A 1981 allegation by McGehee about CIA involvement in the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966 was censored by the CIA, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to sue on his behalf. The CIA prevailed. McGehee described the terror of Suharto's takeover in 1965–66 as "the model operation" for the US-backed coup that got rid of Salvador Allende in Chile seven years later: "The CIA forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders, just like what happened in Indonesia in 1965."