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University of California Press

Chile in Their Hearts

The Untold Story of Two Americans Who Went Missing after the Coup

by John Dinges (Author)
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Apr 2025
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 287
ISBN: 9780520413207
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 25 b/w images

About the Book

Set against the romance of revolution and the terror of a military coup, this arresting mystery is also a reckoning with the callousness of U.S. foreign policy.
 
In 1972 two idealistic young Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, arrived in Chile to participate in President Salvador Allende's socialist and democratic revolution. A year later they were secretly executed as Chile's military, with U.S. backing, deposed Allende. Following a sham investigation and cover-up, a Chilean defector leveled a stunning but ultimately false accusation: a CIA agent was in the room when one of the killings was ordered.
 
The defector's tale inspired the acclaimed 1982 film Missing and established U.S. involvement as the accepted narrative. But Chile in Their Hearts exposes the tale as a fabrication and leads us to a more intriguing reality. This book will force readers to rethink what they thought they knew about this infamous case. Renowned investigative journalist John Dinges scoured U.S. and Chilean archives and interviewed new witnesses to reveal the true story of the killings and the compelling adventure of the two Americans' lives against the backdrop of U.S. intervention in Chile.

About the Author

John Dinges lived in and reported from Chile during its most violent period (1972–78). A correspondent for the Washington Post, and later managing editor at NPR, he is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at Columbia University. His books include The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents.

Reviews

"If what occurred in Chile a half century ago is unforgettable to us today, it is in no small measure thanks to John Dinges and his contributions to our historical memory."—Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker

"Chile in Their Hearts dramatically revisits and revises one of the most heinous human rights crimes committed by the nascent Pinochet regime. Fifty years later, Dinges's intrepid investigation into the murders of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi provides the fullest, most accurate historical narrative of how and why they were killed."—Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability

"In Chile in Their Hearts, Dinges mines a lifetime of reporting on Chile to unearth the truth about Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi's politically committed lives and their tragic fates following the Pinochet coup. This model of sleuthing and storytelling ends the debate over Washington's involvement in their murders."—Alan McPherson, author of Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet's Terror State to Justice

"No American journalist has shed more light on the era of South American dictatorships than Dinges. This latest groundbreaking and singular work finally answers once and for all the mystery and controversy as to how two young Americans were murdered days after the 1973 Pinochet coup. A must-read for those seeking hard but revealing truths."—Marc Cooper, author of Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti-Memoir