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Review Essay

THE PERSISTENCE OF A MYTH:
CHILE IN THE EYE OF THE COLD WAR HURRICANE

By Joaquin Fermandois¹

Books under review:

Patricia Verdugo, *Allende: Cómo la Casa Blanca provocó su muerte*
(Santiago: Catalonia, 2003), 207 pp.

Peter Kornbluh, *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on
Atrocity and Accountability*
(New York: The New Press, 2003), 551 pp.

I would have wished that my final impressions could convey a more complete
and vivid impression of this country and its friendly people, a country so often referred
to as the "English of Latin America". Nonetheless, Chile today is completely absorbed in
a process
of internal struggle over politics and economics. Politics invades every aspect of its
life—the totality of its thought, its literature, its art, absolutely
everything... Commitment on one hand, emigration or complete passivity on the other;
there seem to be no other choices. If Chile has some importance in the world, it because
the struggle here between Marxist and anti-Marxist forces, as well as the fight within
individual Marxist groups, is being carried out outside the Iron Curtain rather than
behind it.

--British Ambassador D. H. T. Hildyard, 1973

¹ Joaquin Fermandois is professor of history at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago and author of many books and articles on Chilean foreign policy and relations with the United States. A considerably

Fermandois review - Page 2

This perceptive account drafted by the British ambassador to Chile
following the mid-term parliamentary elections of March, 1973, represents an
alternative to the version that the crisis and collapse of the Allende regime was
manipulated from Washington. This latter version is the one that has persisted
since the 1970s, both in the mass media and in political discourse and debate
throughout the world. To be sure, this is not the conclusion normally reached
by academic studies of different ideological persuasions, but certainly
dominates public opinion in many parts of the world and indeed in much of
Chile itself. A case in point is the treatment of the thirtieth anniversary of the
coup of September 11, 1973 on Chilean television. All of the channels sent the
same subliminal (or not so subliminal) message: the CIA (or more generically,
the United States) played the principal role in the fall of the Popular Unity
government.

Anti-Imperialism and Conspiracy

Anti-imperialism or anti-Americanism has been a powerful force in Latin
American politics and in the Latin American vision of the world. In Chile, all
the political forces and conceptions have been either pro or anti-American
throughout the twentieth century. All, too, have favored U.S. intervention in
Chile affairs, or at least it seems so—though, to be sure, not at the same time.
Chilean Communism was pro-American during the Second World War (that is,

longer version of this article was published in Spanish in *Estudios Públicos*, 92

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after June 22, 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, but not
before). The Chilean Left, including the Communist party, called for some form
of U.S. intervention against the military government from the end of the 1970s
to the end of the 1980s—an intervention which, by the way, in a certain sense
came to pass. During the same years the Chilean Right suddenly revealed its
own anti-American face.

Anti-imperialism has been the favored banner of the Latin American
political class, propped up, as it were, by the belief that the United States is the
principal cause of all of our difficulties and troubles. The United States is, and
remains, the whipping boy of all anti-establishment forces in the region,
although the phenomenon of anti-Americanism is obviously global and has
been for much of the century just completed. To be sure, various conspiracy
theories are driven not only by the supposed nature of inter-American relations
but also by a kind of counterfeit sociology of our own individual societies. The
assumption is that whatever is wrong can be traced to some evil force located in
some North American city.

As a society, the United States has represented a unique phenomenon,
and not only in the sense that it resembles no other in the world and cannot be
replicated elsewhere. A great power that speaks in moral and moralistic terms—
that does not separate its geopolitical interests from its national ideology—has
often repelled and attracted at the very same time. One might add the paradox
here of a society that plays a predominant, not to say hegemonic role in the
world, but which at the same time is turned inward and basically uninterested

(2003)

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in other countries and cultures.² Evidently American society cannot be
understood exclusively in terms of its own self-description. But then again,
neither can it be fully comprehended in terms of conspiracy theories—of the
type, for example, that long held that the Russian Revolution was the product of
a “Jewish-Bolshevik” cabal, or even (with slightly more basis in fact) the result
of actions by the German General Staff. Unfortunately, this is precisely the
version of Chilean history—insofar as the government of Salvador Allende is
concerned—we are invited to accept by the two books under review.

Conspiracy theories arise from the inexorable necessity all human beings
have to explain both simple and complex processes. In and of itself such a need
is not objectionable. A coherent explanation or a succession of facts that is not
only simple but truthful makes a serious contribution to human knowledge.
But in conspiracy theories matters are a bit more problematic. To simplicity—
which can be useful in any explanation—they add another, spicy ingredient, the
sense of mystery, of a manipulative force hidden in the shadows. The
conspiracist sets out to unravel a complex network of relationships—which in
the end makes him not simple but simplistic.

All enormous, dramatic events inevitably force us to ask, “Who lies
behind it all?” In this we are driven both by a sense of lurid and a refusal to
understand and accept our own responsibility for events in which we may have
taken part. Thus conspiracy theories constitute one of the most widespread and
recurrent political phenomena in the history of modernity.

The history of espionage has provided an inexhaustible source of
conspiracy theories. John Le Carré and Ian Fleming are merely the most

² I of course except here the famous “Eastern establishment” which emerged

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successful and best known practitioners of the art in fiction. Espionage and its
most dangerous component, covert action, are merely the weakest link in the
chain, however. The true role of intelligence can only be understood when it is
analyzed in all its extensions. Such analysis can never be disassociated from
facts and information already in the public domain. This is the reason why at
the end of the day so many conspiracy theories are unsatisfying explanations of
great historical events.

To understand the policies of one country toward another—or for that
matter, the relationship between two societies—links between a wide range of
phenomena must be established. There is something infantile about the urge to
trace a direct line from one event to another, without—to be sure—providing a
moral lesson while the conspiracist is at it. If the world were as the conspiracist
sees it, is difficult to understand how any country or political regime can ever
resist the desires of the United States. If it was possible to bring down the
government of Salvador Allende by the covert expenditure of $6.5 million
dollars—in a country where the Gross Domestic Product at the time was $10
billion dollars—how is it that similar actions have not occurred in other parts of
the world? How can we explain the enormous leverage purchased in Chile by
such a relatively small amount of money? Was it was the ingenuousness and
democratic spirit of the leaders of Popular Unity? Or the limitless evil of the
opposition? Or something else yet undiscovered?

Evidently to argue in such a way is completely useless. As is the
argument that "the CIA overthrew Allende", or, on the other hand, that the
United States had nothing at all to do with the fall of his government. For that

after the Second World War.

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matter it would be ridiculous as well to suggest that Cuba (or the USSR) was completely irrevelant to the outcome. After all, Chile is part of the international system, of what might be called "international society". This means that, inevitably, its political actors identify with external forces—which they naturally enough consider compatible with our own national interests. Before going further down that path of analysis, however, which explains a good deal more than conspiracy theories, let us turn to the two books under review.

## *The Authors and their Books*

First, the curricula of the writers in question. Peter Kornbluh is well known in Chile among academic specialists and in the non-governmental organizations dedicated to human rights. Over fifteen years he has created the National Security Archive in Washington, whose purpose is to reveal the dark side of American foreign policy over the last few decades. Although President Richard Nixon is the principal villain, other American authorities who preceded and followed him are also placed in the dock of the accused. With the best will in the world it is simply not possible to regard Kornbluh as a serious academic. His entire career—as well as this book—reveals him to be a political militant driven by strong emotions, by a compulsive need to censure and denounce the foreign policy of the United States as irremediably immoral.

In this sense Kornbluh belongs to a venerable tradition of American radicalism and self-criticism, which since the 1950s has driven an entire school of historical revisionism. The subject of critique is inevitably the "anti-Communist consensus" and "containment". The anti-Communist liberalism that dominated a broad sector of the Democratic party establishment during

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those years has been gradually evaporating since then, precipitated by the war
in Vietnam. Since then, foreign policy has formed a major foundation stone in
its critique of American society. Kornbluh is a typical product of this process,
part of a generation which sees only faults in U.S. foreign policy since 1945.

Leafing through the pages of this voluminous volume, the reader is
immediately struck by the fact that the author has not taken the slightest effort
to evaluate the existing literature on the subject. For Kornbluh, evidently,
nothing written about Chile, and very particularly on the U.S. policy towards
that country, can have any value whatsoever. His subject apparently has no
intellectual history, no historiography. He writes his book almost as if the
documentation on which it is based was released just yesterday (rather than, in
many cases, decades ago), a kind of smoking gun which he brandishes to
expose the perfidity of Washington.

Curiously enough Kornbluh's book does not actually put forth an explicit
argument. From the first page to the last he prefers to "let the sources speak".
But in fact he organizes those sources with one purpose in mind and one only,
namely, to show that everything that happened in Chile was the work of Nixon
and Kissinger, utilizing the CIA as their chosen instrument. The closest thing to
an argument is his statement towards the end of the book: "The history of the
efforts of the United States to bring down Chilean democracy and support the
consolidation of Pinochet's dictatorship continues to be the source of pain and
sorrow." The author brandishes insinuation as an analytical tool, although
when it serves his purposes he can be careful enough in his statements. The
problem is that apparently he thinks that to study a particular reality does not

[w]

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involve analysis, but rather is a simple task somewhat similar to evaluating an
entire tree by some of its branches.

Patricia Verdugo is a very different kind of writer. A successful journalist, her life took a drastic turn when her father was killed by Pinochet's security forces in 1975. This crime seems not to be motivated by political considerations, which only made it even more painful and more atrocious for the victim's family. This personal history adds a certain dramatic verisimilitude to her writings and also a certain moral authority.

None of this, of course, excuses her book from being judged on its own merits. In her previous works the argument was more convincing due to the directness and richness of personal testimony, although even there she does not always match her materials to her larger thesis. In the present case, we are dealing with a rather light piece of work, journalism in the worst (and often most unprofessional) sense of the word: superficial, lacking both the necessary historical and political background and analytical maturity. She mixes up her facts and her hagiographic rendition of President Allende's biography gets in the way of the larger subject of the book, which is U.S. policy towards Chile. The result is a sort of melodrama lacking intellectual sophistication or deeper understanding of the causes of major human events.

While Kornbluh builds his "history" on documents alone—not, one must say, a remarkable innovation—Patricia Verdugo produces a kind of mixed salad of methodologies, an undifferentiated collection of facts and suppositions. Neither of the two bother to refer to serious academic studies of the period or even to come to grips with their arguments. Neither of the books make reference

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to the works of Paul Sigmund or Mark Falcoff, probably the two Americans who have produced the most careful analyses of the available documentation.³

It is certainly true that some of the arguments advanced by Kornbluh and Verdugo are worthy of discussion and debate—what great and controversial event is not? But unfortunately in the history—or rather, the comic-book version thereof—produced by these authors no fact, no possibility, can be introduced which ruins the coherence of a perfect case for the prosecution.

The two books have one other thing in common. They are wholly U.S.-centric in their notion of world events. Everything is controlled and determined in and from Washington. Nothing else is worth discussing except the occasional revolt against the U.S.-dominated world system, such as was presumably embodied in President Allende and his Popular Unity government. This deficiency is even more marked in Kornbluh, for whom—presumably without wishing to say so, and perhaps even without being fully aware of his intentions—Chileans can be nothing more than marionettes whose strings are pulled by Washington. If this was in fact the case, one is left wondering how Allende could have been elected in the first place! Both authors also make much of the initial support the Nixon administration granted to the military government, but neither seems to be aware of the conflicts between Pinochet and Washington after 1977, particularly during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. In fact, however, from about 1975 the United States began to regard General Pinochet as a liability, although it found itself basically powerless to do much about him. This basic contradiction dominated the entire history of the relationship right up to the end of the regime in 1989, and

³ Mark Falcoff, *Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History* (1989); Paul E.

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constitutes a separate and fascinating chapter apart, rich in irony for some potential historian. To be sure, to have touched upon such inconvenient subjects would have destroyed the coherence of the arguments put forward in both books here, and deprived their stories of the black/white dichotomy which is their essential characteristic.

We probably should not be surprised at the way the authors—particularly Kornbluh—represent the United States as virtually omnipotent. The rise of this country to superpower, and now hegemonic status, has provoked astonishment throughout the world, and more than that, concern and fear, and not only on the part of “progressive” sectors. A United States of unlimited power quite naturally must provoke distrust. At the same time, the broad masses around the globe (and not only them) have absorbed American popular culture with eagerness, nay, even euphoria. On one side of the coin there is the promethean power of the United States; on the other, a poisonous envy and a somewhat justifiable distrust.

It is not unusual that the internal documentation of the U.S. government should reflect a sense of self-confidence, of unlimited capacity. Like every great power and every society that has become admired (and hated) as a model, it has developed a very high sense of its own importance, including a belief in its own infallibility. There is, in fact, an adolescent streak in the way some American leaders look at the world. The documentation cited by Kornbluh and Verdugo reflects this sensibility. It would be odd if it did not. If only they had displayed the slightest sense of subtlety!

Sigmund, *The United States and Democracy in Chile* (1993).

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But here we come to the main point of this review. We choose to focus on
two aspects: the documents concerning the efforts of Washington to prevent the
accession of Salvador Allende to the presidency, and those which reveal the
support given by the United States to opponents of his Popular Unity
government (1970-73). Are these documents as sensational as the publicity
handouts of their publishers claim? The authors make much use of words like
"document" and "declassification", as if written history itself was merely the
reproduction or paraphrase of documents.

Unfortunately, everything cited in these books, as well as in the
thousands of documents additionally declassified over the last ten years, do not
add any important new twist to the story—which is to say, anything more than
what was already known. We refer here to the report of the Church Commission
of the U.S. Senate (1975) and the documents relating to the role of the
International Telephone and Telephone Company, which were published in
1972 by the American newspaper columnist Jack Anderson and the Chilean
government itself. At issue are roughly two thousand pages of documents. I
daresay that very few people in Chile (perhaps indeed, nobody) and hardly more
than a dozen people in the United States have in all likelihood read these
materials since they were made available in 1975.

Now comes Kornbluh with thousands of pages more, in which the names
of the majority of people are blacked out. Do they add anything more? In my
historian's judgement, the answer would have to be no. These materials can be
a revelation only to those who know of these events third-hand. They may add a
squiggle here, a detail there that was not known, but they do not succeed in
altering the larger picture produced by other, more serious writers.

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Here I will offer some modest examples. During the period between the election of September 4, 1970 and the inauguration of Salvador Allende on November 3, 1970, it is possible to infer that the White House continued its plan to promote a coup after October 15. The U.S. government, and on repeated occasions Henry Kissinger himself, have both insisted that after that date all efforts to block Allende's accession to the presidency came to an end.

(The Americans, beginning with Kissinger, insist that all their efforts were bent towards creating a situation where a new election would be held in which outgoing President Eduardo Frei—ordinarily inhibited from two successive presidential terms⁴—could run again. Few people accept this argument, and here I must say I find myself in agreement with both Kornbluh and Verdugo: what Washington wanted was to prevent an Allende presidency by any means possible, including a military intervention.)

Kornbluh cites various documents that presumably show that this policy continued right down to October 22, the day that General Schneider was murdered.⁵ They are not, however, sufficiently convincing to persuade me that the Schneider affair might not be the product of inertia and sloppiness on the part of intelligence groups, to whom orders from Washington do not (or at least in those days, did not) arrive instantly. It appears as if they were waiting to see if an opportunity presented itself. The documents also show—something

⁴ Chilean law normally held that presidents could only run for a second term after another presidency had intervened. However, even a presidency of a single day—headed, let us say, by a military officer or a civilian—could provide the loophole that would permit Frei to run again, serving virtually serving two terms back to back.—Tr.

⁵ General René Schneider was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. A staunch constitutionalist, he resisted all blandishments to stage a coup to prevent Allende from taking power. He died in a botched kidnapping attempt on October 22.—Tr.

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already insinuated in the materials declassified as early as 1975—that
President Frei was sympathetic to the idea of being overthrown by a coup—a
situation which, evidently, would allow him to run again in the event of
subsequent elections. If Frei was fully informed and shared the idea, however, it
is not a conclusion to which we can arrive solely on the basis of these
documents. (“The government of the United States shares the opinion of
President Frei, who considers a military solution the only option.” Kornbluh, p.
144) Apart from this attribution, the rest of Kornbluh’s case is built on pure
speculation.

The new materials—basically the most important—are found in the
Kornbluh volume, since Patricia Verdugo simply relates a tale or rather,
constructs a sensationalist soap opera brandishing documents whenever
appropriate to make her case. To be sure, it is an entertaining story.

Track I and Track II

Track I and Track II were the names given by members of the Church
committee in 1974 and 1975 for the U.S. policy towards Chile between
September 5, 1970 (the day of the elections) and the October 22 of the same
year (the date of General Schneider's murder). Both form part of a larger U.S.
policy towards Chile dating back to at least 1962. Its purpose was to prevent
the advent of a Marxist government in our country. In fact, already in 1940 the
United States had begun to finance local political groups, at that time chosen
for their anti-Nazi credentials. Such actions demonstrated that domestic
Chilean politics was considered a matter of U.S. national security. The
Christian Democratic party also received assistance from its European

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counterparts. On the other hand, as the work of Olga Uliánova has shown, the USSR began to finance the local Communist party from at least the mid-1950s.⁶ By the second half of the sixties Castro's Cuba was training young Chileans, ardent partisans of armed revolution, to take advantage of such situations as might arise in their country at some unspecified date.

Chile was, then, a theater of the Cold War, subject to pressures from external actors. It was also such because the geopolitical objectives of those external actors meshed with an internal debate over the direction the country should take. This debate reached its moment of maximum tension when the country seemed to opt for a change of camp by electing Allende's Popular Unity government. Subsequently it chose yet another direction. Have we seen the final result in the 1990s? Probably the outcome would have been not much different in the country had undertaken certain necessary reforms in the 1950s and 1960s. But that is the subject of another article.

The point at issue here is what does the American involvement mean, and what importance should we assign to it? We believe that in the first period—during the time of Track I and Track II, September-October, 1970—it was a marginal factor in the course of events. Later, in contrast, the role of financing the opposition was significantly greater—though *not* decisive, far from it. To be sure, this last assertion is open to debate. What cannot be accepted is the caricature of the U.S. role depicted simply on the basis of documents such as these.

⁶ Arturo Fontaine, "Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética en Chile" and Olga Uliánova and Eugenia Fediakova, "Algunos Aspectos de la Ayuda Financiera del PC de la URSS al Comunismo Chileno durante la Guerra Fria", *Estudios Públicos*, 72 (1998). See also Olga Uliánova, *La Unidad Popular y el Golpe Militar en Chile: Percepciones y Análisis Soviéticos*, 79 (2000).

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One might well ask whether the economic assistance offered by the Americans and the Soviets to "their" Chileans was moral or immoral. I am afraid there is no clear answer to that question. In a political system in which the rules of the game are based on widely-accepted legitimacy, requesting foreign aid might well be regarded as treason to one's country, to democracy, to the tactic political contract pre-established among citizens. But if politics becomes a war without quarter in which at a given moment one's adversary is deprived of the possibility of defending his own rights and interests, is it not legitimate for the latter to appeal to foreign assistance? This was the view of opponents of Popular Unity between 1970 and 1973; after September 11<sup>7</sup>, it was also the view of Allende's supporters after his overthrow, many of whom were subject to a conflict in the most literal sense of the word. Let us not forget, however, that Popular Unity was not an advocate of conventional democracy as we had known it in Chile; rather, it favored a different kind of legitimacy, one which would have kicked down the traces of the established democratic order. Indeed, the opposition to Allende was not far off the mark in objecting to the government's cynical use of "constitutionality" to cover its evidently revolutionary (and extra-constitutional, or even anti-constitutional) objectives.

A conflict over ends rather than means provided the background to the events dealt with in these books. The victory of Allende in the elections of September 4, 1970 was a huge surprise to those who had not voted for him. The effect was, in fact, to produce a mood of paralysis and even panic and terror in many sectors of the electorate. A Marxist had won the presidency by an extremely narrow margin, by fewer votes, in fact, than in the election of

<sup>7</sup> The date General Pinochet overthrew President Allende.—Tr.

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1964, which he had lost. Even more, he had achieved roughly the same score with which he lost the 1958 elections, which he had also lost. (Ironically, in 1970 with a handful of votes he managed to just squeeze past Jorge Alessandri, the man who had defeated him in 1958!) A long-established tradition in Chile mandated that in the event that no candidate received an absolute majority, the Congress would elect whichever of the two leading candidates had the largest plurality. Even so, such a process was always subject to negotiations behind the scenes. To forestall an Allende presidency in 1970 would have required a joint ticket—or at the very least a post-electoral agreement—between Alessandri and the Christian Democrats. For various reasons, such an eventuality was unlikely in the extreme.

It is a remarkable, perhaps inexplicable fact—and deeply revealing of the weakness of the Chilean Right—that on September 4, the night of the elections, Alessandri and the people he represented went to bed without even offering a trace of explanation to their voters. Apparently they were as paralyzed as everyone else not on the Left. The subsequent days, during which they continued to maintain silence, were decisive in convincing many people that Allende's victory was irreversible, which in fact it was.

Outgoing President Eduardo Frei was clearly stunned. Both photos taken at the time and anecdotal evidence which has come to light since then confirms that he was shocked and even on the verge of clinical depression. He had no illusions about what would follow in the event that Popular Unity managed to consolidate itself in power. For its part, the Right supported any formula, including one in which the Congress would elect Alessandri, following which the latter which instantly resign, opening the road to a new election in which Frei

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would presumably be the victor. Such a white glove coup (to use a term) would
evidently have opened the floodgates of social confrontation, as profound indeed
as that which eventually took place in 1972 and 1973. In any case, in contrast
to the version according to which the Right was plotting a coup, what the
evidence actually reveals on the contrary is indecision and even a
disillusionment with politics as such. Beneath such sentiments there may
indeed lie a profoundly authoritarian temperament, although the Right cannot
be said to enjoy a monopoly thereof. Other political forces in Chile have
historically displayed an anti-democratic bias, though in quite different ways.

It is not impossible that the leadership of the Christian Democratic party,
in its heart of hearts, found a Marxist victory at the polls every bit as abhorrent
as the Right. Certainly that was the case with its electorate. But the dice had
been thrown. A significant section of the CD parliamentary representation flatly
refused to be involved in the slippery business of electing Alessandri, and
another faction preferred frankly to confirm Allende rather than hand the
Christian Democratic electorate over to the hated Right.

The armed forces were as divided as all of the other relevant sectors of
society. Its entire world view, its political culture, so to speak, was
fundamentally anti-Marxist; *fundamentally but not exclusively*. The military took
a rather dim view of civilian society in any case, at times bordering on
indifference. To be sure, the armed forces were institutionally linked to civil
authority, but in such a way as to regard themselves as an estate apart—
isolated, on a plane slightly superior to civilians, but also suffering the sting of
social discrimination. For the fact is that most civilians, even from the Right,
looked down on the military and made little effort to disguise the fact.

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The military did not, in fact, evince much respect for Chilean political institutions as such. Was this a serious deficiency? Perhaps, but any serious analysis of the other political actors of the day would have revealed a similar problem. To be sure, such views were not present at the same level or with the same intensity throughout the officer corps, but there were some who placed anti-Marxism above all other political values.

We need to remember, however, that there were other currents afoot in the armed forces. From 1967 on there was a perceptible unrest in the ranks, producing an abortive coup on October 21, 1969, presumably over pay, allowances, and other service benefits. Such sentiments did not yet amount to a true culture of conspiracy to overthrow the government (cultura golpista), but civil-military relations were no longer what they had been in the early 1960s.

What was the position of Eduardo Frei in all of this? In fact, he was always something of a riddle—probably every successful statesman has to be. He offered almost no evidence of a particular position. Evidently he was disturbed by Allende's victory and believed that the latter would not be able to restrain the Marxist parties that supported him from a confrontation. He privately believed that the country was headed for a catastrophe. Yet he ordered his people to cooperate with Allende's transition team.

On the other hand, he never clearly and publicly disavowed the "Alessandri gambit" (the latter's election by the Congress, his immediate resignation, new elections in which Frei would be eligible to run). More importantly, until October 22 he did nothing to activate the security forces to prevent coup plotting in the military and police; he did not explicitly address himself to the high command in the sense of urging that they utilize respect for

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the constitution as the best way to defend democracy and prevent a total
Marxist takeover. Like Alessandri, during these months Frei seemed incapable
of designing a strategy of any kind. Instead, he withdrew within himself and
virtually disappeared from public life.

People from the Right have since assured us that Alessandri's public
statement on September 9—namely, that he was prepared to accept the
presidency and to resign almost immediately thereafter, an extraordinarily
dangerous gambit—was shown to Frei for his suggestions beforehand. Even if
this statement is untrue, there was obviously some sort of tacit understanding.
At the same time, it would have been wholly in Frei's character not to have said
anything explicit. Perhaps the opinions attributed to Frei by the Americans were
only speculation or supposition. Or perhaps they were informed by
intermediaries. For his part, the American ambassador of the period, the late
Edward Korry, has since stated emphatically that during the period between
Allende's election and the vote of the Congress he practically never saw Frei,
and when he did they were not in a position to discuss the matter.⁸

I confess myself unsure whether or not to believe some of these
statements. Eduardo Frei was venerated by the majority of American
policymakers concerned with Chile. His government and the political culture of
his party were perhaps closest to their own values. Perhaps there still remains a
pact of silence on the subject of direct communication between the two sides.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that Frei did not rush off to tell
the Americans what he thought. Perhaps, even it was not necessary.

⁸ Edward M. Korry, Joaquín Fermandois, Arturo Fontaine Talavera, "El embajador Korry en el CEP", *Estudios Públicos* 72, (1998).

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The efforts to organize a military coup, which the Americans also supported, were prepared in an slipshod way, for the simple reason that enthusiasm for such an adventure within the military was extremely lukewarm; in some quarters it was firmly rejected, including by its comamnder-in-chief General Schneider himself and his second in command, General Carlos Prats. It is also true, however, that except for a handful of officers there was certainly no sympathy for the coming Popular Unity government. The coup prepared by a coalition of some generals and a group of civilians and retired military men (but which also included Admiral Hugo Tirado, head of the Navy), was an exceptionally complicated affair. The idea was to deprive the Army of its visible head by kidnapping General Schneider. President Frei would then name a military cabinet. Afterwards matters would somehow sort themselves out. The whole business bears the mark of improvisation; even the CIA documents suggest uncertainty as to how well coordinated all of these efforts were.

The materials cited by Kornbluh and Verdugo convey two distinct impressions. One, that to organize a military coup is a chancy business, extremely vulnerable to failure. Not—to be sure—because the military chiefs and the civilian leaders had decided at some point that such an adventure was unconstitutional. No—the reasons lie elsewhere. Rather, in the barracks and service clubs one began to hear the argument that Allende wasn't really that awful after all; that maybe he could even be saved from some of his own followers (that is, the parties that had elected him). After all, the same thing had happened with the Popular Front governments of Pedro Aguirre Cerda (1938-41) and Gabriel González Videla (1946-1952); elected on left wing platforms, they changed relatively little in Chile. Another, not insignificant faction in the

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military that was somewhat close to Christian Democracy—without fully discarding their skepticism about Popular Unity—had concluded that at the end of the day it was necessary to “transform the structures” in Chile, and possibly a dose of socialism was both inevitable and necessary. Perhaps, some of these people argued, it was necessary to support future government of Allende if the latter did not make it impossible to do so.

To be sure, those people involved in the conspiracy to stage a coup, or more accurately, those involved in the various rather chaotic plots that were underway, were of a quite different sort—people who combined an anti-democratic ideological conviction (or a sense of despair about the possibilities of democracy, which is not quite the same thing) with a kind of counter-revolutionary adventurism that accounts for the tragedy of General Schneider's death.

To resume: there was an evident lack of taste within the armed forces for a military coup. This much is clear in the documents cited by Verdugo and Kornbluh, but to conclude as much from the evidence clearly lies beyond their intellectual capacities. The lack of a propitious climate for such an adventure is what turned the CIA's efforts into a swamp of confusion and disorder. Without question some groups were in touch with some functionaries of the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, who were actually intelligence agents disguised as diplomats. It is interesting to note that the coup plotters—principally General Camilo Valenzuela, head of the Santiago military district, and retired General Roberto Viaux—were anxious to make sure that they had U.S. support, even to the extent of demanding financial security in case things turned out badly.

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But neither Valenzuela nor Viaux were creatures of the CIA or anything closely resembling such. The agency had been ordered by Washington to create "chaos", but in fact could do nothing except testify to the shock in which many Chileans found themselves. According to their own reports, the agents felt powerless to do anything. In Kornbluh's book it is difficult to locate the document in which he cites directly—without any clear reference to the source—Frei's supposed deeply complicity in the coup plots (p. 39). When American money began to arrive in Chile at the end of September, 1970, the U.S. approach had finally been decided. A typical report from the CIA agents on the ground for that period reads:

> There now exists the rumor of a possible coup which requires the approval of Frei to take the following steps: (1) resignation of the entire cabinet (2) creation of a new cabinet made up wholly of military figures (3) appointment by Frei of an interim president (4) Frei's departure from the country.

The speculative nature of the message is highly typical. One is stunned to learn that the White House could pin its concrete hopes on such vague speculations. The truth is that the CIA agents in Chile were as often inclined to repeat rumors and send information pock-marked with factual errors as they were to be well informed on the situation.

New information—not cited by these authors—shows how Ambassador Korry himself was sick and tired of pursuing a policy based on wishful thinking and café gossip (*información pintoresca*). On October 6 he sent a cable to Washington saying "we should stop relying on all these reports and be prepared to be completely surprised by any action taken by the armed forces.. For this reason, I am giving instructions [to the CIA in Chile] to cease and desist from

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normal intelligence gathering concerning possible military movements." To be
sure, the agents themselves felt that they had to report only to the White
House, where apparently it was believed that anything it wanted in Chile was
possible, whether creating chaos or bribing the Congress. With respect to the
first of these, although the election of Allende did indeed send a shock wave
through Chilean society, chaos itself was avoided; as for the second, without
necessarily believing that all Chilean senators and congressmen are angels, the
actual outcome of the CIA's efforts to bribe them was—on the record—wholly
unsuccessful.

Their lack of intellectual perspicacity, or perhaps simply their need to
adhere strictly to their monocausal view of history, lead both Kornbluh and
Verdugo to miss entirely the sense of ironic desperation which gripped the CIA
agents in Santiago, who concluded that the situation could end badly for
everybody. Here, for example, is their cable of October 10, sent to Langley:

1. The Station has arrived at the Viaux approach through a process of elimination. (a) There is no solution at the level of the High Command (b) There is no possibility of the Frei solution (c) As far as the solution of regimental commanders [presumably they refer here to zone or regional commanders] the Station lacks the power to get those commanders to refuse to obey orders from their military superiors.

2. Under these conditions, what can we expect from Viaux? He may be able to divide the armed forces...the fencesitters will watch the battle from the sidelines without committing themselves. The carnage would be considerable and prolonged, that is, a civil war. Under the best of circumstances, the armed forces will take charge of the country with unpredictable results.

3. All the alternatives here do not pretend to be an exhaustive list of all the key factors that should weigh on your final decision. You

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have ordered us to create chaos in Chile. Through Viaux we provide
you with a formula for chaos, but one where it the shedding of blood
is unavoidable. It will be impossible to disguise the American
involvement. The entire team of the Chile station considered very
seriously all the plans suggested by its opposite numbers at
Headquarters. We conclude that none of them have the remotest
possibility of achieving the objective [of the U.S. government]. Thus
the Viaux alternative, in spite of all of the risk factors, may commend
itself to you.⁹

This is, in fact, an extraordinary document. Our authors cite it only
partially; its ironic tone escapes them entirely. The CIA agents in Chile are in
despair because—wonder of wonders!—they cannot control events. The report of
the Church Commission would lead to much the same conclusion. The history
of these sixty days is an example of American impotence, at least to the extent
that it reveals Washington’s inability to manipulate events on the ground.

All of these events had a macabre conclusion. When General Schneider
was wounded on October 22 in the process of an attempt to kidnap him (dying
in the hospital three days later), the CIA's agents in Chile believed that that a
coup was underway, since under the circumstances General Camilo Valenzuela
was presumably in control of the situation on the ground. "It appears that the
Valenzuela group will use this incident as a pretext to begin a coup." (Kornbluh,
p. 161.

What pathetic naiveté! The murder of General Schneider was fatal to any
potential coup. In addition, President Frei immediately ordered the arrest of all
those involved, and the subsequent police investigation completely unraveled
the plot to its (Chilean) sources. No greater proof is needed to substantiate the

⁹ Kristian C. Gustafson.

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intractability of Chilean events to those in Washington who would presume to
manipulate them.

The International Role in the Political Civil War, 1970-73

Chile has never been—as Chileans often claim—an island. It was summoned to life as a consequence of the European expansion after 1500. It became a republic as part of a political cycle which covered the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century it has been the Latin American country that most nearly replicated modern political forms. It had Marxist and anti-Marxist parties even before the Russian Revolution; its Popular Front in the 1930s was created by a political culture similar to that in France or Spain. Allende and Pinochet are now worldwide symbols, points of reference. We should not wonder at the observation of the British ambassador of the Allende period that Chile was the scene of the same battles which had shaken Europe decades before. It should not surprise us, either, that Chileans might identify themselves with one or another of the great global models. The U.S.S.R., the United States, and Cuba were as much external powers as models for Chilean society.

The United States was so, but in a rather tacit fashion, since it did not possess important Marxist parties. On the other hand, just because its influence was more subtle, it was, for all that, possibly more intense. At the same time, Chile's drastic shift in course under Popular Unity would have been unthinkable without the existing models of the Soviet Union and Castro's Cuba. The former had helped to finance Chilean Communism and given strong support to Allende, although once in office that support was rather less than

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Chilean Marxists had expected and hoped. In contrast, Fidel Castro had an
enormous impact on the Chilean experience. He organized the militant (and
military-oriented) part of the Chilean Left, and clearly vetoed any negotiated
settlement between Popular Unity and the opposition parties. The Allende
experiment was not, to be sure, the product of either foreign agents or a dark
conspiracy, but rather the logical Chilean expression of a universal vision,
ardently desired by vast sectors of the population, feared and combated by
others.

Chile also constituted part of Latin American society, doubtless imbued
with more sophisticated political forms, but for all that not necessarily more
refined in essence. The country's destiny had been decided not by international
war, as in the case, say, of England or Germany in 1939-1945, but by a
political civil war which was heavily imbued with global significance. In that
sense the operative model was the Spanish Civil War. The difference between
Spain and Chile was that between 1970 and 1973 the conflict took place largely
without weaponry, which hovered on the sidelines as a constant possibility and
threat. And when the hour of armed confrontation arrived, the military coup
had massive support (precisely *how* massive will always be a matter of
speculation) both on the part of the population and the majority of organized
political forces. The violence itself was less than might have been feared, but
arguably greater than necessary.

Once again we pose the question: on which new documents do the
authors base their case? We said before that the newly declassified materials
add little to what was already known, and the two books under review make no
contribution to help us better understand events. They persist in clichés like

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the "invisible blockade", "another Vietnam", on the refusal of Washington to continue lending money to Chile. Just why, one feels justified in asking, should Washington have continued to support a government that claimed, daily and from the housetops, that all the evils of Chile were due to "imperialism", from whose voracious claws it proposed to liberate the country? The central thesis of Popular Unity was that the motor of human progress was the "socialist" bloc, a system where there were no contradictions between governments and peoples, some of whom (like Cuba) had allegedly freed themselves from the imperialist yoke.

Nothing new, too, here as regards the policy of the White House to keep alive the opposition through economic aid. The $6.5 million are a matter of record. No document refers to the truckers' strike which paralyzed the country in 1972, although it was mentioned (inconclusively) in the Church Committee report a quarter-century ago. Possibly the truckers received funds from the CIA, but if so our authors cannot prove it. The American government defends its record by saying that its objective was to maintain the opposition in a condition where it would be able to contest the elections of 1973 and 1976, not to destroy democracy itself.

While this claim is not wholly false, there is also this message to the armed forces that the United States would support them in the event they took power. In a report dated March 14, 1973, it said:

> We should make it clear that we will not support any attempt at a coup unless it is evident that it enjoys the support of the greater part of the armed forces and of the democratic political parties, including the Christian Democrats. (Kornbluh, p. 117.)

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Here we can see the American strategy. The U.S. had discarded the useless and possibly counterproductive enterprise of trying to promote a coup, as in September and October of 1970. Instead, it returned to the strategy recommended from the very beginning by Ambassador Korry, namely, to support an opposition that would be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. The increasing polarization of Chilean politics eventually immobilized all of the actors and made their situation impossible.

It can be seen now that the Americans were well informed on the state of mind in the military high command, which is to say that they knew that it was moved and indeed dominated by anti-Marxist sentiment, and more than that, actively planning to depose Allende. They had their contacts, after all. Even so, they knew nothing that the leaders of Popular Unity, including Allende himself, did not know as well.

To repeat once more: what is new in this documentation? That the Americans *apparently* knew as early as 1972 that General Pinochet, though a committed professional, was thinking about the possibility of a military coup. First they learned it through a girlfriend of the general's son, subsequently through a more direct contact, or perhaps through his conversations with American generals on a visit to Panama; actually, some of this has actually been told by General Pinochet himself in the first edition of his memoirs, *El día decisivo* (1980).

More interesting is the new material Kornbluh offers us concerning the strategy which lay behind transfers of money to the opposition. Qualitatively nothing new under the sun, quantitatively he adds a bit more detail. He

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describes the financing of the Christian Democratic party and the vital
importance (although not everyone in Washington shared this view) of *El
Mercurio* as a major Chilean daily newspaper. If the paper buckled under to the
subtle (and not so subtle) pressures of the Allende government, the opposition
would collapse, or so it was claimed.

Certainly it would have been embarrassing if this had been publicly
known at the time, just as it would have been inconvenient, to say the least, for
the facts to be known about the Soviet financing of the Chilean Communist
party or the extent of the Cuban involvement (through its embassy in Santiago)
in training an illegal armed contingent, or the existence of a letter from Castro
to Allende dated July 29, 1973, in which he goads him to a final confrontation
with his opponents and even suggests suicide. Even so, even at the time all of
these things were widely suspected and rumored.

Here is what the CIA says about *El Mercurio* as of April, 1972:

Insofar as public impact and political effectiveness, both the Allende
government and its opposition considers *El Mercurio* the most effective
anti-Allende media outlet in Chile... *El Mercurio* will continue to be
exposed to various forms of harassment by the government. If Allende
decides to shut *El Mercurio* down, he will probably find the means to do
so under some legal pretext, notwithstanding the financial support of the
United States. Under such circumstances, a decision to give additional
financial assistance ought not to be based purely on budgetary matters,
but on evaluation of the importance of preserving the daily for political
purposes.

The author of this report perceived an irresistible movement on the part
of the Moneda Palace¹⁰ to strangle the opposition in Chile by quasi-legal means.

¹⁰ Seat of the Chilean presidency.—Tr.

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Not that the Americans thought the battle was being waged on equal terms. Rather, in the mobilization of the pro-government forces and the counter-mobilization of its opposition, everybody knew that the lion's share of resources lay with the former, not the latter.¹¹ In a struggle of global significance, it was natural that the opposition receive external assistance, all the moreso when the very existence of the Constitution and its laws was in peril. To be sure, no one gave this much thought when the first transfers began to arrive in the nineteen-sixties, or even before, in the nineteen-forties. But later on in the 1980s, disbursed by more fashionable agencies like the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, they earned acceptance, even respectability.

In any case, there can be no doubt that the opposition to Popular Unity considered itself backed into a one-way street. Renán Fuentealba, president of the Christian Democratic party in the first two years of the Allende government, was one of thirteen party leaders who condemned the coup of September 11, 1973. But even so, he attributed much of the blame to the violence of the "ultra left". When in September, 1972, Fuentealba met a member of the U.S. embassy staff, Richard Schwarz, at the home of businessman Juan Abogabir, he observed that the opposition forces were being subject to slow strangulation and "would die by asphyxiation."¹²

What does all this mean? In the first place, that the funds transferred by the U.S. government to the opposition could have played an important role in the latter's political mobilization. With the lion's share of the economy passing into the hands of the state—which is to say, functionaries of the Popular Unity

¹¹ On this subject see Joanquín Fermandois, "Transición al socialismo y confrontación en Chile, 1970-1973" (2003).

¹² NARA, Chile Declassification Project, Human Rights in Chile, Tranch 2, vol. 1.

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coalition—and indeed, the larger part of the black market as well, the relatively
small amount of CIA money passed to the opposition *could* have played a
considerable or even decisive effect. That is a matter for discussion and debate,
nothing more.

In the second place, in a struggle of global significance, foreign actors—
Soviet, Cuban and American—regarded Chile's political civil war as taking place
on a very narrow ledge, with only winners and losers. And it perhaps bears
noting that almost to the very end of the Allende regime, which is to say, by
mid-1973, the opposition was more pessimistic than optimistic about its
prospect for survival.

To be sure, even without the money the United States channeled through
the CIA, the opposition was not wholly without resources of various sorts. The
very fact that such large anti-government demonstrations could be mounted
bespeaks an element of enthusiasm, of fear, of sacrifice (even of the chance for
a good time!), not to mention a certain amount of domestic economic support,
although there are many indications that towards the end this latter was
beginning to give out. The emerging Watergate crisis was beginning to paralyze
the Nixon administration. Perhaps, under other circumstances, time have
worked out in Allende's favor. This is, of course, a counter-factual hypothesis,
nothing more.

From Myth to Understanding

Two quite distinct visions of the events dealt with in these two books
have long competed for the Chilean popular imagination. In one, the violence
that the Popular Unity government deliberately unleashed, and even more, the

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violence it was contemplating, legitimized the initial violence of the military government and its "excesses". In the other, the Allende government is held to be nothing more than a search for a socialist path within the Chilean democratic political tradition. This latter version, which has been sold with a certain degree of success quite recently in the commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the coup of September 11, 1973. It benefits, no doubt, from the well-documented violations of human rights by the Pinochet government, the outright extermination of political opponents, and the confusion between the dictator himself and the state.

One way of tying up the loose ends of all these events is to take refuge in the myth that "the CIA did it all." A simple reading of the materials in these two books renders that task impossible. It represents another of those myths that subordinate history to present-day political necessities, and pushes us into a fatalistic acceptance of supposed historic forces. The history of contemporary Chile was the result of choices made by Chilean actors, as indeed it remains today. This is not to ignore the fact that we remain vitally linked to—and in some ways subject to—external forces. Chilean politics will enter into a period of greater maturity and consolidation when we cease to embrace the kind of myths propounded by these two books, and come to understand the relatively simple facts on the ground.

JOAQUIN FERMANDOIS is Professor of History at the University of Chile and author of many works on the diplomatic history of his country. A somewhat longer version of this article appeared in *Estudios Públicos*, his country's leading journal of social studies.

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Appendix I

Much ado has been made over a flurry of meetings and memos in Washington immediately before and after Chile's presidential election of September 4, 1970. The plans and schemes, a belated reaction to a largely unforeseen and clearly threatening occurrence—the election of Salvador Allende Gossens as Chilean president—addressed the question of how to protect U.S. interests under an anti-American Communist regime. But the protagonists in this titillating sideshow—the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—never were really more than bit players in what always was an all-Chilean drama.

Years later, in a peevish commentary on the bureaucratic infighting that virtually emasculated U.S. policymakers' ability to influence the outcomes of the popular election and the congressional balloting, President Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, noted, "Our refusal to face the reality that what was going on was a deadly political struggle and not a debate between economics professors transformed us by 1970 from the dominant element of 1964 into a sort of mother hen clucking nervous irrelevancies from the sidelines."¹

In contrast, Chile was uppermost on the mind of ITT's chief executive officer, Harold S. Geneen, as he called to order a board meeting in New York on September 9 of that fateful year. Besides other investments, ITT owned a 70 percent interest in the Chilean Telephone Company (CHIL-TELCO), which it valued at more than $150 million. Allende's Unidad Popular coalition had already targeted Chiltelco for expropriation once their man was in office. Geneen recounted:

> Mr. [John A.] McCone [former CIA director and then still a consultant to the agency] expressed to me disappointment with the results [of the election] since it represented reversal for U.S. policy of many years standing. Chile was apparently turning to a Marxist philosophy of government on a mandate of only one-third of the voting electorate. He [McCone] felt that the Chilean people might still arrive at a

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democratic coalition solution, which would be more representative
of the majority of the electorate. He felt the timing was already late
but there was still a chance that our government might develop a plan
that might provide the chance for a democratic coalition. Even if this
should not develop, it seemed to me that the narrowness of Dr.
Allende's victory gave room to hope that Allende's nationalization
program could be moderated. Thus, it seemed to me that some sort of
plan might be developed by our Government that might induce Dr.
Allende to proceed with nationalization in a way that would permit
orderly recovery of the vast U.S. investments, including ITT's, that
were at stake....

Of course, our thinking was very preliminary and we had no spe-
cific plans, but we did think that some socially constructive joint
private industry and Government projects could be part of the overall
plan. Such a plan might well envision the willingness on our part and
others risking reasonable additional funds in order to safeguard the
very large amounts which were at risk.

Through Mr. [ITT's senior vice president Edward J.] Gerrity, I
directed that an approach be made to both the State Department and
Dr. Kissinger's office, to tell them we had grave concern over the
outlook for ITT's investment and we were desirous of discussing our
thoughts in Washington and willing to assist financially in any Gov-
ernment plan to help protect private American investment in Chile.
The amount mentioned of up to seven figures was intended to show a
serious intent and to gain serious attention from the Government.²

A few days later, one of Gerrity's key Washington operatives made the first moves. On September 11, Jack D. Neal, a veteran of thirty-five years with the Department of State and then ITT's director of international relations, telephoned Viron P. Vaky, assistant to Kissinger on the National Security Staff for Latin America, and repeated Geneen's seven-figure offer. Though he assured Neal he would pass the information on to his boss, Henry Kissinger, Vaky failed to do so.

"I did not for two reasons," Vaky said. "I did not think the substance was worth further consideration, and I didn't think it worth bringing to his [Kissinger's] attention. I also had the impression, and I must explain that the call came out of the blue, so to speak, as far as I was concerned. I had known Jack Neal previously and I had the general impression that this was Jack Neal talking in terms of what I suppose one might call a normal lobbying effort to establish a position, to establish a view of things." He added that the purpose of the seven-figure offer was never clarified during the call.³

Neal did not have much better success with the next person he called:
Assistant Secretary of State Charles A. Meyer. Meyer later could
remember nothing more substantial about the conversation than Neal

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telling him: "Mr. Geneen just wants you to know if there is anything he can do, he would be delighted to help." Meyer added that he was "sure" he would have remembered mention of a seven-figure offer had it been made.⁴

At approximately the same time, McCone himself was moving to an even higher level.

"I came to Washington," he said, "and I met with Mr. [CIA Director Richard M.] Helms and I told him of this availability of these funds and I also met with Mr. Kissinger and I told him, if he had a plan—now, Mr. Kissinger thanked me very much and said that I would hear from him. I did not hear from him again and, therefore, I assumed that no such plan was adopted as a matter of national policy and that was the end of it so far as I was concerned." Both McCone and Geneen emphasized that the one and only offer of an unspecified amount of money to the CIA was the one turned down on July 16 by William C. Broe, chief of the agency's Western Hemisphere Division, in a meeting with Geneen, and that the seven-figure offer was not made to the CIA.⁵

In his memoirs, Kissinger wrote, "I learned later that some representatives of the CIA had informally advised some American business interests in late July and August where to channel funds during the election. This was not known at the White House or in the State Department; at any rate, it also was too late. My own attitude was that any covert action in Chile should be carried out exclusively by our government; this was not a field for private enterprise. Accordingly, I turned down ITT's offer of $1 million to help influence the election. I have agreed with the object, but certainly not the vehicle."⁶

Following Geneen's meeting with Broe, ITT did contribute $350,000 to the Alessandri campaign and another $100,000 in support of El Mercurio, one of the oldest and most highly respected newspapers in Latin America.⁷

As of mid- or late September, only one concrete "plan" had emerged from official Washington—apparently with the blessing of the Forty Committee, the interagency panel responsible for authorizing all covert activities. That "plan" was as short-lived as it was reckless: to "bribe" the Chilean Congress with $350,000 to vote against Allende. Quite apart from the fact that the amount involved would have allowed a paltry $5,000 and change for each of the sixty-three votes the Nationals needed, besides their own, to block Allende, the "plan" ignored the reality that the Christian Democrats who held the key votes were diehard leftists who never ceased to regard the Right as their mortal enemy. Such men and women, members of Latin America's most durable legislature, were not susceptible to "bribing."

"There was no attempt at any time to bribe any member of the

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Chilean Congress," was ex-Ambassador Korry's reply to later reports. Korry added that he was "dead set against Dr. Allende as a candidate and everything he stood for. Dr. Allende knew my position ... I would have gladly welcomed the Chilean Congress voting to keep him out of office, or the Chilean people doing whatever they would. I was against the United States doing it."

Korry had his reasons for opposing Allende: "The American public was unaware, because it often tends to give others the benefit of a doubt and look at it from a superficial point of view—that is, look at the mask rather than the reality behind it—the American public did not realize that we [the U.S. intelligence apparatus in Chile] were privy, chapter and verse, because we had penetrated the Chilean Communist party at the highest levels, were privy to everything they did, long before Allende's election, knew exactly what they were planning and how; I knew the Socialists as well—how they were going to gradually wipe out democracy as we understood it ... wipe out and convert a democracy into a people's democracy. ..." Korry pointed out that shortly after the election, Luis Corvalán Lepe, secretary general of the Chilean Communist party, told an interviewer from *L'Unita*, the official organ of the Italian Communist party, that the changes in Chile's political structure would be "irreversible." "Nobody that I knew in Chile," Korry commented, "took that to mean anything other than what it literally signified, that there would be no way you could reverse it for many years to come. There might be *pro forma* elections but no way to change the situation."

Korry gave Senate investigators a similar reading of the Chilean situation: "I want to make clear what I am saying. This is not a play of words. What I am saying is that when one employer has control of a country, that when the state controls everything of any significance, there cannot be a free press, there cannot be free trade unions, and there cannot be what I would consider a free election. That is what I was saying, and I said the Communist party of Chile and the Socialist party of Chile had spelled out these goals clearly over a long period of time, that all you had to do was sit in Chile and listen to the radio blaring out the propaganda every day from these people on the radio, in the press, in their theoretical journals and it was difficult to escape that conclusion."

Richard Milhous Nixon had come to a similar conclusion about the fate of Chile under Communist rule, in part, no doubt, because of prodding from ITT. On September 14, Nixon also got a first-hand report from Agustín Edwards, publisher of *El Mercurio*, in a White House meeting arranged by a mutual friend, Pepsi-Cola president Don Kendall. Unlike Korry, however, Nixon felt the United States should do something to stop the Communist candidate from becoming president of Chile.

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On September 15, the president held a secret White House meeting on Chile attended by Kissinger, Helms, and Attorney General John Mitchell, then the president's closest political confidante. According to Kissinger, Nixon told Helms he "wanted a major effort to see what could be done to prevent Allende's accession to power. If there were one chance in 10 of getting rid of Allende, we should try it. If Helms needed $10 million, he would approve it. AID programs to Chile should be cut, its economy should be squeezed until it 'screamed.'

"... Nixon did not in fact put forward a concrete scheme, only a passionate desire, unfocused and born of frustration, to do 'something.'"9

Thus was born what Senate investigators later would dub "Track II." On September 21, the CIA station chief in Santiago was told to discard "parliamentary legerdemain" and concentrate instead on a "military solution." He was explicitly told that the Forty Committee, the State Department, Ambassador Korry, and the embassy were not to be told about his activities or be involved in any manner.10

Years later, Kissinger wrote that there was always less to Track II than met the eye. "Nixon was given to grandiloquent statements on which he did not insist once their implications became clear to him. . . . In the case of Track II, for example, not only was there no expenditure of $10 million, no specific sum was ever set aside. The expenditures, if any, could not have amounted to more than a few thousand dollars. It was never more than a probe and an exploration of possibilities, even in Helms's perception."11

Two days after the White House meeting, ITT's top Latin American reporting team—Bob Berrellez and Hal Hendrix, a Pulitzer Prize winner who, like Berrellez, had long experience in the region—dispatched a cable from Santiago with a phrase that would continue to loom larger than life long after it had been denied to death.

"Last Tuesday night," the fifth paragraph of the long "situationer" began, "Ambassador Edward Korry finally received a message from the State Department giving him the green light to move in the name of President Nixon. The message gave him maximum authority to do all possible—short of a Dominican Republic-type action—to keep Allende from taking power."12 "Last Tuesday" was, of course, the day of the White House meeting. But Hendrix, who later claimed authorship of that passage, also admitted that he had embellished it with third-hand information.

The source, Hendrix said, was "highly placed in the Christian Democratic movement, and very, very close to Mr. Frei." He said the two met in a coffee bar in downtown Santiago, a block or so from the presidential palace, on the morning of September 16.

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"We were discussing the so-called Alessandri formula," Hendrix said, "... so, during the course of my questioning and discussion of this, this gentleman said, and I can only paraphrase from best recollection, that 'I had heard this morning ... that a very important, a very strong, very hard message had been received at the embassy last night.'" The infor-mant, whom Hendrix had known since 1963, several times said his source was "muy alto, muy alto"—very high, very high. From this, Hendrix said, he himself "inferred" that the source was President Nixon. Hendrix conceded that his source had not mentioned Nixon. "I had been led to believe from listening to newspaper friends that I had seen on this quick trip [Hendrix had arrived only a day or two before] that Korry was not getting much response to any message he was sending to Washington. So I presumed that he had gotten something from high. And [when] he had emphasized that it was a high, very high place, I interpreted this to mean State and I guessed on Mr. Nixon...."

As to the phrase, "short of a Dominican Republic-type action," Hendrix admitted that he "stuck in that language" himself "to empha-size to Mr. Gerrity that nobody down there is talking about sending troops ... I may have exaggerated the import of what this man had heard. I do not know to this day whether it is factual or exaggera-tion ..."¹³

Korry, however, said he—the man who supposedly received the "green light"—did know. "There was no green light or anything approx-imating it," Korry testified under oath. "... my recollection of all my instructions is that I did not receive that kind of message" ("that kind" being to "do all that you could to stop Allende from being elected president by the Chilean Congress").¹⁴

If such a message, to "unseat the Marxist," had been sent to Korry, one of the three men who should have been aware of it managed to conceal his secret the very day after meeting with Nixon. At a background briefing for Midwestern editors in Chicago on September 16, Henry Kissinger fielded a question about Chile.

"In Chilean history," Kissinger said, "there is nothing to prevent it, and it would not be at all illogical for the Congress to say, 'Sixty-four percent of the people did not want a Communist government. A Communist government tends to be irreversible. Therefore, we are going to vote for the No. 2 man.' This is perfectly within their constitutional prerogatives. However, the constitutional habit has developed that Congress votes for the man that gets the highest number of votes. ... so both the internal structure of the Congress, plus constitutional habits, would argue that Allende is likely to win the congressional election, barring something extraordinary...." Since the information provided at the briefing was not attributable to him by name, Kissinger spoke with

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greater candor than would have been the case if he had been speaking for attribution, particularly when he speculated on what an Allende win would mean.

"So, I don't think we should delude ourselves that an Allende takeover in Chile would not present massive problems for us," Kissinger said, "and for democratic forces and for pro-U.S. forces in Latin America, and indeed to the whole Western Hemisphere. What would happen to the Western Hemisphere (Inter-American) Defense Board, or to the Organization of American States, and so forth, is extremely problematical. So we are taking a close look at the situation. It is not one in which our capacity for influence is very great at this particular moment now that matters have reached this particular point."¹⁵

In remarking that an Allende victory would "present massive problems for us," Kissinger was seconded by the Soviet Union, except that where he saw cause for woe, the Soviets saw reason for jubilation. A Soviet analyst described Allende's victory as "second only to the victory of the Cuban revolution in the magnitude of its significance as a revolutionary blow to the imperialist system in Latin America."¹⁶

On September 22, ITT's Washington chief William R. Merriam entered the picture, hosting a quickie (forty-five minute) luncheon for the CIA's Broe at the posh Metropolitan Club in downtown Washington. Broe remarked that since "Merriam knew very little about Chile," they did not have a "full discussion" of the situation in that country. Most of the conversation, Broe said, centered on a series of five recommendations made by Berrellez and Hendrix in their September 17 report to their home office. Four of the five were public relations/propaganda measures, two of them involving support for the *El Mercurio* newspaper group. The fifth was to assist in setting up a "family relocation center" in Mendoza or Buenos Aires, Argentina, for wives and children of about fifty "key persons" in the fight against Allende. Hendrix clarified that the fifty were newsmen who wanted to "stay and keep on writing in the same manner they had, but they were sincerely fearful, scared, frightened, for their wives and children. . . . There had been a threat to burn down the Mercurio building, physically burn it down. . . . [Their fight] was to keep the paper, keep writing the way they wanted to write, keep the paper [*El Mercurio* and its sister papers] going. There was no physical fight."¹⁷

Broe said Merriam asked him for his opinion—not approval—of the recommendations, and he replied that he said he thought "they are all right. There was no discussion." Broe also said Merriam made no mention at that luncheon of ITT's seven-figure offer.

One week later, at Helms' bidding, Broe went to New York to see Gerrity for what would be the final—and decisive—contact of any

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consequence between ITT and the CIA. Broe described it, in fact, as the "only operational discussion" he had with ITT.

"At that time," Broe said, "September 29, the Christian Democratic members of Congress were showing indications of swinging their full support to Allende in the belief that they could make a political bargain with him. It was felt that if a large number of congressmen, Christian Democratic congressmen, swung their support to him, he would take office with a mandate from the majority and he would be in a very strong position. At the same time, the economic situation had worsened because of the reaction to the Allende election, and there were indications that this was worrying the Christian Democratic congressmen. There was a thesis that additional deterioration in the economic situation could influence a number of Christian Democratic congressmen who were planning to vote for Allende. This is what was the thesis...."

"I explored with Mr. Gerrity," Broe concluded, "the feasibility of possible actions to apply some economic pressure on Chile; yes, sir."

Broe also explained to Gerrity that ITT was the only company he had had any contact with on the Chilean situation. He then discovered Gerrity was not buying.

"I must say," Broe recalled, "Mr. Gerrity was very negative about it [the economic pressure idea]. He in no way indicated that it made any sense or it was exactly what he wanted out of it...."

"We talked about 25 minutes and I came away from there feeling that if he talked to anybody about it, Mr. Geneen or anybody else like that, he gave me every indication that he did not think it would work."¹⁸

That very afternoon, Gerrity fired off a coded telex to Geneen, then on one of his frequent trips to ITT's European headquarters in Brussels.

"Subsequent to your call yesterday, I heard from Washington and a representative called on me this morning. He was the same man you met with Merriam some weeks ago. We discussed the situation in detail, and he made suggestions based on recommendations from our representatives on the scene [Berrellez and Hendrix], and analyses in Washington. The idea he presented, and with which I do not necessarily agree, is to apply economic pressure. . . . I discussed the suggestions with [John W.] Guilfoyle [ITT's vice president for Latin America]. He contacted a couple of companies who said they had been given advice which is directly contrary to the suggestions I received. Realistically, I do not see how we can induce others involved to follow the plan suggested. . . ."¹⁹

The next day Gerrity followed up with a memo to Merriam, Neal, and John Ryan of the Washington office:

> Yesterday, subsequent to my visit from Mr. Broe, Jack Guilfoyle was advised of the following by Enno Hobbing of the CLA [Council for

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Latin America, a private organization of American businessmen active in Latin America].

Hobbing was visited yesterday by Gregorio Amunátegui, who is an Alessandri representative. Gregorio had come from Santiago and his message to Hobbing from Alessandri was—keep cool, don't rock the boat, we're making progress.

This is in direct contrast to what Broe recommended.

I will call you later to discuss HSG's [Geneen's] reaction to my telex in some detail. He agrees with me that Broe's suggestions are not workable. However, he suggests that we be very discreet in handling Broe.²⁰

A week later, on October 6, Broe dumped bad news on ITT: the Christian Democrats were going to back Allende. He added that it was his "personal estimate that the military would not act against Allende, so there would not be anything happening." Three days later, his "personal estimate" became an Agency estimate. "Our coverage of the military," Broe told Merriam, "gave no indication they would take action." It was a measure of just how far the CIA was really out of it that at the precise time Broe and the CIA were concluding that "the military would not act against Allende," two separate military plots to block Allende's taking office were being hatched in Santiago.

Broe's telephone call to ITT on October 6 was his last significant contact with the company—or ITT's with the CIA. Three lunches later—one after the congressional election and none of them "substantive"—he would fade back into the shadows of espionage.²¹

The day after Broe unloaded his bad news on Merriam, Merriam had more gloom for Gerrity: "Repeated calls to firms such as GM, Ford, and banks in California and New York have drawn no offers to help. All have some sort of excuse."²² The American company with the biggest stake of all in Chile—Anaconda Copper—approached the brink with seeming fatalistic resignation. On October 9, J. E. Byrne, head of the company's Chilean operations, wrote a matter-of-fact report to his New York headquarters reporting on a Korry briefing. Apart from the laconic, resigned tone of the memo, it was significant in reinforcing the belief that official Washington had come to the conclusion that there was no stopping Allende.

"Allende will be ratified as President on the 24th," Byrne wrote, "with the approval of the Unidad Popular and the Christian Democrats. Accommodation to this position is becoming so widespread that it is not unlikely that the Alessandri supporters will also vote in favor of Allende...."

"There is no evident support for the rumors that a military takeover is possible here. There is very little activity in this area and it is only being talked about by a few retired military people...."

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Byrne's letter contained another revealing passage: Korry, Washington's man in Santiago, not only believed Allende to be "an honest man, a man who will support his promises and live up to his convictions," but that U.S. companies nationalized by Allende "will receive adequate, just and timely compensation."²³

By early October, both corporate and government staffs seemed to have run out of contingency plans acceptable to the decision-makers above them—a distinction both McCone and Assistant Secretary of State Meyer would insist on making.

"... Mr. Broe had a shopping list, and the staff of the CIA had a shopping list," McCone said. "Sometime in October, I discussed this with Mr. Geneen, and told him, and in telling him I think I was just concurring in his judgment, that I thought that the plans were totally impractical....

"I think we must differentiate very precisely," McCone said, "between the policies of the corporation or the policies of an agency of the government as finally decided by the final authority and the staff thinking. That is what you have staffs for, to think up the alternatives, and then that is why you have bosses, to make the decisions as to what you do."²⁴

"One of the problems facing this distinguished committee and to that degree the American public," Meyer told a Senate subcommittee headed by Senator Frank Church (D-Id.), in March 1973, "is the distinction between policy and examinations of feasibilities.... I find personally that there is nothing that is sinister or that indicates a change in policy to have learned that Mr. Broe, on the 29th of September, had discussed or had explored, brainstormed, if you will, a policy option, if you will, in terms of economic pressures on Chile as stipulated, because it was not policy. The policy had not changed....

"The policy of the government was that there would be no intervention in the political affairs of Chile. We were consistent in that, in that we financed no candidates, no political parties, before or after September 8, or September 4...."²⁵

Meyer, who according to Kissinger had been a strong advocate in the Forty Committee's deliberations for staying out of internal Chilean politics, had purposely not been made aware of the Track II activities.

A precedent for U.S. covert activities in Chile had been well established during two previous Democratic administrations.

In a January 9, 1977, interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," Korry revealed that both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, through the CIA and the Agency for International Development, funneled "tens of millions of dollars" to Chilean political parties, beginning with the 1963-64 presidential election campaigns. Korry said he was told by the CIA station chief in 1967 when he took over as U.S. ambassador that he

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could not cut back on these payments because "this lifetime annuity
had been promised and I couldn't do anything about it."²⁶

"Two of the leading Christian Democrats sent their closest representatives to me," Korry continued. "The right-wing candidate, Alessandri. All of them. I mean, just incessantly, and through the multinationals and through the CIA, just leaning on me for . . . from the day I got there."

(CBS reporter Mike) Wallace: "For money?"

Korry: "For money, for money . . . even Allende, in 1970, his campaign manager asked me in my house for a million bucks."

Korry said he turned them all down.

But, according to Kissinger, the CIA did not.

Referring to the millions of dollars in covert funds and assistance funneled to Allende by Cuba and other Communist sources (the CIA estimated that Allende received $350,000 from Cuba and an undetermined amount from the Soviet Union during the 1970 campaign,²⁷ Kissinger felt the U.S. expenditures—contributions to prodemocratic political parties and media organizations—were “neither morally nor politically unjustified. There was nothing sinister about the desire of the United States to make it possible for democratic parties to maintain competing radio or television outlets or newspapers.”²⁸

But the pace of covert activities in Chile had slowed considerably under the relatively new Republican administration. Kissinger says the Forty Committee considered Chile only four times in the twenty-one months before Allende won a plurality in the September elections: in April 1969, it deferred taking a decision on any Chilean actions; in March 1970, it allocated $135,000 for propaganda (posters, leaflets, newspaper advertisements); in late June, it allocated “a somewhat larger sum” for the same purpose—but in total still only 15 percent of what the U.S. spent covertly in 1964, and the funds reached Chile barely four weeks before the election, too late to be of any use. In August 1970, the Forty Committee decided that nothing further could be done before the election.²⁹

The heavy-handed way the CIA went about spending even these relatively small amounts during this critical period ironically might have produced an effect on the Chilean electorate opposite to the one intended. Less than five weeks before the election, a Chilean Chamber of Deputies investigating committee, probing outside financing of presidential campaigns, received a sheaf of confidential documents stolen from an ad agency handling the Alessandri campaign. The records showed campaign donations from *El Mercurio*, two U.S. banks, the Anaconda Copper Co. and a total of $600,000 from a mysterious “Charlie,” whom leftists promptly labeled as being a (CIA) conduit for money from ITT and other U.S. businesses.³⁰

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The Church Committee found that the Forty Committee approved nearly $2.6 million for covert activities in Chile during Allende's first year (November 1970 to November 1971). Between November 1971 and Allende's ouster on September 11, 1973, additional disbursements of about $4.7 million were approved, although the last $1 million authorized on August 20, 1973, had not been spent when the coup intervened. This makes a total of $6 million for covert actions in three years—about $2 million a year. Most of the money went to the Christian Democratic Party, lesser sums to the National party and to splinter factions of the Radical party.

El Mercurio, which survived, in Kissinger's words, "a relentless campaign of harassment, intimidation and economic pressures," received $965,000 between November 1971 and September 1973 and $700,000 in September 1971 from the U.S. government for a total of $1.7 million for the three years.³¹

These latter CIA funds were to enable opposition media—and freedom of expression—to survive the communization of Chile. Allende was barely in power when he contrived to seize the country's biggest publishing house. He used every device at his command, from cajoling to threats of economic strangulation, in his attempts to seize control of the country's biggest newsprint supplier—the only independent one, inasmuch as the other one was owned by the government—and it was only the determined resistance of the opposition in what came to be a nationwide crusade that blocked Allende from gaining a stranglehold on newsprint. Since the government controlled 70 percent of the country's productive capacity, government advertising was crucial for the media, and government advertising all but disappeared from opposition pages and airwaves. The government also used its formidable power to coerce independent firms from advertising with opposition media.³² Individual radio stations were harassed constantly and ordered off the air repeatedly for minor infractions, and in October 1972, the government began compelling all stations to join national networks broadcasting government propaganda, a practice the government continued even after the courts ruled the measure unconstitutional and ordered the jailing of a Cabinet minister for refusing to heed a court order. Small newspapers and radio stations suffered repeated attacks by goon squads. The University of Chile television plant was invaded and held for nine months by leftist extremists protected by the government, which refused to honor repeated court orders to oust them, giving the government control of two of the three national television networks. In August of 1973, a mob cordoned off the area around the big tabloid, La Tercera de la Hora, and refused to allow a "reactionary newspaper" to publish in "a worker neighborhood."

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Funds that the CIA provided *El Mercurio* and other beleaguered Chilean news organizations was virtually all that saved many of them from financial ruin.

As a result of the September 15 White House meeting, Thomas Karamessines, the CIA's chief of covert activities, was dispatched to Chile for an on-the-scene assessment of the stop-Allende efforts. On his return to Washington he reported to Kissinger that retired Gen. Roberto Viaux had formed a group that was plotting to kidnap army commander Gen. René Schneider, a strict constitutionalist who had rebuffed feelers from his colleagues about joining in a military coup. Unbeknownst to the White House at that time, the CIA also had made contact with a group of active military officers, headed by Santiago District Commander Gen. Camilo Valenzuela, through the well-connected U.S. army attaché in Santiago, Col. Paul M. Wimert, Jr. Beginning on October 5, 1970, Wimert contacted these two groups of conspirators a total of twenty-one times.

Kissinger, swayed by Karamessines' pessimistic report on the chances for success by Viaux's group, ordered the retired general's coup plot "turned off" on October 15 and later wrote, "Nixon, [Gen. Alexander] Haig and I considered it the end of both Track I [the Forty Committee] and Track II [CIA answering directly to the White House]. The CIA personnel in Chile apparently thought that the order applied only to Viaux; they felt they were free to continue with the second group of plotters, of whom the White House was unaware."33

On October 16, the day Kissinger says the thought Track II ended, the CIA cabled Santiago: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. Viaux is to be encouraged to join forces with other planners. . . . There is great and continuing interest in the activities of Valenzuela et al."34 Confusion, born in Washington, quickly spread to Santiago.

On the next day, two officers from the Chilean army and navy met with Wimert and requested eight to ten teargas grenades, three 45-caliber machineguns and five hundred rounds of ammunition. On October 18, six gas grenades originally intended for Viaux were delivered to the Valenzuela group and a day later the machineguns and ammunition were sent by diplomatic pouch from Washington.35

For Kissinger, "military plotters that needed foreign weapons should not have been regarded as serious. For they were not. In a comedy of errors worthy of the Keystone Kops, the plotters were set to kidnap Schneider in his car after a dinner party on October 19; they missed him because he left in a different car. The next day they tried again but lost sight of Schneider's car in Santiago traffic."36

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On October 22, Wimert delivered the sub-machineguns and ammunition to his Valenzuela contact, but they were never used because now the Viaux group resurfaced unexpectedly.

On October 17, the CIA station chief in Santiago had transmitted to Viaux's group Kissinger's October 15th order to call off the plot and had advised them "that their scheme would fail, would thus backfire and should not be carried out." But on October 22, according to Kissinger, the Viaux group proceeded on its own "in defiance of CIA instructions and without our knowledge."37 The kidnapping attempt was bungled and Schneider, who resisted his would-be captors, was shot and died three days later. That suspended further coup talk by the Chilean military until 1973 when U.S. involvement was studiously avoided.

The U.S. Senate Select Committee that investigated Schneider's death and the extent of CIA involvement found that, "Although the CIA continued to support coup plotters up to Schneider's shooting, the record indicates that the CIA had withdrawn active support of the group that carried out the actual kidnap attempt on October 22, which resulted in Schneider's death." The committee also concluded that arms and ammunition supplied by the CIA to coup plotters in Santiago were not used in the attempted kidnapping, nor did the CIA plans ever anticipate the assassination of Schneider.38

A subsequent Chilean judicial investigation revealed that the Valenzuela group's initial plan called for the kidnapping of the nation's four top army generals so Valenzuela could succeed, under military rules, as army chief. Then a junta headed by Adm. Hugo Tirado, navy commander, was to take over and President Frei would go into exile. Six months later, Frei would be allowed to return and run again in new elections as the candidate of the democratic forces.39

Back in Washington, Nixon administration spokesmen were putting out the word that no effective obstacle remained to Allende's taking power. Meyer told an overseas writers' luncheon in early October that the best thing to do would be "just let Chile make a mistake." As to military intervention, Meyer said he could give an "ironclad pledge": there would be none—by the U.S. or anyone else. "The Latin governments I have talked to are all concerned about Allende," he said, "but nobody has any Carthaginian ideas of crossing the Andes on elephants."

As to the future, Meyer said the United States would deal with Chile the way Chile wanted to be dealt with. "In other words," he said, "the ball is in their court."40

According to David Atlee Phillips, the chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere division in the early 1970s, agents in Santiago returned to the more mundane work of collecting intelligence and maintaining their Chilean contacts following the Schneider debacle. Phillips, who

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was on an overseas assignment in 1970, consulted his deputy, identified
only as "Abe," who gave the following account of what happened to
Track II (and its swashbuckling schemes):

It just faded into oblivion as new crises demanded Kissinger's atten-
tion. We did not think Track II was workable in the first place, and
were quite content, as the White House chiefs turned to other matters
and relaxed the pressure on Karamessines, and he on us, to put it on
the back burner. This is not to say that we forgot Track II. Chile was
still a concern in 1971 and something could happen that would set off
a spasm of renewed interest and requirements for status reports on
our Track II progress.

In fact, Track II really expired in November 1971 or shortly there-
after. Abe was in charge between two chiefs of the division. He sent
a written dispatch—not a telegram—to Santiago, gently suggesting,
almost, that it was time to forget about a coup and concentrate on
intelligence reporting. It was not an order (Abe did not have that
authority), but rather a philosophical exposition. . . .41

By the end of September, Korry had become convinced that Frei would
not back the Alessandri formula (having Congress elect Alessandri and
Alessandri immediately call elections in which Frei would run against
Allende). He arrived in Washington on October 11 and stayed until
October 20, drafting a position paper for the State Department that
would become the basis of U.S. post-Allende policy.

He also agreed at this time to a request from ITT's Neal for a meeting.
Neal later would report to his superiors: "The Ambassador said there
are several alternatives of action, the main ones being to provoke
Allende and cause a rupture in our relations with Chile, thus, lose all
without a try.

"The second would be to try to live with Allende—not appease him—
take a firm line, but attempt to negotiate at every turn.

"The second alternative seems to be the one the U.S. will take."42

The same day Neal met with Korry, ITT was taking the wraps off its
newest investment in Chile, the San Cristóbal Sheraton Hotel. General
Manager Fernando Hoffman said his first guests were a group of about
seventy-five people on an American Express tour and he had several
more such tour groups booked for the coming months, enough "to keep
it afloat." (The San Cristóbal, and her older sister, the Sheraton Carrera
downtown, were the only major ITT investments in Chile that would,
in fact, remain afloat.)

A week later, Schneider was shot and two days after that Allende was
ratified by Congress.

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On October 9, ITT's Merriam complained to the CIA's Broe about the "softness" of U.S. policies in Latin America. Merriam mentioned, for instance, the failure of the U.S. to take tough reprisals the year before against the leftist military junta in Peru when it seized International Petroleum Company's installations. Broe—who was not a policy man even with the CIA, and who was not privy to policy-planning anywhere—said he gave Merriam his "opinion that if Allende was elected, the U.S. government approach would be severe. That is what I told him. I thought it would take a stronger position."43

Broe's speculation surfaced a few hours later in a memo Merriam dashed off to McCone, in which he said that he was "rather surprised to learn that in this man's opinion, the Nixon Administration will take a very, very hard line when and if Allende is elected."44

This would later become the basis for an ITT mindset about what it could expect by way of support from the White House. On October 23, Merriam wrote Kissinger a six-page position paper on Chile, outlining ITT's views and recommendations, couching them in what he no doubt believed was suitable "hard-line" language. Merriam said ITT did not "visualize retaliation or vengeance as part of our policy," but one of the four specific recommendations called for putting a hold on all AID monies to Chile, "with a view to a permanent cutoff, if necessary."

The memo brought an immediate retort—from within ITT's own ranks. A senior staffer in ITT's law department, R.R. Dillenbeck, pro-tested sharply that the letter was not cleared with other members of the company's Chilean "team" in their legal and treasury departments. Besides, said Dillenbeck, it wouldn't work: "Identifying ourselves as being opposed to well-defined State Department policy at a time when it is imperative that we have the full confidence of our opposite numbers in State and at AID's successor, OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation), seems to be possibly to jeopardize efforts which will be made to collect on the AID guarantee insurance." Dillenbeck, in language which had all of the grace of legalese and the pungency of diplomatic indirection, was making the point that such tactics could cost ITT support on their insurance claims if and when Allende should grab their property. ITT's policy on its telephone company was for $108 million, the biggest single OPIC exposure in Chile, and one of the largest the government agency had anywhere. To support his arguments, Dillenbeck attached a position paper which was authored by an authentic Latin scholar on the legal staff, Robert D. Crassweller.45

Kissinger waited better than two weeks to react, and when he did it was with a seventy-four word brushoff: "Thank you very much for your letter of October 23 and the enclosed paper on United States policy toward Latin America. I have read it carefully and I have passed it to

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those members of my staff who deal with Latin American matters. It is
very helpful to have your thoughts and recommendations, and we shall
certainly take them into account. I am grateful for your taking the time
to give them to me."⁴⁶

It was the last "satisfaction" an increasingly embattled International
Telephone and Telegraph Company would receive from its government.

Just one year to the day after Neal's meeting with Korry, Neal was
beseeching the State Department to tell him just what was U.S. policy
toward Chile. For ITT, it was no longer an academic question: Allende
had already seized their telephone company. And a week after that, on
October 21, 1971, ITT complained that Secretary of State William
Rogers was "going along with Meyer and Company's soft-line, low-
profile policy for Latin America."⁴⁷

"The United States had three policy choices that it laid out at the time we considered this seriously just before Allende was confirmed by the Chilean Congress in October 1970. These three choices were to seek to have a modus vivendi with them. Get along with them as best we could and try to accommodate them. Two, to have what was called a correct, but minimal relationship with them. And third was to seek to isolate, and hamper."

The speaker was Ambassador Edward Korry. He continued: "Now the President of the United States and the entire foreign policy-making process in the United States came down on number two, correct but minimal. But in point of fact, we carried out role three and to the surprise of Mr. Nixon and others we began with number one: that is, to seek an accommodation....

"Immediately after the inauguration in early November of Mr. Allende," Korry continued, "I decided that even if our analysis is air-tight, even if everything we said that Allende was going to do would in fact be carried out, that we had an obligation to the American public and to history to demonstrate that we did not operate to fulfill our own prophecies, that we had to test our assumptions....

"I walked over to their foreign minister who described himself in that period as an all-out Maoist (and this is in the period of Beijing's ruthless Red Guard), Clodomiro Almeyda—and not only had described himself to me that way but to interviewers later and before—and I said, 'You know my view of what I think Dr. Allende and you represent in the way of political forces, in this country, in the hemisphere and in this world. You know that I was opposed to you, but you are now the representative of a sovereign power, and I am the representative of a sovereign power. And we are both mature individuals.

"Our job, therefore, is to seek to avoid problems if we possibly can

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and that I would suggest that I brief you on where our relationship was
as of the day that Dr. Allende was inaugurated and that what I view as
the unavoidable problems that will arise between our two countries and
a process by which we may seek to avoid conflict and confrontation.'

"And I explained the rationale as to why I thought this would be in their interest and ours. I said that Marx had never said that you had to go to socialism by tying your legs and your hands and crawl on your belly to it, that it could be done in a comfortable way, that the United States was not opposed to socialism. We were opposed to somebody exercising irrationality or hostility to everything we stood for."

Korry added that the process of "accommodation" began tentatively,
but by April and early May of 1971 it was "really taking off" when
"suddenly, it was stopped."

"Now we learned," Korry went on to explain, "and it was confirmed to us by Dr. Allende's closest advisers, that the reason he stopped was that a veto was interposed by the then-head of the Socialist Party, Senator [Carlos] Altamirano. The Socialist Party, incidentally, it should be emphasized, is in Chile far to the left of the communists and there was an unending roar between these two parties before and during and I'm sure after Dr. Allende's election, with the communists accusing Altamirano of reckless leftism. That was the term they used.

"And Altamirano wanted to have a violent class war. He wanted no agreements with the United States. He wanted to have these dramatic encounters."

Phase one—seeking a modus vivendi—lasted for five or six months,
according to Korry. He said the United States was still behaving accord-
ing to phase two—"correct but minimal relationship"—when he ended
his four-year tour as ambassador in October 1971.⁴⁸

Long after the swirl of events of the autumn of 1970 had been replaced
by a domestic tempest created by the piecemeal publication of a part of
the so-called "ITT Papers" by columnist Jack Anderson, ITT Board
Chairman Geneen gave his own summary of what had—and had not
happened. For all the publicity it got, he might as well have offered it in
Sanskrit.⁴⁹

Said Geneen—under oath:

"ITT did not take any steps to block the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile....

"ITT did not encourage or participate in any alleged plot for a military coup in Chile to block the election of Dr. Allende....

"Nor did ITT contribute money to any person or to any agency of any government to block the election of Dr. Allende....

"ITT did not take any action to cause economic chaos in Chile in an

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attempt to block the election of Dr. Allende, nor did it advocate that any others take such steps. On the contrary, it continued to operate its telephone subsidiary in Chile as efficiently as possible and continued its expansion problem of Chiltelco as best it could until it was seized by the Allende government on September 29, 1971....⁵⁰

> "... I firmly believe that fair-minded persons would agree that ITT should have tried to protect its investment in Chile in the face of a Marxist takeover and all it implied, and that we should have sought the help of our own Government. That is what we did and that is all we did. The U.S. Government, for its own reasons, took no action, and we accepted that decision and operated within the framework of U.S. government policy. There may have been better ways for us to have proceeded, but certainly American companies should have the right to seek and depend upon support from their own Government in protecting their legitimate interests abroad. ..."⁵¹

Senator Church, who headed the subcommittee that investigated ITT's activities in Chile, was a man of decidedly antibusiness views. The chief counsel for the committee was Jerome Levinson, a man who hewed to the thinking that American foreign policy in Latin America had too often identified with the interests of American business, when preferably the two—foreign policy and American business interests—should often be at cross-purposes.⁵² The committee was anything but "sympathetic" to ITT before, during, or after the hearings. Inasmuch as three of the five senators were Democrats, they could not be expected to deal too kindly, either, with a Republican administration.

The committee's investigative work began in September 1972, and the hearings were held from March 20 through April 2, 1973. On June 21, 1973, the committee issued its report. It contained nine specific conclusions taken directly from the testimony, followed by several thousand words of text which included a number of judgments not directly supported by the testimony.⁵³

The main conclusions were: "On July 16, 1970, Geneen offered "a substantial fund to the CIA to be used to support the conservative candidate Alessandri in the Chilean election of September 4, 1970. This offer was turned down...."

... Geneen, Gerrity and McCone, considered a plan proposed to them by the CIA on September 29, 1970, to create economic chaos in Chile but rejected it because they thought it 'unworkable.'"

No truly neutral observer of events in Chile in the early 1970s has ever seriously intimated that the CIA had any direct involvement in the military coup that finally toppled Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. The most that has been alleged is that the CIA worked behind the

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scenes to create the chaotic conditions that led up to the coup. But the testimony of those who made U.S. policy, since made available in their published memoirs, portrays a U.S. government standing very scrupulously on the sidelines as the Chilean tragedy unfolded.

William Colby, who succeeded Helms as CIA director, repeatedly denied that the agency had any role in the coup or the truckers' strike or that he had ever used the word "destabilization" to characterize U.S. policy toward Allende. This was a word attributed to Colby in a letter written by ultra-liberal Congressman Michael Harrington (D-Mass.), summarizing Colby's secret testimony to the House Armed Services CIA Subcommittee. The description of Colby's testimony by Harrington, who opposed U.S. policy in Chile, was based on the congressman's recollection of his reading of the secret testimony, since he was not a member of the CIA subcommittee and, therefore, was not present when it was given. The letter was subsequently leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times, and "destabilization" became the catchy new word to describe U.S. policy toward Chile. Colby never used it, an examination of his testimony revealed, but his assertion, in a 1974 letter to the New York Times, that U.S. policy had been one of "encouraging the continued existence of democratic forces looking toward future elections," was little noted or, when noted, believed.⁵⁴

As resistance to Allende within Chile grew and even the Christian Democrats began to lose hope of a constitutional resolution of the crisis, Ambassador Nathaniel Davis, who succeeded Korry, said, "The U.S. government could have done little to prevent or slow this trend and, seeing this, we tried to avoid bankrolling the plotters and to keep away from the plotting. As pro-coup sentiment spread, the effort became more and more difficult, but it was honestly sustained.

"The U.S. government wished success to opposition forces, a position intrinsically counter to the governing coalition's interest. Is that 'destabilization'?"⁵⁵

According to Davis, Chile's congressional elections of March 1973 was the last time U.S. covert financial aid to the country's political parties was relevant. "By mid 1973, it was becoming clear to responsible U.S. officials in Washington as well as in Santiago that the U.S. record of abstention from coup plotting was going to be more important than any resort to increasingly superfluous covert intervention," he said.⁵⁶

Davis went out of his way to make sure neither the embassy nor the CIA was associated in any way with the leading anti-Allende opposition groups.

"... I am confident that no element of the U.S. mission in Chile extended financial support to the strike movements of October 1972 and August-September 1973," Davis wrote a dozen years later. The

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ambassador even avoided opportunities to meet the leaders of the shop-
keepers, the professionals, the land transport confederation, and the
truckers.

Kissinger added, "The mythology that the U.S. relentlessly assaulted Allende after he was installed is the opposite of the truth. We had not changed our original judgment but we were prepared to make an effort at coexistence. So many other problems were clamoring for our attention that Chile kept sliding on our list of priorities, except when some provocation by Allende forced us to react...."⁵⁷

Two persons who would know to what extent the United States was involved in the events that led to Allende's fall were the CIA's Western Hemisphere division chief, Phillips, and his deputy, Abe.

"Abe described two cables sent to our Santiago station during the month of May 1973," recounted Phillips, now retired. "In a rather abrupt departure from CIA custom, these instructions pointed out the probability of an opposition move against Allende and the inevitability that the CIA would be blamed as the instigator of any coup. The station response to the first message reminded headquarters that the CIA continued to have the responsibility of predicting a coup—ringing the gong—and the station could hardly be expected to do that unless its agents penetrated all conspiracies.

"The second headquarters cable countered this valid argument saying that this time keeping CIA's record clean was more important than predicting a coup."⁵⁸

Kissinger would acknowledge that the U.S. intelligence agency was aware "of what was well known to every Chilean, including Allende: that the military who already controlled key positions in the government were seriously considering the takeover that had been virtually invited by the Chamber of Deputies and the president of the Christian Democratic Party. But we were unaware of any specific plan or date. And we were party to none."

Kissinger quotes from memoranda on Chile from the summer of 1973 prepared for him and the Forty Committee by his deputy in charge of Latin America, William Jorden. These corroborate the hands-off policy described by Kissinger and the CIA officials.

In one such memo, dated July 10, 1973, Jorden counsels, "The U.S. lacks powerful or reliable levers for influencing the final outcome. Continued encouragement of constraining forces within Chile and continuing economic pressures could have some limited impact. But a policy of open all-out economic pressure would help Allende more politically than it could hurt him economically." Jorden recommended that the Forty Committee take no action in Chile. In every case, Kissinger said, the Forty Committee followed his deputy's good advice.⁵⁹

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The U.S. policy of supporting the Christian Democrats in 1964 was considered by Kissinger to have been a success because Frei defeated Allende. But the Christian Democrats went on to become one of the most snarling, U.S.-baiting regimes in the hemisphere. In 1970, the U.S. was backing a third-place finisher and the effectiveness of its subsequent support for the PDC was questionable given the party's propensity to play ball with Allende until it, like other democratic parties, was forced to join the growing opposition to his chaotic rule.

The U.S. government's first contact with the military junta leaders came on September 12, 1973, the day after the coup when army General Augusto Pinochet initiated a secret meeting with the head of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group. In his report to Nixon on this contact, Kissinger noted that Pinochet stressed that "he and his colleagues had not even hinted to us beforehand of their planned action and said he thought it had been better that way."⁶⁰

In 1970-1973, the money spent on politicians may have been useful in keeping democratic forces alive, but it was a waste of money in terms of getting rid of Allende. In the end, the coup was made by the Chilean military and only the military, in response to their own consciences, in response to the clamor of their own people.

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Notes

APPENDIX I

1. Henry Kissinger, *The White House Years* (Boston: Little Brown and Company), p. 664. Kissinger blames the State Department's refusal to do anything that would aid right-wing candidate Jorge Alessandri for Allende's victory. "Had I believed in the spring and summer of 1970 that there was a significant likelihood of an Allende victory, I would have had an obligation to the President to give him an opportunity to consider a covert program of 1964 proportions, including the backing of a single candidate. I was resentful that this option had been foreclosed without even being discussed, first with the argument that a substantial program was unnecessary (Alessandri led in the pre-election polls) and later because it was then too late" (ibid. p. 669).

2. *Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy*, Hearings of Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, Committee on Foreign Relations of U.S. Senate ("Church Committee"), Parts 1 and 2, March 20-22, 27-29, April 2, 1973 (hereafter *Multinational Corporations*). Geneen's testimony April 2, 1973, pp. 459-560.

3. Ibid., pp. 435-436.

4. Ibid., p. 423. Neal's September 14 memo to his boss, Merriam (text on pp. 599-600 of vol. 2) gave the distinct impression of a dynamic and well-connected man of action—which, after all, is what lobbyists are supposed to be—moving easily and forcefully through these invisible corridors of power. But then, Neal also called Meyer "Chuck" in that memo, and Meyer's nickname is "Charlie."

5. Ibid., pp. 102, 460. McCone's testimony clearly indicates that the former CIA director's knowledge of Chile—and events in that country—was imperfect, at best.

6. Kissinger, op. cit., note p. 667.

7. Anthony Sampson, *The Sovereign State of ITT* (Stein & Day, New York, 1973), pp. 264-265, 276-277; also, U.S. Congress, Senate, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973*, Staff Report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Washington, D.C., 1975, pp. 11-13, 21.

8. Transcript of "Firing Line" program, September 29, 1974, pp. 2, 14, and *Multinational Corporations*, March 27, 1973, p. 300. Whatever his other qualities, there are three which need to be noted here. (1) Korry is, by no stretch of the imagination, a man who would take the rap for someone else, perjuring himself, for example. At the time of his testimony, he was out of government service. And yet, when he felt that loyalty, or decorum, or the limits of his own information impinged, he would not testify on a topic, lending further credence to what he did say. (2) Korry had long experience in international affairs—communist affairs, particularly—before arriving in

1049

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Chile in October 1967. In 1943, he began a career as a United Press foreign correspondent in Europe that spanned eleven years and included two years (1949-1951) as chief correspondent for Eastern Europe, based in Belgrade. [3] The third quality, complementing his skill—and zeal—as a reporter, was the breadth of his international experience. Besides UP, he served 1955-1960 as European editor for Look magazine. From 1963-1967, he served as American ambassador to Ethiopia, and from 1967 to October 1971 in the same capacity in Chile. It is highly unusual for a noncareer appointee to be given two consecutive ambassadorial appointments; rarer yet to be retained by three presidents; and unheard of when those presidents happen to be of opposing parties. Korry was neither a conspicuous contributor nor a political activist, which says even more.

9. Kissinger, op. cit., p. 673.

10. Paul E. Sigmund, *The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964-1976* (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1977), p. 115. Sigmund quotes the CIA station chief apparently from testimony he gave to Senate investigators.

11. Kissinger, op. cit., p. 674.

12. *Multinational Corporations*, Part 2, p. 608. The same memo contained another oft-quoted point (#9, p. 610). Reporting—again—on the Berrellez September 6 meeting with Dr. Matte, Alessandri's campaign manager, Hendrix and Berrellez said: "The anti-Allende effort more than likely will require some outside financial support. The degree of this assistance will be known better around October 1. We have pledged our support if needed. Berrellez later denied (p. 165) that he had pledged financial support on behalf of ITT. Gerrity testified Berrellez was "not authorized" to make such an offer (p. 177) and Matte later said that Berrellez "offered assistance but money was not mentioned" (p. 504). The reference to a "Dominican-type action" was, of course, an echo of Lyndon Johnson's decision to send 23,000 U.S. marines and soldiers ashore during the 1965 civil war to prevent a feared Communist takeover.

13. Ibid., pp. 130-132, 146-147, Hendrix testimony March 21, 1973. Hendrix admitted that the reference to the Dominican Republic was his, and that he "guessed" the instructions came from Nixon, and that his source was a Chilean who supposedly got the information from an even higher-ranking Chilean who, in turn, supposedly got it from the U.S. Embassy (p. 1490). None of those qualifications appeared in Hendrix report to ITT headquarters in New York. Timing would seem to favor the belief in the authenticity of the Hendrix report: Nixon met with Helms and Kissinger on September 15, and that night the "green light" allegedly was flashed to Korry. Yet Helms notes of the September 15 meeting contain the notation, "No involvement of [U.S.] Embassy." ("Nixon Ordered Chile Coup," a Chicago Daily News Service story datelined Washington in the *Miami News*, November 21, 1975, reported—with a badly misleading headline—on that phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's final report.) Despite the questionable ancestry of the "green light" theory, it went on to become an uncritically accepted element in the Allende mythology, routinely repeated in press accounts as if it were an established fact.

14. *Multinational Corporations*, pp. 286, 288, Korry testimony on March 27, 1973.

15. Ibid., Part 2, pp. 542-543.

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16. Gouré and Rothenberg, *Soviet Penetration of Latin America* (Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1975), p. 97.

17. *Multinational Corporations*, Broe's testimony March 27, pp. 248-249; Hendrix' testimony March 21, p. 143. ITT's top man in Latin America, John W. Guilfoyle, would later testify (p. 222) that ITT did not, in fact, increase its advertising in the *El Mercurio* group as Berrellez and Hendrix had urged.

18. Ibid., pp. 250-251, 255-256. Neither Hendrix nor Berrellez—busily tuning in for news of conspiracies in Santiago—knew about these ITT-CIA contacts in the U.S. (see pp. 148-149 and 167, respectively, of their testimony).

19. Ibid., Part 2, pp. 626-627. The only Hendrix-Berrellez "recommendations" were the four for shoring up the opposition press and view from abroad, and to assist in the "relocation project." It would appear, then, that Gerrity was imputing to his men a role they had not played. Interestingly, too, not only were Hendrix and Berrellez unaware of the CIA-ITT contacts, they did not even know that their Washington office was reading their output.

20. Ibid., Part 2, p. 636. Presumably, Amunátegui was "encouraged" by the report, around September 21, that Frei was ready to acquiesce in a plan for a military coup.

21. Ibid., pp. 252-253 (Broe and CIA estimates of the military). Broe would lunch with Merriam on October 9, again on October 18 or 19, and finally in December. He said that at his luncheon meetings with Merriam, he "did not have what I would call operation discussions" but that he merely gave Merriam general assessments of the situation (p. 254)—fodder for a number of important sounding Merriam memos.

22. Ibid., Part 2, p. 643.

23. Ibid., Part 2, pp. 1050-1051. Before too much virtue be written into Anaconda's behavior, it must be remembered that Anaconda's confidential files were not ransacked and later scattered to the media winds. The record does, however, contain no indication whatever of maneuvering—by Anaconda or any other American company—to influence events in Chile during this delicate period. Then, too, Anaconda had been badly burned only six years before because its management believed the company's best chance for survival in an increasingly hostile nationalistic environment was in "manipulating the politics of Chile behind the scenes." The other American copper giant, Kennecott, opted for disengagement (i.e., a phased sell-out). The policy bought Kennecott short-run popularity and handsome financial rewards—handsome, that is, until Allende buried both companies alive. For a thorough account of copper in Chile, see Moran, *Theodore H., Multinational Corporations and the Politics of Dependence: Copper in Chile* (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1974). For a discussion of the differing 1964 strategies, see, particularly, pp. 132-138; the "manipulation" quote is taken from note 20, p. 132. As for Korry, he was not wavering in his belief that Allende's convictions were "all ... contrary to the free enterprise and capitalistic system" (p. 105), or that Allende was inimical to the U.S. But Korry seemed to have underestimated Allende's freedom of action within the coalition and overestimated Allende's altruism.

24. *Multinational Corporations*, pp. 103, 106.

25. Ibid., pp. 398-399, 420, from his March 29, 1973, testimony. Meyer was, by then, out of government. Senator Church attempted to dispute Meyer's interpretation by saying that "we are talking about a CIA agent meeting with a high official of ITT and laying before that official a plan of action

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which, as it happened, was rejected" (p. 402). Church seems to have forgot-
ten that Broe himself had described the "plan" as a proposal. "These were
ideas staffed, they were passed up to me, by people who work for me. I went
upstairs. I talked to the people upstairs and I was sent out to check out if
they made any sense at all" (p. 256). Gerrity—and ITT—told him they did
not. There is no evidence they were ever executed, and certainly not during
the crucial period in question. And so, it would appear, it was ITT that
dashed Nixon's ambitions to "make the [Chilean] economy scream"—in the
phrase from Helms' notes of the September 15 meeting (as reported in the
November 21, 1975, news story—see note 76). McCone made the same
point about staff proposals vs. plans: "Mr. Geneen summarily rejected any
such ideas (for creating 'economic chaos') that came up from his staff. Now I
understand that various ideas were generated at the staff levels of the
Central Intelligence Agency. They were never approved by Mr. Helms, never
were submitted to this inter-departmental group, and therefore, were not
policy. This must be clearly understood, that this is the differentiation
between staff thinking and policy determination" (p. 103). Though he was
no longer with the CIA, McCone at that time was a consultant to the
Agency and a close friend of Helms, and presumably was in a position to
make such a statement as part of his sworn testimony.

26. "The Korry File," segment of "60 Minutes," vol. IX, no. 16, as broadcast over CBS Television Network, January 9, 1977. Korry's reference to "tens of millions" was probably the kind of hyperbole meant to gain the attention of a vast television audience. Kissinger (*White House Years*, p. 661) estimates that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had pumped about $3 million into the campaign of Allende's chief opponent, Frei, between 1962 and 1964 (though apparently without Frei's knowledge).

27. U.S. Congress, Senate, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973*. staff report of Select Senate Committee on Intelligence Activities, 1975, pp. 20-21.

28. Kissinger, op. cit., p. 659.

29. Ibid., pp. 665-666. Kissinger states that the State Department representative on the Forty Committee went along with the expenditures only after warning that if any of the funds tended to endorse Alessandri, its support would be withdrawn forthwith. He noted his frustration over this years later: "The concept of defeating one candidate without helping his principal opponent was rather original; it was not obvious how Allende could be defeated without benefitting Alessandri. The appropriation and the caveat canceled each other out."

30. Sigmund, op. cit., pp. 103-104. On July 21, five young men entered the agency in downtown Santiago and forced the manager at gunpoint to turn over all records, including financial accounts. Five days later, two journalists who said they had received the documents from "anonymous sources," turned them over to the committee. Sigmund cites examples of the anti-Communist newspaper ads sponsored by Chile Joven (Young Chile) and Acción Mujeres de Chile (Women's Action of Chile). They featured pictures of firing squads, an Iron Curtain, political prisoners, and the caption: "This is communism. Do you want this for Chile?"

31. Nathaniel Davis, *The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende* (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1985), p. 308. Davis said he personally vetoed attempts to channel U.S. financial assistance to groups such as many private sector groups and unions "because of their possible involvement in

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15). Finally, on September 2, Chiltelco's bank accounts were frozen; on September 13, the company was formally "intervened," as Allende's press and ministers had been "predicting" would happen for months. On September 25, four ITT executives (all Chileans) were jailed, including the seventy-one-year-old head of Chiltelco, and one—a man who had been locked out of his office since May 15—held incommunicado. *El Mercurio* editorialized that if the government had reason to believe the company should be nationalized and could not reach agreement with the owners, it should have sent legislation to Congress, as it did in the copper takeover. Instead, "following the customary illegal procedures, it [the government] again ignored Congress and through administrative measures, went after the *de facto* seizure of the Chilean Telephone Company. This is an act of force that adds another shadow to the political experiment initiated by President Allende under the reiterated promise to act within the constitutional framework existing when [he] was elected. . . . each expropriation carried out behind the back of Congress gives the so-called 'Chilean model' the appearance of the 'international model' used so often by communists around the world. . . ." On October 15, 1971, in response to Neal's appeal to define State Department policy, Meyer told him: "The whole matter of Chilean relationships and expropriations of American investments [is] under review" (vol. 2, p. 964). On October 21, ITT concluded, after its representatives joined those of Ford Motor Co., Anaconda, Bank of America, First National City Bank and Ralston Purina for a meeting with Secretary of State William Rogers: "In summary, the entire meeting indicates that the Secretary is pretty much going along with Meyers & Company's soft-line, low-profile policy for Latin America" (p. 79). So much for ITT "clout" and the "very, very hard line."

In 1975, ITT and OPIC arbitrated their differences, including a dispute over a clause in ITT's insurance contract that invalidated OPIC coverage if it could be shown that expropriation was the result of provocation by the investor. An arbitral panel of three judges ruled in favor of ITT, and the OPIC insurance was not invalidated. ITT received $34,706,917 in cash and a guarantee of $59,384,614. It was one of twenty-six settlements by OPIC involving U.S. companies operating in Chile during the Allende years (Davis, op. cit., p. 71; also, *Insurance Claims Experience to Date: OPIC and Its Predecessor Agency*" OPIC news release, June 30, 1987).

48. "Firing Line" transcript, op. cit., pp. 8-9, 12. That the U.S. was still very much stuck on phase two—"correct but minimal"—is amply reflected in the record of public statements and actions, including the aforementioned "soft-line" response of Secretary Rogers to U.S. businessmen. It was further demonstrated by the U.S.'s accession to renegotiating Chile's huge and unmanageable foreign debt during the "Paris Club" negotiations of April 1972. It was further demonstrated by the quiet and unobtrusive increase in U.S. Food for Peace shipments to Chile during the Allende years.

49. The *Washington Post*, the *Wall Street Journal*, and the *Associated Press* all gave over the vast bulk of their reports to questioning about ITT's two money offers. The *Post* buried deep in its story a single paragraph of Geneen's defense of ITT's actions; the AP version (as published in the *Miami Herald*. April 3, 1973), a very lengthy story, did not even mention it. Not even the *Wall Street Journal* gave Geneen's defense more than a single paragraph—the next to last in its story.

50. This was six months before Anderson published the purloined "ITT Papers,"

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which Allende's government would seize upon as the pretext for formalizing what it had, in fact, done the previous September: namely, grab the telephone company, without compensation. In fact, it was exactly what they said they intended to do even before Allende was elected. (Allende referred to the need to nationalize Chiltelco in a campaign speech on September 1, 1970, echoing what the platform-drafters had decided months before.)

51. *Multinational Corporations*. pp. 458-459, 461. McCone also alluded to the wisdom of the tactics used, while staunchly defending what was behind them and the decisions actually taken. He said there were "a great many unfortunate things that happened in connection with ITT's activity in Washington—and, when the whole thing surfaced, very radical changes were made in the organization..." (p. 106). Among those "radical changes": Merriam was transferred to Rome, the office was demoted from vice-presidential level to that of a firmly subordinated adjunct of New York headquarters, and the public relations professional staff reduced from sixteen (in 1970) to five (by 1975).

52. This view permeates, for instance, the book Jerome Levinson co-authored with Juan de Onis, the *New York Times*, *The Alliance That Lost Its Way* (Chicago: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1971). Levinson is remembered by colleagues I know at the Inter-American Development Bank as a man as deeply congenial to leftist economic theory as he is hostile to capitalistic ideology.

53. *Multinational Corporations, op. cit.* June 21, 1973, pp. 16-17. The harshest finding in the report says (p. 18): "... but what is not to be condoned is that the highest officials [sic] of the ITT sought to engage the CIA in a plan covertly to manipulate the outcome of the Chilean presidential elections." It should be remembered that the one and only such "covert" approach to the CIA in that sense was the one made by Geneen on July 16, 1971—and that one died as quickly as it surfaced. The uses and purposes of the later million-dollar fund remained blurred in the testimony, but did not include the CIA. Even the nine specific conclusions contain questionable language, such as the statement (#8, p. 16) that "early in 1971, negotiations undertaken with a view to convincing Allende that if he made a deal with ITT, he could confiscate, with impunity, other U.S. companies in Chile." Nowhere in the ITT Papers does the "impunity" suggestion appear. What does appear (vol. 2, pp. 799-800) is a suggestion from Gerrity to Geneen, on February 11, 1971, that since ITT's days in Chile appeared numbered, "we might suggest to Allende that he make an agreement with us on the best possible terms we can arrange so that when he has to come to grips with problems, which will flow from his treatment of other American investments in Chile, he will be able to point to a satisfactory agreement with us. In short, when the critics descend on him, assuming he has made a reasonable agreement with us, he can point to us as an example of how a fair deal can be completed if both sides approach the matter sensibly." Gerrity then added a phrase to demonstrate what he meant by "sensibly"—in other words, a genuine *quid pro quo* in bargaining: "I think we have a couple things going for us. One, we own two major hotels in Santiago and we can point out that if he treats us fairly we would do everything possible to promote tourism both in Chile's interest and in our own... I am suggesting for your consideration that we try to evolve a plan which would provide a mixture of good international relations

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for Allende and which would also provide an agreement that would be good
business both for Chile and for the United States with us as the vehicle."

54. Davis, op. cit., p. 320. Davis also notes that Harry Shlaudeman, then deputy assistant secretary of state, remembered hearing the term for the first time in his life when Harrington himself used it repeatedly in badgering questioning of Shlaudeman on June 12, 1974, three months before the leaks.

55. Davis, op. cit., p. 328.

56. Ibid., p. 329.

57. Kissinger, *Years of Upheaval* (Little Brown and Company, Boston and Toronto, 1982), p. 378.

58. David Atlee Phillips, *The Night Watch: 25 Years Inside the CIA* (Robert Hale Limited, London, 1977), p. 238. Davis, op. cit., p. 349, quotes Phillips in a letter to him, as saying: "Of one thing I am morally certain. We did not promote or assist that coup and we did everything we could possibly do to avoid any inference of involvement, short of closing down the station and leaving Chile."

59. Kissinger, *Years of Upheaval*, pp. 401-404.

60. Ibid., pp. 407-408.

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Appendix II

In September 1970, a handful of the vanquished, military men and civilians, began to take the first tentative steps in a desperate effort to stop Salvador Allende from becoming president.

In an instant of panic, however, these men, moved by a deep sense of
patriotism, immolated themselves, as well as the last faint hopes of
their compatriots, to save their beloved Chile from what many consid-
ered an impending disaster.

Two years later, three of the principals reconstructed those tormented
days of September and October in a series of conversations with the
Chilean journalist Florencia Varas.¹

"On the night of September 4, I opened a few bottles of red wine and a few of white wine, and I got drunk." So said Luis Gallardo Gallardo, forty-one, industrial chemist, a leader in the campaign of Jorge Alesandri, a mustachioed man with thick black hair and the facial features and mien of the prototype middle-class Chilean man.

No doubt, it would have been much better for Luis Gallardo—and,
perhaps, for Chile—if, in the company of a few Second District cam-
paign coworkers, he had gotten as drunk that night as he had hoped.

But as it happened, the telephone rang; it was a special caller who said
he had to see him, right away. Some time later—Gallardo doesn't
remember when—the caller arrived, and seeing there were others in the
house, said he preferred to stay outside. The two men chatted on the
front lawn.

The visitor was a high official in "Investigaciones," the national police
detective force. He came to tell Gallardo, among other leaders of the
Alessandri campaign, that many high officers of Investigaciones shared
his feelings: it would be dangerous for Chile to fall into Communist
hands and he, together with the others, was ready to cooperate in any
effort to prevent it.

"It was," Gallardo said, "a small beacon of hope."

Gallardo went back inside and, "even before I knew what I felt," he
began calling his colleagues. One call hit paydirt: retired army Gen.

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Héctor Martínez Amaro, also a leader of the Alessandri campaign and president of the embryonic National Popular party, made up mostly of retired military men. The two agreed to meet the following day.

"We went over the situation," Gallardo said, "and we arrived at the conclusion that so long as the electoral process was not over, we should continue fighting to keep the Communists from taking power." The fight was designed to persuade Congress to choose Alessandri, and to carry it out, they organized a "Republican Independent Front," headed by General Martínez.

While organizing the front, Gallardo discovered that another group was forming around still another retired military man: Gen. Roberto Viaux Marambio.

On October 21, 1969, Viaux, a blunt and scrappy artillery officer who had been promoted to general only ten months earlier, became a hero to most of Chile's dispirited officer corps, chafing under five years of systematic neglect: he led a pocket revolt that more nearly resembled the first "strike" in the military's history (see chapter 4, pp. 179-192).

Discontent had been boiling up for some time. Two years earlier, the army was unable to hold maneuvers because it lacked enough shoes for the men. Pay had fallen so far behind other levels that a lieutenant colonel with twenty-five years service earned no more than the starting pay for the lowest-rated laborer at the Chuquicamata copper mine. At Viaux's army First Division in Antofogasta, fifty officers had to crowd into BOQs (Bachelor Officer Quarters) designed for half that number. Housing for noncommissioned officers was so bad that many lived in shanties with no roofs. In 1968, four hundred of the army's officers resigned en masse—an act that forced Frei to reshuffle the high command. The new defense minister, retired Gen. Tulio Marambio Marchant, and the new army commandant, Gen. Sergio Castillo Aránguiz (a man with family ties to top Christian Democrats), promised relief within nine months. They failed to deliver.

Into the breach marched Viaux, agitating through channels for action. Late in September 1969, he got it: a summons to Santiago, ostensibly to sit on an army promotion board. He began demanding immediately—as was his right—a meeting with Frei, but was persistently brushed off. Instead, he was told he was to be retired, and should make ready to hand over his command. Shortly after, back in Santiago, officers turned up at his house late on the night of October 20 asking him to head an insurrection. At 2:30 A.M., he agreed to take over the Tacna armored regiment in Santiago and declared himself in "professional rebellion" against the government. Numerous other units quickly pledged support, while Frei massed a "defensive force" of garbage trucks around the presidential palace in downtown Santiago.

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Late that afternoon, after daylong negotiations, Viaux agreed to end the "revolt" in return for a five-point agreement, under which Frei pledged to cashier his defense minister and army commander and to "resolve in urgent form the economic problem of the armed forces."

Inasmuch as it was clear that Viaux probably could have seized the government that day—other army units refused to obey orders to act against him—his punishment was limited to retirement and a suspended sentence.

In the months that followed, he toured Chile from one end to another, while refusing to become involved in politics. (He did, however, poll twenty thousand votes to win a popularity contest in the small town of Calama, near his last post.) Viaux claimed envoys from both Alessandri and Allende approached him as the elections drew near, asking for his support, and that after the elections, Carlos Lazo Frías and others attempted to enlist his support for Allende in the congressional runoff.² Lazo, named by Allende as head of the Bank of the State, emerged as the brains of a conspiracy to organize secret cells within the armed forces so as to neutralize their power to oppose Allende.

But the voices of the Left were not the ones Viaux was listening to on those charged September days.

Through his father-in-law, retired Col. Raúl Igualt Ramírez, Viaux was put in touch with an old friend, Gen. Camilo Valenzuela Godoy, commander of the Santiago army garrison. At the first session, they felt each other out. Later, they became more specific; the circle of like-minded men expanded to include Gen. Joaquín García, number two man in the air force; Adm. Hugo Tirado Barros, number two in the navy; and Gen. Vicente Huerta Celis, commander of Carabineros, the quasi-military, 26,000-man national police force. Others would later join, some would drop out (Valenzuela, Tirado, and Igualt were the only high military officers later convicted of various degrees of complicity in the plot).

"From the first meetings," Viaux said, "the unknown was the commander-in-chief of the army: General René Schneider Chereau." That man was, in an ironic sense, a creature of Viaux's own invention. Following Viaux's one-day "war," he was asked who he believed ought to be the new army commander. Viaux replied that it should be the general with the most seniority, General Mahn. Instead, Frei decided to name Schneider, whose sympathies in favor of the Christian Democrats were well known.

Early in the campaign, on May 7, Schneider issued a statement in which he said the army would accede to the decision of Congress if, as expected, the election were thrown into the Congress—no matter who the winner might be. The statement was designed to reassure Allende's

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forces that the rules of democracy would not be suspended should their
man win.

Viaux said he later learned that Valenzuela had informed Schneider
of his meetings with Viaux and the other military commanders still
groping for legal means to block Allende. (He said Huerta also
kept his superior, Frei's civilian interior minister Patricio Rojas,
informed.)

"Around that time," Viaux said, "it became known that President Frei had had a long meeting with General Schneider behind closed doors. It was said that the purpose had been to sound him [Schneider] out on a possible move outside the Constitution. We did not learn the outcome...."

Parallel with his talks with military commanders, Viaux met with
the civilian group headed by Gallardo and retired General Martínez.
"He gave us a tremendous lift," Gallardo said, "because we discovered
that, like us, the great majority of Chileans felt the same anxiety, and
that many political personages and people from other walks of life had
visited him starting on September 5th, seeking in him a leader with
sufficient resolve to block the Communist aims."

Later, to still the growing anxiety of those around him, Gallardo
agreed to serve as a bridge to Viaux, bringing to his house every day,
starting September 14th, a different group representing mainly work-
ing-class neighborhoods.

"I do not exaggerate," Gallardo said, "when I tell you of the veritable
transformation which came over visitors who came to listen to him and
recover their faith. But I also observed that this constant dialogue with
common people who brought their fears to him caused the general to
become more and more thoughtful, perhaps realizing that without
wishing it, he had become the repository for the hope of an entire
people...."

Such a man was José Jaime Melgoza Garay, a powerfully built man of
five feet, ten inches, one of three children of a Spanish immigrant who
worked as a skilled laborer in the coal mines of Lota, and a woman past
forty when he was born. At twelve, Jaime was already driving buses. He
would later work as a used car salesman and on the railroads. Until the
fall of 1970, he had never taken part in politics. In March or April of that
year, he found himself spending more and more time with a cousin, who
treated him like a younger brother, and her husband, a law student
named Juan Enrique Prieto Urzúa.

Prieto was a middle-level leader of an organization called the Ale-
sandri Legion, made up of far right remnants of the defunct Conserva-
tive party who felt that the National party—mainstay of the candidacy
of Alessandri, himself an Independent—was too bland. Prieto gradually

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interested Melgoza in the legion. Melgoza was then twenty-nine and his political outlook had been heavily shaped by the European immigrants he knew in the southern coal mines around Lota, men and women with a deep-seated hatred of the Marxist regimes many had fled. (That area was also, paradoxically, the region of Allende's greatest strength.)

When the Republican Independent Front was formed after the election, Prieto went along as representative of the legion. Melgoza tagged along to the meetings, held at a house on 1900 Catedral in downtown Santiago, the former command post of worker organizations backing Alessandri. There, the first talk of a coup d'état surfaced. And there it was decided that the only man able to lead such a movement was Roberto Viaux. There, too, it was agreed that because of the rumors flying around Santiago about such talk, and the threats that had already been made on his life, Viaux needed special protection.

A ten-man flying squad was formed to protect him. One member: Jaime Melgoza, chosen because of his command of karate and his obvious strength. Melgoza would become one of the general's true disciples.

Hope of a nonviolent solution had not yet disappeared, however. Viaux recalled:

Around the third week of September, I learned through my contacts that Frei was at last ready to act. My source also told me that Mr. Zaldivar, the finance minister, would make a speech on the state of the economy in which he would depict the situation as unfavorable as a result of the outcome of the election. This he did do on September 23. After the speech, four ministers would resign, I was told, and this in turn would trigger the resignation of the entire Cabinet.

Next, Frei would name a transition Cabinet, made up of personal friends and officers on active duty, among them General Schneider. That would solve the problem of the command of the army and our hands would be freed to act. In that way, the president and commander-in-chief of the army would also keep up constitutional and legal appearances.

Time passed, and the finance minister's speech was made.

It must have been around the first week of October—remember, I’m telling you this off the top of my head—when Guillermo Caray³ told me that the president was just then anxious for a coup. Afterwards, a military junta would take over the government, exiling the president and, in that way, nothing would be known about Frei’s participation in all this....

Beyond this, I received from the lips of Nicolás Díaz Pacheco⁴ a message that President Frei sent me through his cousin, Father Ruiz Tagle, telling me that I had a green light to act, but that I should do it cleanly, with complete assurance of succeeding because if I did not,

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then he would be forced to take action against me. Caray later confirmed this message, in the same words....

With the assurance that the president's own decision to act gave me, I took this message to the meetings we held in different places with the generals I have mentioned. But we still had the problem of the commander-in-chief of the army, and another, which General Valenzuela raised. He preferred to act under the orders of a senior general, since he, as a member of the corps of engineers, could not, under the rules, take command of the army.

So he thought of General Prats [General Carlos Prats González], who followed Schneider in seniority... After several false starts, the meeting was arranged for mid-October, at 10:00 P.M., in the home of Guillermo Carey. We waited for Prats until 11:00 P.M. As I was about to leave, [Carlos] Arriagada (who had arranged the meeting) arrived to say that Prats sent his apologies but at the last minute several officers had showed up at his house unexpectedly, and he had to see them....

Prats, in his memoirs, gives a sharply different version of meeting with his old Military School classmate. Prats says that Arriagada, who had called earlier that evening to request the meeting, arrived about 10:00 P.M. The two went into his study where Arriagada came quickly to the point: he had been asked to invite Prats to meet with Viaux that very night. Prats says he reacted angrily, telling Arriagada he not only had nothing to discuss with Viaux but that he (Arriagada) had showed disrespect toward him by even suggesting such a thing. He then said that if Arriagada truly believed he was a friend, he would tell Viaux that if Viaux had it in mind to plot with him, he (Prats) would report it to the authorities. According to Prats, the next day Arriagada returned to say that Viaux believed it was Prats who wanted to talk to him, and there the matter rested. That same day, Prats did report the entire incident to General Schneider. Prats said nothing about other visitors arriving that night, but he did say that he had to excuse himself from family members in the house when Arriagada arrived: his wife, an unmarried daughter, a married daughter and her husband.⁵

If Viaux actually was told of Prats' rebuff, he did not show it by his actions; he continued to believe that this man who would succeed Schneider as army chief was favorably disposed to the plotters. That, at least, is the version of the plotters themselves. The other possibility, of course, is that Prats had not told Arriagada what he claimed to have said in his memoirs.

Again according to Viaux:

> The following Monday, Arriagada told my cousin Julio Fontecilla that General Prats had commissioned him to relay word that the

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following day there would be good news, and that Prats had to travel
to the north on official business.

The good news did, in fact, come when the government retired the commander-in-chief of the navy, Admiral Fernando Porta Angulo, and replaced him with Admiral Hugo Tirado Barros. It was said that with his retirement, several admirals, with his permission, had gone to pay their respects to Allende, in defiance of the defense minister's orders that military chiefs stay clear of all candidates. ...

The news from Prats not only appeared to demonstrate his own favorable position and that of Frei, but also solved the problem insofar as the navy was concerned since Admiral Tirado was in contact and in agreement with us.

There was no further chance to meet with General Prats. Besides, in one of the later meetings with the generals, it was concluded that his [Prats'] vacillation or absence was not important because, once we moved, he would join in. We had the same feeling about the commander-in-chief of the air force....

While the military conspirators plotted in terms of a link with the government, the civilians abandoned hope, first that the "Alessandri formula" would be accepted, and then that Frei would act. Their first response was to arm themselves to repulse the kind of violence Allende and his cohorts had threatened in the event the Congress should veto him. It was a short step from defensive to offensive thinking.

Arms, however, were not to be found. Carlos Labarca Metzger, one of the conspirators who was familiar with weapons, turned down offers of "poor quality" arms. Later, they were able to make a deal with an arms collector for a big lot—"enough to arm our group in good style."⁶

Viaux's men, with time running out before the Congress was due to meet and give Allende the presidency, still lacked the pretext they believed Frei wanted for them to act. And they still did not know the mind of Schneider (Schneider's widow would later be quoted as saying that a few days before the plot exploded, she heard her husband say that if he were to turn on the radio and hear a news flash that he had been kidnapped, it wouldn't faze him in the slightest).⁷

Still, they did not know, and so it was decided to kidnap Schneider and hold him for forty-eight hours. "This idea," Viaux said, "was approved unanimously, that is to say by the five of us [Admiral Tirado, Army General Valenzuela, Air Force General Garcia, Carabinero General Huerta, and himself]."

"When we got to the question of who would take charge of the actual kidnapping, it seemed logical," Viaux continued, "that it should be done by personnel of the army itself. But General Valenzuela was opposed to having subordinates confront their superiors, for obvious and fundamental reasons of discipline.⁸

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"For that reason, I decided to give the job to a group of Nationalists, but admonishing them that they must, in every way, give deferential treatment to General Schneider...."

As his envoy to the "Nationalists," Viaux chose Juan Diego Dávila Bastorrica and insisted that Dávila have complete command of the operation. Dávila was enthusiastic to discover that Gallardo's group was already armed and resolved to do whatever necessary to stop Allende. The next day, Dávila introduced Gallardo to other like-minded civilians who had contacted Viaux, including Juan Luis Bulnes.

Together, they went to work on Plan Alpha: the kidnapping of General Schneider. They also put together three supplemental plans: Beta, Gamma, and Delta, for the kidnapping of three other high-ranking generals.

Gallardo arranged through a friend for a downtown apartment hide-out for those who would take part in the caper. They nicknamed the place "the aquarium," because it was located across the street from a nightclub called *La Sirena*. There were beds there for four persons. Labarca obtained another nearby with beds for two more.

While part of the group put together a complete dossier on the habits, security arrangements and other details of each of the kidnap targets, Gallardo took his group to remote places on the outskirts of the city for shooting practice.

On Saturday, October 17, Viaux ended the tension of the long wait: they would strike the following Monday, October 19. That Monday, the corps of generals was giving a banquet in Schneider's honor at the official residence of the commander-in-chief (which Schneider had never bothered to move into). It was expected the banquet would end around 1:00 A.M. As Schneider made ready to leave, Valenzuela was to invent some pretext for detaining him for fifteen or twenty minutes. When he finally did leave, the streets would be quiet—no Carabineros patrolled until 2:00 A.M.

Schneider then would be taken to a secret place known only to Dávila and Gallardo. The next day, a note would be sent to Frei, on behalf of a fictitious commando group, demanding that Frei name a military Cabinet in return for Schneider's release. Gallardo was assured that "Frei would accede immediately." Frei would resign, Admiral Tirado, as interior minister, would become acting president, and new elections would be called.

The plot collapsed on a single detail. The person charged with shadowing Schneider when he left his house to report on which car he was using, how he was dressed, and so forth, failed to do so. The lookout decided to "wing" it and told Gallardo and Dávila that Schneider had used the Mercedes he usually favored, and had gone first for a cocktail at the Argentine Embassy. The kidnappers waited tensely until 3:00 A.M.

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on darkened Inca Street for Schneider to pass. They would discover later that he had glided past them nearly two hours earlier—alone, at the wheel of the family Opel.

The plotters decided to seize the initiative themselves and began actively tailing Schneider to discover his exact habits, resolved to kid-nap him at the first opportunity. They finally decided on a place: Martín de Zamora Street, where it meets the more heavily traveled Américo Vespucio. Martín de Zamora was narrow, it took a sharp bend about 125 feet before meeting Américo Vespucio, and there was a stop sign at the corner. The plotters used model cars to rehearse the details and went about assembling their tools: a spray can with teargas, chloroform, rope, milled pepper, a hammer—and an arsenal of hand guns, sub-machine-guns and grenades.

The plan: a lookout would signal with a handkerchief as General Schneider emerged from his house and climbed into the car. An "alert" car would then speed down Zamora toward Vespucio to alert the others—parked along the way, or on small tributary streets—that Schneider was coming. Another would then divert traffic on Zamora above the general's house. As he cruised along Zamora, three cars with plotters would fall in in front of him, and a jeep would follow. Around fifteen other cars—manned by persons not totally aware of what was happening—would form a "screen" to congest traffic.

The jeep (driven by Labarca) would bump into Schneider's car from behind at the Vespucio stop sign. As the general's driver alighted, the men in the three forward cars would jump out, weapons in hand. Two would flank the car on the left, while one of them smashed the windows with a hammer. Two others would do the same on the right, while one—Andrés Widow—would open the door and cover Schneider.

Melgoza's mission: knock the general's driver senseless with a karate chop.

On Wednesday, October 21, Gallardo ordered his men "to the matresses," at the two downtown hideouts, for final briefings. Dávila, General Viaux's emissary who was supposed to command the operation, failed to show for two scheduled meetings and was, in fact, nowhere to be found. Gallardo decided to go ahead himself, and he, Widow, and Labarca worked on the final details without letting the others in on the plan. When Labarca opened a map in the presence of the others and pointed out the place where they would strike, Gallardo fumed and ordered everyone confined to quarters.

He said he was especially worried about Melgoza, because Melgoza had protested the plan. He ordered Melgoza watched carefully, an order he would later claim was disobeyed.

At ten o'clock that night, he and Widow went to Viaux's house to bring him up to date on the final plans. Dávila was there, and Viaux

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repeated his order that Dávila run the operation and take personal
charge of Schneider.

He then repeated still another order:

"Under no circumstances is there to be any shooting."

From Viaux's house, Gallardo went directly to Cousiño Park, a sprawling parade ground and park just off the downtown area, where his men were to hold their one and only dress rehearsal. Even that, however, was aborted; Gallardo claims it was because Melgoza began to "shout hysterically." Dávila, who was supposed to follow him to the park to supervise the dry run, failed to show for that rendezvous also.

It was their last chance. D-Hour had been set for the following morning, Thursday, October 22. Only two days remained before the Congress was to meet.

It was 4:00 A.M. before the plotters slept. At 6:30 A.M., they were on their way: two in a borrowed Peugeot; two others with Gallardo in his own Borgward (it was later pointed out that the plot was so amateurish and hastily improvised that the would-be kidnappers hadn't even thought to use stolen cars); Dávila and two others in another car. Widow was waiting for them at the rendezvous point, the end of Américo Vespucio North, together with the occupants of the "screen" cars, most of them strangers to Gallardo.

Gallardo repeated the orders: there was to be no shooting. The sub-machineguns and grenades were to be kept in the cars, taken later to the place where Schneider was to be held and used if the Left should discover the hideout and decide to attack.⁹

At 7:45 A.M., Gallardo began a slow swing around the perimeter of the operation to make sure all was in readiness.

At 8:15 A.M., Schneider left his house. One minute later, his car, driven by Cpl. Leopoldo Maura, eased onto Martín de Zamora. One minute later, about sixty-five feet before reaching the corner of Américo Vespucio, a yellow Ford Falcon moving in the opposite direction swerved in front of the Mercedes, colliding with it. A khaki-colored jeep pulled in front, blocking the street at Américo Vespucio. A white Peugeot pulled up behind the Mercedes. A blue Dodge Dart pulled alongside the Mercedes on the right.

The occupants of the four cars scrambled out, guns in hand. Gallardo was still on his rounds, a block away, when he heard shots. If he had counted, he would have heard ten, but he was too nervous to count.

The mission had been bungled.

General Schneider was mortally wounded with eight bullet wounds. Three days later he was dead. President Frei and President-elect Allende were pallbearers at his funeral.¹⁰

Two days after the shooting, a stunned Congress voted to confirm

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Salvador Allende Gossens as president of Chile, without even waiting for approval of the Statute of Guarantees.¹¹

Dreams or delusions of armed resistance to the Marxist president died with General Schneider. It would take Salvador Allende himself to resurrect them, but not before the country he was called to lead was torn asunder.

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Notes

APPENDIX II

1. Details of Gallardo's experiences are from a statement written by him, reproduced in Florencia Varas, *Conversaciones con Viaux*, (Santiago: Impresiones Eire, 1972), pp. 149-170.

2. Ibid., pp. 118-119. Viaux notes that Frías and others named by him later denied those contacts. Details of Viaux's activities from Varas, op. cit., pp. 126-127, and Alain Labrousse, *El Experimento Chileno: Reformismo o Revolución!* (Barcelona: Ediciones Grijalbo, 1973), p. 252.

3. Guillermo Carey Tagle, Viaux's main pipeline to the Christian Democrats. Carey was associated in a business venture with Finance Minister Zaldivar.

4. Diaz Pacheco was not otherwise identified.

5. Carlos Prats González, *Memorias: Testimonio de un Soldado* (Santiago: Pehuen Editora, 1985), 2nd ed., pp. 181-182. Prats describes Arriagada as one of those drawn into the right-wing plot against the Popular Front government in 1939, then being expelled from the army and exiled for a time to Argentina. As for Viaux, he said Arriagada should inform him that whereas he had nothing personal against him, he never shared Viaux's ideas, which he considered nefarious for the army. Arriagada said he had been asked to make the overture to Prats in a telephone call from a person he did not know, so he could not be sure that it was Viaux who had initiated the move. Given Prats' very visible condemnation of Viaux following the 1969 uprising, it does seem improbable that those with knowledge of senior commanders in the army should have imagined that Prats would have cooperated with them.

6. This occurred in late September—nearly one month before the CIA, "for a few hours," toyed with the idea of providing three sub-machineguns—not to civilians, but an army general!

7. Viaux said the report was published in *Puro Chile*. the Communist party tabloid; it was never denied by Mrs. Schneider.

8. Such behavior—conspirators fretting about protocol—may appear bizarre to civilians, but it is entirely consistent with the mentality and attitudes of the Chilean military, as I have observed them.

9. The Left did, in fact, penetrate the group. *Punto Final* was on the streets the very day of the attack on Schneider with a detailed account of the plot to kidnap Schneider and force Frei to resign.

10. The men, untrained civilians, only a few of them experienced in handling firearms, simply panicked. Before Schneider's driver even had a chance to alight from the car, one of the attackers was already smashing the windows with a red hammer, causing the driver to dive for his gun, believed to be in the glove compartment. Schneider also pulled his gun. Within seconds, the attackers fired ten shots, eight of which hit the general, two others going wild. Death was caused by two 38-caliber bullets. Within three days, 250

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people had been picked up for questioning, thirty of them held. On October 29, Viaux, Igualt, and Gallardo gave themselves up. Labarca and others were apprehended two days later. Widow managed to escape. In the eight-month investigation that followed—perhaps the biggest ever in Chile and conducted with the full weight of the Allende government behind it—there was no serious intimation that the CIA or any other foreign agency had been involved. In Florencia Varas's book, *Conversaciones con Viaux*, the CIA is not even mentioned, although Viaux, Gallardo, and Melgoza's lawyers all talk freely—very freely—about the plot, each other, and outsiders, and make countless accusations and allegations. On June 16, 1971, the military court martial handed down its sentences: Melgoza, life in prison for homicide; Viaux, twenty years in prison and five years in exile for planning a kidnapping; Igualt, ten years in prison, three years in exile, same charges; Gallardo, fifteen years in prison, same charges; Dávila, ten years, same charges; sentences ranging from three to ten years also were handed down to fifteen others convicted of participating in the plot. Valenzuela, Tirado, and three others were sentenced to three years in exile, lesser penalties were handed down to eleven others. Seventeen actually served time—from sixty to 305 days—before all but Melgoza, Viaux, and Dávila—were paroled. Melgoza's lawyer—Juan Prieto, himself among the convicted—said Melgoza was “framed” by his coconspirators as the one who fired the first shot because he was an unknown, whereas some of the others were from first-rank families (as many others were ordinary workers). Prieto points out that a single shot “escaped” from Melgoza's gun, and it was an unusual hammer-action 45-caliber revolver, whereas Schneider was killed by two .38 slugs. As to Gallardo's claim that Melgoza had “disappeared” into his house for fifty minutes the night before the shooting, Prieto said it was a lie, and attributes Gallardo's animosity to rivalry over a girl. There were widespread reports later that the MIR had infiltrated the ranks of the conspirators, and Melgoza was frequently “fingered” as the MIR man who deliberately fired so as to provoke the panic which occurred. Prieto heatedly denies that. Of the ten bullets, eight were from Argentine 38-caliber Ruby revolvers, one from a 35-caliber pistol, and one from Melgoza's pistol.

11. They were voted on December 21 and signed into law January 21, 1971.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference Works; Special Studies/Reports/Documents; Speeches

Algunas Características del Proceso de Toma de Decisiones en la Gran Em-
presa y la Dinámica de Concentración, Oscar Guillermo Garretón and Jaime
Cisternas Pinto [Santiago: ODEPLAN, mimeographed study, March 1970]

Algunos Fundamentos de la Intervención Militar en Chile, Septiembre de 1973
(Santiago: Editora Nacional Gabriela Mistral, no date)

Allamand, Andrés Z., "Chile: The End of the Authoritarian Regime," print-out copy of a speech delivered before a meeting of the Pacific Democratic Union and International Democratic Union in Honolulu, May 1988

Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Washington: U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations, 1975)

Allende Gossens, President Salvador, booklet distributed by the Embassy of Chile in Washington containing the text of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Dec. 4, 1972

The Almanac of American Politics, Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, eds.
(Washington: National Journal, 1986)

Almanaque Mundial, 1973 (Virginia Gardens, FL: Editorial América, S.A., 1974)

Analysis of the Economic and Social Evolution of Latin America Since the Inception of the Alliance for Progress (Washington: Inter-American Economic and Social Council of the Organization of American States, August 1971)

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. "Interest Groups in International Perspective," Robert Presthus, ed. (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 1974)

Annual of the Institute of Strategic Studies (London: Institute of Strategic Studies, 1973–1974 edition)

Atlas de la República de Chile (Santiago: Instituto Geográfico Militar, 1972)

Atlas Regionalizado de Chile (Santiago: Instituto Geográfico Militar, 2nd ed., 1981)

Boletín Estadístico de la OEA: Statistical Bulletin of the OAS, Vol. 9, No. 1-2
(Washington: Organization of American States, Jan.–June 1987)

Braden, Amb. Spruille, "Soviet Threat to the Panama Canal," printed copy of a speech delivered before the Belair Council of the Navy League of the U.S.A., Feb. 28, 1977

Brenner, Patricia, "The IMF View," in IMF Survey, Sept. 23, 1985

Canal Beagle: Laudo Award 1977 (bi-lingual edition covering the hearings and arbitration award in the Beagle Channel dispute, published by the Government of Chile)

Carter, President James, private message to President Augusto Pinochet dated Dec. 15, 1978 (copy obtained by the author)

Chile (Washington: American Nation Series of the OAS, 1969)

Chile: An Appraisal of Investment Opportunities in the Equity Market
(Toronto: Friedberg Commodity Management, Inc., 1986)

Chile: An Economy in Transition (Washington: The World Bank, 1980)

Chile: Caos o Democracia: Crónicas de la Guerra Irregular, 48-page booklet

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

OPINION

FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2003

A9

Americas / By Mary Anastasia O'Grady

Setting the Record Straight on Allende, Once More

At 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 1973 Chilean President Salvador Allende made a radio announcement that the Chilean navy had "isolated" the port city of Valparaiso against his command. Within a half-hour there came another broadcast, this one from inside the defense ministry building in Santiago but not from inside the government. It instructed Mr. Allende to hand over his office to Chile's Armed Forces and National Police which, it said were "united" to liberate the country.

These were the early hours of the Chilean military coup against the Allende government that would install Army General Augusto Pinochet as the head of the country for the next 17 years. It was not a decision taken by the military without encouragement from civil society. Indeed, less than one month before the coup Chile's Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution calling for the military to intervene.

Allende was elected in September 1970 but by the autumn of 1973 a combination of economic incompetence and arrogant abuse of power had destroyed his legitimacy. The country was polarized, paralyzed, fraught with street violence and on the brink of a bloody civil war.

This truth is of course anathema to international socialists and communists who have been pumping out propaganda for three decades to deny the failure. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is the latest to prove the effectiveness of that campaign by recently advancing the canard—in an interview on Black Entertainment Television—that it was the U.S. that staged the 1973 military coup in Chile. To be precise, a 17-year-old in the BET audience told Mr. Powell that "the United States staged a

coup in Chile on September 11th, despite the wishes of the Chilean populace against the coup and the populace in support of the democratically elected President Salvador Allende, the CIA, regardless, supported the coup of Augusto Pinochet and that resulted in mass deaths."

Mr. Powell lamely responded: "With respect to your earlier comment about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of."

The secretary might as well have been reading from an Oliver Stone script, blessing Castro's version of world history. Not only did he passively accept utter nonsense but he also suggested that the U.S. should regret its efforts to combat Soviet expansion in Latin America during the Cold War. That is a rather strange viewpoint given what we now know about the cruelty of communist repression.

Here was a chance to set the record straight. It was also a teaching opportunity on freedom, the importance of limited government and the rule of law. It was a lob that the secretary could have hit out of the park, Allende's abuse of power being such a clear violation of classical liberal values and constitutional democracy. It was a chance to explain why even an elected president in Venezuela lacks the moral authority to trample individuals, press freedoms or property rights.

Allende's victory in 1970 came with only 36% of the vote. That meant that congress held power over his win. The Christian Democrats who despised Chile's right but clearly distrusted the radicalized leftist agreed to clear his way only if he accepted a "Statute of Guarantees" to ensure the democracy and the rule of law.

Allende consented so as to get into office but he had no intention of containing his militant constituents, backed by Fidel Castro, and their appetite for power. It is true that the U.S., disliked Allende immensely and considered his victory a big defeat. It is also true that the CIA was lurking about in Latin America during those Cold War years and that the U.S. funded Allende's political opposition. But in the succeeding three years Allende would ruin himself by destroying

> Allende ruined himself by destroying the country. Chileans drove him from power.

the country. Chileans would drive him from power. The military had the idea to send him into exile but instead, according to the Journal's crack reporter, Everett Martin, who interviewed Allende's doctor, he committed suicide. This has been disputed by Allende supporters but put to rest by reliable testimony.

There is no lack of historical data to back this up. One useful compilation is "Out of the Ashes," by James R. Whelan, a history of Chile from 1833 to 1988. Sharp political divisions helped Allende get and hold power for three years despite his radicalism and his reckless economics. He cleverly used the law to shield himself while he consolidated that power. There were assaults on the press, extensive nationalization of businesses and a methodical effort to build a shadow army, which produced mounting violence throughout the period. The weapons for his informal army were coming from Cuba, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In the end

there were enough to "equip a division of 15,000 men." according to Mr. Whelan.

By 1973 the country was in shambles and housewives were banging empty pots to protest Allende economics. Early that year the government announced rationing. Former President Eduardo Frei, no friend of Chile's right, called it "a clear and definitive action toward totalitarian control of the country ... The people of Chile cannot tolerate that they be submitted to a dictatorship without escape." That opinion gained adherents as the year wore on.

On May 26 all 14 Supreme Court justices signed a document complaining that "an open and willful contempt of judicial decisions [by the executive]" threatened an "imminent breakdown of legality." On Aug. 22 came the resolution from the Lower House declaring a "grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order" and placing the responsibility for restoring "legal paths" with the military. On August 25 the Medical Association asked the president to resign and the Bar Association followed suit on Aug. 31. Yet experts say that more than any one single event it was Allende's proposal for a national education curriculum, a la East Germany, that drove the military to its final decision.

The Pinochet dictatorship was difficult for everyone. Yet as Cuba shows it could have been far worse. Chileans went with the lesser of two evils, broadly supporting an unprecedented military coup to save their country, not only from economic ruin but also from the shackles of communist repression. That took courage. It doesn't seem very fair for Mr. Powell to suggest that the U.S. deserves the credit.

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NOV 13 2001

Central Intelligence Agency

Washington, D. C. 20505

November 1, 2001

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

In response to your questions addressing the content of our declassified records on covert action in Chile, our General Counsel informs me that his office is in correspondence with your attorney, Mr. Douglas Dworkin of Arnold and Porter, who initiated inquiries with CIA on some of the issues you raised with me. The CIA General Counsel suggests that all parties would be better served if all communications on this matter were conducted through his office and your legal counsel. I regret I was not able to provide you with the information you requested but I am hopeful that you will receive answers to your questions via the legal channel.

SUBJECT: CIA Activities in Chile

Hinchey Report

September 18, 2000

Summary of Sources/Methodology

Summary of Response to Questions

Discussion

Overview of Covert Actions.

Support for Coup in 1970

Awareness of Coup Plotting in 1973

Knowledge of Human Rights Violations

Liaison with Chilean Security Services

Propaganda in Support of Pinochet Regime

Knowledge of "Operation Condor."

Internal Qualms

Historical Context

SUPPORTING MATERIAL

The "Assassination" of President Salvador Allende

The Schneider Assassination

Early Allende Presidency

US Business Involvement

Accession of General Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency

Violations of Human Rights Committed by Officers or Covert Agents and Employees of the CIA

Relationship with Contreras

Intelligence Reporting

Death/Disappearance of US Citizens

To respond to Section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (referred to hereafter as the Hinchey Amendment), the Intelligence Community (IC), led by the National Intelligence Council, reviewed relevant CIA records of the period predominantly from recent document searches; studied extensive Congressional reports regarding US activities in Chile in the 1960s and 1970s; read the memoirs of key figures, including Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger; reviewed CIA's oral history collection at the Center for the Study of Intelligence; and consulted with retired intelligence officers who were directly involved.

This broad information base has given us high confidence in our responses to the three questions, which

http://www.foia.state.gov/HincheyReport.htm

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are answered directly below. The body of the report, however, provides much greater detail in an effort
to tell the story of CIA involvement and put the answers into their proper historical context. The Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities—the Church
Committee—conducted in 1975 a thorough document review and interviews, and produced a report that
still stands as a comprehensive analysis of CIA actions in Chile during the period from 1963 to 1973.

CIA's response to the Hinchey amendment should be viewed as a good-faith effort to respond in an unclassified format to the three questions, not as a definitive history of US activities in Chile over the past 30 years.

1. Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the assassination of President Salvador Allende in September 1973.

A. We find no information—nor did the Church Committee—that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He is believed to have committed suicide as the coup leaders closed in on him. The major CIA effort against Allende came earlier in 1970 in the failed attempt to block his election and accession to the Presidency. Nonetheless, the US Administration's long-standing hostility to Allende and its past encouragement of a military coup against him were well known among Chilean coup plotters who eventually took action on their own to oust him.

2. Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to the accession of General Augusto Pinochet to the Presidency of the Republic of Chile.

A. CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency. In fact, many CIA officers shared broader US reservations about Pinochet's single-minded pursuit of power.

3. Q. All activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the Intelligence Community with respect to violations of human rights committed by officers or agents of former President Pinochet.

A. Many of Pinochet's officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses following Allende's ouster. Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military. The IC followed then-current guidance for reporting such abuses and admonished its Chilean agents against such behavior. Today's much stricter reporting standards were not in force and, if they were, we suspect many agents would have been dropped.

Discussion

In the 1960s and the early 1970s, as part of the US Government policy to try to influence events in Chile, the CIA undertook specific covert action projects in Chile. Those hereby acknowledged are described below. The overwhelming objective—firmly rooted in the policy of the period—was to discredit Marxist-leaning political leaders, especially Dr. Salvador Allende, and to strengthen and encourage their civilian and military opponents to prevent them from assuming power.

**Overview of Covert Actions.** At the direction of the White House and interagency policy coordination

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committees, CIA undertook the covert activities described below. There were sustained propaganda efforts, including financial support for major news media, against Allende and other Marxists. Political action projects supported selected parties before and after the 1964 elections and after Allende's 1970 election.

* In April 1962, the "5412 Panel Special Group"—a sub-cabinet body charged with reviewing proposed covert actions—approved a proposal to carry out a program of covert financial assistance to the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) to support the 1964 Presidential candidacy of Eduardo Frei.

* Also in 1962, the CIA began supporting a civic action group that undertook various propaganda activities, including distributing posters and leaflets.

* In December 1963, the 5412 Group agreed to provide a one-time payment to the Democratic Front, a coalition of three moderate to conservative parties, in support of the Front's Presidential campaign.

* In April 1964, the 5412 Group approved a propaganda and political action program for the upcoming September 1964 Presidential election.

* In May 1964, following the dissolution of the Democratic Front, the "303 Committee," successor to the 5412 Group, agreed to give the Radical Party additional covert assistance.

* In February 1965, the 303 Committee approved a proposal to give covert assistance to selected candidates in upcoming Congressional elections.

* In 1967, the CIA set up a propaganda mechanism for making placements in radio and news media.

* In July 1968, the 303 Committee approved a political action program to support individual moderate candidates running in the 1969 Congressional elections.

* As a result of 1968 propaganda activities, in 1969 the "40 Committee" (successor to the 303 Committee) approved the establishment of a propaganda workshop.

* In the runup to the 1970 Presidential elections, the 40 Committee directed CIA to carry out "spoiling operations" to prevent an Allende victory.

* As part of a "Track I" strategy to block Allende from taking office after the 4 September election, CIA sought to influence a Congressional run-off vote required by the Constitution because Allende did not win an absolute majority.

* As part of a "Track II" strategy, CIA was directed to seek to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office (see discussion below).

* While Allende was in office, the 40 Committee approved the redirection of "Track I" operations that—combined with a renewed effort to support the PDC in 1971 and a project to provide support to the National Party and Democratic Radical Party in 1972—funneled millions of dollars to strengthen opposition political parties. CIA also provided assistance to militant right-wing groups to undermine the President and create a tense environment.

**Support for Coup in 1970.** Under "Track II" of the strategy, CIA sought to instigate a coup to prevent

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Allende from taking office after he won a plurality in the 4 September election and before, as Constitutionally required because he did not win an absolute majority, the Chilean Congress reaffirmed his victory. CIA was working with three different groups of plotters. All three groups made it clear that any coup would require the kidnapping of Army Commander Rene Schneider, who felt deeply that the Constitution required that the Army allow Allende to assume power. CIA agreed with that assessment. Although CIA provided weapons to one of the groups, we have found no information that the plotters' or CIA's intention was for the general to be killed. Contact with one group of plotters was dropped early on because of its extremist tendencies. CIA provided tear gas, submachine-guns and ammunition to the second group. The third group attempted to kidnap Schneider, mortally wounding him in the attack. CIA had previously encouraged this group to launch a coup but withdrew support four days before the attack because, in CIA's assessment, the group could not carry it out successfully.

**Awareness of Coup Plotting in 1973.** Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it. There was no way that anyone, including CIA, could have known that Allende would refuse the putchists' offer of safe passage out of the country and that instead—with *La Moneda* Palace under bombardment from tanks and airplanes and in flames—would take his own life.

**Knowledge of Human Rights Violations.** CIA officers were aware of and reported to analysts and policymakers in 1973 that General Pinochet and the forces that overthrew the Allende Government were conducting a severe campaign against leftists and perceived political enemies in the early months after the coup. Activities of some security services portended a long-term effort to suppress opponents. In January 1974, CIA officers and assets were tasked to report on human rights violations by the Chilean government.

**Liaison with Chilean Security Services.** The CIA had liaison relationships in Chile with the primary purpose of securing assistance in gathering intelligence on external targets. The CIA offered these services assistance in internal organization and training to combat subversion and terrorism from abroad, not in combating internal opponents of the government. The CIA also used these relationships to admonish these services concerning human rights abuses in Chile. The policy community and CIA recognized that the relationships opened the CIA to possible identification with the liaison services' internal operations involving human rights abuses but determined that the contact was necessary for CIA's mission.

**Propaganda in Support of Pinochet Regime.** After the coup in September 1973, CIA suspended new covert action funding but continued some ongoing propaganda projects, including support for news media committed to creating a positive image for the military Junta. Chilean individuals who had collaborated with the CIA but were not acting at CIA direction assisted in the preparation of the "White Book," a document intended to justify overthrowing Allende. It contained an allegation that leftists had a secret "Plan Z" to murder the high command in the months before the coup, which CIA believed was probably disinformation by the Junta.

**Knowledge of "Operation Condor."** Within a year after the coup, the CIA and other US Government agencies were aware of bilateral cooperation among regional intelligence services to track the activities of and, in at least a few cases, kill political opponents. This was the precursor to Operation Condor, an intelligence-sharing arrangement among Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay established in 1975.

## Internal Qualms

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Some CIA officers expressed reservations about certain activities during this period. The Intelligence Community's analytic assessment of the prospects for a coup in 1970, for example, was that "military action is impossible" because the Army was too deeply committed to the Constitution and unwilling to oust the civilian government. The DCI stated that the Agency was being asked to do the impossible. A senior CIA officer said the idea of undermining an Allende victory was "unrealistic." National Intelligence Estimates produced between 1969 and 1973 reflected declining confidence over time that Allende would be able to subvert Chile's constitutional order. In addition, in the period preceding the successful coup against Allende, CIA officers were concerned about the blurring of lines between monitoring coup-plotting—collecting intelligence on such activities but not directing or influencing them—and supporting a coup at least implicitly.

## Historical Context

The historical backdrop sheds important light on the policies, practices, and perceived urgency prevalent at that time. The Cuban revolution and emergence of Communist parties in Latin America had brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere. Thousands of Chilean military officers came to the United States for training, which included presentations on the impact of global communism on their own country. After Allende won a plurality in the Presidential election on 4 September 1970, the consensus at the highest levels of the US Government was that an Allende Presidency would seriously hurt US national interests.

Efforts by the United States to support anti-Communist forces in Chile date back to the late 1950s and reflect the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union for influence throughout the Third World. The growing strength of the Chilean left, along with continuing fragmentation by conservative and moderate political forces, became increasing concerns through the 1960s to the United States, which wanted to avoid the emergence of "another Cuba" in the Western Hemisphere.

According to the Church Committee report, in their meeting with CIA Director Richard Helms and Attorney General John Mitchell on 15 September 1970 President Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, directed the CIA to prevent Allende from taking power. They were "not concerned [about the] risks involved," according to Helms' notes. In addition to political action, Nixon and Kissinger, according to Helms's notes, ordered steps to "make the economy scream."

These Cold War attitudes persisted into the Pinochet era. After Pinochet came to power, senior policymakers appeared reluctant to criticize human rights violations, taking to task US diplomats urging greater attention to the problem. US military assistance and sales grew significantly during the years of greatest human rights abuses. According to a previously released Memorandum of Conversation, Kissinger in June 1976 indicated to Pinochet that the US Government was sympathetic to his regime, although Kissinger advised some progress on human rights in order to improve Chile's image in the US Congress.

## SUPPORTING MATERIAL

### The "Assassination" of President Salvador Allende

In 1962 the CIA received authority to carry out covert action projects in support of the Chilean Radical Party and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). These programs were designed primarily to assist the parties in attracting larger followings, improve their organization and effectiveness, and influence their political orientation to support US objectives in the region. A secondary purpose of these programs was

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to support efforts to split the Socialist Party. At the request of the US Ambassador in Chile, with the support of the Department of State, in 1963 the 5412 Group approved a one-time payment to the Democratic Front. Propaganda efforts to support public media consisted primarily of funding and guidance to recruited assets within selected Chilean radio stations and newspapers.

In preparation for the 1964 elections, a political action campaign was approved on 2 April 1964 by the 303 Committee. The goal of the campaign was to prevent Dr. Salvador Allende, the leftist candidate for President, from winning. Eduardo Frei of the Christian Democratic Party was the principal beneficiary of these efforts. The campaign built on the covert action previously approved in 1962, adding an element of support for a militant women's group. In the same timeframe, the CIA was tasked to support continued unilateral placements of propaganda in the mass media to influence public opinion against leftist parties and candidates. By the time of the election, the 303 Committee had approved a total of $3 million to keep Allende from winning. Frei's victory on 4 September 1964 was a milestone in the CIA's Chilean election effort.

On 5 February 1965, the 303 Committee approved a new covert action campaign intended to support selected candidates for Congressional elections on 7 March. This campaign—drafted and carried out in cooperation with the US Ambassador in Chile—authorized the CIA, working through its established infrastructure, to support selected candidates for Congress. The operation was considered a success and was terminated on 30 June. In 1965-66, previous propaganda efforts were merged, and the CIA established a covert action project to support the placement of propaganda in Chilean mass media. This project was to influence public opinion against leftist parties and candidates. The scope of CIA's propaganda activities in Chile was further expanded in 1967, to promote "anti-Communist" themes, specifically against the Soviet Bloc presence in the country.

Nonetheless, the Chilean left made political gains during the Frei Administration. As a result, CIA was given approval in 1968-69 to undertake additional propaganda operations intended to influence Chilean mass media. This included establishing a propaganda workshop and other mechanisms for press placements. Propaganda topics included the threat posed by the Soviet Bloc to Chile's democratic tradition, the danger local leftist fronts posed to the country, and promoting pro-democratic leadership in Chile. In July 1968, the 303 Committee approved a modest covert action program, proposed by the US Ambassador, to influence the composition of the Chilean Congress by supporting moderate candidates in the March 1969 Congressional elections. While the results were considered an operational success, both the far right and far left gained seats, and the Chilean political scene was further polarized. Frei and his moderate PDC candidates were the losers. This CIA program was terminated at the conclusion of the Congressional elections.

As the 1970 Presidential election drew near, Allende emerged as a leading candidate; various leftist parties continued to strengthen the Popular Unity (UP) coalition. The Station used some of the covert actions mentioned above to carry out a variety of political action and propaganda operations aimed at discrediting the left. The 40 Committee told the CIA to confine itself to attacking the UP coalition and not support any particular Presidential candidate. The objective was to divide the left and create conditions for a non-Marxist candidate to win the election. On 27 June 1970 the Station was directed to focus the "spoiling operation" more directly against Allende's candidacy. The plan was to alert the Chilean people to the dangers of a Marxist regime under Allende.

In spite of increased funding as directed by the 40 Committee, by August 1970 it was clear that the spoiling operation was not succeeding and that Allende and the UP had garnered such support that Allende was clearly the leading candidate. High-level concern in the Nixon Administration resulted in development of a more aggressive covert action initiative. This initiative considered both political action (Track I) and a military coup (Track II) to prevent an Allende presidency. Both Track I and

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Track II initiatives ran simultaneously until Congress elected Allende on 24 October.

The political action program under consideration called for the Embassy and Station to influence the Chilean Congress as it took up the matter. This involved encouraging Congress to vote for Alessandri for President in spite of the fact Allende received a slightly higher popular vote. (Allende won 36.3 percent of the vote on 4 September—a plurality, not the majority required by the Constitution to avoid Congressional reaffirmation of the victory.) The Station and the Embassy, working through intermediaries, urged Frei to use his influence with Congress to convince non-leftist forces to vote for Alessandri. The scenario was to have Congress elect Alessandri as President; he would then resign, thereby allowing Frei to run as a candidate against Allende in a new election.

The Track II initiative called upon CIA to plan for the possibility of arranging Chilean military intervention. On 9 September the Station received guidance from Headquarters directing it to establish direct contact with Chilean military officers to evaluate the possibilities of stimulating a military coup if a decision were to be made to do so.

On 15 September President Nixon informed the DCI that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States. He instructed the CIA to prevent Allende from coming to power or unseat him and authorized $10 million for this purpose. The President specifically directed that this action be carried out by the CIA without advising the Departments of State or Defense or the U.S. Ambassador in Chile. In response to Nixon's direction, CIA took a variety of actions, including making overtures to the military of a foreign government to request its insights, forwarding worldwide propaganda information for placement in local media, initiating efforts to promote public opposition to Allende among leading newspapers such as *El Mercurio*, and contacting a Catholic layman who was in touch with Church leaders in Chile to influence their attitudes toward Allende. Station officers increased contacts with Chilean military officers. Frei was also encouraged to use his influence with the military and encourage officers to consider forming a new government before Congress elected Allende President. By late September it was clear that Frei was unlikely to act in this manner.

Track II planning was intensified once it became clear that Frei would not act. Between 5-20 October the Station orchestrated numerous contacts with key Chilean military and *Carabinero* (national police) officers to convince them to carry out a coup. The U.S. Embassy's Army Attaché was placed under operational control of the CIA Station and relayed similar messages to his military contacts. Four CIA officers were dispatched under non-official cover to meet with the most sensitive of these Chilean military officers, who were actively involved in coup plotting.

The Track II initiative failed, however, after the assassination of Army Commander-in-Chief Schneider, whose death provoked a strong reaction in Chile.

## The Schneider Assassination

The US Government and the CIA were aware of and agreed with Chilean officers' assessment that the abduction of General Rene Schneider, the Chilean Army's Commander in September 1970, was an essential step in any coup plan. We have found no information, however, that the coup plotters' or CIA's intention was that the general be killed in any abduction effort. Schneider was a strong supporter of the Chilean Constitution and a major stumbling block for military officers seeking to carry out a coup to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.

Retired Army General Roberto Viaux was a major coup plotter with support from non-commissioned and junior officers; he also headed several right-wing civilian groups. After CIA was directed to explore

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prospects for a coup to prevent Allende from taking office, a CIA officer established contact with Viaux on 9 October 1970. A second meeting with Viaux resulted in the Station forwarding a request to Washington from Viaux for weapons, tear gas and other supplies as well as a life insurance policy for himself. In reviewing Viaux's proposal, CIA Headquarters determined that his group had no chance of carrying off a successful coup. Headquarters advised the Station, and during meetings on 17

18 October a CIA officer told a member of the Viaux group, that CIA would not entertain their request for support. The officer warned them that any coup action on their part would be premature. The Viaux representative said the coup was planned for 21-22 October, and the first step would be to kidnap General Schneider. The Station doubted the plan because CIA had no corroborative intelligence and Viaux's group had a record of false starts.

On 22 October the Viaux group, acting independently of the CIA at that time, carried out an attempted abduction against General Schneider that resulted in his death. Schneider's death shocked the armed forces and civilian proponents of a coup, and plans for military action were shelved.

In addition to Viaux, CIA had established contact with other coup-plotters, including General Camilo Valenzuela. Valenzuela's group was well known by the Station and was judged to have the capability to carry out a successful coup. CIA provided this group—which also saw the abduction of General Schneider as essential to any coup—three submachine guns, ammunition, and 8 to 10 tear gas grenades on 22 October. (These weapons were later returned unused to the Station.) Valenzuela's representative insisted his group had nothing to do with Schneider's killing and that Viaux acted on his own.

In November 1970 a member of the Viaux group who avoided capture recontacted the Agency and requested financial assistance on behalf of the group. Although the Agency had no obligation to the group because it acted on its own, in an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons, $35,000 was passed.

## Early Allende Presidency

The Congress approved Allende's election victory by a wide margin—153 to 35—on 24 October. In the wake of Allende's inauguration on 3 November 1970, the US Government's long-term objective was to keep the opposition active in the hope that it could defeat Allende in the 1976 election. The CIA's role in Chile was primarily to provide funds and influence opposition political parties. In 1971, a new covert action was approved to renew support to the PDC. In 1972, a new covert action project was authorized to provide support to the National Party and the Democratic Radical Party. CIA's continuing financial support to the propaganda mechanisms described above was intended to continue media placements in support of opposition parties and against the Allende regime. The CIA was instructed to put the US Government in a position to take future advantage of either a political or military solution to the Chilean dilemma, depending on how developments unfolded.

The CIA continued to collect intelligence on Chilean military officers actively opposed to the Allende government, but no effort was made to assist them in any way. Some CIA assets and contacts were in direct contact with coup plotters; CIA guidance was that the purpose of these contacts was only to collect intelligence. As coup rumors and planning escalated by the end of 1972, CIA exercised extreme care in all dealings with Chilean military officers and continued to monitor their activities but under no circumstances attempted to influence them. By October 1972 the consensus within the US government was that the military intended to launch a coup at some point, that it did not need US support for a successful coup, and that US intervention or assistance in a coup should be avoided.

On 21 August 1973 the 40 Committee approved a $1 million supplemental budget to increase support

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