Pinochet was all Kissinger and Nixon.
duh. That was my point.
BRTD, you you like to know whom Jimmy Carter spent New Year's Eve 1978 with?
The Shah of Iran. That was very cozy.
In terms of foreign policy, let's face it, Jimmy Carter is not the model President.
Compare this to the current Secretary of Defense who willingly and merrily shook hands with his dear friend Sodom Hussein.
The main difference being Hussein wasn't in power until the the last 18 months of the Carter presidency.
It think we should compare it. With Rumsfeld, you have someone who was
not the current head of state sitting there celebrating a holiday with the foreign leader. And in all fairness, Reagan-Bush (1981-pre summer 1990) did term the same blind eye to the brutality of Hussein that Carter did to the Shah.