ADD PINOCHET TO THE CIA BASHERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807220001-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 30, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807220001-5
3Tit,L`APEA D WASHINGTON TIMES
ON PAGE _L 11 ~ 30 April 1987
Add
Pinochet
to the
CIA
bashers
BEN WATTENBERG
SANTIAGO, Chile
I n his first on-the-record inter-
view since the pope's visit to
Chile in early April, President
Augusto Pinochet expressed
deep distrust of the United States as
the world's democratic leader, and
said he thought the CIA might have
been involved in a recent attempt to
assassinate him. Gen. Pinochet said
he would not speed up his planned
transition to democracy in Chile.
Gen. Pinochet's remarks were
made during a wide-ranging, hour-
long session on April 28 with a fact-
finding delegation from Prodemca,
an American organization dedicated
to the promotion of democracy in
Central and South America.
The session underscored the rea-
sons for the rising tensions in Chile
as the society is opening up - too
slowly for opposition leaders and
just about on schedule for Gen. Pino-
chet's military junta.
Gen. Pinochet, while declaring
himself a democrat, revealed a deep
fear that modern democracies tend
to deteriorate over time as special
interests come to dominate a nation's
affairs. That, he said, is what hap-
pened in Chile, beginning as early as
the 1890s and culminating in the
election of Marxist Salvador Al-
lende in 1970. That election, says
Gen. Pinochet, brought Chile to the
brink of both an economic collapse
and a civil war which the commu-
nists were prepared to fight and win.
(Mr. Allende won the 1970 election
with 36 percent of the vote and
formed a coalition government with
the Communists, the Radical Party
and a splinter group of the Christian
Democratic Party.)
Chile, said Gen. Pinochet, is under
permanent pressure from commu-
nists backed by the Soviet Union,
and the United States is not acting
wisely as the world's anti-
communist leader. "You have never
won a war," he said to the Prodemca
delegation. "In World War II you
waited for the Russians (to take over
Eastern Europe). You saved Ger-
many, France and Belgium but there
are communists active there now."
Americans, Mr. Pinochet said,
A did not win in Cuba, Korea,
Vietnam, Iran, El Salvador
or Nicaragua. One reason for this, as
in Vietnam, was that America
pushed her allies to move toward de-
mocracy too quickly during times of
turbulence and threat. He did not
intend to be hurried in Chile. He said
that "as a military man" he could see
that the United States was acting too
slowly in Nicaragua. When asked
what the United States could do to
help Chile toward democracy, he
said, "Leave us alone."
Gen. Pinochet did not directly
accuse the CIA of playing a role in
the assassination attempt of Sept. 7,
1986, but he said that intelligence
sources, including someone "who
had once worked for the CIA;'
warned him of possible CIA threats
starting in 1973, and that more insis-
tent warnings came before the ac-
tual attempt. Gen. Pinochet said that
Vernon Walters, now U.S. ambassa-
dor to the United Nations, had told
him his fears were unfounded. Gen.
Pinochet says he is getting unspecif-
ied assassination warnings again
now.
When asked if it weren't more
likely that the Soviet KGB was be-
hind the assassination attempt, Gen.
Pinochet said, "Sometimes the two
powers act together." Most observ-
ers in Chile believe the attack on
Gen. Pinochet was made by a Chil-
ean communist terror organization,
the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic
Front, which has claimed public
credit for it.
Gen. Pinochet talked about his
long, private conversations with the
pope. He said he liked him a great
deal, in part because he is "as anti-
communist as I am."
Alternately jovial, stern and dy-
namic, Gen. Pinochet dismissed the
Chilean opposition's call for a
prompt general election. A time-
table for democracy in Chile exists,
including a controversial plebiscite
in 1988, Gen. Pinochet said, and that
timetable was being followed. In re-
cent months there has been some
modest liberalization of press con-
trols, of police detention procedures
and of political party activity.
Some opposition forces maintain
that the recent reforms are only cos-
metic, but others - and diplomatic
sources here - claim they are real,
although leaving much room for im-
provement.
The main issue raised by the re-
surgent political activists here con-
cerns the 1988 plebiscite that, under
current law, would only give voters a
"yes" or "no" choice on a candidate
nominated by the military.
Only if the "no" forces won, would
there be a general election for pres-
ident, although a congress would be
elected in any event in 1990.
Opposition forces want a general
election without a plebiscite,
claiming that the 1980 constitution
calling for the plebiscite was en-
acted as a result of a fraudulent vote.
The Prodemca delegation, of
which this writer is a member, ex-
pects to issue a statement today
when their mission is completed.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807220001-5