Pardoning Pinochet's Pals.

• Author: NEGIN, ELLIOTT
• Position: United States role in dictator's rise to power

How the media let Washington off the hook

The arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet gave the U.S. news media a rare opportunity to revisit a dark chapter in U.S. history. They had the chance to explain how the Nixon Administration covertly undermined the government of Salvador Allende, and set the stage for Pinochet's bloody 1973 coup. Unfortunately, they didn't take advantage of it.

Ninety-five percent of the news stories I surveyed during the month following Pinochet's arrest failed to mention the U.S. role in bringing Pinochet to power.

U.S. reporters covering the story from London, where British police detained Pinochet on October 16, got caught up in the legal debate over Pinochet's immunity. Their American colleagues in Chile focused on the political ramifications of his arrest.

Only eight of 150 news stories in eleven newspapers (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, Cleveland's Plain Dealer, the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, The New York Times, the Seattle Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post) mentioned in passing that the United States backed the coup. Just one out of fourteen editorials--in the Houston Chronicle--alluded to it. But the Chronicle merely stated that the Pinochet case "has revived questions about U.S. involvement in the coup." Seven of twenty-two opinion columns mentioned the United States, but only in a sentence or two.

Television coverage was even skimpier. ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC collectively ran thirty-four stories on Pinochet's arrest. Only two--both on ABC--provided a sound bite on U.S. involvement in setting up the Pinochet regime.

Why did most journalists omit any reference to the United States? Some blamed space limitations. Others said their sources did not bring it up, or maintained that the U.S. role is tangential to the story of Pinochet's arrest.

"It came down to a question of relevance to our readers," said foreign editor Gary Hatcher of the Chicago Tribune, which ran twenty-eight stories on Pinochet. In only one story did the Tribune include a sentence stating that the CIA "played a role in destabilizing ... Allende's government and backed ... [the] coup."

Relevant? If it were not for U.S. meddling in internal Chilean affairs, Augusto Pinochet most likely would be a footnote in history.

Pinochet is a creature of U.S. Cold War policy. In the early 1960s, the Kennedy Administration helped defeat Salvador...