All other national histories of US intervention in this account include information originating from a variety of sources. This history of US intervention in Chile is solely drawn from an official government source. While it exactly fits the model of brutal and cynical intervention shared with the other national histories contained here, its sources cannot be questioned or dismissed in the same way since they are the equivalent of the criminal confessing his own crime.
This is a summary of “Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973” a Staff Report of the Select Committee to study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, US Senate which in turn is based solely on documents from the CIA, the US Government’s State and Defence Departments and the National Security Council (NSC). It is an account of the US Government being obliged to speak to itself of what it has done. The purpose is to investigate the previous actions of the backroom boys in the CIA. The US constitution has then required the information to be available (with difficulty) to the public. A copy was handed to me in the 1990s by a good friend who knew that I would make good use of it.
To anyone who says of other accounts in this book, “Your sources can’t be trusted. The US don’t do that”, I say witness this account of Chile. This is what they say of themselves…
$11 million spent from 1963-73 on covert action – from buying “assets” within the media and political parties to organising a military coup. In relation to US covert action in other Latin American countries… “The scale of CIA involvement in Chile was unusual but by no means unprecedented”.
Funds for covert action in Chile were issued from the US by the “40 Committee”, an elusive governmental body (previously called the “303 committee”, the “Special Group” etc.) which supposedly monitored and approved CIA activity [or does the CIA monitor and approve 40 committee activity?]. The 40 committee, like all dubious groups of its kind, will plan on the principle of “plausible denial”, i.e. any planned covert action may be subsequently denied by the State Department and especially the President so that some lower ranking official can be blamed for initiating such foul actions without official permission…
1818 – Chile achieves independence and maintains unbroken constitutional rule from 1932 until the military coup of 1973. An urbanised, literate and productive population of 11 million with a GNP per capita of $760. The main export during the previous century was nitrate. Now, copper.
Salvador Allende stood for redistribution of income, nationalisation of major industries (especially copper), expanded agrarian reform, and expanded relations with socialist and communist countries. His party was an alliance of the left called the Popular Action Front (FRAP).
1964 – Presidential Election. US provide $2.6 million for the Christian Democrat candidate, more than half his total support. Support also for other parties in order to split the vote against Allende. US spend twice as much per Chilean voter as that spent per voter by both parties in the US elections of the same year. Undermining national sovereignty? The following year, more US funding during the Chilean congressional elections along the same lines.
1964-69 – CIA spend $2 million on covert action in Chile on 20 separate projects, including
1. 22 candidates supported in Congressional Elections of March 1965. Nine elected with thirteen Popular Front (FRAP) candidates defeated as a result.
2. Support for slum-dwellers and peasants to form “anti-communist” groups. Exposure of CIA support forced their closure by 1967.
3. CIA-inspired editorials almost daily in “El Mercurio”, Chile’s biggest national daily newspaper. Substantial control over foreign reporting from 1968 to suppress harmful information about Vietnam.
September 4th, 1970 – Election – Salvador Allende wins with alleged support from Cuba and the Soviet Union but in spite of $1 million of US covert action to stop him. Placements across Chilean media suggest that an Allende victory would mean “violence and Stalinist repression”. Political support for US favourite Frei fails.
The US propaganda campaign included hundreds of thousands of high quality picture books, posters and leaflets; editorial support group providing political features, articles and editorials for placement by paid “assets” in radio and press outlets; a service for providing anti-communist press and radio items; three different news services; a newsletter mailed to two thousand journalists, academics, politicians and other opinion makers; wall painting teams. All on the themes of Cuban firing squads, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, tanks in the capital Santiago and that an Allende victory would be the end of religion and family life in Chile. A total of 726 CIA-initiated major features appeared in the press, radio and TV during the campaign. Unfortunately for the CIA, the propaganda didn’t gain traction with the locals and multiply.
The poor showing of the Christian Democrats (PDC) by 1970 probably relates to the fact that most Chileans had become aware since 1964 that the PDC was American-backed. American support was covert but the public position of the PDC gives the game away. CIA support in organising the PDC’s 1964 election campaign also undermined the PDC’s subsequent ability to organise for themselves.
“Track 2”. 2 weeks after the election in Chile, US President Richard Nixon meets with CIA director Richard Helms, Henry Kissinger and Attorney General John Mitchell. “Track 1” was political, economic and media propaganda activity. “Track 2” was Nixon’s instruction that the CIA should play a direct role in organising a military coup d’état… “there is no doubt that the US Government sought a military coup in Chile”. Nixon instructed the CIA not to tell the State or Defence Departments or the “40 Committee” or the US ambassador in Chile. By the CIA’s own statistics, only one quarter of all their projects are considered “in public” by the 40 Committee – in other words the CIA, not the elected Government, determine foreign policy operations [although some might argue that the 40 committee sets the framework for CIA activity].
One month after the election, a CIA-funded group of plotters (21 high-ranking Police and Military) were assured of the highest level of support from the US government both before and after a coup. The Group kidnap Chilean Military Chief of Staff Rene Schneider who dies in attempting to resist. Coup plot collapsed. Allende became President.
“Track 1” cut all economic credit to Chile using US control of the major lending institutions (IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Bank etc). US aid dropped from $300 million during the Frei years to around $30 million by 1972 affecting the Chilean Government’s ability to maintain the industrial sector (copper, steel, petrol, electricity and transport). The World Bank made no new loans to Chile under Allende. The private sector were pressurised to disinvest and other nations “encouraged” (co-erced) to co-operate in this venture.
Opposition groups within Chile also organised crippling strikes in the US-controlled copper mining and transportation sectors. US allies within Chile include the Christian Democrat PDC, Congress, the Security Forces, organised labour in US-controlled Chilean industry, and the Catholic Church.
US corporations controlled the production of over 80% of Chile’s copper which formed 80% of Chile’s export earnings. On top of this, the preceding governments of Frei and Alessandri had incurred the second highest debt per capita in the world. Allende attempted to diversify trade by making alliances with Britain, the Western Union, Japan and some minor agreements with Eastern block countries.
ITT, the multinational telecom giant own the Chilean telephone company as a subsidiary. John McCone is on the Board of ITT and is also a former Director of the CIA. McCone contacts then-current CIA Director Richard Helms. The Chairman of ITT meets the CIA Chief of Western Hemisphere Division. ITT found via the CIA a secure channel to pass $350,000 to Alessandri’s Christian Democrats and the National Party. A roughly equal amount was passed by other US private sector interests. ITT also funded El Mercurio.
What don’t ITT like about Allende? Some might say “communism” but that’s only an idea. Some might say communist violence but Allende proved a lot less violent than US backed Pinochet who succeeded him (or any other number of US-backed dictators). So what did Allende actually stand for that US interests found so intolerable?
The link here is copper. Before the current digital age, telephone lines were made out of copper which is also one of Chile’s main resources disappearing onto the export market. Resource extraction is the name of the game. ITT is a very large company which requires an extremely large amount of copper for its global operations. HOW many miles of cable? ITT is literally made out of Chile. Starting a business is easy when you’ve got this kind of favourable access to capital.
1971-73 – $4 million from CIA to opposition political parties, mostly the Christian Democrats (PDC), but also for the right-wing National Party (PN) and other splinter groups.
Both the PDC and PN were able to set up their own radio and press outlets. CIA also funded an opposition research organisation supplying a steady flow of economic and technical data for opposition parties and private sector groups and which drafted many parliamentary bills on behalf of the opposition. It was over 75% CIA-funded by 1973.
Also, $24,000 to an anti-Allende Businessman’s Organisation out of a total of $100,000 passed over in October 1972 alone to the Private Sector in Chile.
The Staff Report admits that distinctions are hard to draw between opposition parties, private sector groups and various militant trade associations and paramilitaries prone to terrorism … “the question of CIA support to Chilean Private Sector groups is a matter of considerable concern because of the violent tactics used by several of these groups in their efforts to bring about military intervention”. The CIA provided “Patria y Libertad” (Fatherland and Liberty) with $38,000 during “Track 2”. Other funding will have reached these extremists via their connections with opposition parties. During opposition party rallies, members of “Patria” marched in full riot gear.
CIA collect lists necessary in the event of a coup – arrest lists, key government and civilian installations to be taken over, personnel needing protection, and the presiding Allende government’s contingency plans in the event of an uprising. By 1972, the CIA had penetrated the group most likely to effect a coup and was in contact through an intermediary with its leader.
September 11, 1973 – General Augusto Pinochet’s coup, backed by US and their expatriate Nazi associates in Bolivia especially Klaus Barbie, the notorious “Butcher of Lyon” during World War 2. Political parties were banned, Congress put in indefinite recess, press censorship instituted, supporters of Allende and other opponents were jailed, elections were put off indefinitely. UN reports “torture centres” operating in Santiago and other parts of the country.
Post-coup covert action objectives – to give the military Junta a more positive image at home and abroad and to maintain access to the command levels of the Chilean Government. Also to help the Government organise and implement new policies. Files show CIA collaborators involved in preparing initial economic plan which served as the basis for the Junta’s most important economic decisions.
September, 1974 – US President Ford publicly admits covert action in Chile at Press Conference.
The pretexts for American interference in Chile consisted of the usual unsubstantiated scare-mongering from Henry Kissinger that Chile would be a Stalinist dictatorship exporting revolution across South America. The evidence from his own departments prove the emptiness of these claims. The idea that a people should have the right to their choice of Government is nowhere to be seen.
National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are prepared by the CIA annually to predict likely future outcomes in countries across the globe. In 1969, 4 years before the coup, the NIE predicted Allende would be a Marxist-Leninist. In 1970, the NIE moderated to a Marxist-Socialist prediction. In 1971, the NIE reported that Allende might be forced to use political techniques of increasingly dubious legality but admitted that Allende had taken great care in observing constitutional forms and was enjoying considerable popularity. It also stated that, although Allende had said he would increase contact with socialist countries, nationalist pride in Chile together with reliance on the West for aid meant that he would not subordinate Chilean interests to any foreign power. Allende was neither interested in Chile becoming a Soviet state nor remaining an American puppet, i.e. his policy was non-alignment.
Further, no evidence existed that Allende was providing clandestine assistance to insurgency movements in neighbouring countries (unlike the US were doing in Chile itself and across the Third World). By 1972, the NIE admits that legislative, student and trades union elections “continued to take place in normal fashion with pro-government forces accepting the results when they were adverse”. By 1973, the NIE reported that Chileans believed Allende had improved their conditions and represented their interests”. Note how far Kissinger’s intelligence sources have now drifted from the “Stalinist Dictatorship” view that Kissinger persisted in holding in his own interests.
Shortly after Allende’s election success of 1970, a CIA memorandum summarised the collected views of the CIA, the Departments of State and Defence and the White House… the US had no vital interests within Chile; the world military balance of power would not be significantly altered by Allende and an Allende victory would not pose any threat to the peace of the region. But it did also say that an Allende victory would threaten “hemispheric cohesion” (uniform US control of the American continent); and that it would be a “psychological setback” to the US, i.e. we fall short of total US control of the planet. There is no mention of less favourable US access to Chilean copper in the memo – polite circles like CIA memos and Staff Reports to the US Senate do not mention such indelicate subjects.
US claims of Chilean abuse of power at home and abroad are thus dismantled and disproved. The claims remain a false pretext for the US to attack their neighbours. The wildly-flung accusations of Imperialist dictatorships apply more to the US themselves than to anyone else because, while the US appear to elect a Government it is the unelected CIA who decide on foreign policy operations as shown above. The CIA share information with the elected as and when they feel bound, not as a matter of course. Section 662 of the US Foreign Assistance Act makes this activity illegal.
Behind the smokescreen of rhetoric, the real agenda may be determined by what actually happens – Americans “encouraging” other countries to put the material needs of Americans first and those of their own people a VERY poor second. In other words, why allow a Chilean democracy to run its own affairs when you could fund a fringe group of Chilean fanatics to run it as a dictatorship for the US? As stated in the Monroe Doctrine which goes all the way back to 1823 … “The integrity of other American nations is an incident, not an end”. Americans are not interested in the sovereign right of other countries to run their own affairs.
Chile under Allende presented the “threat of a good example” – if Chilean needs are prioritised over American needs, the world will see once again that a country works much better without accepting US offers of “help”. The US have also invested a lot in the idea that countries cannot achieve progress without them – the Good Example encourages the world to ask very awkward questions about why increasing US aid to their clients correlates with increasing human rights abuses and lowered living standards. US definitions of “progress” take no account of human suffering. “Progress” means easier and more profitable resource extraction – a few million dollars on the client’s GNP (finding its way into the dictator’s pocket) and a few billion dollars on the Dow-Jones Index (via ITT and partners).
As with Vietnam, it is impossible for the Americans to find a political solution in their interest in a country (like any other country) that has so many good reasons to be anti-American. A party that supports US interests will have little support at home. And the more support that party (in this case the Christian Democrats) receives from the US, the more obvious its affiliations become. As with Vietnam, so with Chile – the only support for Americans comes from far-right armed fanatics and the only solution from the American point of view is a military solution. We will see the most recent manifestation of this tactic when we turn to Bolivia in a future chapter.