AN AMERICAN INVASION FORCE OF GREEN BERETS AND U.S. ARMY RANGERS, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE CIA, STORMED THE MONEDA PALACE AND MURDERED CHILEAN PRESIDENT SALVADOR ALLENDE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020005-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 1, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020005-8
REPRINT FROM THE BERKELEY BARB
by Steve Long and Arn Passman Watsonville reporter, is this:
The members of the covert
action team were brought to-
An American invasion force of Green Berets gether on a moment's n o t i c e
d U.S. Army Rangers,. under the, direction from bases around the world
,f the CIA, stormed the Moneda palace and of several months 973. the coup
Sept. Il, 1973. Team members
murdered Chilean President Salvador -Allende, were told only that they had a
Barb was told by a source who says he talked special mission to accomplish,
to a member of the American assault team. and would later be told the. de-
tails. All team members spoke
Spanish and had received coun-
?The story of direct CIA Complicity in the ter-insurgency training. Accord-
overthrow on Sept,.. 11' 1973 of the democra- tng to Pedro S., the invasion
force was trained at the secret
tically elected Popular Unity government Of base near Ft. Ord, and then
Chile means that Chile is the most recent in trarelcd 'tinder Pentagon orders"
at least, ten.' such coups by..the - clandestine on a USAF cargo plane to the
Panama Canal Zone. In the Canal
agency throughout the world since World War . Lone, the team probably
II.
Nov 1971+ - y-Y
The story of direct US mili-
tary involvement in the Chilean
coup, as told to Barb and to the
go, again on a USAF plane.
According to a Bay Area professor who says The uniform of the covert ac-
he talked to a member. of the American assault tion team was typical U.S. Army
group, the American military task force con- ID i patc. without any i" can-
D patches. They wore "A fr ican-
sisted of 234 Special Forces personnel (Green type" bush hats, and were armed
Berets), 14 U.S. Army Rangers, and 34 CIA with 7.62 calibre M-14 automatic
rifles. (The Chilean - soldiers who
agents. The task force was trained at a super- attacked the Moneda palace were
secret-- CIA base near Fort Ord and at Fort armed only with 7.55 calibre wea-
Gulick in the Panama Canal Zone, he said. Pons; no units of the Chilean Army
had 7.62 calibre rifles.)
These disclosures were first made public
last weekend in a Watsonville daily newspaper
and at a Chilean solidarity Wally in San Fran-
cisco. Fred Hirsch of the Emergency Committee
to Defend Democracy in Chile, a San Jose
group, told 1,000 people of the . CIA-backed
invasion plot at the rally outside the Federal
Building on Sat., Sept. 21. The story, he said,
was reported the day before in the Watsonville
Register-Pajaronian in an article, "Did an
American kill Allende?" by Bette Brown.
In an exclusive interview with
Hirsch, Barb learned that the
source for the story was a socio-
logy professor at a peninsula
:college who is known by the
seud
p
onym of Professor Under-
wood. Professor Underwood
learned the story from a form-
er member of the assault task
force, a part-time' student who
was stationed with the Green
Berets at Fort Ord. The part-
time student, an Army lieuten-
ant, is a naturalized American
citizen who was born in Mexico.
His parents live in the San Jose
area. He is known as Pedro S.
When Barb asked Professor
Underwood why Pedro S. told him
his story, Underwood replied, "He
told me because he had to' tell ,
someone, and I happened to be
there. He was just back from
Chile, and he said-'You won't be-
lieve whero-l've been."'
on Moneda palace, according to) Pat Fagen, a specialist in mod-
the Pedro S. account, the U.S. rn n American history; lived
,the Chilean attack forces worked in Chile for IS months, until a
side by side. The American team month before the coup, and last
led a helicopter assault on the visited . Chile with Congressman'
(three-story Moneda palace from Michael Harrington's group last
the top floor 'down. President fall. She first heard the story
Saivadore -Allende's office was on last year. In her judgement, the
,the second floor. One of the mem- story was "entirely plausible.";
bers of the American team tossed She added, "It's such a far-out
grenades into Allende's office, story, _ and so damning if it's
tand then fired inside. He shot true."
Allende, who was standing behind Also contacted was Daniel Del-
his desk. The murder of Allende Solar, who was a creator of the
was apparently accidental, since Rand Corporation's war game.:
the team's instructions had been Politica. Del Solar had said the'
to capture Allende but not to kill game was used by the U.S. mili-
him. tary and that the Chilean coup
Similar instructions were giv- was based on it.
en to the team of U.S.-trained Paul Krassner, editor of The
Bolivian Rangers who killed Che Realist, said he was planning to
Guevara. publish a letter by Del Solar de-
Allende's widow re' tailing the Politica. game as the
hold of some of the bullets in
All the blueprint
regime. "It (the Del
ende's body. She claimed they Solar letter) was sent to the New.
were 7-62 calibre, proving that
he had York Times, Washington Post, and
not been killed by
Chileans, according to Barb's the L.A. Times on September' 7.
source.
Each of the three American
units -- Special Forces, Rangers,
and CIA operatives -- a c t e d
separately and independently, ac-
cording to the Pedro S. story. The
14 Rangers had an advisory role
with Chilean Army units, while
the 234 Special Forces troops act-
ed as an independent unit. Both
the Rangers and Special Forces
'soldiers were under direct Amer-
ican command. The 34 CIA agents
played a liaison and political role.
While the Rangers worked direct-
ly with Chilean ' Army units en-
gaged in Operation Jakarta (the
Chilean Army's code name forthe
coup), the Special Forces units
were engaged in a separate al-
though coordinated operation.
After the coup, the US team was
flown back to Panama, and from
there to Fort Ord. Perhaps be-
cause of the unplanned murder
of Allende, some of the team
members were demoted in rank.
All were scattered throughout the
world.
Barb contacted two nationally-
known Chilean scholars, Richard
and Pat Fagen, for their com-;
ments on the plausibility of thel
allegations -that the US partici-'
pated directly in the coup. Richard
Fagen, ? a professor of -political
science at Stanford, recently testi
fled before the Senate Foreig
Relations Committee on U.S. in-
volvement in Chile.
Fagen agreed that "CIA involve-
ment in Chile is pretty well doc-
umented." When told of Barb's
new information, Fagen admitted
that he had known the story for
three or four months: "I have
heard the outlines of the story,
but have never seen 'any docu
mentation," he said. He added
that he had never heard the
l
story with as much specificity
00551
continued
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 1973," said ?Krass Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020005-8
days before the coup.-- gency imittee to Defend Dem,. volvement in Allen de at
Del Solar stated that he thought ocracy Chile. Hirsch, a mem- comes in the light oL recent ac-
the story of CIA and U.S. mili- ber of the Plumbers Union, has, counts in The New York Times o
tary involvement in the coup was been active in the labor movement extensive CIA involvement in
"perfectly logical." When asked . for 22 years. Chilean affair. In the. Sept..:20
by Barb if the new allegations The final blow' by the CIA be- issue of the Times, Seymour M.
were consistent with the opera fore . the coup was the truckers'. Hersh reported that the CIA had
lion of Politicia, he replied,- strike. Chilean poet and Nobel secretely financed striking labor
"That would be one of. the op- ? laureate Pablo Neruda wrote that and trade unions in Chile for
tions." "the CIA flooded the country with more than 18 months before the
Elements of the American. dollars to support the strike by overthrow of Salvadore Allende.
military were planning a coup the bosses;" One week before the The CIA authorized ' more than'
months before Allende was coup, oil, milk, and bread had $8 million (worth S40 million:on
elected in Sept. 1970. At the end run out. The stage was set for the currency black' market) for
of 1969, three- Pentagon generals direct military intervention by a clandestine activities in Chi 1 e.
-met near Washington with five. joint U.S,. and Chilean operation Most of the money was used- to
Chilean generals, including sev- directed and coordinated by the provide. strike benefits and simi=
eral members of the current CIA. Operation Unitas - merged lar aid to middy -class wor:ers
junta. According to Gabriel, Gar- with Operation Jakarta, the code who oohosed O Linde'..
cia Marquez' article, "The Death name ? given to the coup by the _ .I
of Salvador Allende, " published Chilean military. f
in the March 1974 Harper's. at
this meeting the ? American and Incomplete as received
Chilean generals worked out a
joint contingency plan for the
seizure of power in the event of
victory by Allende in the presi-
dential elections.
On the American side, the
Naval Intelligence Agency and
Defense Intelligence Agency were
involved, under the direction of,.
the CIA and, ultimately, the 40
Committee of the National Se-
curity Council. The Chilean coup
was to coincide with Operation
Unitas, which was the code name
for the . joint American a n d
Chilean naval maneuvers. that
took place each September. The
contingency plan was apparently
put into operation on Sept. If.'
1973. 1
In the years' before the coup,'
American multinational corpora-
tions such as the Rockefeller-'
dominated Kennecott Copper con-
glomerate and ITT did- all they
could to crush the Ci.iean peo-
ple's movement and bring down ;
the Allende government. With the'
full cooperatio~h?- of the- CIA and
other agencies of the U.S. gov-',
ernment, Chile was denied credit
by U.S. banks, foreign aid wash
cut off, long-term loans were re-
fused by the import-Export Bank,'
"and other. pressuro4wa:r.brougbt~
to bear by American corporations.
CIA operatives bolstered
Chile's police and military forc-
es. The 1972._. ITT memos re-
vealed that in ' 1970. ITT offered
the White' House Si million to
finance' anti-Allende ? activities.
The offer was rejected, apparent-.
ly because it was not necessary
to accept such risky money.
Not only were giant mutination-
al corporations involved in sub-
verting the Allende government.
but the American labor movement
was also involved, the AFL-CIO,
through the American Institute
for. Free Labor Development,
headed by George Meany, h a s
been implicated in right-wing and
anti-communist activities in. ~~
Chile, as well as in Cuba, Gua-
temala, Brazil and elsewhere.
This is documented in a
pamphlet, "An Analysis of our.
AFL-CIO Role in Latin Ameri-
ca, or, Under the Covers with the,
CIA." The author of the pamph-
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