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CIA has always insisted that the weapons were never used and that a different group killed Schneider. Weapons and money were also promised to that second group but were never delivered, according to the CIA. The distinction between the two groups seems insubstantial, however, since the CIA never abandoned the tactic of kidnapping the army chief and was providing support to plotters on the same day it actually happened.
    The United States thus gave its operational endorsement to acts of terrorism in furtherance of the cause of anti-Communism. It was okay to remove a moderate leader who became a “stumbling block” to the removal of a perceived Communist threat. The message could only have been reinforced when the agency a few weeks later sent $35,000 to one of the kidnappers who had escaped. The reason given: “to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons.”
    The U.S. message about acceptable operational tactics was received directly by some of those who later used those tactics in the Condor Years. Among the members of the group plotting to kidnap Schneider was a former Chilean Naval Academy student, Enrique Arancibia Clavel. In 1974, Arancibia became DINA’s operational liaison with Argentine intelligence and organized the murder of another military commander who had become a stumbling block, Pinochet’s predecessor General Carlos Prats González.
    In my interviews with military officers from Condor countries there was a consistent refrain, “The United States was our leader.”
    Now, a quarter century later, the countries of the Southern Cone continueto struggle with the events of these years. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia have all enjoyed at least a decade free of military rule. But constitutional government and rule of law are without exception under a shadow cast by the military crimes of the past. That has been the shadow of impunity.
    With few exceptions, those responsible for the thousands upon thousands of executions and disappearances, for the systematic use of torture that affected tens of thousands more, and for the international assassinations that are at the core of the Condor system have been able to evade justice. Amnesty laws, accepted by incoming civilian government as the price of military withdrawal from power, were used to shortcircuit even the most cursory judicial investigation of the crimes. The laws protected the military from being charged and even questioned. No officer of state in any country, neither military commander, judge, nor head of government, had the authority to demand that officials tell what they know about the human rights crimes of the past.
    As a result, the first and most enduring human rights casualty was the truth. In the absence of official, credible investigations by competent authorities endorsed by democratic legitimacy, the historical record of those years was a matter of political preference. Victims’ families and their allies among political and human rights organizations did their best to investigate based on the testimonies of those who suffered, but their conclusions were subject to easy denial by the accused and those on the other side of the political divide. So-called “truth commissions” conducted laudable investigations to clarify the legal status of the thousands of disappeared, but were prohibited in many cases from officially naming the names of those who caused the disappearances.
    Officers who once were masters of torture and extermination camps were promoted or retired as their age and career required, with honor and the full benefits of rank. Pinochet was lionized abroad as a strong, no-nonsense leader responsible for the “Pinochet Model,” which brought order and economic prosperity. Blatantly illegal international arrangements like Condor were shrouded in secrecy and official denial.
    The legal and historical limbo in which the Condor Years were immersed also