The CIA is widely credited with instigating the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile. What is less widely credited is the amount of civilian bloodshed caused by the coup.

These declassified U.S. documents help clear things up in that regard.

Internal State Department correspondence regarding kidnappings, beatings, and other 'counter-terror' activity in Guatemala. It's a chilling reminder that historically, the United States is not at all above condoning the very types of activities it publicly condemns. Mr. Vaky was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Guatemala.

Internal State Department correspondence regarding the U.S. government condoning death squad activity in Guatemala.

Death squads are yet another element in the cowardly government's arsenal. These are groups of thugs, often security personnel, which engage in lethal illegal activity like extrajudicial executions or "disappearances" of actual or perceived government opponents. While these groups target the government's enemies, the government claims not to have any control over them - or even knowledge about them. Such groups have existed in Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and many other countries. The government's hand is revealed not only by the identity of the victims but also by the fact that these groups of heavily armed men usually operate in heavily-militarized areas and never are bothered by official military road blocks - or by the fact that when legal investigations are initiated, the legal authorities seem particularly inept. Often a defector with a guilty conscience will disclose details of the operations, many of which are corroborated.

One such organization is DINA, which existed in Chile in the 1970s under Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The following documents detail the anatomy of a death squad.

The following is a U.S. Department of Defense document discussing the violent tactics employed by DINA, dictator General Augusto Pinochet's secret police in Chile during the 1970s. The cover of Blowback's album Track III shows La Moneda, the Presidetial Palace of Chile, in flames during the coup d'etat instigated by the CIA on September 11, 1973. The democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende was violently overthrown by the Chilean military, of which Pinochet was the Army Commander. Pinochet remained in power until 1990. His regime was responsible for the executions, extrajudicial killings, and "disappearances" of more than 3,000 people, while thousands more were tortured, beaten, and arbitrarily detained by the Chilean armed forces.

Declassified documentation of the violent practices of (U.S.-supported) Pinochet's secret police in Chile.