These original essays show how the US government repeatedly aided certain regimes as they planned and then carried out crimes against humanity and genocide. What makes the collection unique—and chilling—is the inclusion of declassified documents generated by the US government at the time: memoranda, telegrams, letters, talking points, cables, discussion papers, and situation reports.

In his introduction, Totten offers a critical assessment of US foreign policy as it pertains to genocide and crimes against humanity, and discusses the differences between those two terms. In the chapters that follow, each author presents a detailed analysis of a particular case of crimes against humanity or genocide by a foreign government against its own citizens, and discusses why and how the United States government was complicit.