THE DEATH OF ALLENDE: JUST WHAT DOES IT SAY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: June 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6
CLAREMONT COURIER (CA)
5 June 1985
Just
dopy it Sell?
THE LAST TWO
OF SALVADOR ALLEHQE
by Nathaniel Davis
Ptbk red tar the Comet Umersiry Press
Reviewed by DOMW M. Bvay and Mai
bmM wpp MM. Mr. Bray is a professor
of political science at Califon i State Unr ersity,
Los Angeles and Mrs. Bray G c for Of
Latin American studies at the same school.
E role of ambass'iador is an in-
herently tragic one. By tradition it is
highly honorific, carrying with it the
prestige of representing, even embodying the
per of nations and of kings. Yet, although an
ambassador may need experience and 4kii to
carry out his or her (usually his) duties, he is
essenti&Iy without any personal power at all.
In modem times, ambassadors for the most riul
nation the world has ever known have become c 4 a 1 pore
impotent. The system of covert activities which
represents a fundamental, but usually unacknowledged,
arm of US international relations requires that accredited
diplomats be provided with a mantle of deniability which
leaves them ignorant of aspects of policy being im-
plemented through their embassies-that little island of
national property in a foreign land over which they are
supposed to wield sovereignty.
The description Mr. Davis provides of the role of his
predecessor, Ambassdor Edward Korry, in Chile dur-
ing the election of Salvador Allende amply nw s
the fact. Korry was kept in ignorance of Track II, the
CIA plot to prevent Allende from becoming president
of Chile.
Davis makes much of the fact that the Track II scenario
was to be a kidnapping of General Rene Schneider, chief
of staff of the Chilean Army, rather than the assassina-
tion it became. He also spends a chapter trying to ascer-
tain whether Allende lost his life during the coup through
assassination or suicide. The correctness of these facts
does have historial value. But does this deal with the fue-
damental historic issues?
The basic premise of US foreign policy in Latin
America, and in many other parts of the world, which
Mr. Davis spent his life trying to help carry out, is-that
US power should predominate. This involves putting into
place and maintaining through overt and covert means
.governments of foreign nations that officeholders in the
United States regard as conducive to the continuation of
US hegemony. This is a bipartisan foreign policy. There
may be disagreements from time to time, or can shifts
in judgment about which types of foreign leadership will
promote US hegemony, but the fundamental right and
need to play this worldwide game is never questioned.
It is the basic acceptance of this position that make Op
ly researched account is not a diplomat's
a controversial policy of Richard Nixon.
Nixon and Henry Kissing i- made it their project to over-
throw the democratically-elected Allende because he was
a Marxist. He was also a democrat determined to bring
about a peaceful, legal transition to socialism. In his in-
troduction Davis concedes that he has not been able to
"reveal all", because some information remains
classified.
However, he does assure us that "No false impressions
have been knowingly created by artful omission" (p. xiii).
However, the American Institute of Free Labor Develop-
ment (AIFLD) is widely believed to have been an in-
strument of the CIA and is considered by many writers
to have been an important conduit for destabilization in
Chile. In his discussion of this issue, Davis acknowledges
only that AIFLD activities were controversial in Chile
and elsewhere in Latin America because "free trade
unionism is usually a politically sensitive matter". (p. 40)
D AYIS's account seems primarily
motivated toward establishing that
the United States was not covertly
involved in organizing the coup which over-
threw the Unidad Popular government of Presi-
dent Allende. He does this by a lengthy ex-
amination of the public record, augmented by
the personal assurances of the regional head of
the CIA, David Attlee Philips, that this was so.
Logically, the lack of documentation is not ade-
quate to demonstrate something did not happen.
And, somehow, one is not reassured by the protesta-
tions of Mr. Philips, whose presumed training and prac-
tice would not dispose him to acknowledge anything as
yet unrevealed. Moreover, Mr. Davis does not cover all
the bases. One issue which he does not deal with is the
matter of psychological warfare which was raised in a
book that he does use extensively in the section on the
death of Allende. This work, Death in Washington by
Donald Freed and Fred Lap(iis, describes the use of the
newspaper El Mercurio for subtle psychological tech-
niques to create a national climate conducive to the
destabilization of Chilean society. It was the authors' con-
tention that this as directed by the CIA.
CONTINUED
STAT
ILLEGIB
STAT
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Z
History wW have to wait to pass Judgment on whether
or not the US was directly involved in the Chilean coup.
Davis's discussion, lengthy as 4 is, does not erase doubts
from the minds of those who know the history of t7S
involvements in other areas. Davis's own resignation as
Assistant Secretary of State for Africa because of by that
Bute Secretary of State Kissinger's desire to use covert
activities in Angola is a case in point. However, it is not
covert action alone that helps foment a coup.
Yes, the United States set the stage for the overthrow
of the government and constitution in Chile. But that is
not extraordinary. Since the World War II era the US
government has been instrumental in the overthrow of
three chief executives in Guatemala, two in Honduras
and the Dominican Republic, and one in Panama,
Bolivia, Brazil, Grenada, Guyana and El Salvador and
it is currently trying to overthrow the government of
Nicaragua. This is the context of the Chilean events, this
and US efforts to manipulate rulership throughout the
Third World.
In the past US presidents have tried to kill the Cuban
president with poison, high-powered weapons and a
Mafia contract. Honored persons like Nathaniel Davis
are gentlemen in a world'meaner and greedier than the
concealing diplomatic niceties of their offices. Today in
the realm of real power our government demands that
a small Central American country says "uncle" on pain
of continuing to suffer from murderous invading bands
dispatched by. the CIA.
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