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→Latin American policies
In 1976, Kissinger canceled a letter that was to be sent to Chile warning them against carrying out any political assassinations. Orlando Letelier, a critic of Pinochet, was then assassinated in [[Washington, D.C.]] with a car bomb on September 21, 1976.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/04/10/cable_ties_kissinger_to_chile_controversy/</ref> In an Aug. 30, 1976 memo, Shlaudeman discussed the possibility that the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay might be endangered by delivering a warning against assassination. The U.S. ambassador to Chile said that Pinochet might take as an insult any inference that he was connected with assassination plots.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/04/10/cable_ties_kissinger_to_chile_controversy/</ref>
In 1976, Kissinger canceled a letter that was to be sent to Chile warning them against carrying out any political assassinations. Orlando Letelier, a critic of Pinochet, was then assassinated in [[Washington, D.C.]] with a car bomb on September 21, 1976.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/04/10/cable_ties_kissinger_to_chile_controversy/</ref> In an Aug. 30, 1976 memo, Shlaudeman discussed the possibility that the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay might be endangered by delivering a warning against assassination. The U.S. ambassador to Chile said that Pinochet might take as an insult any inference that he was connected with assassination plots.<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/04/10/cable_ties_kissinger_to_chile_controversy/</ref>
Using its leverage over Pinochet to curtail Chilean human rights abuses, the US simultaneously pressured Pinochet to introduce a series of free market economic reforms, a process that escalated sharply in the eighties. This led to a period of rapid economic expansion and development without precedent in Latin America, in which growth averaged 7% annually, that came to be known as the ''miracle of Chile'' (it also included the region's greatest reductions in infant mortality<ref>Nick Eberstadt, The Poverty of Communism (Transaction Publishers, 1990), pp188,
196-206, 240-6, in which he discusses living standards in Communist Cuba versus Pinochet's Chile.</ref>). In turn, this allowed Chile to make a long-term transition to sustainable democratic rule that would likely have been otherwise inconcievable.<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref>
In [[Argentina]], the Socialist government of [[Isabel Perón]] had been persuaded to declare a state of emergency (suspending, among other rights, ''Habeas Corpus'') on February 5, 1975. Drafted so they may (in her words) "annihilate the subversives," the decree led to ''Operativo Independencia'', a military campaign notorious for the brutality it exacted on not only the violent; but also elected officials, magistrates and University of Tucumán faculty (even secondary school teachers). The Peronists' own political mainstay (the labor movement) was also subject to the "subversive" labels and consequent reprisals. The country plunged into a low-level civil war. Fighting between Communist and anti-Communist forces claimed nearly 1,000 lives, with widespread social chaos and inflation peaking at 33%, before the Argentine military, led by Jorge Videla, deposed Perón on March 24, 1976.
In [[Argentina]], the Socialist government of [[Isabel Perón]] had been persuaded to declare a state of emergency (suspending, among other rights, ''Habeas Corpus'') on February 5, 1975. Drafted so they may (in her words) "annihilate the subversives," the decree led to ''Operativo Independencia'', a military campaign notorious for the brutality it exacted on not only the violent; but also elected officials, magistrates and University of Tucumán faculty (even secondary school teachers). The Peronists' own political mainstay (the labor movement) was also subject to the "subversive" labels and consequent reprisals. The country plunged into a low-level civil war. Fighting between Communist and anti-Communist forces claimed nearly 1,000 lives, with widespread social chaos and inflation peaking at 33%, before the Argentine military, led by Jorge Videla, deposed Perón on March 24, 1976.