COMMENTATORS PROBE CIA-ITT-CHILEAN CONTROVERSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R001000100009-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 25, 1972
• Content Type: OPEN

FM8-Rye+ or ~ gQ.01/R/~46 CIA-RDP84-00 8001000100009-6
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM Agronsky & Company
March 25, 1972 7:00 PM
STATION WTOP TV
Washington,
COMMENTATORS PROBE CIA-ITT-CHILEAN CONTROVERSY
MARTIN AGRONSKY: George Meany led an AFL-CIO walk-
out from the President's Pay Board this week. The White House
immediately denounced this as sabotage of the administration's
anti-inflation program. Mr. Meany's regarded as having raised
a standard to which he wants labor to rally against Mr. Nixon
in the election.
Life remains hard for Senator Muskie.
Mr.
Muskie
hardly had time to make his victory statement in
this
week's
Illinois primary when a new poll dumped him back
into
third
place. in the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday and
made
Hubert
Humphrey the favorite.
Columnist Jack Anderson meanwhile continues to play
David to the ITT Goliath. Anderson now accuses the ITT of
having sought, with the collaboration of: the CIA and the State
Department, to. interfere in the internal affairs of Chile
by blocking the 1970 election of President Allende....
PETER LISAGOR: ...Martin -- Martin, I think the
Democrats are looking up a.bit now. They felt pretty -- they
were cutting one another up. But with all the problems the
Nixon administration has with ITT and with San Diego and with
busing and with Meany and with other things, I think the Democrats
can probably do a little gloating on their own, because there's
competition for those headlines now in such a way that I don't
think they ought to worry too much about cutting themselves
up.
AGRONSKY: Well, Peter, they can, but they're not.
I mean, one of the arguments that's being made all the way
down the line is that none of the Democratic candidates are
taking firm positions, that all of them are straddling and
really waffling, as Jackson says.
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Well, we'll come back to that in a minute.
AGRONSKY: ...All right. I think that's enough
politics. Let's go to a much...
LISAGOR: You ask outrageous questions, Martin,
you get outrageous answers.
AGRONSKY: Okay. Now, the ITT scandal. Now we've
got, according to Mr. Anderson, documents that demonstrate
that the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as the State
Department, were involved in attempting to nullify the 1970
election of President Allende in Chile. I think it's fair
to say that the Secretary of State denied that the United
States, as he pointed out, intervened in any way in Chile.
Let's carry it from there.
Jack, what do you make of it?
CROSBY NOYES: My name's not Jack, but anyway...
AGRONSKY: I'm sorry. Crosby.
LISAGOR: You're interchangeable.
NOYES: Well, I think the most interesting part
about the ITT interference into the Chilean election was the
total ineffectiveness of it. Apparently, they did a great
deal of thrashing around and trying to get various agencies
of the government to help them and other businesses in trying
to stir up an'army revolt, and all the rest of it. But none
of it worked.
AGRONSKY: Crosby, are you accepting -- I mean,
leaving aside whether it worked or not, are you accepting
then that these documents which portray the CIA involvement
along. with the ITT is [sic] accurate?
NOYES: The CIA is naturally involved in a situation
like the Chilean election in terms of following it and so
on. But there's no evidence that they intervened.
I don't think any of these documents imply that
the CIA was actively doing things to try to change the result.
AGRONSKY: Oh, indeed, they do.
CARL ROWAN: Martin, let me -- let throw in one
little thing...
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AGRONSKY: Yes, Carl.
ROWAN: ...the public ought to remember. Obviously,
IT&T wants to protect its investments, and so forth. Obviously
it's got a lot of guys in Washington who have to show that
they're earning their fat salaries by running and talking
to people.
But I still have no reason to know that they put
the truth in their memoranda when they sent them off to ITT.
He says I went in there; I talked to Meyer; and I went out
to CIA and I talked to Broe. But how do I know that this
guy isn't just making himself look good so his pay check keeps
coming in?
AGRONSKY: Well your point being that you're not
arguing that the memoranda themselves are genuine. What you're
.arguing is whether or not...
ROWAN: Oh, I'm sure they are genuine.
AGRONSKY: ...what the memoranda say happened actually
happened.
ROWAN: Yes. They may be self-serving. Yes.
AGRONSKY: Peter.
LISAGOR: Whether it's true or not, the public is
disposed to believe all this, Martin. And it's just another
piece of evidence of corporate arrogance., Jack, not labor
arrogance, or George Meany's arrogance, but corporate arrogance
that was involved in the ITT anti-trust cases. They've become
so big and so powerful that they really believe they could
do just about what they want to with the American government.
And I might say that in those hearings when Phil
Hart, Senator Phil Hart, asked Dean Griswold have these conglomer-
ates gotten so big that the government can no longer govern,
because if you divest them of certain companies you upset
the economy, you upset the balance of payments. I thought
that was the key question.
ROWAN: And the political system.
AGRONSKY: And the answer was?
LISAGOR: Well, Griswold sort of fumbled around.
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He couldn't answer it. He said he thought it was a good question,
and it remains a good question, because one has to ask how
powerful do these conglomerates become that they can dictate
policy on anti-trust, can, you know, contemplate at least
interfering in a democratic election in Chile. And this is
not new. Crosby's absolutely correct about the CIA. They've
involved themselves in Guatemala years ago...
NOYES: And that's what their job is.
LISAGOR: ...and perhaps in some other countries
we don't know about.
AGRONSKY: Well, why -- why -- why do we accept
it so complacently? Maybe that's the other question...
NOYES: What? That the CIA is involved?
AGRONSKY: The CIA involvement. Their bag of dirty
tricks department.
NOYES: That's what -- that's what they're supposed
to do. I mean, that's one of the things that they're supposed
to do.
AGRONSKY: That's what they're supposed -- they're
supposed to prevent the -- the taking of office of a president
who's popularly elected in Chile? That doesn't make you indignant?
Doesn't worry you a bit?
ROWAN: Well, Martin, we don't know that they...
AGRONSKY: No?
ROWAN: ...Martin...
AGRONSKY: No? Okay, Jack.
ROWAN: ...We don't know that they tried to prevent
his taking office. But we do know this...
AGRONSKY: We know the memoranda said that.
ROWAN: ...that in the elections in all of these
countries you've got a game going where the Russians are trying
to determine who wins by putting money in; the CIA is trying
to do it. And that's the dirty way the game is played in
the world today. And that's one of the terrible things about
it.
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LISAGOR: Well, since communist governments became
a non-dirty name, Martin, as far as Washington is concerned,
these kind of things don't work any more, because everybody
doesn't rush and order the Marines into Chil.e because it has
gone to a Marxist government. I think the overall policies
have so changed that the CIA or ITT, or whatever, no longer
has the kind of influence it once had.
AGRONSKY: Jack, where does the marker stand on
your scale of indignation about this thing?
KILPATRICK: I'd rather talk about John Lindsay.
What makes you think he'll be picked as vice president?
AGRONSKY: You want to skip that one entirely?
KILPATRICK: Oh, no, Martin. I read these Chilean
papers...
LISAGOR: ITT fits all right in your ethical scale,
doesn't it, Jack?
KILPATRICK: Ah, comme ce, comme ca. I thought
the business in Chile, though, was just a couple of PR men
running something up a flag pole to see who'd salute.
NOYES: Well, they were offering ten million dollars
to get somebody to effect the results of the election, without
any results.
AGRONSKY: All right, gentlemen. You've had the
last word, Crosby. And thank you all very much.
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