How the KGB secretly discredited Chile’s dictator Augusto Pinochet Getty Images; Reuters; Yuri Abramochkin/Sputnik; Kena Lorenzini/Museum of Memory and Human Rights The clandestine KGB operation codenamed ‘Toucan’ aimed to discredit U.S.-backed Augusto Pinochet in the eyes of the American public.
Prominent American investigative journalist Jack Anderson had a history of bad blood with state agencies like the FBI and the CIA and even with the White House. When he learned that Chile’s dictator Augusto Pinochet, backed by Washington, was planning an assassination campaign against his political opponents in various countries, he was only too happy to reveal it in his highly popular column in the New York Times.