U.S. intervention in Chile
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The United States on several occasions sought to influence the policies or government of Chile. This article focuses on the period starting in the early 1960s.
The Marxist presidential candidate Salvador Allende was a top contender in the 1964 election, and the US, through the CIA, spent millions campaigning against him, mostly through radio and print advertising. Allende was defeated, for which the CIA took some credit.
He stood again in the 1970 presidential election. Again, US intelligence sought to prevent his election, but at the end of a very close race he won a plurality, though not a majority, and was duly invested as president.
Once Allende was in office, the US, led by Nixon, who stated his fear that Chile could become "another Cuba", initiated plans to work with insurgent elements within Chile to overthrow Allende in a coup. After negotiations with these elements, and after one bungled minor operation (see below), the CIA broke off these efforts.
The US began implementing economic sanctions against Chile to encourage his resignation, his overthrow, or his defeat in the 1976 elections. These sanctions aggravated worsening conditions within Chile.
On September 11, 1973, a coup led by Augusto Pinochet (See Chilean coup of 1973) resulted in the overthrow of Allende and the establishment of a military government. The CIA reports having received notice of the impending coup from contacts within the government two days before.
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1964 and 1970 elections
The CIA provided funding and propaganda support to Chilean opponents of Allende in the 1964 and 1970 elections.
1970
Clandestine efforts by the U.S. government to prevent Allende from taking office after his 1970 election victory are particularly well documented in U.S. documents declassified during the Clinton administration. For example, a formal instruction was issued on 16 October 1970 to the CIA base in Chile, saying in part, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden..." [1] (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch05-01.htm)
There is no doubt that U.S. officials ordered measures up to and including support for a potential coup to prevent Allende from taking office, although there are conflicting views as to whether the U.S. later pulled back from this position. That the U.S. was planning a potential coup in Chile is evident in a secret cable from Thomas Karamessines, the CIA Deputy Director of Plans, to the Santiago CIA station, dated October 16, 1970, after the election but before Allende's inauguration: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup ... it is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [Unites States Government] and American hand be well hidden" [Karamessines, 1970].
The killing of the Chief Commander of the Army
An early documented action in this regard was the killing of René Schneider by an anti-Allende group. Schneider was the army chief commander and a constitutionalist, which meant he would not support a coup. The CIA in Santiago kept contact with two groups inside the military and provided guns and money for kidnapping Schneider, but he was killed inside his car during the operation. This incident caused the citizens and the military to rally behind the just-elected Allende.
On September 10, 2001, a suit was filed by the family of Schneider, accusing former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of arranging Schneider's 1970 murder because he would have opposed a military coup [2] (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/29/1019441343996.html). However, CIA documents indicate that while the CIA had sought his kidnapping, his killing, which was committed by a rebel military group that had been in contact with the CIA, was never intended. Kissinger apparently declared the coup "hopeless" and ordered it turned off [3] (http://www.aei.org/news/filter.,newsID.19385/news_detail.asp). It appears that the CIA maintained contacts with the group in the lead-up to and after Schneider's death, though.
Economic pressure on Allende
Immediately after the Allende government won office, the U.S. began high-level planning to ensure the Marxist experiment would not succeed. This would be achieved by, among other strategies, massive reduction in economic aid. U.S. National Security Council documents, later ordered released by U.S. President Bill Clinton [4] (http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2000/09/11/world/main232452.shtml), include decision memorandum no. 93, dated November 9, 1970, written by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and addressed to the heads of diplomatic, defense and intelligence departments. This document stated that pressure should be placed on the Allende government to prevent its consolidation and limit its ability to implement policies contrary to U.S. and hemisphere interests, specifically, the President has directed no new bilateral economic aid commitments be undertaken with the government of Chile [Kissinger, 1970].
Between 1964 and 1970 (under President Eduardo Frei), over $1 billion in economic assistance flowed in; during Allende's tenure (1970-73), disbursements were non-existent or negligible [Petras & Morley, 1974]. The reduction in aid was combined with the fall in the value of copper from a 1970 high of US$66 to a low of US$48 per ton, which undermined Allende's proposed restructuring of the Chilean economy. As the program was dependent on government spending, this caused a decline in the socio-economic circumstances of Chile's poorest citizens.
The U.S. government under Richard Nixon never hid its dislike of the Allende regime, so they could hardly have been expected to render Allende active support. Whether the United States' economic policy towards Chile caused the economic crisis or merely aggravated what was already an intractable situation for Allende is unclear. However, it is realistic to remark that these policies did adversely affect Allende's chances of alleviating the crisis.
1973 coup
While U.S. government hostility to the Allende government is unquestioned, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a highly controversial matter. Claims of their direct involvement in the actual coup are neither proven nor contradicted by publicly available documentary evidence; many potentially relevant documents still remain classified. Regarding Pinochet's rise to power, the CIA undertook a comprehensive analysis of its records and individual memoirs as well as conducting interviews with former agents, and concluded in a report issued in 2000 that the CIA "did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency." [5] (http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/chile/)
The CIA was notified by contacts of the impending Pinochet coup two days in advance, but contends it "played no direct role in" the coup. After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told U.S. President Richard Nixon that the U.S. "didn't do it" (referring to the coup itself) but had "created the conditions as great [sic] as possible." [6] (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm#chile)
The coup, regardless of the degree of U.S. involvement, achieved the U.S. government's objective of eliminating the possibility of socialism being constructed in Chile, and brought about a regime sympathetic to U.S. interests.
Support for Pinochet
The U.S. provided material support to the military regime after the coup, although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses [7] (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000919/). The CIA's publicly announced policies on paid informants have since been modified to exclude those involved in such abuses, but at the time they were evaluated on a case-by-case basis and measured with the value of the information they provided.
Later comments and actions by U.S. officials
In her evaluation of United States foreign policy around the time of the coup in Chile, Jeane Kirkpatrick, later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, highlighted her country's lack of overt aggressiveness in the developing world while events were transpiring in Chile. "In the last decade especially we have practiced remarkable forbearance everywhere." [Kirkpatrick, 1979] While this is the case for overt U.S. policy, severely constrained by the movement that had grown up in opposition to the Vietnam War, nonetheless, as discussed above, United States policy regarding aid (at the very least) helped lead to Allende's downfall, and the U.S. actively supported coup planning on some occasions, although possibly not that of the coup that actually took place.
U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered the release of numerous documents relating to U.S. policy and actions toward Chile. [8] (http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2000/09/11/world/main232452.shtml) The documents produced by various U.S. agencies were provided by the US State Department in October 1999. The collection of 1,100 documents dealt with the years leading up to the military coup. One of these documents establishes that U.S. military aid was raised dramatically between the coming to power of Allende in 1970, when it amounted to US$800,000 annually, to US$10.9 million in 1972.
In a 2003 interview on the U.S. Black Entertainment Television network, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked about why the United States saw itself as the "moral superior" in the Iraq conflict, citing the Chilean coup as an example of U.S. intervention that went against the wishes of the local population. Powell responded: "With respect to your earlier comments about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of." Chilean newspapers hailed the news as the first time the U.S. government had conceded a role in the affair.
Articles about Allende/Pinochet coup d'état in Chile
- History of Chile - long article with section on 1970-1973 events
- 1970 Chilean presidential election
- Chile under Allende
- Salvador Allende - deposed by 1973 coup
- 1973 coup in Chile
- Augusto Pinochet - took power in 1973 coup
- Chile under Pinochet - aftermath of the coup
2004 investigation
The lower house of the Chilean Congress announced on October 6, 2004 that an investigation would begin of alleged CIA activities in Chile over a period of several decades. Of particular interest are the CIA's efforts to prevent Allende's election in 1970. [9] (http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-chile-cia-probe,0,1230712.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines)
References
- Thomas Karamessines (1970). Operating guidance cable on coup plotting in Chile (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch05-01.htm), Washington: National Security Council.
- Jeane Kirkpatrick (1979). "Dictatorships and Double Standards", Commentary, November, pp34-45.
- Henry Kissinger (1970). National Security Decision 93: Policy Towards Chile (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch09-01.htm), Washington: National Security Council.
- James F. Petras & Morris H. Morley (1974). How Allende fell: A study in U.S.–Chilean relations, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.
External links
- National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/latin_america/chile.htm) which provides documents obtained from FOIA requests regarding U.S. involvement in Chile, beginning with attempts to promote a coup in 1970 and continuing through U.S. support for Pinochet
- "Make the Economy Scream" famous instruction of Nixon to the CIA about Chile (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch26-01.htm)
- CIA Machinations in Chile in 1970 (http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol47no3/article03.html) (report on CIA.gov)
- CIA activities in Chile (http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/chile/) (detailed report by the CIA itself)
- Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm)