Robert Charles Hill (30 September 1917 – 28 November 1978) was an American diplomat.From 1973 to 1974 assistant secretary of defence(international security affairs).
Education
He was born in
Littleton, New Hampshire
Littleton is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,005 at the 2020 census. Situated at the northern edge of the White Mountains, Littleton is bounded on the northwest by the Connecticut River.
The main vill ...
.
He attended
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
in the class of 1942.
In 1947, he was a member of staff on the
Senate Banking Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (formerly the Committee on Banking and Currency), also known as the Senate Banking Committee, has jurisdiction over matters related to banks and banking, price controls, d ...
.
Ambassador
He served as U.S. ambassador to several
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
n countries—El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico—and to
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
throughout his career.
In 1961–1962, he was elected to the
New Hampshire General Court
The General Court of New Hampshire is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The lower house is the New Hampshire House of Representatives with 400 members. The upper house is the New Hampshire Senate with 24 membe ...
.
His last posting was in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
in the late 1970s, a period of great unrest in that country. He was also Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations under
President Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under
President Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...
.
Argentinean controversy
Human rights advocacy
In Argentina, the five-time conservative Republican ambassadorial appointee became best known for his efforts to keep the Argentina military junta that took power in March 1976 from engaging in massive human rights violations like those of Captain General
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
in neighboring Chile following his
September 1973 coup. Upon finding out that U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
had given the Argentine generals a "green light" for their own so-called "
dirty war
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 a ...
" in June 1976 while at an
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States (OAS; es, Organización de los Estados Americanos, pt, Organização dos Estados Americanos, french: Organisation des États américains; ''OEA'') is an international organization that was founded on 30 April ...
meeting in Santiago (at the Hotel Carrera, a place later made famous in the film ''
Missing
Missing or The Missing may refer to:
Film
* ''Missing'' (1918 film), an American silent drama directed by James Young
* ''Missing'' (1982 film), an American historical drama directed by Costa-Gavras
* ''Missing'' (2007 film) (''Vermist''), a Bel ...
''), Hill immediately engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts to roll back the Kissinger decision. Hill did this although Kissinger aides told him that, if he continued, the Secretary of State would likely have him fired, and even as left-wing Argentine guerrillas attempted to assassinate both the U.S. envoy and members of his family living in Buenos Aires. Hill's role as ambassador to Argentina again became prominent in 2016, when President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
traveled to that country to mark the 40th anniversary of the dirty "war" generals' supposedly bloodless coup.
Disagreement with Kissinger
As an article published in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' in October 1987 noted: "'Hill was shaken, he became very disturbed, by the case of the son of a thirty-year embassy employee, a student who was arrested, never to be seen again,' recalled former ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reporter Juan de Onis. 'Hill took a personal interest.' He went to the Interior Minister, a general with whom he had worked on drug cases, saying, 'Hey, what about this? We're interested in this case.' He questioned (Foreign Minister Cesar)
Guzzetti and, finally, President
Jorge R. Videla himself. 'All he got was stonewalling; he got nowhere.' de Onis said. 'His last year was marked by increasing disillusionment and dismay, and he backed his staff on human rights right to the hilt."
In a letter to ''The Nation'' editor
Victor Navasky
Victor Saul Navasky (born July 5, 1932) is an American journalist, editor and academic. He is publisher emeritus of ''The Nation'' and George T. Delacorte Professor Emeritus of Professional Practice in Magazine Journalism at Columbia University. H ...
, protesting publication of the article, Kissinger claimed that: "At any rate, the notion of Hill as a passionate human rights advocate is news to all his former associates."
Kissinger aide
Harry W. Shlaudeman later disagreed with Kissinger, telling the oral historian William E. Knight of the
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) is a United States non-profit organization established in 1986 by retired Foreign Service officers. It produces and shares oral histories by American diplomats and facilitates the publica ...
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project: "It really came to a head when I was Assistant Secretary, or it began to come to a head, in the case of Argentina where the dirty war was in full flower. Bob Hill, who was Ambassador then in Buenos Aires, a very conservative Republican politician -- by no means liberal or anything of the kind, began to report quite effectively about what was going on, this slaughter of innocent civilians, supposedly innocent civilians -- this vicious war that they were conducting, underground war. He, at one time in fact, sent me a back-channel telegram saying that the Foreign Minister, who had just come for a visit to Washington and had returned to Buenos Aires, had gloated to him that Kissinger had said nothing to him about human rights. I don't know -- I wasn't present at the interview."
Navasky later wrote in his book about being confronted by Kissinger, "'Tell me, Mr. Navasky,'
issingersaid in his famous guttural tones, 'how is it that a short article in a obscure journal such as yours about a conversation that was supposed to have taken place years ago about something that did or didn't happen in Argentina resulted in sixty people holding placards denouncing me a few months ago at the airport when I got off the plane in Copenhagen?'"
Personal life
On 1 December 1945, Hill married Cecelia Gordon Bowdoin, who later became known as an accomplished mid-Atlantic tennis champion, duplicate bridge player, and an excellent horse woman. She died on Palm Sunday, 1 April 2012.
Hill's papers are held at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
.
References
External links
*
2004 Story in The Guardianregarding Hill's disgust with human rights abuses by Argentinian generals, published by
Uki Goñi
Uki Goñi (born 17 October 1953) is an Argentine author. His research focuses on the role of the Vatican, Swiss authorities and the government of Argentina in organizing "ratlines"—escape routes for Nazi criminals and collaborators.
Person ...
but without appropriate credit 17 years after an article b
Martin Edwin Andersen "Kissinger and the 'Dirty War,'" appeared in The Nation on 31 October 198
that broke the story about Hill fighting behind closed doors against Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's "green light" to the neo-Nazi junta for their "dirty war."
How Much Did the US Know About the Kidnapping, Torture, and Murder of Over 20,000 People in Argentina? Now, President Obama has the chance to apologize for American complicity in the dirty war.Martin Edwin Andersen, The Nation, 4 March 2016.
Kissinger-responds 19 February 1988 letter from Kissinger to Victor Navasky, Editor of The Nation protesting publication of a Memorandum of Conversation between Ambassador Hill and Patricia "Patt" Derian, the senior State Department official who spearheaded President Jimmy Carter's human rights revolution in U.S. foreign policy.
2004 Christopher Hitchens, " Kissinger Declassified," Vanity Fair, December 2004 David Corn, "New Memo: Kissinger Gave the 'Green Light' for Argentina's Dirty War," Mother Jones, 14 January 2014 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project: Ambassador Harry W. ShlaudemanRegister of the Robert Charles Hill Papersan
selected documents onlineat the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.
The Papers of Roger C. Hillat Dartmouth College Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Robert Charles
1917 births
1978 deaths
Taft School alumni
Dartmouth College alumni
Ambassadors of the United States to Costa Rica
Ambassadors of the United States to El Salvador
Ambassadors of the United States to Mexico
Ambassadors of the United States to Spain
Ambassadors of the United States to Argentina
People from Littleton, New Hampshire
United States Assistant Secretaries of Defense
20th-century American diplomats