U.S. ASSASSINATION PLOTS ABHORRENT USE OF POWER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010063-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: November 22, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010063-4
THE DETROIT FREE PRESS
22 November 1975
&We
Or-ren se - Ot
TRE IDEA that assassination of foreign desireto prevent the election of Mr. Allende.
leaders would ever become an instrument of The CI took part in apla to lea kidnap the
ncand supplied rms ders
~jrierican policy is'abhorrent: ? = `":~' ` ` general
ouin Chile. The general was kid-
'But there it is finally, laid out in all *the ugly planned coup
details by the Senate Intelligence Committee. napped and killed, but not, according to the
The government of the United States, at very committee's findings, as a result of the CIA
lfigfi levels, made plans to murder the leaders planning.
of foreign countries with which*we were not The point. however, e , His to make to carer time,
at utar. an order by the
;The facts. as the country! has now learned situation was construed by the CIA to in- [
them, contain some of the most terrible iron- elude the authorization. to use whatever
means were possible---including assassina-
-
tes.
example, on the day that. President. tion.
Kennedy was killed in Dallas, the CIA was This trend was carried to the point, in the
providing an agent in Cuba with apparatus to case of Premier Castro, of forming alliances
poison Fidel Castro. At the same time, an between the CIA and the most criminal ele-
envoy from the late president was meeting ments of the American gangster world.
with the Cuban premier in an attempt to Coupled with the abuses of Watergate, the
illegalities of the FBI, the IRS and other
improve Cuban-U.S.relations.
:The excellent work of the Church commit- government agencies, these revelations
show the extent to which we have allowed 4
tee shows that the breakdown of morality
and the. humanistic tradition within the our values to become compromised. lndi-
Qerican government knew no single politi- vidual officials of the CIA and other govern-.
c1 a1 party or administration. meet agencies were involved in these
ort by the Senate committee may senseless assassination plots to be sure, but .
is re
?T
p
fi
w$ll mark a watershed in American history.. they believed mistakenly that they were
ame of national
h
i
e n
n t
:FZeading the transcript, it is, easier to un- carrying out policy
tergate could take place. Governments that It is true that much of this sordid business
in a different time and context, during I
ld condone murder of foreign leaders b
o
egan
d
te
~a'sily slipped into criminal acts and abuses the Cold War, when officials in the CIA and
against American citizens. elsewhere felt it incumbent to counter the
- The committee was unable to find that any "dirty tricks' of our enemies.
pieiident had directly ordered the assassina- But none of it has done us any good; our
tiari of any specific foreign leader. But what foreign policy has not been one iota more
didiake place was even more telling in show- successful because of these. assassination
ing:the breakdown of morality within the . plots and would-not have been had any of
U.S: government them been carried out.
Ia'or example. the committee found that What must be done now is for the Congress
President Nixon had personally ordered that and the people to regain control of our insti-
eil?stepsbe taken to prevent the late Salvador tutions. for the Church committee's recom- i
Allende Gossens from becoming president of mendations of new laws prohibiting such
Chile. plots to be approved, and for the leaders of
present and future, to under-
overnment
r
di
,
g
- ou
? The CIA, which received that order
reCtly. considered.Gen. Rene Schneider Cher- stand and prevent the dangerous threat to a
eau of Chile an obstacle to the White House free society implicit in such immoral deeds.
Continued
Approved For Release 2007/06/19: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100010063-4
STAT
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