posted 12-15-2003 12:11 AM            

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina--Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger lent verbal support to Argentina's military junta, which had been cracking down on dissidents, according to newly declassified documents obtained by a U.S. watchdog group.

"We would like you to succeed," Kissinger told Argentine Foreign Minister Adm. Cesar Augusto Guzzetti during a meeting in New York Oct. 7. 1976, according to the U.S. government records.

His comments were revealed in papers obtained and released this month by the National Security Archives, an independent Washington-based group that monitors Freedom of Information Act issues.

Kissinger has increasingly faced criticism for U.S. backing of authoritarian governments in Latin America and Southeast Asia as part of Washington's bid at the time to contain the spread of communism.

In the seven-page transcript marked "secret", Kissinger is quoted as telling Guzzetti that human rights issues were growing in Argentina.

According to the document, he offers support, nontheless, to the millitary rulers who seized power in a coup in March 1976.

"Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed," Kissinger said, according to the documents, first reported by the Miami Herald. "I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. The quicker you succeed, the better."

The Argentine military launched its systematic crackdown on leftists groups in March 1976, beginning six years of iron-fisted rule that saw 8,900 people disappear, according to a government report. Human rights groups put the number at around 30,000.

Last year, declassified State Department documents suggested junta officials believed Washington was willing to overlook their methods to contain political dissent.

In the New York meeting, Kissinger insisted that American lawmakers who had raised concerns about rights issues in the country did not fully understand what was happening in Argentina.

"What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war," he told Guzzetti. "We read about human rights problems but not the context."

American lawmakers were beginning to raise questions at the same time about the Argentine regime.

"If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help," he said.

Guzzetti assured Kissinger the country's "struggle" against the leftists would conclude by the end of 1976.