The intervention this week by the US Secretary of State in the affair of Gen Augusto Pinochet has pointed up Washington's fears about renewed public interest in and major revelations about the US part in putting him in power.
Ms Madeleine Albright is arguing for Britain to reject Spain's request and to send him back to Chile in the cause of the "reconciliation" of Chileans. This argument avoids the fact that the chance of him undergoing a fair trial in the land he himself efficiently terrorised for decades is remote.
The part that successive US governments played in Chilean politics for three decades is already well-known in outline. Under President Kennedy millions of dollars were channelled to the Christian Democrats whose presidential candidate, Eduardo Frei Montalva, the father of Chile's present leader, beat the left-wing candidate Salvador Allende and took office in 1964. With the challenge from the left growing, President Richard Nixon, in collaboration with Dr Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, called secretly for a military coup in Chile if that were needed to stop Allende.
There were even top-secret plans for his murder before his electoral victory was ratified by the Chilean congress on October 24th, 1970. Documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act and published in Washington recently contradict Dr Kissinger's claims that he had no part in plans to murder Allende. According to a secret cable to the CIA station chief in Santiago: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup prior to October 24th. But efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the US government and American hand be well hidden."
In office Allende faced an economic and financial offensive against him from Washington and a number of attempted coups. When the one involving Pinochet was sprung successfully on September 11th, 1973, Lieut Col Patrick Ryan of the military staff of the US embassy hailed it enthusiastically in a report to Washington.
After explaining how he had gone around during the fighting talking to the rebels "with an extremely friendly Buenos Dias in my best Irish brogue", Ryan commented, "Chile's coup de etat (sic) was close to perfect".
Collaboration between the US and Pinochet in power was close and Pinochet's systematic use of torture cannot have been a secret in Washington. Nevertheless the funds from international sources that Nixon had barred to Allende flowed to Pinochet, as did military assistance. In their book Assassination on Embassy Row, John Dinges and Saul Landau reveal that details about Pinochet's plan to blow up one of his opponents in Washington in 1976 went to Kissinger's office but the then secretary of state did nothing to prevent the assassination.
Spanish judicial investigators researching Pinochet's crimes sought help from the Clinton government last year in their search for documentation about US aid to his dictatorship. They were not given all that was available. Nevertheless, under a 1995 executive order virtually all the secrets of the US security apparatus over 25 years old have to be revealed.
Pinochet seized power 25 years ago this year so as the years pass the extent of US collaboration with him will be progressively aired. That is virtually certain to create embarrassment for those, like Ms Albright, who have to defend US foreign and security policy in the new era which follows the House of Lords judgment on dictators.