"The Condor Years is the underground history of the international Dirty Wars by U. S. allies in South America. For much of a decade, six allied governments engaged in secret warfare intended to wipe out their enemies, kidnapping and murdering up to 30,000 people. At the initiative of Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet, and with encouragement from the CIA, they set up a multinational terrorist organization, Operation Condor, to pursue those who escaped to other Latin American countries, Europe, and the United States. John Dinges, using newly-available U. S. documents and the dictatorships' own files, tells this gripping story from the point of view of those who have tried to keep it secret. He dispassionately lays bare the true extent of U. S. complicity in the crimes of the dictators who called the United States "the leader. " Revolutionaries, intelligence operatives, and U. S. officials - many speaking for the first time - recount the brutal struggle between Condor and its enemies. "--BOOK JACKET.