Declassification

The Archive's Peter Kornbluh Receives O'Higgins Prize

The National Security Archive's senior analyst, Peter Kornbluh, has been inducted into "the order of Bernardo O'Higgins." Chile's Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdes presented the award, which the Chilean government gives to foreigners who have made a special contribution to Chilean society, during a Sunday ceremony at the Chilean Embassy.

In presenting the award, Ambassador Valdes recognized Kornbluh's leadership role in decades of efforts to obtain the declassification of secret documents on the coup and the Pinochet regime. In his acceptance speech Kornbluh noted that the documents were invaluable to "speaking truth to power" because there "was no better way to reveal the truth than to reveal the words those in power spoke and wrote."

Kornbluh directs the Archives's Chile Documentation Project, and is author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.  An Archive associate, John Dinges, author of the Condor Years, also received the O'Higgins award, as did Aviva Kempner a longtime activist and benefactor of the Chile solidarity movement.