CIA REPORTEDLY GOT OK FOR ALLENDE SLAYING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830026-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 7, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: November 23, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830026-0
ART ICL- iM1 . r -+i
ON FAG_ ,3
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
23 NOVEMBER 1982
CIA reportedly got OK for Allende slaying
BOSTON (UPI) - Former President
Richard Nixon and his secretary of
state, Henry Kissinger, gave the CIA "a
blank check" to arrange the assassina-
tion of President Salvador Allende of
Chile in 1970, it was reported yesterday.
CIA Director Richard Helms was
approached by both men and Nixon
gave him a "blank check. to move
against Allende without informing any-
one;' according to an article in the
December issue of Atlantic Monthly
magazine.
The Chilean president was killed in
a coup three years later but there was
no known evidence of CIA involvement.
The Atlantic Monthly article is an
excerpt of Seymour M. Hersh's book,
"The Price of Power: Kissinger in Nix-
on's White House."
Helms told the Senate Intelligence
Committee in 1975 he did not consider
assassination to have been included in
Nixon's authorization to move against
the Chilean president but the former
CIA director reportedly told a different
story to a "close associate" reached by
Hersh.
"In a later conversation ... Helms
provided a much more credible
description of what took place on Sept.
15: Nixon had specifically ordered the
CIA to get rid of Allende;' Hersh wrote.
"Helms told the associate that there
was no doubt in his mind at the time
what Nixon meant."
Helms was pressured again on the
subject at least one time by Kissinger,
the article said.
The Intelligence Committee
reported Nixon authorized the CIA to
stage a military coup if possible -to-
prevent Allende's election in. October
1970 but also said it could:-find no
evidence of American-backed assas-
sination plotting.
Hersh said he also interviewed CIA
agents who took part in an intensive
anti-Allende campaign in late 1970 and
obtained highly classified CIA files not
turned over to the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
He reported Yeoman Charles E. Rad-
ford, who handled documents in a
National Security Council office, was
shocked to discover in 1970 a White
House paper proposing different ways
to kill Allende.
The article said Helms ordered four
veteran CIA agents into Chile between
Sept. 15 and Oct. 24, 1970, the day the
Chilean Congress confirmed Allende's
election.
The agents, known as "false-
flaggers;' were to contact members of
the Chilean militaryknown to be eager
to stage-a ,coup, ,the article said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830026-0