Coming to terms with the past

At the height of the Argentine military junta’s bloody ”dirty war” against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ”we would like you to succeed,” a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.

The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta’s harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ”disappearance” of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.

The document is also certain to further complicate Kissinger’s legacy, which has been questioned in recent years as new evidence has emerged on his connection to human-rights violations around the world — including in Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Kissinger and several top deputies have repeatedly denied condoning human-rights abuses in Argentina.