John Dinges – författare

Set against the romance of revolution and the terror of a military coup, this arresting mystery is also a reckoning with the callousness of U.S. foreign policy.  In 1972 two idealistic young Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, arrived in Chile to participate in President Salvador Allende's socialist and democratic revolution. A year later they were secretly executed as Chile's military, with U.S. backing, deposed Allende. Following a sham investigation and cover-up, a Chilean defector leveled a stunning but ultimately false accusation: a CIA agent was in the room when one of the killings was ordered.  The defector's tale inspired the acclaimed 1982 film Missing and established U.S. involvement as the accepted narrative. But Chile in Their Hearts exposes the tale as a fabrication and leads us to a more intriguing reality. This book will force readers to rethink what they thought they knew about this infamous case. Renowned investigative journalist John Dinges scoured U.S. and Chilean archives and interviewed new witnesses to reveal the true story of the killings and the compelling adventure of the two Americans' lives against the backdrop of U.S. intervention in Chile.

Set against the romance of revolution and the terror of a military coup, this arresting mystery is also a reckoning with the callousness of U.S. foreign policy.  In 1972 two idealistic young Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, arrived in Chile to participate in President Salvador Allende's socialist and democratic revolution. A year later they were secretly executed as Chile's military, with U.S. backing, deposed Allende. Following a sham investigation and cover-up, a Chilean defector leveled a stunning but ultimately false accusation: a CIA agent was in the room when one of the killings was ordered.  The defector's tale inspired the acclaimed 1982 film Missing and established U.S. involvement as the accepted narrative. But Chile in Their Hearts exposes the tale as a fabrication and leads us to a more intriguing reality. This book will force readers to rethink what they thought they knew about this infamous case. Renowned investigative journalist John Dinges scoured U.S. and Chilean archives and interviewed new witnesses to reveal the true story of the killings and the compelling adventure of the two Americans' lives against the backdrop of U.S. intervention in Chile.

Set against the romance of revolution and the terror of a military coup, this arresting mystery is also a reckoning with the callousness of U.S. foreign policy.   In 1972 two idealistic young Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, arrived in Chile to participate in President Salvador Allende's socialist and democratic revolution. A year later they were secretly executed as Chile's military, with U.S. backing, deposed Allende. Following a sham investigation and cover-up, a Chilean defector leveled a stunning but ultimately false accusation: a CIA agent was in the room when one of the killings was ordered.   The defector's tale inspired the acclaimed 1982 film Missing and established U.S. involvement as the accepted narrative. But Chile in Their Hearts exposes the tale as a fabrication and leads us to a more intriguing reality. This book will force readers to rethink what they thought they knew about this infamous case. Renowned investigative journalist John Dinges scoured U.S. and Chilean archives and interviewed new witnesses to reveal the true story of the killings and the compelling adventure of the two Americans' lives against the backdrop of U.S. intervention in Chile.

Edgar Award Finalist: The gripping account of an assassination on US soil and the violent foreign conspiracy that stretched from Pinochet’s Chile to the streets of Washington, DC, with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman. On September 10, 1976, exiled Chilean leader Orlando Letelier delivered a blistering rebuke of Augusto Pinochet’s brutal right-wing regime in a speech at Madison Square Garden. Eleven days later, while Letelier was on Embassy Row in Washington, DC, a bomb affixed to the bottom of his car exploded, killing him and his coworker Ronni Moffitt. The slaying, staggering in its own right, exposed an international conspiracy that reached well into US territory. Pinochet had targeted Letelier, a former Chilean foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and carried out the attack with the help of Operation Condor, the secret alliance of South America’s military dictatorships dedicated to wiping out their most influential opponents. This gripping account tells the story not only of a political plot that ended in murder, but also of the FBI’s inquiry into the affair. Definitive in its examination both of Letelier’s murder and of the subsequent investigations carried out by American intelligence, Assassination on Embassy Row is equal parts keen analysis and true-life spy thriller.

A “carefully researched” account of the rise and fall of notorious dictator Manuel Noriega—and America’s role in both (The Washington Post). Written by a prize-winning NPR veteran who spent years covering Latin America, this blend of biography, history, and political reporting details the events that lead to the American invasion of Panama. “Describes in considerable detail the fascinating and appalling relationship between Noriega and the U.S. government. Much of this material was derived from previously classified documents, supplemented by Congressional hearings and interviews. [John] Dinges has taken great care to verify his sources; hearsay, gossip, and questionable testimony is not presented here . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal “Most of the action takes place in Panama, of course, but it is still very much a Washington story. Few of the characters, from President Bush on down, emerge with dignity intact.” —The New York Times “One of the best analyses of American foreign policy failures in Panama.” —The New Republic A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A “compelling and shocking account” of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald).  Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early “war on terror” initially encouraged by the CIA—which later backfired on the United States.  Hailed by Foreign Affairs as “remarkable” and “a major contribution to the historical record,” The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America’s darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries.  “Scrupulous, well-documented.” —The Washington Post  “Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges.” —Seymour Hersh