Conclusion

This concluding chapter offers a judgment of Henry Kissinger in Latin America. The customary approach for historians is to ask first the “change and continuity” question. Scholars sympathetic to Kissinger were troubled by Kissinger's actions in Latin America and fell back on the argument that his policies were no different than those of his predecessors or successors. Critical scholars assumed that Kissinger's actions in Chile and throughout Latin America were unprecedented in their depravity. What cannot be ignored is that the gross violation of human rights that marked life in the 1970s was unprecedented in the history of Latin America in the national period. Responsibility for the murders, disappearances, and tortures must be assigned.