One anonymous phone call to U.S. Embassy Santiago began George F. Jones' most memorable experience during his post as Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile. The agitated anonymous caller revealed he had poisoned grapes bound for the U.S. On March 13th, 1989, two cyanide-injected grapes were found in Philadelphia. This forced the USDA to issue a temporary ban on Chilean grapes, which in turn led to angry demonstrations in Chile and another setback to bilateral relations, which were struggling to return to normalcy after the dark days of the Pinochet regime.
Had I left Chile as [Ambassador] Harry Barnes did in November of '88 right after the plebiscite [on whether Pinochet should stay in power until 1997], we would have all been covered in glory, both externally and internally in Chile and the U.S. It would have been great. Tony Gillespie came in as Ambassador. The agreement was that I would stick around for about six months after he got there before leaving myself, to help him get his feet on the ground and get started. I guess it was right around the turn of the year, we got an anonymous phone call. Somebody called up the embassy out of the blue and said that he had injected cyanide into grapes that were being shipped to the United States. I'm trying to remember what he used as a justification for this. It was nothing political. I mean he didn't say this was because of the plebiscite or the Rodrigo Rojas case [a young Chilean photographer who grew up in the U.S. and who was burned alive during an anti-Pinochet demonstration in 1986] or anything like that. I think it was to the effect that he didn't have a job, and the economy was going to hell, and nobody would listen to him. So he just wanted to warn us that he had taken this dramatic act of protest.
Read Full Article »