When General Augusto Pinochet's peaceful stay in a posh London hospital was rudely interrupted by the news he was under arrest, the noise echoed around the world.
From the outrage in Santiago to the cheers of the world's leftist politicians and human rights activists, the bravado of the Spanish prosecutors - and the surprising accommodation of the British authorities - has ignited a debate which is slowly reaching fever pitch.
In the United States, however, the silence has been deafening. The Clinton administration has distanced itself from the subject. The only comments from State Department spokesman James Rubin were offered in denial of a London newspaper report that Washington was working behind the scenes to get Britain and Spain to drop the matter.
One explanation for the tight lips came last week from Diane Orentlicher, international law professor at American University in Washington, who wrote: 'Behind its [America's] neutrality surely lie the same apprehensions that led the US delegation to join only six other states in opposing the permanent international criminal court approved in July.
'If Spanish and British courts can collaborate to prosecute Pinochet for crimes committed in Chile more than two decades ago, who can be sure that a rogue regime will not someday press charges against a US leader on spurious charges?' There may indeed be an element of truth in this analysis, and there is certainly a perceptible link between the Pinochet case and the longstanding campaign to set up a world human rights court to try cases exactly like that of the retired dictator.
But the more exact answer to the riddle is surely obvious to the Nixon administration officials - especially in the Central Intelligence Agency - who were running the shop when Pinochet came to power in a violent coup in 1973 which ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende.
