Chilean coup of 1973

:This article is about the successful coup in September 1973 that brought Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet to power. For the failed coup attempt in June of the same year, see tanquetazo.

U.S. role in 1973 coup

See main article U.S. intervention in Chile.

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While U.S. government hostility to the Allende regime is unquestioned, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a controversial matter. Documents declassified during the Clinton administration show that the United States government and the CIA had sought the overthrow of Allende in 1970, immediately after he took office ("Project FUBELT"; U.S. efforts to prevent Allende taking office in 1970 are discussed in 1970 Chilean presidential election), but 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." http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/chile/

Related Topics:
Clinton administration - United States - CIA - Project FUBELT - 1970 Chilean presidential election

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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. On September 16 1973, after Pinochet had assumed power, the following exchange about the coup took place between U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon:

Related Topics:
September 16 - 1973 - National Security Advisor - Henry Kissinger - President - Richard Nixon

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: Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there?

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: Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.

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: Nixon: Isn't that something. Isn't that something.

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: Kissinger: I mean instead of celebrating ? in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.

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: Nixon: Well we didn't ? as you know ? our hand doesn't show on this one though.

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: Kissinger: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. created the conditions as great as possible.

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: Nixon: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm#chile

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Immediately after the Allende government came into office, the U.S. sought to place economic pressure on Chile. U.S. National Security Council documents, later ordered released by U.S. President Bill Clinton http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2000/09/11/world/main232452.shtml, include decision memorandum no. 93, dated November 9, 1970, written by 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 hemispheric interests, such as Allende's total nationalization of several foreign corporations and the copper industry. Specifically, Nixon directed that no new bilateral economic aid commitments be undertaken with the government of Chile .

Related Topics:
U.S. National Security Council - Bill Clinton - November 9 - 1970

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Between 1964 and 1970 (under Frei), over USD $1 billion in economic assistance flowed in; during the Allende's tenure (1970-73) disbursements were non-existent or negligible . The reduction in aid combined with the fall in the value of copper from a 1970 high of $66 to a low of $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 socioeconomic circumstances of Chile's poorest citizens.

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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.

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That the U.S. planned 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 and American hand be well hidden" .

Related Topics:
October 16 - 1970

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Once it became clear that Allende had won a plurality of the votes in 1970, the CIA proposed two plans. Track I was designed to persuade the Chilean Congress, through outgoing Christian Democratic President Eduardo Frei, to confirm conservative runner-up Jorge Alessandri as president. Alessandri would resign shortly after, rendering Frei eligible to run against Allende in new elections. However, Track I was dropped, because Frei, despite being firmly anti-Allende, was also adamantly opposed to going against Chile's longstanding democratic traditions.

Related Topics:
Christian Democratic - Eduardo Frei - Jorge Alessandri

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The CIA had also drawn up a second plan, Track II, in case Track I failed. The agency would find generals willing to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency and provide them with support for a coup. Presumably, a provisional military junta could then call new elections in which Allende could be defeated.

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The agency came into contact with General Roberto Viaux, who was planning a coup with loyal military officers. An important part of Viaux's plan was to kidnap Chilean Army Chief of Staff General René Schneider, who, as a constitutionalist, was opposed to the idea of a coup from a historically apolitical military. The CIA maintained contact with Viaux, but eventually decided against supporting his plot, instead looking for other generals willing to take part in a coup. About the Viaux situation, Kissinger said to Nixon on October 15, 1970, "This looks hopeless. I turned it off. Nothing would be worse than an abortive coup."

Related Topics:
Roberto Viaux - René Schneider - October 15 - 1970

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However, on October 22, Viaux went ahead with his plan, which was badly botched. Gen. Schneider drew a handgun to protect himself from his attackers, who in turn drew their guns and shot him in four vital areas; he was pronounced dead in Santiago's military hospital. The event provoked national outrage. As far as American involvement, the Church Committee, which investigated U.S. involvement in Chile during this period, determined that the weapons used in the debacle "were, in all probability, not those supplied by the CIA to the conspirators."

Related Topics:
October 22 - Santiago - Church Committee

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There is no evidence that the U.S. directly backed Pinochet's successful coup in 1973, but the Nixon administration was undoubtedly pleased with the outcome; Nixon had spoken with disappointment about the failed coup earlier that year. Had Allende managed to complete his six-year term, the CIA would likely have simply provided funds and propaganda support to a non-Marxist opponent, as it had done in 1964 and 1970.

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The U.S. did provide material support to the military regime after the coup, although it criticized them in public.

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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 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.

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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 USD $800,000 annually, to $10.9 million in 1972. The U.S. government supported Pinochet's government after he came to power.

Related Topics:
US State Department - USD

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The CIA also had provided funding and propaganda support to political opponents of Allende in the 1964 and 1970 Chilean presidential elections, as well as during the Allende administration.

Related Topics:
1964 - 1970 Chilean presidential election

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On September 10, 2001, a suit was filed by the family of constitutionalist General René Schneider, once head of the Chilean general staff, accusing former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of arranging Schneider's 1970 murder because he would have opposed a military coup http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/29/1019441343996.html. However, CIA documents indicate that while the CIA had discussed potential plans for his kidnapping, his killing, which was committed by a rebel military group with CIA contacts, was never intended. Furthermore, Nixon and Kissinger had decided a week before the killing that General Viaux, who was the chief plotter in the Schneider incident, was not a good bet for the coup.

Related Topics:
September 10 - 2001 - René Schneider - US Secretary of State - Henry Kissinger

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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.

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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. It is realistic to remark that these policies did adversely affect Allende's chances of alleviating the crisis.

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The coup, regardless of the degree of U.S. involvement, achieved the U.S. government objective of eradicating the threat of socialism in Chile and brought about a regime sympathetic to their own interests. 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." 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, at the very least United States policy regarding aid helped lead to Allende's downfall and the U.S. at some times actively supported coup planning, although possibly not that of the coup that actually occurred.

Related Topics:
Jeane Kirkpatrick - United Nations - Vietnam War

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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.

Related Topics:
2003 - Black Entertainment Television - Secretary of State - Colin Powell - Iraq conflict

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