sources, J. Patrice McSherry examines Operation Condor from numerous vantage points: its secret structures, intelligence networks, covert operations against dissidents, political assassinations worldwide, commanders and operatives, links to the Pentagon and the CIA, and extension to Central America in the 1980s.
The Condor Years by John Dinges
Published/Created: 2023-08-01
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. This book uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret U.S. relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization.
The politics of violence in Latin America by Policzer, Pablo, editor.
This is a critical reassessment of the ways in which violence in Latin America is addressed and understood. Previous approaches have relied on structural perspectives, attributing the problem of violence to Latin America's colonial past or its conflictual contemporary politics. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, this volume argues that violence is often rooted more in contingent outcomes than in deeply embedded structures.
Soldiers in a Narrow Land by Mary Helen Spooner
Published/Created: 1994-04-14
On September 11, 1973, a military coup in Chile overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, beginning an era of political repression that lasted over sixteen years. Mary Helen Spooner takes us behind the Pinochet regime's wall of censorship, silence, and propaganda and provides an inside look at a brutal dictatorship.
Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile by Jonathan Haslam
Published/Created: 2005-09-17
In this revealing history of Allende's Chile, Jonathan Haslam uncovers the actual involvement of Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the CIA in that country's struggle for political and economic stability.

Aquí, pero allá (Here, But There): A Guide on Chile from 1964-1990 and Chilean Exiles Living in the United States

Caribbean, Iberian & Latin American Studies: Ask a Librarian

Introduction

Introductory Materials