CIA ROLE IN CHILE EXPOSED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020093-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 93
• Publication Date: September 18, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020093-1
CIA role
in Chile
exposed;
18SEP1974
By RUTH NEEDLEMAN
The Central Intelligence Agency has officially admitted what
many have known for a long time: it spent millions of dollars over
the past 10 years to block and then to overthrow the presidency of
Salvador Allende in Chile.
Sonic but by no means all of the details of the CIA's anti-Allende
plotting came to light last week. A few days before' the first
anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1973 coup, Rep. Michael Harrington
(D-Conn.), released a summary of top secret testimony given by
CIA director William Colby to a House subcommittee last April.
Among Colby's admissions was that the CIA had allocated over
$8 million between 1970 and 1973 to ."destabilize" Allende's
Popular Unity government. An additional $3 million was spent for
reactionary causes in the Chilean election of 1964.
Colby's testimony also points to Henry Kissinger as the top
policymaker responsible for the CIA's Chilean missions. All
decisions regarding funding for clandestine operations in Chile,
Colby indicated, were discussed and approved by the secret "40
Committee."
Kissinger headed this body from 1969 in his role as President
Nixon's national security advisor. According to high-level
government sources quoted by the New York Times and the
Washington Post, Kissinger himself led a "hard line" faction
demanding swift and forceful action to overthrow the Allende
government.
"I don't see why," Kissinger reportedly told the group, "we
need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the
irresponsibility of its own people." This quote, said the Sept. 11
New York Times, was originally included in the controversial book.
"The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence," but was censored under
pressure of the intelligence agency.
State Department officials, in commenting on the revelations,
clung to their position that there was no U.S. intervention. This
ludicrous pose is an effort to cover for the Secretary of State.
Kissinger told reporters shortly after the coup that "the CIA had
nothing to do with the coup, to the best of my knowledge and
belief-and I only put in that qualification in case some madman
appears down there who without instructions talked to somebody."
The release of Colby's testimony shows this statement up as a
barefaced lie.
NOTHING NEW HERE
Colby's testimony claimed Chile was a "test case" for CIA
operations abroad, a trial run for the technique of making huge cash
payments to bring down a government antagonistic to U.S.
interests. While the admission that large sums were handed over to
individuals, political parties,. paramilitary groups, media and other
institutions are to be believed, the assertion that there is something
unique in all this is beyond credibility.
The CIA's infusion of massive amounts of dollars to prop up
right-wing forces and propel them to overthrow nationalist and
popular governments is nothing new. In Latin America alone. this
has been standard policy. Over the past 20 years the U.S. has been
caught red-handed intervening in Guatemala, Guyana, Brazil, the
Dominican Republic. Bolivia, Cuba,' Vrfij6ay and Chile-with
Argentina on the upcoming agenda.
Colby's testimony also highlights the powerlessness of the State
Department bureaucracy and of the Congress to affect CIA
operations. Congress as a whole was never informed of the "40
Committee" deliberations. Among the 'clandestine CIA operations
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to which Colby admitted are these:
-Passing $500,000 in 1969 and another $500,000 in 1970 under:,
the table to right-wing candidates in the Chilean elections.
-Spending $350,000 in outright bribes to members of the
Chilean congress, in an effort to block the ratification in Sept.-Oct.
1970 of Allende's election to the presidency. (The money was
wasted, Allende was confirmed.)
-Pouring $1.5 million into the coffers of rightist candidates in !
the crucial March 1973 Congressional elections. (Despite this the
Allende forces broadened their electoral support.)
-Budgeting $1 million in Aug. 1973, just weeks before the coup,
for "further political destabilization."
Colby also admitted that the CIA financed right-wing
demonstrations against the Popular Unity government, bought a -
radio station for the right wing, and subsidized a number of
right-wing newspapers. Though he named no names, it is highly
probable that a newspaper that got particularly big subsidies is the
Santiago daily "El Mercurio."
COLBY'S 'MODESTY' -
Extensive though it is, Colby's list of CIA operations in Chile is
actually much too modest. The interventions he admits to are only
the tip of an iceberg. More deeply involved was not only the CIA
itself, but also other U.S. intelligence agencies, government
departments and branches of the military and of the corporate
establishment, as well as high officials of the AFL-CIO, often acting
in coordination. The U.S. government was at the center of a vast
and more or less sophisticated orchestration of interventions and
"disturbances" in Chile aimed at bringing the Allende government
down. .
Among other instances which should be mentioned are the U.S.
credit and spare parts blockade, the buildup of black markets and
hoarding, the already publicized role played by ITT, and the role of
the Rockefeller-controlled Council of the Americas which based its
operations and. channeled its funds through Brazil.
If, as Colby claimed, the CIA did not contribute money to each
and every right-wing cause in Chile, it is because U.S. corporations
and conduits, together with Chile's own financial elite, were
pumping in their own outlandish sums of money at the same time.
One of the key figures in this other network is Agustin Edwards,
Chile's biggest native capitalist, who- is a crony of two Nixon
henchmen-Bebe Rebozo and Pepsico chairman Donald Kendall.
Edwards
was made vice-president of Pepsi-Ch ?e just before
Allende took office and organized a worldwide move' pipeline to the
Chilean right from his estate in Florida.
There is also much evidence that the CIA. conti ry to Colby's
denial. was up to its ears in paramilitar
and t
y
errors activities in
Chile. It had a hand in funding, training and arming ti fascist gang ]
Patria y Libertad and carried on extensive gun-running out of
military bases in Texas. Southern Air Transport. the CIA's Latin
American airline that figured in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
was also observed flying in a large cargo load to Sant..'go just weeks
before the coup.
The CIA was likewise behind the organizations which led the big
lockouts and the reactionary shopkeepers aid truck owners strikes
of Oct. 1972 and July 1973. not to mention a myriad of minor J
espionage and terrorist activities. Without the backing of the CIA . 1
_. -and of the U.S. eovernment and corporations, the Chilean
reactionaries most probably would not have been strung enough to
overthrow the Allende government.
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Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020093-1