ABSTRACT

SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY, PRODUCING TERROR: THE UNITED STATES AND THE URUGUAYAN COLD WAR, 1963-1976

In the early 1960s, Uruguay was a beacon of democracy in the Americas. Ten years later, repression and torture were everyday occurrences and by 1973, a military dictatorship had taken power. The unexpected descent into dictatorship is the subject of this thesis. By analyzing US government documents, many of which have been recently declassified, I examine the role of the US government in funding, training, and supporting the Uruguayan repressive apparatus during these trying years.

Matthew Ford May 2015

SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY, PRODUCING TERROR: THE UNITED

STATES AND THE URUGUAYAN COLD WAR,

1963-1976

by Matthew Ford

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts in History in the College of Social Sciences California State University, Fresno May 2015

APPROVED

For the Department of History:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Matthew Ford Thesis Author

Maria Lopes (Chair) History

William Skuban History

Lori Clune History

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION

OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank my fiancé, Jamie San Andrés, who has given unwavering support and motivation in my academic endeavors. Our lives are filled with daily conversations (and often debates) about Latin American politics, culture, and history. Her insight has always pushed me in fruitful intellectual directions and reigned me in when I got off track. Without her and the entire San Andrés family in the United States and Ecuador, I may not have made it through my first months of travel in South America, and this thesis may have never been written. Because of them, I am in constant contact with the politics and culture of the region I truly love, and for this, I am forever grateful. Huge thanks are also in order to my loving family. We have all made it through some truly tough times, which have always made the beautiful moments more beautiful. They have never failed to support me in more ways than I thought were possible and I am certain that without them, I would not be writing these words. Lastly, I would like to thank the faculty at Fresno State. In my undergraduate years in the sociology department, I was exposed to critical perspectives from which I now see the world. For this, I must especially thank Dr. Andrew Jones, Dr. Matthew Jendian, and Dr. Tim Kubal. Before I began the master’s program, Dr. Maria Aparecida Lopes began teaching me what it meant to be a Latin American historian.

During this pivotal year in my life, I was not enrolled as a student, yet Dr. Lopes kindly met with me regularly to discuss book after book. She is

v one of the few amazing people that put effort into things that are not required, and I will never forget this kind gesture that pushed me to pursue a graduate degree in history. Dr. William Skuban encouraged and supported me when I made the potentially dangerous decision to change research topics in the middle of my first year. His support, insight, and guidance made this thesis what it is. I would also like to thank Dr. Blain Roberts for her invaluable efforts at improving my writing. When we met to discuss my work, it was always covered in red ink and she kindly took the time to explain each and every marking. She will never know how much this has pushed me to become a better writer. Finally, without Alison Cowgill at the Henry Madden Library, I would have never been able to find the sources from which this thesis grew. I am forever grateful for her efforts to scour documents from some of the most inaccessible places.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

The Historical Landscape ...... 4

CHAPTER 2: THE PICTURE OF DEMOCRACY ...... 12

The Office of Public Safety ...... 16

CHAPTER 3: THE OPS FIGHTS THE URUGUAYAN COLD WAR ...... 22

Tupamaros ...... 28 CHAPTER 4: THE LAST CHANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND THE PLUNGE INTO DICTATORSHIP ...... 43

Ending US Support ...... 47

CHAPTER 5: CONFRONTING THE LEGACY OF DICTATORSHIP ...... 54

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

On August 10, 1970, the body of Dan Mitrione was found in the backseat of a stolen Buick on Lucas Moreno Street in Montevideo,

Uruguay.1 As a public safety officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) working closely with the Uruguayan police, Mitrione was targeted and murdered by one of the most sophisticated guerrilla groups of Latin America, the Movemiento Liberación Nacional, Tupamaros. United States government officials condemned the murder as a “cold blooded crime against a defenseless human being,” while portraying Mitrione as a “servant of freedom” who was “devoted… to the cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world.”2 However, uncovering the context of this crime as well as Mitrione’s role as a representative of the Office of Public Safety reveals a more complex story. The Mitrione murder foreshadowed the intensification of the Uruguayan Cold War that transformed the country from one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the western hemisphere into a brutal dictatorship. In the early twentieth-century, foreign diplomats regularly referred to Uruguay as the “picture of democracy” due to its unique politics of co-participation and peaceful transitions of power.3 However, by 1976 the Uruguayan Parliament was closed and the nation was being

1 Ernest Lefever, “Murder in Montevideo: The AID/Mitrione Story,” Freedom at Issue, no. 21 (1973): 14. 2 Acción. August 12, 1970, quoted in Franco Solinas, State of Siege (New York: Ballantine Books, 1973), 192. 3 Martin Weinstein, Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 16-35.

2 ruled by a military regime that held the most political prisoners, per capita, in the world, and was named by Amnesty International as a regular practitioner of torture and human rights abuse.4 Waves of Uruguayans fled from their homeland and exile communities formed all over the world. The transformation from democracy to dictatorship and the role of the United States government in shaping this era of Uruguayan history is the subject of this thesis. By examining US government documents, many of which have been recently declassified, this study traces the US involvement in Uruguay in the years of neoliberalism, insurgency, and dictatorship. I argue that the actions of the US government—predominately through the Office of Public Safety (OPS) of USAID—helped to subvert Uruguayan democracy and provided political, material, logistical, and financial support to a repressive apparatus that tortured and brutalized the

Uruguayan population. United States support transformed the Uruguayan police force from an antiquated and underused institution into a significant political actor with modern equipment and capabilities. The rise of the leftist Tupamaro insurgency provided a justification for increased support for Uruguay’s repressive apparatus, which, in turn, created an escalation in violence. The brutality of the police was met with an increase in guerrilla violence, plunging Uruguay into a bloody internal war which gave way to dictatorship in 1973.

4 Human Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 64th Cong., 2d sess., June 17, July 27 and 28th and August 4, 1976, 37; Ivan Morris, “Torture in Uruguay,” New York Times, March 18, 1976.

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From 1973 to 1985, Uruguay was ruled by a military dictatorship not unlike is neighbors in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. According to the famed Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano, “every Uruguayan was a prisoner except for jailers and exiles—three million of us, though only a few thousand seemed to be.”5 The history of the Uruguayan dictatorship has not yet been written. By focusing on the era of active US involvement in supplying military and police assistance to Uruguayan from 1963 to 1976, this thesis serves as a contribution to a much larger historical analysis henceforth missing from the scholarship. With the return to democracy in 1985, Uruguay began a long struggle with its legacy of dictatorship that continues today.6 In contrast to Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and other Latin American nations who have made great strides in prosecuting those responsible for human rights violations, Uruguay has failed to follow suit. Very few of the members of the military regime and police responsible for the crimes committed before and during the dictatorship have been brought to justice.7 This has left an open wound in the Uruguayan collective

5 Eduardo Galeano, “The Dictatorship and its Aftermath: The Hidden Wounds,” in Repression, Exile, and Democracy, ed. Saul Sosnowski and Louise B. Popkin (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 103. 6 Francesca Lessa, Pierre-Louis LeGoff, “Skewed Priorities in Uruguay: Uruguay Continues to Struggle With its Dictatorial Past,” Al Jazeera, November 18, 2013, accessed December 28, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/ 11/skewed-priorities-uruguay-20131118133045296340.html; Cindy Woods, “Human Rights: Uruguayan Supreme Court Upholds Impunity for Human Rights Abuses During Dictatorship.” Pulsamerica, February 27, 2013, accessed January 4, 2014, http://www.pulsamerica.co.uk/2013/02/27/human-rights-uruguayan-supreme-court- upholds-impunity-for-human-rights-abuses-during-dictatorship/ 7 Alexei Barrionuevo, “Juan Bordaberry, Who led Uruguay in Dark Era, Dies at 83,” New York Times, July 17, 2011, accessed January 4, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/ 2011/07/18/world/americas/18bordaberry.html?_r=0. Juan Maria Bordaberry is one of the few exceptions. He was found guilty for crimes against humanity and died under house arrest.

4 memory. Occupying a critical spot in this wound is the role of the United States in supporting the Uruguayan dictatorship, which remains absent from public discourse as well as the legal struggle for justice. Although the International Court of Justice has ruled that the US government’s “training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying” paramilitaries in Nicaragua was a violation of international law, similar judgments are absent from the public discourse and legal proceedings in Uruguay.8 This thesis also attempts to fill that void.

The Historical Landscape The historiography of the Latin American Cold War is rich. The most relevant subfield of this growing body of literature concerns the role of international players—particularly the United States government—in shaping Cold War conflicts in Latin America. Greg Grandin has contributed invaluable work to this field, predominately on the US role in

Guatemala, but also including numerous other Latin American Cold War fronts.9 James Dunkerley has also provided the field with important studies on Central American republics—most notably, El Salvador—that simultaneously give agency to internal forces and explore the roles of the

United States and Europe in the region.10 Poul Jensen, David Marnes

8 “Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) Judgement of June 27, 1986,” International Court of Justice, June 27, 1986, accessed January 11, 2014, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/ ?sum=367&p1=3&p2=3&case=70&p3=5 9 Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006). 10 James Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America (New York: Verso, 1988); James Dunkerley, The Long War: Dictatorship and Revolution in El Salvador (London: Junction Books, 1982).

5 and Francisco Rojas Aravena have contributed some of the most important work on the intricacies of the complicated role of the US government in the downfall of the Salvador Allende government and the rise of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.11 John Dinges’ history of the dirty wars in South America’s southern cone masterfully weaves together the role of the United States in supporting repressive apparatuses in numerous countries.12 Perhaps most relevant to the present work are recent studies by Jeremy Kuzmarov, Michael Latham, and Thomas C. Fields.13 Together, these works show the deep involvement of the United States government in funding, equipping, and training foreign police and militaries of Cold War allies, as well as the ideological currents that guided US policy. Within this literature, the role of the United States in the rise of the Uruguayan dictatorship is almost non-existent. Although Uruguay is included in Dinges’ book and given a passive glance in Kuzmarov’s work and Clara Nieto’s, Masters of War, thorough studies on the subject have not been written.14 Hence, exploring the role of the United States in the

11 Poul Jensen, The Garotte: The United States and Chile, 1970-1973 (Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1988); David R. Marnes and Francisco Rojas Aravena The United States and Chile: Coming in from the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2001). 12 John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies brought Terrorism to Three Continents (New York and London: The New Press, 2005). 13 Jeremy Kuzmarov “Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Political Violence, and Nation Building in the ‘American Century,’” Diplomatic History 33, no. 2 (April 2009); 191-221; Michael Latham Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2000); Thomas C. Field, Jr. “Ideology as Strategy: Militiary-Led Modernization and the Origins of the Alliance for Progress in Bolivia.” Diplomatic History 36, no. 1 (January 2012): 147-183. 14 Clara Nieto, Masters of War: Latin America and US Aggression from the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003).

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Uruguayan dictatorship is one gap in the historiography that the present study fills.

Although sparse, there is some important scholarly literature on Uruguayan history and politics. Most of it, however, suffers from age and comes from outside the field of history. Among the most important are the works of political scientist Martin Weinstein. In his book, Uruguay: The Politics of Failure, Weinstein surveys Uruguay’s twentieth-century political history ending with the early days of the dictatorship.15 Weinstein’s analysis of the uniquely democratic nature of Uruguayan political institutions highlights the drastic transformation to dictatorship.

Weinstein’s second book, Uruguay: Democracy at a Crossroads, was written soon after the return of democracy and offers a more pertinent discussion on the political factors that led to the fall of the dictatorship.16

Edy Kaufman’s, Uruguay in Transition: From Civilian to Military Rule, covers the same period and analyzes, as the title suggests, the military’s assumption of political power. Among the factors Weinstein and Kaufman include in their analyses of the rise of authoritarianism are the post-war economic downturn and the divisiveness of the political factions that date back to the early republican era. However, in Weinstein and Kaufman’s work, the role of the US government in supporting and constructing the tools of the repressive apparatus is almost completely absent. This gap, however, is somewhat puzzling, as both of their 1976

15 Martin Weinstein, Uruguay: The Politics of Failure (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1975). 16 Weinstein, Uruguay: Democracy at a Crossroads.

7 congressional testimonies reveal a deep concern with US support to the Uruguayan dictatorship.

In 1993, Saul Sosnowski and Louise B. Popkin published a collection of essays on the Uruguayan dictatorship.17 The book originated in conference panel discussions among Uruguayan academics and artists held during the transition to democracy in 1986. From vastly different angles, the essays approach the question of how the dictatorship affected Uruguayan culture. Although not an academic monograph, this book is perhaps the most important recent contribution to the historiography of the Uruguayan dictatorship. It reveals the extent to which the Montevideo Police—and by association, the OPS—repressed Uruguayan citizens and specifically targeted cultural and political figures like Mauricio Rosencof, Amanda Berenguer, and Hugo Achugar. However, once again, the role of the United States in supporting the repressive apparatus is not a central concern of any of the essays. The most recent addition to the literature on Uruguay came from Stephen Gregory and explores the role of Uruguayan intellectuals in shaping politics from the mid twentieth century to the consolidation of power by the Frente Amplio in 2004.18 Among other critical insights, this monograph reveals the effects of the dictatorship’s repression of the growing role of intellectuals. During the 1970s, many intellectuals fled the country and others were forced to stay silent to avoid persecution. The organs that circulated their ideas and creative output, such as the

17 Saul Sosnowski and Louise B. Popkin, eds., Repression, Exile, and Democracy: Uruguayan Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993). 18 Stephen Gregory, Intellectuals and Left Politics in Uruguay, 1958-2006: Frustrated Dialogue (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009).

8 influential weekly Marcha, were forcefully closed by the dictatorship and many of its main contributors, such as the award winning writer Juan

Carlos Onetti, were imprisoned. When democracy returned, the role of intellectuals was both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the 1960s. Thus, Gregory’s study is important not only in its contribution to the study of Uruguayan intellectuals, but like the Sosnowski and Popkin’s collection, in revealing the effects of the dictatorship on Uruguayan culture. The Tupamaros have received a larger share of scholarly attention than the nation in which they fought. Arturo Porzecanski’s 1973 study of the Tupamaros was one of the earliest and best analyses of Uruguay’s contribution to the idolized Latin American guerrilla.19 Although the book was published too early to provide a thorough discussion on the historical legacy of the Tupamaros—such as the rise to the presidency of one of its members—it remains as one of the best studies of the internal dynamics and philosophy of the movement. Maria Esther Gilio, an Argentine journalist, also added valuable insights into the social context within which the Tupamaros operated.20 The RAND Corporation’s study for the State Department on the Tupamaro kidnapping of Dan Mitrione is also important, insofar as it uses its access to government documents to

19 Arturo Porzecanski, Uruguay’s Tupamaros: The Urban Guerrilla (New York: Praeger, 1973). 20 Maria Esther Gilio, The Tupamaro Guerrillas (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972)

9 explore the early years of Tupamaro activity, which largely escaped the analyses of the aforementioned works.21

Since the dawn of the War on Terror, the Tupamaros have made it back into the scholarly limelight with multiple studies on the successes and failures of their tactics and the transformation from “armed propaganda” to terrorism. Among the most useful of these include Peter

Waldman and Pablo Brum’s articles in the journal Studies in Conflict and

Terrorism.22 These studies are particularly useful in investigating the popular response to Tupamaro tactics. Blum’s forthcoming book on the Tupamaros will be the first complete history of the Tupamaro insurgency and will include interviews with participants and those affected not only by the Tupamaros, but their police and military nemeses.23 Lastly, the wave of scholarly attention that arose during the transitions to democracy and emerging emphasis on Human Rights during the Carter administration reinvigorated analyses of the various Latin American dictatorships and civil conflicts, including Uruguay’s. Among the most important contributions are the numerous reports released under the title Nunca Más.24 Although the reports were compiled by different groups—governmental institutions in Argentina, clergy in Brazil and Guatemala, and a NGO in Uruguay—they are all in-depth

21 David Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note. Prepared for the U.S. Department of State and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1987). 22 Peter Waldman, “How Terrorism Ceases: The Tupamaros in Uruguay,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, no. 34 (2011): 717-731; Pablo Brum, “Revisiting Urban Guerrillas: Armed Propaganda and the Insurgency of Uruguay’s MLN-Tupamaros, 1969- 70,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, no. 37 (2014): 387-404. 23 Pablo Brum, e-mail message to author, January 25, 2014. 24 Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972-1985 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).

10 investigations of human rights abuses suffered under the Cold War conflicts and dictatorships. The evidence presented in these publications is drawn mostly from oral interviews of the victims and perpetrators and reveals the brutality of the police and military in Uruguay. Although the relationship between the United States Office of Public Safety and the Montevideo Police is not a central subject, the crimes of the police during close collaboration with OPS underscores the significance of the present study. The role of human rights in US policy has been a central concern for this body of literature. Natalie Kaufman Hevener’s edited volume, The Dynamics of Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy, includes important essays by a multi-disciplinary array of scholars.25 Martin Weinstein’s essay in the volume includes an analysis of US Human Rights policy in numerous Latin American nations, including Uruguay. For the South

American southern cone, Francesca Lessa is perhaps the most important scholar contributing to this body of literature. She has written an important book dedicated to collective memory in Uruguay and Argentina during the fall of the dictatorships, as well as edited a volume of essays on the politics of memory making of state terrorism in the region.26 Naomi Roht-Arriaza and William Michael Schmidli have also contributed important work to this field on Chile and Argentina, respectively.27

25 Natalie Kaufman Hevener, ed., The Dynamics of Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1981). 26 Francesca Lessa, Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay: Against Impunity (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Francesca Lessa and Vincent Druliolle, eds., The Memory of State Terrorism in the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 27 Naomi Roht-Arriaza, The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005); William Michael Schmidli The

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This thesis will contribute to this body of scholarly literature in numerous ways. First, it will add a chapter on Uruguay to the much larger body of literature on Latin American Cold War conflicts and dictatorships. Apart from brief references to the Mitrione murder, the involvement of the OPS in training, funding, and equipping the Uruguayan repressive apparatus is completely missing from the scholarly literature. Secondly, by illuminating the substantial US involvement in human rights abuses in Uruguay, this study contributes to the growing body of work on collective memory making in nations struggling to deal with dictatorial legacies. Finally, as the crimes of Cold War dictatorships have often been addressed in the legal realm, the findings in this study obtained from newly declassified documents can contribute to current efforts to open investigations into this dark chapter of Uruguayan history.

Fate of Freedom Elsewhere: Human Rights and U.S. Cold War Policy toward Argentina (Cornell University Press, 2013); Charles Gillespie also included an interesting analysis on the Uruguayan transition to democracy in his essay included in a volume on similar subject, see Guillermo O’Donnel and Phillipe C. Schmitter, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

CHAPTER 2: THE PICTURE OF DEMOCRACY1

At the end of WWII, Uruguay was known to many as the “Switzerland of the Americas.” Until 1973 only two coups d’etat (1933 and 1942) interrupted twentieth-century Uruguayan democracy. Opposition parties—including Socialist and Communist—had significant power in government, and at times, the nation experimented with a nine- man executive. Home to the lowest infant mortality and illiteracy rates in South America as well as free and compulsory education, Uruguay’s future looked bright amidst post-war turmoil. Thus, it is somewhat of a surprise to learn that in the late 1950s, US Assistant Secretary of State noted that it was “paradoxical but true that with no country in the hemisphere do we have more difficulty in our relations than with Uruguay,” since the country was the “most stable and democratically- oriented nation in Latin America.”2

The difficulty stemmed from the postwar decline in hides, wool and meat exports—Uruguay’s largest source of foreign currency—that plunged the nation into economic stagnation. The US feared that Uruguay’s economic troubles and political stalemate would create the ideal context for the rise of a leftist movement akin to that which was manifesting in Cuba.3 Thus, in 1958, Secretary of State Dulles urged Vice President Nixon to add Uruguay to the itinerary of his Latin

1 In the mid-twentieth century, Uruguay was commonly referred to as the “picture of democracy” amidst the political chaos that characterized its neighbors. 2 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960: American Republics. Volume V, (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1958- 1960), 915. 3 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America, 459.

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American diplomatic tour in order to demonstrate “the importance that we accord to that country.”4

The reaction to Nixon’s visit throughout Latin America is emblematic of what was to come in the 1960s and 1970s. In Peru, diplomatic ceremonies were marked by violent demonstrations. In Caracas, Nixon’s motorcade was stopped by a crowd of more than 3,000 protestors who began to smash the windows of the Vice President’s vehicle. As a result of the increasingly dangerous situation, 500 airborne marines were put on stand-by, ready for dispatch to Caracas.5 In Montevideo, large-scale violence was avoided despite massive protests organized by the Uruguayan Communist Party (PCU).6 Imbued with the spirit of neoliberal developmentalist ideology so prominent among his elite North American contemporaries, Nixon recommended a recipe of neoliberal policies and large loans from the

International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank to ease Uruguayan economic troubles. Along with the loans came mandated privatizations and harsh austerity measures.7 Following the visit, and with the consent of Uruguayan diplomats, “the International

4 Ibid, 222. 5 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960: American Republics. Volume V, 228-235. 6 Ibid, 236. 7 According to post-war developmentalist ideology, austerity and westernization was a necessary cost of development. The 1951 United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs document entitled, Measures for the Economic Development of Underdeveloped Countries, illustrates this point well: “there is a sense in which rapid economic progress is impossible without painful adjustments. Ancient philosophies have to be scrapped; old social institutions have to disintegrate…. and large numbers of persons who cannot keep up with progress have to have their expectations of a comfortable life frustrated. Very few communities are willing to pay the full price of economic progress,” quoted in Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton University Press, 1995), 3.

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Monetary Fund, with US support, agreed to assist the Uruguayan economy by extending a $30 million dollar loan.”8 The injection of neoliberalism and the subsequent dependency on foreign debt repayment drove Uruguay into a Cold War alliance with the United States. The dismantling of Uruguay’s vibrant social welfare state followed soon thereafter. Having grown accustomed to active government intervention in the economy in order to provide various social services, the privatizations and austerity sent shockwaves throughout the Uruguayan public.9 Discontent with dismantling the Batllista legacy resulted in large-scale growth of PCU-affiliated student and labor unions. The growth of a leftist movement—especially after the recent success of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959—brought Uruguay into the crosshairs of an increasingly vigilant US Cold War containment policy. For the United States government, Cold War policy manifested in various types of interventions in Latin America. In nearby Paraguay, General Stroessner turned the country into an authoritarian police state, while enjoying the financial and material support of the United States in the form of over $9 million for infrastructure and military

8 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960: American Republics. Volume V, 916. 9 The vibrant social welfare state in Uruguay reached back to the first decades of the 20th century when Uruguay was led by Jose Battle y Ordonez and his followers. Government intervention in the economy and the resulting social services were an integral part of Uruguayan national identity. Thus, privatizations and austerity were seen as unpatriotic. See Alberto Spektorowski, “Nationalism and Democratic Construction: The Origin of Argentina and Uruguay’s Political Cultures in Comparative Perspective” Bulletin of Latin American Research 19, 1 (January 2009), 90; Michael Geobel, “Gauchos, Gringos and Gallegos: The Assimilation of Italian and Spanish Immigrants in the Making of Modern Uruguay,” Past and Present. no 208 (August 2010), 194.

15 modernizations.10 In 1964, a US-backed coup in Brazil overthrew democratically elected president João Goulart, and a military junta began a campaign of purges, arresting thousands of “communists and suspected communists” to mark their “decommunization program.”11 In April 1965, 20,000 US troops landed in the Dominican Republic in order to prevent “the establishment of another communist government in the western hemisphere.”12 In 1963, the State Department, in collaboration with the Alliance for Progress, established a “contingency fund” of $4 million to support paramilitary groups that harassed and assassinated striking miners.13 Hence, the growth of the Uruguayan Left did not go unnoticed. As Uruguayans began to lose faith in traditional democratic institutions due to political antagonism between Blanco and Colorado parties that led to debilitating stalemate, the situation became more worrisome. Making matters worse, US owned businesses became regular targets of outrage, and instances like the December 1964 bombing of Moore-McCormick

Lines underscored the need for action.14 Uruguay’s unfortunate position of being sandwiched between the two regional superpowers of Brazil and Argentina—who also faced an increasingly militant leftist movement—led

10 Edward C. Burks, “Stroessner Modernizing Paraguay,” New York Times, August 18, 1963. 11 Edward C. Burks, “Thousands Held in Brazil’s Drive to Root Out Reds: Fears of Reversal of Coup by Leftist Supporters lead to Wide Arrests,” New York Times, April 6, 1964; Edward C. Burks, “Anti-Red Law Asked by Military in Brazil,” New York Times, April 8, 1964; This period of Brazilian history was also marked by a vibrant OPS program, which Dan Mitrione directed before he was moved to Uruguay. 12 John Paton Davies Jr., “Yankee Go Home? Stay Home? Intervene?” New York Times, May 23, 1965. 13 Field Jr., “Ideology as Strategy,” 148. 14 “Blast Rocks Uruguay Building. Reuters,” Reuters, December 9, 1964.

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US government officials to worry that Uruguay would become a safe haven for Brazilian and Argentine insurgents. To illuminate the urgency of the problem, the US State Department, reported “communists are said to be active in the universities, schools and labor movement [and] several of the governmental Ministries are alleged to be communist penetrated.”15 Finally, in November 1963, an official request was made for the establishment of a USAID public safety program in Uruguay.16

The Office of Public Safety In 1963, the OPS was a new component of US foreign policy. However, its roots date back to 1954, when USAID public safety programs surfaced around the world with efforts centered in Vietnam, Laos, and throughout Southeast Asia. Following containment policy and strategies developed and supported by contemporary social scientists, the Kennedy administration embraced the tactic of training and supplying militaries and police forces of Cold War allies.17 As a more cost-effective tactic of fighting the Cold War than a full-scale invasion— such as that which occurred in the Dominican Republic—these foreign police forces served as, “the first line of defense against demonstrations, riots, and local insurrections.”18

15 Bowling and Whitmer, “Survey of the Montevideo Police Department of the Republic Oriental del Uruguay,” US Department of State. Agency for International Development, Office of Public Safety (March 1964), 4. 16 Ibid, 1. 17 For an extensive study on the prevailing ideas in the government and supported by prominent social scientists at this time see Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and ‘Nation Building’ in the Kennedy Era. 18 Ernest Lefever, “U.S. Public Safety Assistance: An Assessment.” Report prepared for the United States Agency for International Development by the Brookings Institution, December 1973, 7; Robert W. Komer to McGeorge Bundy, Maxwell Taylor,

17

In August 1962, the National Security Council (NSC) issued a definitive policy statement on the public safety program. The report recommended “a vigorous public safety effort in states facing an actual or potential danger of internal subversion or insurgency.”19 After the release of a memorandum from an interagency consortium representing the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Justice (DOJ), and USAID, in November 1962 President Kennedy authorized the creation of the Office of Public Safety under the authority of USAID. The stated aim was to “provide centralized staff support for the various country public safety programs.”20 The importance of OPS was evident from the beginning. In a USAID executive staff memorandum, the OPS was given “powers greater than any other technical office or division in AID” and its objectives were “accorded priority treatment by the rest of the agency.” Furthermore, the memorandum stated, “OPS has been made responsible for participant training in the field of public safety. In addition, that office has been given broad authorities to determine the nature of equipment to be procured for public safety programs.”21 In contrast to the public image that OPS sought to train foreign police in the methods of humane law enforcement, internal documents reveal that OPS had explicit priorities

quoted in Kuzmarov “Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Political Violence, and Nation Building in the ‘American Century,’” 199-200. 19 Lefever, “U.S. Public Safety Assistance: An Assessment,” 9 20 US Departments of Defense and State Agency for International Development, Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, “Stopping U.S. Assistance to Foreign Police and Prisons,” February 26, 1976, 6. 21 Frank M. Coffin, Acting Administrator. Memorandum for the Executive Staff. “Measures to Strengthen A.I.D.’s Police Assistance Programs,” quoted in Lefever, “U.S. Public Safety Assistance: An Assessment,” 151.

18 of “controlling militant activities ranging from demonstrations, disorders, or riots, through small-scale guerrilla operations.”22 Thus, from its inception, the OPS was to serve as the front line in the fight against Cold War adversaries. After the founding of OPS, the International Police Academy (IPA) was established in Washington DC as a training school for foreign police officials working with OPS programs. Many OPS officers began as instructors at the IPA and formed close relationships with foreign police officials before they left the US to fight on the front lines.23 According to USAID Director David E. Bell, the police trained at the IPA were,

“strongly anticommunist and [served as] a bulwark against terrorism.” 24 The OPS and the CIA were only nominally distinct. Byron Engle, the founding director of OPS, was a veteran CIA officer and was given autonomy to hire OPS officers, which he often picked from the ranks of the CIA.25 William Cantrell, who held the title of “OPS Investigations

Advisor” in Uruguay, also came from the ranks of the CIA.26 Ned Holman, CIA station chief and first secretary at the US embassy in Montevideo also worked closely with OPS officials and the Montevideo police.27

22 U.S. Department of State, AID, Office of Public Safety, AID Assistance to Civil Security Forces, (July 12, 1967), 1-2, quoted in Lefever “U.S. Public Safety Assistance: An Assessment,” 14. 23 US Departments of Defense and State Agency for International Development, Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, “Stopping U.S. Assistance to Foreign Police and Prisons,” February 26, 1976, 36. 24 U.S. Public Safety Programs, 1961- 1972, U.S. Agency of International Development, Operations Report, June 30, 1972 (Washington DC, 1972), quoted in Kuzmarov, 201-202. 25 Adolph Saenz, The OPS Story: A True Story of Tupamaro Terrorists, Assassinations, Kidnappings in Colombia, and Communist Subversion and Insurgency (San Francisco: Robert D. Reed Publishers, 2002), 3. 26 Ibid, 124. 27 Ibid, 109.

19

Furthermore, an official liaison was established between the CIA and OPS to allow for collaboration in hand-picking foreign police officials to receive training at the IPA in Washington DC and “the inclusion of [Central Intelligence] Agency sponsored participants in IPA/OPS/AID training programs.”28 Before the OPS was established in Uruguay, a survey of Montevideo police capabilities was conducted by USAID. Citing the “legal status of the Communist Party” and widespread Communist penetration into public and private institutions, the report found that Uruguay was in urgent need of US support. Montevideo police and OPS officials foresaw “widespread civil unrest” in the nation’s capital. Due to outdated equipment and insufficient counterinsurgency training, Uruguayan police were deemed unprepared to combat a communist insurgency. Hence, the survey concluded, “the Uruguayan Civil Police forces need external assistance” and furthermore, “US interests would be served by the establishment of a US Public Safety program.”29 Under this pretext, in January 1965, the OPS program began in Uruguay and established offices in the Montevideo police headquarters. Saenz immediately forged close ties with the leadership of Montevideo police headquarters. “With time” he later noted, “the OPS office at the Jefatura [police headquarters] became the place to meet with police officials.”30

28 “Training of Foreign Police Forces,” National Security Archive, April 25, 1973, accessed January 23, 2014, http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/marketing/fj/ displayItem.do?queryType=fj&&ResultsID=14B430409581&ItemNumber=1 29 Bowling and Whitmer, “Survey of the Montevideo Police Department of the Republic Oriental del Uruguay,” 4, 7. 30 Ibid, 126.

20

The founding director of Montevideo OPS was Adolph Saenz, former Albuquerque police officer who had previously trained foreign police at the Inter-American Police Academy. Saenz was the quintessential Cold Warrior. In his memoir, he wrote that many OPS officers, including himself, sought jobs overseas in order to fight the Cold War outside the legal and ethical constraints of the United States. “The Cold War was out there” he wrote, “in Bolivia, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Laos, Peru, Thailand, Uruguay,

Vietnam and many other parts of the world.”31 In Uruguay, he approached his job enthusiastically, seeing himself as “being in the hot seat of the US effort to help Uruguay resist a communist takeover.”32 He gained such respect among colleagues that when he left Uruguay, he was sent to hunt down Che Guevara in the Bolivian jungles. Although Saenz was lucky enough to survive his duties, many OPS Cold Warriors were caught in the line of fire such as Dan Mitrione and Jake Jackson, head of the OPS operation in Bolivia who was shot in the back and permanently paralyzed. In the early days, Uruguay’s OPS program was unique from its counterparts in other nations, many of which were characterized by outright assassination.33 Immediate priority was given to the “improvement of riot control capability, including communication and transportation commodity purchases.”34 The Montevideo police were

31 Saenz, The OPS Story, 96. 32 Ibid, 125. 33 For example, in Bolivia, see: Field Jr., “Ideology as Strategy” 34 Agency for International Development Office of Public Safety, “Termination Phase- Out Study: Public Safety Project, Uruguay,” (April-May 1974), 3.

21 equipped with fresh stockpiles of tear gas and modern weaponry to replace their outdated arms. As the situation in Uruguay deteriorated and the militancy of the resistance grew, however, the OPS-trained and equipped police became a significant actor in the contentious political landscape.

CHAPTER 3: THE OPS FIGHTS THE URUGUAYAN COLD WAR

In the mid-1960s, as Montevideo became a hotbed of student and labor agitation, the US State Department noted, “all the danger flags seem to be flying high” for a communist insurgency.1 Among the many factors that raised concerns was the growth of the Uruguayan Communist Party (PCU) from 10,000 members in April 1964 to 15,000 in June 1965. By 1966, eighty percent of organized workers were affiliated with the communist-led Center of Uruguayan Workers.2 When Uruguay broke diplomatic relations with Cuba—thereby officially joining the US- led Cold War alliance—clashes erupted in the streets that were not quelled for days. In these riots, the first reports of police using “tear gas and smoke bombs” surfaced in the press.3 Following these clashes, bombings of US-owned businesses and institutions became regular occurrences.4 In February 1965, more than 1,000 protestors attacked the US Embassy with stones in response to US bombings in Vietnam.5 Three months later, President Johnson’s ambassador-at-large W. Averell Harriman visited Montevideo to gain support for the US invasion of the

1 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America, June 23, 1964. 2 Christopher A. Woodruff, “Political Culture and Revolution: An Analysis of the Tupamaros Failed Attempt to Ignite a Social Revolution in Uruguay” (Research Paper for Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies: University of Texas, Austin, 2008), 10. 3 Associated Press, “Clashes in Uruguay Follow Break with Cuba,” New York Times, September 10, 1964; Reuters, “Uruguay Leftists Continue Rioting,” New York Times, September 11, 1964. 4 The Montevideo police records detail multiple attacks on US businesses and the US embassy. See: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America see, US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977. 5 United Press International, “Embassy Stoned in Uruguay,” New York Times, February 10, 1965.

23

Dominican Republic. His visit was met with student and labor protests, which escalated into street fights with the OPS-trained police.6

Neoliberal economic policies were often the target of protests. In October 1965, a general strike was called in response to a new government economic stabilization program that, according to the New York Times, was “worked out with the help of the International Monetary Fund.” The plan included a devaluation of the Uruguayan currency and a ceiling on future wage increases for thousands of government workers.7 Over 60,000 workers participated in the strike and prompted the first of many suspensions of civil rights. Emergency measures gave the Minister of Interior—who was responsible for requesting and facilitating OPS assistance—special powers over the police and military to suppress dissent. During the strike, over 400 students and workers were arrested and numerous publications, such as the Cuban daily La Época, were confiscated by the police.8 The National Council of Government blamed the chaos on the “obvious state of internal subversion [by] Communist and Castroite extremists.”9 It was in this context that the OPS began its operations in Uruguay. Under the guise of humanitarian aid, OPS supplied the Montevideo police with the necessary supplies to combat subversion. OPS support transformed the antiquated and ill-equipped police force

6 Juan DeOnis, “Harriman Lands in Chile for Talks: Flies from Uruguay to Gain Support for U.S. Policy,” New York Times, May 7, 1965. 7 Henry Raymont, “Uruguay to Press Stability Program,” New York Times, October 17, 1965. 8 Henry Raymont, “Uruguay Invokes News Censorship,” New York Times, October 15, 1965. 9 “Uruguay in Virtual State of Siege,” New York Times, October 9, 1965.

24 into a fully equipped and modern repressive apparatus. A telecommunications system linking police and military throughout the republic was designed and installed by Paul Katz, OPS telecommunications expert with counterinsurgency experience in

Vietnam.10 In 1965, OPS obtained more than twenty patrol vehicles for the Montevideo police in order to replace the horses and bicycles that they previously relied upon. New supplies of tear gas, the use of which vastly increased in the mid-1960s, were regularly replenished by the OPS and police were provided with special gas masks in order to confront

“communist-led mobs.”11 In ten years, the US government spent $2.4 million on equipment and training for the Uruguayan police and military through the OPS program.12 According to Saenz, close relationships between OPS officials and the increasingly repressive Montevideo police formed in these heated years. After bouts of street fighting with protestors, Saenz looked approvingly on his newly trained and supplied police force, commenting, “many times I watched the GR and the GM [Republican Guard and Metropolitan Guard] in action out on the street and concluded that the paramilitary police units were among the best in the hemisphere.”13 In November 1965, a standoff with police in Montevideo revealed the extent to which OPS support had transformed the police into a

10 Paul Katz, “Uruguay Police Telecommunications Survey Report,” Agency for International Development. Office of Public Safety. August 1965. 11 Saenz, The OPS Story, 127. 12 US Departments of Defense and State Agency for International Development, Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, “Stopping U.S. Assistance to Foreign Police and Prisons,” February 26, 1976, 1. Adjusted for inflation, this would be over $10 million today. 13 Saenz, The OPS Story, 127.

25 modern repressive apparatus. The New York Times reported, “helmeted policemen used automatic weapons, tear gas equipment, and concrete- breaking bazookas” in their attempt to subdue the fugitives. The standoff eventually ended when the police used grenades to kill the alleged criminals.14 In some cases—despite the increased strength from OPS assistance—police were still overwhelmed by the force of the masses. In October 1966, striking workers successfully defeated the police in street clashes, which in turn resulted in the first of many interventions by the armed forces.15 In response, numerous homes of police and military officials were firebombed by dissidents. In the days that followed, the government expelled four Soviet diplomats as alleged strike instigators.16 Clashes like these provided justification for intensifying OPS operations. In the November 1966 elections, Uruguayan voters opted to eliminate the nine-man National Council of Government and return to the one-man executive. In March 1967, Oscar Gestido, former military general with close ties to the OPS, assumed the presidency. Embassy officials promptly urged Gestido to “adopt a sound stabilization and economic growth as a basis for US and IMF support” and in December 1967, President Johnson approved a $19.3 million loan to Uruguay. Immediately thereafter, Gestido began instituting the requisite austerity

14 “5 Die as Fugitives in Montevideo Hold Off Police Attack 14 Hours,” New York Times, November 7, 1965. 15 United Press International, “Strikes Still Plague Uruguay,” New York Times, October 13, 1966. 16 Ibid.

26 programs, which after his unexpected death in 1967, his successor Jorge

Pacheco Areco would intensify.17

In April 1967, Adolph Saenz was recruited to organize security affairs for President Johnson’s appearance at the Western Hemisphere Summit Conference in Punta del Este, eighty-nine miles east of Montevideo. Saenz had “FM portable radios designed by Paul Katz for the police field forces in South Vietnam… shipped by air to Uruguay,” and promptly increased firearms training for the Uruguayan police.18 When students and workers protested the event, clashes broke out which finally ended when, according to the New York Times, police were

“reinforced by truckloads of steel-helmeted military police.”19 Reports like this reveal the extent to which OPS had transformed the Montevideo police, which just a few years earlier, largely relied on horses and bicycles for transportation. Hence, the vehicles and equipment provided by the OPS enhanced the capabilities of the Montevideo police, which employed increasingly harsh repressive measures as the internal situation worsened. Throughout 1967, the neoliberal program continued to be met with widespread resistance from the Uruguayan public. Montevideo police records document almost daily clashes with protestors.20 In October

17 US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America, “Action Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson,” December 12, 1967, document 468; Ibid, “Information Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter- American Affairs (Oliver) to Secretary of State Rusk,” document 467. 18 Saenz, The OPS Story, 165. 19 Reuters, “Students and Police Clash,” New York Times, April 12, 1967. 20 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977.

27

1967, under yet another temporary suspension of civil rights, police arrested key leaders of the labor movement. Since the Batllista era, labor leaders had occupied a respected position in Uruguayan society. The repression of the labor movement prompted four government ministers to resign their positions in the government. In June and July of 1968 thousands of students shut down the center of Montevideo on an almost weekly basis to protest government collaboration with the IMF and “stringent security measures” which the government had adopted in early June. Every mobilization was met with a strong police presence which was followed by violent clashes and mass arrests. In Uruguay, conflicts like these were largely unprecedented. Protests and social movements were an integral part of Uruguayan national identity dating back to the years of the Jose Batlle presidency.21 However, the Cold War disintegrated this vibrant civil society and with

OPS assistance, the first wave of large-scale repression in the twentieth- century swept through the country. The transformation of the Uruguayan police, however, was far more substantial than merely material modernization and training. During these years, the police became an effective political tool used by the ruling elite. As the most potent cause of dissent was the US and IMF-backed neoliberal economic policies, and repression was made possible by OPS assistance, the internal affairs of Uruguay cannot be understood solely as an internal

21 This legacy reaches back to the late nineteenth century. For example, Battle himself penned a column in the newspaper El Dia proclaimed public support for civil disobedience. He wrote, “strikes are a protest and struggle against this invariably precarious general situation of the worker, against modern slavery which converts the owner into a master.” quoted in Weinstein, Uruguay: The Politics of Failure, 22. Batlle served as president twice (1903-1907 and 1911-1915)

28 conflict. Instead, we should understand Uruguay in these years as a microcosm of the international Cold War. In a pattern that resembled other Cold War battlegrounds, the repression of previously acceptable forms of protest led certain sectors of social movements to form underground, clandestine guerrilla movements. In Uruguay, the most prominent of these was the Movimiento Liberacion Nacional-Tupamaro, which mounted one of the most sophisticated urban guerrilla insurgencies in Latin America.

Tupamaros Until 1967, the majority of the Uruguayan resistance to neoliberalism came from the PCU aligned student and labor unions. Only in the late 1960s, when kidnappings, sabotage, and politically motivated weapon robberies became common occurrences did the Tupamaro movement come into the public sphere. The official announcement of their existence came at the end of 1967 with the publication of the “Carta Abierta de los Tupamaros a la Policía” (Open Letter from the Tupamaros to the Police) in the magazine Época.22 The fact that this statement was explicitly directed to the Uruguayan police reveals that the Tupamaros were declaring war on the institution that repressed previously accepted social protest and was therefore undermining Uruguayan tradition. Furthermore, when considering OPS collaboration with the police, we begin to see the importance of international actors in the Uruguayan conflict.

22 “Carta Abierta de los Tupamaros a la policia,” National Liberation Movement. December 7, 1967, quoted in Weinstein, Uruguay: The Politics of Failure, 121.

29

The authorities were aware of the existence of an armed movement at least as early as 1965. For example, one event that put the Tupamaros on the map of US and Uruguayan authorities occurred in late 1965 when the Bayer Company building in Montevideo was bombed. Leaflets left at the scene read: “Death to the Yanqui assassins in Vietnam. The Nazi-owned Bayer Company helps produce toxic gases for the gringos. Viva el Vietcong! Viva La

Revolucion!” The statement was signed, “Tupamaros.” The bombing was recorded in the Montevideo police records and Adolph Saenz recalled this as the first time the OPS became aware of the Tupamaros.23 Most sources agree that the Tupamaros were founded around 1962 by a group of urban professionals and rural socialists from the Artigas

Sugarcane Workers Union led by Raul Sendic.24 Their formative years of clandestine preparation were marked by frequent robberies of banks and gun stores to obtain supplies for guerrilla warfare. During their first years of action, they earned the unique status of “Robin Hood” guerrillas as a result of their tactical creativity that gained the support of many Uruguayans. One such example occurred on Christmas Eve in 1963 when roughly twenty armed youth stole a delivery truck loaded with chickens and turkeys bound for the wealthy neighborhoods, and distributed the goods throughout the poorest districts of Montevideo.25

23 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977. 735; Saenz, The OPS Story, 123. 24 Weinstein, The Politics of Failure, 120; Woodruff, “Political Culture and Revolution: An Analysis of the Tupamaros Failed Attempt to Ignite a Social Revolution in Uruguay,” 12-13; Porzecanski, Uruguay’s Tupamaros: The Urban Guerilla; Major Carlos Wilson, The Tupamaros: The Unmentionables (Boston: Branden Press, 1974) 25 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 726.

30

Another example of revolutionary theatrics came on February 14, 1969 when Tupamaros broke into the offices of the Montevideo Bank,

Financiera Monty, stole account books, and publicized records of fraudulent loans and misuse of public funds. This information prompted legal investigations and resulted in the resignation of numerous government officials who had close ties with the bank.26 The presence of an armed guerrilla group prompted a shift in the direction of the OPS program and US policy in general. According to Saenz, “the major emphasis [of the OPS program] was shifted to improving anti-terrorist capabilities,” and regular meetings took place among CIA station chief John Horton, Ambassador Hoyt, Saenz, and the Montevideo police began being held in OPS offices at Police

Headquarters.27 Alejandro Otero—chief of police intelligence—was added to the CIA payroll and a new mobile patrol force was created with vehicles supplied by OPS. Jose Bonaudi, an IPA graduate, was appointed chief of the new force.28 To streamline the offensive against the Tupamaros, the government of Jorge Pacheco Areco declared emergency powers in June 1968 and ruled under them through the end of the 1960’s. The Socialist party was outlawed and numerous opposition publications were forcefully closed

26 Porzecanski. Uruguay’s Tupamaros: The Urban Guerilla; Uruguay’s current First Lady, Lucia Topolansky Saavedra, was involved in this action. 27 Agency for International Development Office of Public Safety, “Termination Phase- Out Study: Public Safety Project, Uruguay,” (April-May 1974), 4; Saenz, The OPS Story, 159-160. 28 Saenz, The OPS Story, 189-190.

31 down.29 In response, a general strike was called in June 1968 and sparked days of violent clashes between workers and OPS- trained and equipped police. During New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s diplomatic visit, the Tupamaros firebombed the Montevideo offices of

General Motors, causing over $1 million in damage. The New York Times reported that leaflets found at the scene denounced Rockefeller as “the agent of Yankee imperialism” and blamed General Motors for providing the Montevideo police with cars and other weapons “for the repression of

Uruguayan students.”30 According to Montevideo police records, at least twelve bombings were directed against US business enterprises on June

20, 1969.31 Thus, a state of war descended on the previously peaceful city of Montevideo. Uruguayan jails began to fill up and despite the increasingly bad reputation of the police, OPS funding and support continued.32

Years later the Nunca Más report would capture the tension of these years best. By this time, the report noted, it was “obvious that the Tupamaros escalated operations to match the escalation of government

29 Martin Weinstein, “The Decline and Fall of Democracy in Uruguay: Lessons for the Future,” in Saul Sosnowski and Louise B. Popkin (eds) Repression, Exile and Democracy, 85. 30 Associated Press, “Uruguay Raiders Burn G.M. Offices: Terrorists Protest Visit by Rockefeller Today—Loss is Put at $1 million,”New York Times, June 21, 1969. 31 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 776. 32 Included among the June-July arrestees was the current president of Uruguay, Jose “Pepe” Mujica see US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 758-59.

32 repression. The more harshly security measures were imposed against popular demonstrations, the more daring the Tupamaros became.”33

In August 1968, the Tupamaros added another tactic to their arsenal when they kidnapped presidential advisor Ulises Pereira Reverbel. A Tupamaro communique announced that Pereira was targeted for his support of IMF-mandated austerity and defense of police brutality in the suppression of student protestors.34 In response to the kidnapping, the Montevideo Police committed a fatal error that not only resulted in further loss of credibility, but encouraged outright war against the police. On August 9, the police raided the University of Montevideo supposedly looking for evidence in the kidnapping. According to Minerva, “3,000 students fought for several hours with several hundred police in Montevideo.”35 The clashes continued for three days and on August 12, twenty-eight year old dental student Liber Arce was shot and killed by the police. Arce’s funeral procession was attended by more than 10,000 people including University faculty, students, and workers. When the marchers arrived at the Presidential Palace, police unleashed a sea of tear gas that was followed by more street clashes.36 Pereira Reverbel was held for five days and released unharmed. Upon his release, a Tupamaro communique justified the action by asserting, “just as [our] homes can be raided, so can those of the security

33 Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972- 1985, 22. 34 Associated Press, “50 Uruguayan Students Hold Sit-in in Highway,” Utica Daily Press. August 12, 1968. 35 “Transport Fares, University Students, and Government Policies,” Minerva 7, no. 1-2, (Autumn-Winter 1968-69): 335. 36 Ibid, 336.

33 agents.” The statement concluded with a warning: the future safety of public officials would depend “on the behavior of the repressive forces and the fascist groups at their service.”37 In the summer of 1969, the typically calm tourist-filled season was interrupted by another strike of government workers protesting IMF imposed wage cuts. The main boulevard of Montevideo was barricaded and the windows of the US-owned Pan American World Airways were smashed for the fifteenth time in six months. An Army Colonel, upset with the hindrance to tourism, confronted the barricade and in the ensuing conflict, shot three protestors, killing one.38 In response to increasing police repression, the Tupamaros kidnapped presidential advisor Gaetano Pellegrini Giampetro from the steps of the Presidential Palace. In exchange for Pellegrini’s life, the Tupamaros demanded a “favorable settlement for striking Uruguayan bank workers.” and an end to government repression against dissidents.39 After seventy-two days of negotiation, Pellegrini was released. The ransom demanded by the Tupamaros consisted of a $60,000 payment to a workers hospital and an underserved primary school, which gained the guerrillas large public support.40 A month later, in perhaps their most daring action to date, a

37 “Tupamaros: If there Isn’t a Homeland for All, There Won’t Be a Homeland for Anybody,” Tricontinental, 58 (1971): 3 quoted in Woodruff, “Political Culture and Revolution: An Analysis of the Tupamaros Failed Attempt to Ignite a Social Revolution in Uruguay” 3; Malcolm W. Browne, “A Small, Elite Rebel Band Harasses Uruguayan Regime.” New York Times, January 23, 1969. 38 Malcolm W. Brown, “Despite Summer, Uruguay is Tense: Bonus Cancellations Keep Protestors from Vacations,” New York Times, February 2, 1969. 39 Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note, 2-3. 40 Malcolm W. Brown, “City Guerrillas Worry Uruguay: Kidnapping of a Montevideo Banker is Latest Act,” New York Times, September 21, 1969; US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 787.

34 guerrilla army of roughly 50 Tupamaros occupied the Montevideo suburb of Pando and took more than $200,000 from the banks.

In this environment, the OPS program in Uruguay flourished. Official OPS/USAID reports commended the achievements of the program by noting, “the police’s riot training and equipment were severely tested in 1968 and 1969 and found adequate.”41 OPS riot control and counterinsurgency training for police increased, and weapons and equipment were purchased with OPS funds as needed throughout the end of the 1960s.42 The relationship between OPS officials and Uruguayan police became so close that according to Saenz, President Gestido, “personally called me at my office to thank us for our help and asked that we expand our assistance.”43 However, as Saenz correctly noted, “it was a war with no end in sight.”44 As jails filled with insurgents, the Tupamaros perfected the tactic of prison escape, which was used for the first time on March 8, 1970 when thirteen Tupamaros escaped from the women’s prison.45 The next year, another thirty-eight Tupamaro women escaped from prison. In September 1971, another 106 Tupamaros escaped from the Punta Carretas prison—including current President Jose Mujica—through underground tunnels, in what was the largest prison escape of twentieth-century Uruguayan history.46

41 Agency for International Development Office of Public Safety, “Termination Phase- Out Study: Public Safety Project, Uruguay,” (April-May 1974), 2-3. 42 Saenz, The OPS Story, 229. 43 Ibid, 231. 44 Ibid, 127. 45 Among the escapees were the sister of the current First Lady of Uruguay, see US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 797. 46 Sergio d’Olivira, “Uruguay and the Tupamaro Myth,” Military Review, 53, no. 4. (1973): 30.

35

Early in 1970, at the peak of OPS collaboration with the Montevideo police, accusations of police torturing imprisoned dissidents surfaced in the Uruguayan and international press. Although Parliament had been stripped of most of its authority by the emergency powers, an official investigation into the allegations began. At the investigation, Carlos Maria Astorga, a metal worker, testified to being “stripped, beaten, burned and subjected to electric shocks” at the hands of Montevideo police. Numerous accused police officials, including IPA graduate Alejandro Otero, were called to testify at the hearings and denied the charges.47 In June, the parliamentary commission released its report. The first finding read, “without any possibility of doubt, that within the police organization under the control of Montevideo’s Police Headquarters, the application of tortures in different forms is a normal, frequent, and habitual occurrence.”48 Singling out the Police Headquarters inadvertently implicated OPS in the crimes, as OPS held offices in the building. Despite the publicity of an OPS-trained and supplied police force being involved in torture, no action was taken and the OPS program continued unabated. While many blame these atrocities on the so-called “bad apples” within the police, the abundance of similar instances in OPS programs throughout the world makes this argument hard to support. According to Jeremy Kuzmarov’s study of US Cold War modernization of

47 Malcolm W. Brown, “Charges That Police in Uruguay Torture Political Prisoners Stir Scandal,” New York Times, April 7, 1970. 48 Both parties approved the report’s findings on October 6, 1970, see Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972-1985, 12; Report of Uruguayan Senate Special Commission of Inquiry into Torture, quoted in Solinas, State of Seige, 195.

36 foreign security apparatuses, “human rights violations were not by accident or the product of rogue forces betraying American principles…

They were rather institutionalized within the fabric of American policy and its coercive underpinnings.” 49 During the Parliamentary investigations, the Tupamaros— predictably not satisfied with an official investigation from a political institution that many Uruguayans had lost faith in—set out to avenge the victims of torture. On April 11, 1970, the leader of a newly formed police “special brigade,” Hector Moran Charquerro, was pictured in a report on the torture investigation in the daily De Frente. Although OPS director Adolph Saenz saw Moran Charquerro as and “good man” and “valued friend of the OPS,” he was in fact one of the alleged perpetrators of police torture. Two days later, Moran Charquerro was assassinated by the Tupamaros. Leaflets left at the scene warned US and Uruguayan officials that they could meet the same fate.50 A few days later, in an apparent move to give support to their threat, the home of US Air Force

Sergeant Selby Stevens was bombed.51 Thus, the Tupamaros added assassination to their tactical arsenal of kidnappings and prison breaks. Although their next victim became the most famous, he would not be the last. Before his assignment in Uruguay ended, the director of the Uruguayan OPS program, Adolph Saenz, was informed that he and other

49 Kuzmarov, “Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Political Violence, and Nation Building in the ‘American Century,’” 193. 50 Seanz, The OPS Story, 156; Associated Press, “Rogers Among Morners as Mitrione is Buried,” New York Times, April 14, 1970. 51 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 802.

37

Americans were at the top of the Tupamaro hit list. The information came from documents yielded in raids of Tupamaro safe houses and according to Saenz, included “intelligent” and “accurate” information about the nature of OPS and CIA work, as well as details about phone numbers and addresses.52 It was in this context that Dan Mitrione replaced Saenz as the director of the OPS program in Uruguay. Saenz was sent to north to hunt down Che Guevara in the eastern Bolivian jungles. The Parliamentary report on torture noted that inappropriate interrogation techniques were being used by the Uruguayan police since the late 1960s. Many attribute the increase in human rights violations to

Dan Mitrione’s arrival.53 Mitrione was well-suited for his new post in Uruguay. He had seven years of experience in the OPS program in Brazil, where he trained police during and after the military coup of 1964. In

1965, Mitrione was sent to the Dominican Republic to train and advise the police after the US military invasion. After his arrival in Uruguay, an anonymous police commissioner testified that Mitrione’s presence brought drastic changes in police operations. Interrogations became “more technical” and “the almost automatic application of all sorts of torture to the political prisoners” became a matter of policy.54 Another Uruguayan police official testified that Mitrione’s arrival brought “scientific refinement” to the “methods of inflicting pain.” Weapons such as, “new 45-caliber submachine guns, new nine-millimeter guns and also

52 Saenz, The OPS Story, 225. 53 A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors (New York; Pantheon Books, 1978) 54 Mitrione allegedly taught Brazilian police how to “scientifically” apply electric shocks to prisoners without killing them, see Langguth, Hidden Terrors, 286.

38

30-caliber machine guns on tripods” arrived for the police and according to the police themselves, “caused an escalation in Tupamaro activity.”55

Alejandro Otero—who had testified at the Parliamentary torture investigations and was on the CIA payroll—resigned from his post with the police after watching Mitrione preside over the torture of his friend who was allegedly a Tupamaro sympathizer.56 After nearly a year in Uruguay, Mitrione woke up on July 30, 1970 to face what would be his last day on the job. The next morning, while he was being chauffeured to his office at police headquarters, his vehicle was blockaded and stopped by two vehicles driven by Tupamaros. At gunpoint, Mitrione was forced into one of the vehicles and promptly taken into the Tupamaro “people’s prison.” The next day, the guerrillas released a communiqué demanding the release of their jailed comrades in exchange for Mitrione’s life. The communique concluded, “for every revolutionary killed, one policeman will be killed.”57 Upon the recommendation of OPS officials, the Montevideo Police immediately dedicated all of their resources to the search and rescue of the diplomats. The Uruguayan executive took a hard line against negotiating with the Tupamaros, while many lawmakers began publicly favoring amnesty for the political prisoners in order to secure the safe release of the diplomats. OPS advisors and US Embassy officials led the

55 Testimony of “Police Commissioner X,” quoted in Solinas, State of Siege, 170-171. 56 William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe: Common Courage Press, 2003), 201. 57 Within days of Mitrione’s abduction, numerous other foreign diplomats were also kidnapped including British, Brazilian and United States officials, see US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 808; Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note, 7.

39 efforts to coordinate searches with police and military divisions, and two additional OPS advisors arrived in Montevideo from Washington to assist with the search. Entire neighborhoods were cordoned off and searched house-to-house. Despite the state of siege that descended on Montevideo, the Tupamaros continued to successfully rob banks and armories to supply their insurgency.58 Amidst the chaos, the Mitrione kidnapping brought the OPS operations in Uruguay into the public discourse. On August third, as Mitrione was being held, numerous Uruguayan Congressmen demanded a government investigation of the role of the OPS program. Many Uruguayan legislators also began publicly favoring an amnesty for the Tupamaro prisoners in order to spare the lives of the foreign diplomats in Tupamaro custody. Nevertheless, on August sixth, the Office of the Secretary of the President declared that the government steadfastly rejected Tupamaro demands and that all legislators that disagreed should resign.59 After days of political stalemate, the Tupamaros released another communiqué that declared Mitrione had admitted to training the “repressive forces that in recent years have killed a dozen patriots.” Mitrione, according to the declaration, also admitted that “deadly arms have been provided for the repression of the Uruguayan people under the cynical emblem of AID.”60 The communiqué gave the government a

58 Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note, 8-9. 59 Ibid, 8-13. 60 “Communique #6,” quoted in Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note, 14-15.

40 deadline of August seventh to take a position regarding the release of political prisoners.

In the first days of Mitrione’s captivity, the US government allowed its Uruguayan counterpart to handle the affair. However, as the deadline approached, the White House began to take a more active role in the Mitrione situation. On August sixth, a telegram arrived at the US Embassy in Montevideo containing a message from President Nixon urging the Uruguayan President to “employ every means available to… secure the most rapid release of Dan Anthony Mitrione.”61 The next day the Tupamaros raised the stakes by kidnapping Dr. Claude Fry, another USAID employee. Hours later, Uruguayan police forces captured nine high-ranking Tupamaros including Raul Sendic. The captured rebels were carrying numerous documents from the diplomats, including Fry and Mitrione’s passports.62 On the August 7 deadline, the Uruguayan government remained quiet. The next day, a letter from Mitrione to his wife arrived at the office of the President. Mitrione urged the US ambassador to do “all in his power to get me liberated because my life depends on it.”63 In the afternoon, without word from the government on the liberation of political prisoners, the Tupamaros declared that they would kill Mitrione at noon on August ninth. A complete state of siege descended on Montevideo and the fate of the captive rebels and diplomats hung in the air.

61 National Security Archive, “Electronic Briefing Book 324,” State Department Telegram (Document 4), August 11, 2010, accessed March 8, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB324/. 62 Ronfeldt, The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay: A RAND Note, 16. 63 Ibid, 19.

41

At 11:35am on August ninth, a classified cable from US Secretary of State William Rogers urged the Uruguayan government to use the

“threat to kill [Tupamaro leader Raul] Sendic and other key MLN prisoners if Mitrione is killed.”64 In response, Uruguayan Foreign Minister ensured the Ambassador that Tupamaro prisoners had been informed that, “members of the ‘Escuadrón de Muerte’ (Death Squad) would take action against the prisoners’ relatives if Mitrione were killed.”65 That evening, another cable from President Nixon urged President Pacheco to, “spare no effort to secure the safe return of Mr.

Mitrione and Dr. Fly.”66 These cables represent the first time on record that both the US and Uruguayan government’s acknowledged the use death squads. According to the testimony of Uruguayan police official Nelson Bardesio, the death squads were created with the financial assistance and intelligence support of CIA agent and OPS official, William

Cantrell.67 Nevertheless, the Uruguayan government failed to negotiate with the guerrillas and at 4:15am on August 10, 1970, Mitrione’s body was found dead in the backseat of a stolen Buick on Lucas Moreno Street in

Montevideo.68 Although his death prompted increased criticism of the OPS program in Uruguay and elsewhere, the internal war continued to

64.National Security Archive, “Electronic Briefing Book 324,” Secretary of State William Rogers to US Ambassador Adair, Department of State Telegram (Document 6), August 11, 2010, accessed March 8, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/NSAEBB324/. 65 Ibid, Ambassador Adair to Secretary of State William Rogers. (Document 8). 66 Ibid, Department of State Telegram (Document 9). 67 Edy Kaufman, Uruguay in Transition: From Civilian to Military Rule, 11; Wilson, The Tupamaros: The Unmentionables 95-96; Solinas, State of Siege, 187- 188. 68 Ernest Lefever, “Murder in Montevideo: The AID/Mitrione Story,” 14-16.

42 escalate. President Pacheco suspended all constitutional civil liberties for twenty days, and “disappearances” of dissidents became frequent.69 The government closed primary and secondary schools in Montevideo and diplomatic corps from numerous nations revoked their Uruguayan ambassadors. In early September, bombs were thrown at the homes of US naval personnel and the plants of Standard Oil and Coca Cola were also bombed.70 Hence, the previously peaceful and democratic country fell into a state of internal war.

69 Kaufrman, Uruguay in Transition: From Civilian to Military Rule, 13. 70 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 823-824.

CHAPTER 4: THE LAST CHANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND THE PLUNGE INTO DICTATORSHIP

By March 1971, amidst hostilities between government forces and the Tupamaros, public discourse centered on a new political faction running in the November elections. The Frente Amplio, or Broad Front, was a coalition of communists, socialists, Christian Democrats, independents, and dissidents from the two traditional parties. The Tupamaros threw their support behind the Frente and proposed a temporary ceasefire to allow for peaceful elections. With the electoral success of Salvador Allende in neighboring Chile, the Tupamaros embraced the electoral tactic while recognizing that the elections would not conclude their struggle. Their public endorsement read, “it is not us… who seek to invalidate the polls… Those who beat, torture, kill, imprison, organize terror squads. Those are the only ones conspiring against the elections.”1 Given Uruguay’s geographic location between the two superpowers of Brazil and Argentina, the 1971 elections held a high level of international significance. In Brazil, the right-wing dictatorship of Emilio Garrastazu Medici worked diligently to ensure a Frente loss. In a White House memorandum declassified in 2002, Nixon acknowledged that, “the Brazilians helped rig the Uruguayan elections” and that “there are [anti- democratic] forces at work which we are not discouraging.”2 After the

1 National Liberation Movement, “The Fight to Liberate all Political Detainees,” quoted in Gilio, The Tupamaro Guerrillas, 227. 2 National Security Archive, “Electronic Briefing Book 71,” Memorandum for the President’s File from Henry A. Kissinger, (Document 15), June 20, 2002, accessed March 8, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB71/

44 elections, Nixon noted that Medici was “quite a fellow… I wish he were running the whole continent.”3 The US Ambassador in Buenos Aires confirmed that Argentina wouldn’t allow the ascendance of a Frente government and would support the anti-Frente factions.4 As elections drew near, the National Security Council urged the Montevideo embassy to increase support for the other parties in order to

“lessen the threat of a political takeover by the Frente.”5 The US embassy in Montevideo informed the State Department that it would “collaborate overtly and covertly with those media elements which compete with those of the Frente” and recommended that a team “of professional journalists well versed in psychology” be sent to Montevideo to combat the Frente campaign.6 While covert subversion of Uruguayan democracy was a matter of policy for the US Embassy, the Frente presidential candidate and other party leaders also alleged that the Embassy orchestrated numerous terrorist attacks against party members in the days preceding the election.7

With the threat of a Frente victory, the Montevideo embassy informed the State Department that it was “essential that a public safety program be maintained in Uruguay” and recommended the continued “support of the police on internal security matters.” The importance of

3 Ibid, Conversation between President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William Rogers, (Document 11). 4 Ibid. Secret Cable to the State Department from U.S. Ambassador Lodge in Argentina, (Document 3-4). 5 Ibid, State Department Airgram from Montevideo Embassy, (Document 2). 6 Ibid. Secret U.S.Embassy Preliminary Analysis and Strategy Paper - Uruguay, (Document 2 and 10). 7 Ibid. Confidential telegram from U.S. Ambassador Charles Adair to the Secretary of State (Document 10).

45 the program, the Embassy wrote, rested in providing “both the police and the armed forces with the material, or access to material, necessary to implement their organizational and operational efforts.”8 Training to “successfully detain, interrogate and imprison suspected terrorists” was extended, and Uruguayan police were sent to US training courses in the

Panama Canal zone as well as Washington DC.9 By this time, according to Montevideo police records, corpses had begun washing up on

Uruguayan beaches, tortured and riddled with bullet holes.10 Nevertheless, US diplomats in Uruguay praised the Uruguayan police as having “taken major steps, supplemented by direct AID grant assistance, to modernize equipment.”11

Given odds against them, the Frente expectedly lost the elections. The winner, Juan Maria Bordaberry, publicly admired the neighboring Brazilian dictatorship thereby illuminating the path that Uruguay would take in the coming years. As expected, in what would be their last stand, a post-election Tupamaro offensive commenced on April 14, 1972. In multiple confrontations throughout the day, Tupamaros assassinated four high ranking police officials and wounded numerous others. In the process, two Tupamaros were killed and at least one was wounded. The next day, an unprecedented “state of internal war” was declared and

8 Ibid. Secret U.S.Embassy Preliminary Analysis and Strategy Paper - Uruguay, (Document 2 and 16). 9 Saenz, The OPS Story, 17. 10 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 852. 11 National Security Archive, “Electronic Briefing Book 71,” Secret U.S.Embassy Preliminary Analysis and Strategy Paper - Uruguay, (Document 2 and 18), June 20, 2002, accessed March 8, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ NSAEBB71/

46 individual rights were once again suspended, placing Uruguay under martial law. The same day, on the floor of the Uruguayan Parliament,

Uruguayan Senator Enrique Erro read a document that he received from the Tupamaros. The document was the signed and sworn testimony of Montevideo police official, Nelson Bardesio. His testimony declared that the Uruguayan police had been engaged in bombing the homes of suspected Tupamaro sympathizers as well as the widespread use of death squads and assassinations.12 The remainder of 1972 was a period of the consolidation of dictatorial powers. A State Security Law eliminated the judicial branch and transferred its power to the executive. This law also made the state of emergency permanent which, according to the Servicio Paz y Justicia, legalized “a systematic violation of human rights.”13 Multiple guerrilla safe houses were discovered, weapons were seized, hundreds of dissidents were arrested, and armed resistance ground to a halt.14 By the end of 1972 the Tupamaros were defeated. On February 13, 1973, President Bordaberry and military commanders signed the “Pact of Boisso Lanza” which created the blueprint for the military assumption of political power. Finally, On June 27, in a bloodless coup, Parliament was dissolved and the military dictatorship that ruled Uruguay until 1985 commenced. On the first day

12 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 879-882; Kaufman, Uruguay in Transition: From Civilian to Military Rule, 11. 13 Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972- 1985, 32. 14 US Joint Publications Research Service, “Subversion: Uruguayan Armed Forces Summary of Subversive Movement in Latin America,” August 12, 1977, 875-950.

47 of the dictatorship, the military established a dominant presence on the streets of Montevideo. All means of communication were taken over and at 7:00am, an executive order was broadcast that declared the

Parliament dissolved.15 Former members of Parliament were arrested and thousands of Uruguayans fled the country. Student and labor organizations were declared illegal and every aspect of society became tightly controlled. By this time, as noted in the official report to the US Congress by the comptroller general, the police and military had become interchangeable and many had been trained and equipped by the United States. The repressive apparatus that Bordaberry inherited had received

$2.4 million from the US State and Defense Departments.16

Ending US Support While the dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil have since received more attention, the Uruguayan regime should not be glossed over or underestimated in its brutality. Many Uruguayan archives remain closed, and thus scholars are left piecing together documentation and testimony of crimes committed by the dictatorship. Nevertheless, credible sources exist which allow for a preliminary understanding of the reign of terror that swept Uruguay. Today, as Uruguay continues to struggle with its history of human rights abuses, these efforts have been given immediacy.

15 Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay: Nunca Mas: Human Rights Violations, 1972- 1985, 38. 16 US Departments of Defense and State Agency for International Development, Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, “Stopping U.S. Assistance to Foreign Police and Prisons,” February 26, 1976, 1.

48

In response to the Carter administration’s increasing emphasis on human rights, accompanied by international demands for the US to cease support for dictatorial regimes around the world, Congress held a series of investigations on human rights in nations receiving US support. One of these, entitled Human Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay was conducted in June of 1976 and provides some of the most credible information on the first years of Uruguayan dictatorship. The first testimony came from former Uruguayan Senator Nelson Ferreira Aldunate, who hailed from the conservative Blanco party but fled the country out of fear for his life. Ferreira Aldunate provided documentation that revealed that over 50,000 Uruguayans had been arrested for political reasons, half of which were subjected to torture by the police. According to Ferreira Aldunate, Uruguay spent “the highest percentage of its budget of any country in the world to maintain its security services” which had resulted in every aspect of life coming under the control of the military and police. “Family celebrations and even birthday parties,” he continued, “must be reported and approved beforehand by the police.”17 Despite his stated admiration for the institutions of the US government, Ferreira Aldunate condemned the fact that, “the Uruguayan repressive apparatus” had been built up with “abundant material and technical assistance from the United States.” US support, he argued, was “a form of aggression” and contributed “to the growth and increased sophistication of the repressive apparatus.” He condemned the “direct and indirect forms of financial aid which keep power artificially in the

17 HR 64th Cong., 2d sess, Human Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay, 3.

49 hands of tyrants,” and reserved his harshest criticism for the US Embassy in Montevideo which, according to him, “acts as a public relations agency for the Uruguayan Government by publicizing throughout the world false information about conditions in Uruguay.”18 In response to US Ambassador Siracusa’s reports that human rights violations in Uruguay were being exaggerated, Ferreira replied:

to say that human rights has improved in Uruguay is to deny a reality that no one in the world disputes today. Not even in my country. In my country, there is discussion about whether human rights violations can be avoided or not, but no one doubts that they exist. When Mr. Bordaberry had all the Uruguayan Ambassadors to different countries at a special meeting, he told them that torture was indispensable because, as he said, “it is a methodology.”19 Martin Weinstein, Uruguayan expert and political science professor at William Patterson College also testified at the congressional hearing. “What is clear,” he began, “is that the significant increase in US aid to the Uruguayan armed forces and police, and their increasingly close relationship to the US Embassy, strengthened them not only as a security force, but as a political institution.” According to Weinstein, this was a policy “condemnable as both morally bankrupt and politically unwise.” Despite the Uruguayan regime being dictatorial, torturous, and bankrupt, Weinstein continued, “the United States has consistently granted bilateral aid… apparently without questioning the practices of the regime from a human rights perspective or, even more interestingly, from an economic one. Totalitarianism costs money.” Weinstein condemned the State Department’s “defense of the gross violation of

18 Ibid, 3-4. 19 Ibid, 20.

50 human rights and the destruction of constitutional democracy in Uruguay.” In conclusion, he issued a warning to Congress: “by supporting this regime, the United States is helping to support a brutal dictatorship, thus creating the conditions for an alternative that it obviously does not desire.”20 Edy Kaufman, representing Amnesty International, testified on the findings of his organization’s investigation into torture in Uruguay. The investigation, which included testimony from dozens of Uruguayans that had been jailed under the regime, concluded that, “the use of torture is widespread and includes an impressive range of physical and psychological techniques.” According to the Amnesty International investigation, one student reported being, “tortured for a whole month, during which he slept in the torture chambers.” The student was “hung for 15 days by the hands under medical supervision,” while receiving regular electric shocks and burns with cigarettes. “When he was on the verge of losing consciousness” Kaufman continued, “he was put in a cage in the middle of a courtyard surrounded by doberman dogs while a recorder played the screaming voices of women and children who, he was told, were his wife and children under torture.” The Amnesty report also contained testimonies of police officers, one of which expressed, “the revulsion” he felt for having witnessed—and in some cases took part in— the torture of his fellow Uruguayans.21 Amidst the onslaught of publicity regarding the US support for dictatorial regimes around the world, many in Congress demanded that

20 Ibid, see testimony of Martin Weinstein, 31-36. 21 Ibid, see testimony of Edy Kaufman, 37-55.

51 all forms of aid be immediately cut off to regimes like the one in Uruguay. However, ending a foreign assistance program to a foreign dictatorship proved to be more complex than many hoped. With the executive branch—especially the stalwarts in the State Department—insisting on continuing support for the regime, the task of ending government assistance fell to the Congress. In December 1973, Congress added section 112 to the Foreign Assistance Act, which “prohibited the use of any funds made available under the act for police training or related programs in a foreign country.”22 While predominately concerned with Vietnam and other nations in Southeast Asia, Uruguay and other Latin American dictatorships were indeed a priority. In 1974, the Foreign Assistance Act was amended once again to explicitly eliminate “AID involvement in the public safety activities as of July 1, 1975.”23 Thus, the OPS program was disbanded.

Despite the end of OPS, the US government continued supporting the Uruguayan regime through other means. The two channels which US funding for the Uruguayan military and police flowed were 1) OPS/USAID, and 2) the Department of Defense’s Military Assistance Program (MAP). While the aforementioned amendments explicitly outlawed the continued funding of OPS/USAID, a loophole existed that allowed for the continued funding of Uruguay’s dictatorship through MAPs. The amendments declared that assistance could no longer be provided for foreign police forces by the State Department, but assistance

22 US Departments of Defense and State Agency for International Development, Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, “Stopping U.S. Assistance to Foreign Police and Prisons,” February 26, 1976, 4. 23 Ibid, 5.

52 could continue through the Department of Defense’s MAPs in pursuit of the DODs “overall objective of improving the internal security forces of friendly governments.”24 Despite the Uruguayan military having been implicated in unspeakable acts of brutality, the dictatorship used the police and military interchangeably, and thus the previous legislation barring support to the police was essentially null and void. Hence, even after the 1974 Foreign Assistance Act amendment, military assistance to the Uruguayan dictatorship continued. In a report to US Congress by the Comptroller General, this loophole was acknowledged and recognized as problematic.25 The report recognized two problems with the legislation that attempted to outlaw support for foreign police but allowed funding to continue to flow to oppressive regimes. The first was the existence of “dual purpose units,” which existed in countries where military and police forces were used interchangeably—like Uruguay—and allowed MAP aid to be received by police. The second was that certain countries receiving aid were under martial law or a “state of siege,” which gave police powers to the military. Uruguay and Thailand, two of the countries covered in the Comptroller General report, fit both of these categories. As a result, the report concluded, “Congress may wish to consider whether continued military support would be inappropriate.”26 Congress took the advice and promptly cut off aid to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and others.

24 Ibid, 28. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid, 34-37.

53

Riding this tide, New York Congressman Edward Koch sought to add Uruguay to the list of nations to cease receiving US aid. Koch was condemned by many of his congressional colleagues who continued to defend the Uruguayan dictatorship. In a letter to Congressman Koch, Acting Assistant Secretary for Inter-American affairs Hewson A. Ryan, stated that it was “unfortunate” that Uruguay was targeted and that, “it is inaccurate to describe the Uruguayan Government as a military dictatorship.”27 Despite the resistance from many in the executive branch, Koch’s efforts succeeded and foreign assistance to Uruguay was terminated.28 However, as was typical in public safety programs around the globe, many US officials previously working with the OPS continued their work under the guise of “counter-narcotics” officers. The war on drugs was a convenient pretext for the continued presence of US personnel throughout South America. In Uruguay, Cesar Bernal, former colleague of Adolph Saenz, continued fighting the Cold War in

Montevideo.29

27 HR 64th Cong., 2d sess, Human Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay, 19. 28 In response, the Uruguayan dictatorship made plans to have Congressmen Koch assassinated. However, after the assassination of Orlando Letelier, the plot against Koch was terminated, see John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (New York: The New Press, 2004). 29 Kuzmarov, “Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Political Violence, and Nation Building in the ‘American Century,’” 220.

CHAPTER 5: CONFRONTING THE LEGACY OF DICTATORSHIP

In 1985, democracy was restored in Uruguay. Dozens of political prisoners, including the former Tupamaro and recent Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica and his wife Lucia Topolanky, were freed from captivity. Exiles, including world-renowned writers Mario Benedetti and Eduardo Galeano, returned to their homeland. However, like in other countries in the southern cone, the democratization process was negotiated by the military and included an amnesty for military and police officials. Thus, for many years the crimes of the dictatorship were left un-investigated and unpunished. In 1989 and 2009, society mobilized to pass referendums to repeal the amnesty law. Both times Uruguayan voters rejected the referendums, preferring to leave this part of their dark history unexplored.

Nevertheless, changing court rulings have allowed for some high-ranking officials to be charged for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Former US-ally Juan Maria Bordaberry was tried and convicted for “crimes against the Constitution,” “political homicides” and “forced disappearances,” for which he received a thirty-year prison sentence.1 He died in 2011 under house arrest.2 The first meaningful decision to overturn the amnesty began in the year 2000 when Macarena Taurino found out that she was, in fact,

1 National Security Archive, “Electronic Briefing Book 309,” Bordaberry Condemned for 1973 Coup (book introduction), March 30, 2010, accessed March 8, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB309/index.htm. 2 “Juan Maria Bordaberry Obituary: Former Uruguayan President and Dictator Sentenced to 30 Years,” The Guardian, July 19, 2011

55

Macarena Gelman. Her biological parents María García and Marcelo Gelman were kidnapped by the neighboring Argentine dictatorship and

Maria was taken to Montevideo as part of Operación Condor, the infamous collaboration of southern cone dictatorships to eliminate subversion. Maria never saw Marcelo again and he was likely murdered soon after his abduction. After giving birth to Macarena in captivity, Maria also disappeared. Macarena, having lost both of her parents, was given to a Uruguayan police officer to be raised. When Macarena discovered her true identity as a result of the efforts of her biological grandfather, Argentine poet Juan Gelman, she took her case to the Inter- American Court of Human Rights. In 2011, the court ruled that Uruguay must investigate the crimes of the dictatorship.3 As a result, the Uruguayan government passed law 18.831 in February 2011, which annulled the amnesty. At the end of 2011, over 200 cases of torture and human rights violations were brought to Uruguayan courts. However, in February 2013, the tides of justice turned when the Uruguayan Supreme Court ruled that law 18.831 was unconstitutional, thereby “instating a de facto amnesty law.”4 Nevertheless, the movement for justice continues and in the words of Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti “el cuento no se ha acabado” (this story is far from over).5 The Uruguayan dictatorship is one of many regimes that the United States government has been condemned for supporting. This

3 Francesca Lessa and Leigh A. Payne, Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability (New York: Cambridge, 2012) 123-151. 4 Francesca Lessa and Pierre-Louis LeGoff, “Skewed Priorities in Uruguay: Uruguay Continues to Struggle with its Dictatorial Past,” Al Jazeera, November 18, 2013. 5 Ibid.

56 phenomenon has been especially prominent in Latin America and since the Monroe Doctrine, the instances of US intervention in the region are nearly too many to count. US intervention in the region has prompted numerous responses ranging from diplomatic measures to armed uprisings. In 1986, Nicaragua brought the United States government to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for intervening in its internal conflict by funding, arming, and training the Contras. The ICJ ruled that the US government actions were a breach of international law and ordered payment of reparations.6 Nevertheless, similar actions of the US government in Uruguay remain largely absent from public discourse. The findings of this thesis reveal that the United States government, predominately through OPS/USAID but also through other means, was actively training, arming, and equipping the Uruguayan repressive apparatus that was engaged in widespread brutalities and human rights violations. The newly declassified documents analyzed herein not only confirm previous allegations but give concrete evidence to US government involvement at the highest levels. These findings not only fill a gap in the scholarly literature, but are timely in that they contribute to the public discourse at a time when Uruguay is struggling to come to terms with its dictatorial legacy. With the election of Jose Mujica to the Uruguayan presidency in

2010, the nation has since occupied a larger role in the public eye.7 For

6 “Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) Judgement of June 27, 1986,” International Court of Justice, June 27, 1986, accessed January 11, 2014, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/ ?sum=367&p1=3&p2=3&case=70&p3=5 7 President Mujica has become popular for, among other things, sacrificing the presidential palace for a humble farmhouse, donating the majority of his salary to

57 those concerned with Uruguay, this is a welcome development, as the nation has been largely ignored in both scholarly literature and public discourse for far too long. This study simultaneously contributes to the small body of Uruguayan historiography, while also adding a Uruguayan chapter to the large field of the Latin American Cold War. As aforementioned, a comprehensive history of the Uruguayan dictatorship has yet to be written. The findings revealed here, I hope, can contribute to that project.

charities benefitting the poor, and legalizing marijuana and gay marriage, Mujica has been hailed as an example of a modest and progressive leader. In early February 2014, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, see Jonathan Watts, “Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica: No Palace, No Motorcade, No Frills,” The Guardian, December 13, 2013; Vladimir Hernandez, “The World’s ‘Poorest’ President,” British Broadcasting Company, November 14, 2013; “Weed-Legalizing President Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize,” Huffington Post, February 5, 2014).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Agency for International Development Office of Public Safety, “Termination Phase-Out Study: Public Safety Project, Uruguay.” April-May 1974.

Bowling, Robert W and Robert H. Whitmer, Survey of the Montevideo Police Department, Republic Oriental del Uruguay, US Department of State. Agency for International Development, Office of Public Safety, Washington DC: March 1964.

International Court of Justice, “Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) Judgement of June 27, 1986.” June 27, 1986. Accessed January 11, 2014, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/?sum=367&p1=3&p2= 3&case=70&p3=5.

Katz, Paul. Office of Public Safety. “Uruguay Police Telecommunications Survey Report,” Agency for International Development Office of Public Safety. August 1965

Lefever, Ernest. “U.S. Public Safety Assistance: An Assessment.” Report prepared for the United States Agency for International Development for the Brookings Institution, December 1973

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