Since Yugoslavia's disintegration, Franjo Tudjman, a right-wing dictator, has exploited Croatian nationalist sentiments.

Edwin Williamson, Borges's biographer, stated that the author's support of Argentine and Chilean right-wing military dictators may have been a factor.

Yet there we were, reminding everyone of the bad old days when any would-be right-wing dictator could count on U.S. backing.

It would be easier here for a right-wing dictator than anyplace else.

"I am not saying he is a right-wing dictator, but that's what his tactics remind me of, and I'm worried," Mr. Sakakibara said.

He has been one of the dominant politicians in Spain since the death in 1975 of Gen. Francisco Franco, the right-wing dictator.

The tendency to drone is widespread among autocrats, but it seems worse in former Communist officials than in the right-wing military dictators of Latin America.

Instead, it seems there is one standard in Europe for handling right-wing dictators and another for socialist tyrants and terrorists, such as Mugabe.

It is all right for a right-wing dictator like Pinochet to be arrested for human rights violations in Chile.