The Patagonian Candidate

The winner of yesterday's quiz was Colin Bennett of Santiago, who correctly identified John McCain as having visited Chilean dictator August Pinochet in December of 1985. According to journalist John Dinges, McCain (then a Congressman; he was elected to the Senate in 1986) spent several days fishing in southern Chile before returning to Santiago (pictured here) for a meeting with Pinochet. Dinges's article was based in part on a State Department document, which says, among other things, that McCain compared a conversation with Pinochet as "similar to talking with the head of the John Birch Society," a right-wing extremist organization in the United States.

As I'm off to Chile this weekend, I expect to be able to deliver Colin's copy of Moon Handbooks Patagonia to him in person.