Operation Condor (Condor) was a transnational terror network set up by six military dictatorships in South America with the support of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to kill and silence dissidents in the nineteen seventies. Condor involved surveillance of dissidents, coups, and assassinations across international borders. While research on Operation Condor tends to focus on the individual dictatorships involved, the relationship between those dictatorships and the United States has been comparatively understudied. The human rights violations committed by the Operation Condor dictatorships eventually resulted in Congress investigating the CIA and tying human rights requirements to U.S. foreign assistance to the nations involved. Unlike in many Cold War battlegrounds, human rights violations in South America resulted in a reshaping of United States foreign policy towards the region. The relationship between the United States and the Conder dictatorships broke down as U.S. foreign policymakers began to criticize the increasingly brazen and brutal tactics of Condor. In the 1980s, international pressure and internal activism forced Argentina’s military government to hold elections, and the other Condor nations followed.