The lawsuit, which attorneys said is based heavily upon recently declassified CIA documents, seeks more than $3 million in damages from [Henry A. Kissinger], [Richard M. Helms] and the U.S. government for "summary execution," assault and other civil rights violations. It alleges that [Rene Schneider] was targeted because he stood in the way of a military coup designed to keep leftist Salvador Allende from taking power as Chile's president. At the time, Kissinger was [Nixon]'s national security adviser, and Helms headed the CIA.

The family chose to sue after carefully reviewing the materials that became public in the past two years, Schneider said. The documents, he said, "made me realize that my father's death is perhaps the one crime perpetrated outside the U.S. that most clearly links back to the U.S. government, the CIA, and Kissinger in particular.

Military officials in Chile made clear that Chile's commander in chief, Schneider, would not go along with a coup, the suit said. The lawsuit said Kissinger and the CIA supported a secret plan to kidnap Schneider so that the military could take over before Allende's election could be approved by Chile's Congress.