The “Good Americans”. U. S. Solidarity Networks for Chilean and Argentinean refugees (1973-1983)

The article is focused on the realm of different solidarity, non-governmental actors in the United States during the last military rules in Chile and Argentina. Thanks to the Chile Declassification Project and Argentina Declassification Project researchers and politicians have today a comprehensive bulk of information about the bilateral relations US-Chile and US- Argentina during Nixon, Ford, and Carter administration. Much is known about the State Department, the CIA etc.. Opposedly, almost unknown is the role of the so-called «civil society» in the same period. Despite secondary actors, academics, social activists, rabbis, lutherans, catholic priests were, instead, very active in terms of creating counter-information and even lobby on Capitol Hill to build a new sensitivity on human rights issues for Latin America and eventually a specific Refugees Program for Chilean and Argentinians fleeing from the dictatorships. The article delve into the solidarity network they were able to make, suggesting also how the help provided was also the result, a sort of ‘symptom’, of an internal (post-Watergate)and foreign (post-Vietnam) political crisis.