Office of the Historian

356. Telegram 196058 From the Department of State to the Embassy in Uruguay1

Washington, August 7, 1976, 0046Z.

196058. Subject: Human Rights Hearings.

1. Pursuant to our conversations and your cable to Harry I visited both Fraser and Koch privately prior to the Uruguay human rights hearings.

2. I showed them a file of your MemCons and cables on the human rights issue which both scanned and which Koch read in some detail.

3. I also stressed to them the personal danger which ad hominem attacks on you in congressional sessions could place you.

4. They both seem to agree with me and Fraser was careful to avoid any personal references in Wednesday’s hearings. However, this was not entirely the case with Koch who in the hearings made it clear that he preferred to believe Wilson Ferreira.

[Page 950]

5. By now you should have seen my testimony which includes a statement of the Department’s full support for you and your work in Uruguay.

Habib

  1. Summary: Deputy Assistant Secretary Ryan described his visits to Reps. Koch and Fraser prior to hearings they held on human rights in Uruguay.

    Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D760304–0872. Secret; Priority; Stadis. Ryan’s August 4 testimony at the hearings is in Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, pp. 109–114.

    ↩