Project FUBELT
Project FUBELT (also known as Track II) is the codename for the secret Central Intelligence Agency operations that were to prevent Salvador Allende's rise to power before his confirmation and to promote a military coup in Chile. This project came after the circumstantial failure of Track I, which involved making president Eduardo Frei Montlava interfere with the 1970 national election in opposition to Allende. The highlights of Project FUBELT are cited in declassified US government documents released by the National Security Archive on September 11, 1998, 25 years after the coup, as well as in papers uncovered  by a 1975 congressional inquiry. CIA memoranda and reports on Project FUBELT include meetings between United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of secret action in 1970, detailing decisions and operations to undermine the election of Salvador Allende in September 1970 and to promote a military coup. In November 1970, after the failure of the operation with the killing of general René Shneider, the US National Security Council issued National Security Decision Memorandum 93, which replaced FUBELT. Background. The US was particularly interested in the election of Salvador Allende  because of his Marxist ideologies. Taking place during the Cold War and after the Cuban Revolution, then US president Richard Nixon was worried that Chile would become another communist link in Latin America. He authorized the CIA to involve itself in the Chilean national election of 1970. There were two plans in this involvement, Track I and Track II. After the circumstantial failure of Track I, Project FUBELT, being Track II, was pursued. Plan. The operation itself was aimed at creating a ‘coup-climate’ in which a coup would best take place. This, as ordered by Richard Nixon, authorized $ 10 million to the CIA to conduct this operation. To this day, this is the only record in US history of a US president ordering the overthrow of a democratically-elected leader in a foreign country. Several days after Nixon’s 15 September directive to create a coup in Chile, the CIA began to plan economic, political, and psychological warfare tactics to create a climate in which a coup would thrive. Then commander in chief, Gen. René Shneider, stood in the way of this operation because he was a constitutionalist and thus did not support a coup to overthrow Allende . As part of the plan to dispel any obstacles by Shneider, the CIA hired retired General Robert Viaux, active General Camilo Valenzuela, and Admiral Hugo Tirado to kidnap René Shneider. This kidnapping was part of a longer plan by the CIA which includes: Attached to this plan was a request for $50,000 to pay the three individuals who were going to kidnap Shneider. It is worth noting that there was no plan by the CIA to conduct a subsequent democratic election after this plan took place. On October 22, the group of CIA-hired individuals attempted to kidnap the  general, but instead ended up shooting him. He was taken to the military hospital in Santiago where he succumbed to his wounds three days later. Chilean reaction. The Chilean people were shocked by the attempted kidnapping and subsequent killing of General Shneider. This was used as a motivating force for the Chilean public to overwhelmingly support Chilean constitutionalism, and thus support the election of Allende on 3 November 1970. Continued US operations. In the face of overwhelming discontent from Chileans for the assassination of Shneider, the three hired to go through with the coup backed out. Two of three of  these individuals were arrested in conspiracy, and the other, Hugo Tirado, was paid $35,000. After the failure of Project FUBELT to create a coup before the election of Allende, the US State Department suggested that the US should accept Allende’s election and work toward his defeat in the 1976 election. Nixon’s national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, instead encouraged a more forceful reaction by the US. Kissinger justifies this by claiming that Allende will try to swindle the US, saying that Allende wants to “...Be internationally respectable, move cautiously and pragmatically, avoid immediate confrontation with [the US], move  slowly in formalizing relations with Cuba and other socialist countries...”. Kissinger is also quoted telling Nixon, “The election of Allende poses one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere, and your decision as to what to do may be the most historic and difficult foreign policy decision you will have to make this year”. Covert Operation Program. In response to Kissinger’s forceful approach to dealing with Allende post-Track II failure, the US government went ahead with the ‘Covert Operation Program for Chile’, which was a series of political and psychological warfare tactics aimed at creating  disdain and opposition for Allende. The five points to this plan were as follows: Revelations from declassified documents. Among the revelations in the formerly secret documents were the following: Repercussions to declassification. Many of the CIA documents recounting the events of this operation were released on 11 September 1998. Following this, on 10 September 2001, the relatives of assassinated general René Shneider filed a suit in the Federal Court of Washington DC, accusing Henry Kissinger of orchestrating the assassination of Shneider.