THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                          (Chicago, Illinois)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                      June 30, 1999


                    STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

     Today the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and the National Archives are releasing newly
declassified and other documents related to events in Chile from
1973-78.  These documents are part of a discretionary review of U.S.
government files related to human rights abuses, terrorism, and other
acts of political violence prior to and during the Pinochet era in
Chile.  National Security Council staff are coordinating this
interagency effort on behalf of the President.

     Virtually all of the documents in the initial release cover the
period from 1973-78, which corresponds to the period of the most
flagrant human rights abuses in Chile.  The process of review continues,
and additional documents from 1973-78 will be released later this year,
along with documents dated 1968-1973. In a subsequent phase, agencies
will review and release documents from the later years of Pinochet's
rule.

     This initial release consists of over 5,800 documents, including
approximately 5,000 from the Department of State, 490 from the CIA, 200
from the National Archives, 100 from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and 60 from the Department of Defense.  A limited number
of documents have not been released at this time, primarily because they
relate to an ongoing Justice Department investigation of the murder of
Ronni Moffitt and Orlando Letelier.  Information also has been withheld
from some of the released documents to protect the privacy of
individuals, sensitive law enforcement information, and intelligence
sources and methods; or to prevent serious harm to ongoing diplomatic
activities of the United States.

     A complete set of the released documents is available for public
review at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.  They also
are being released simultaneously in Chile.  In the near future, copies
of the documents will be available on the Internet.

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