FORMER CHILE AMBASSADOR REDISCOVERS THE WORLD AFTER TIMES 'CORRCTION'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830044-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: February 18, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830044-0
PROVIDENCE BULLETIN (R?~~
18 February 1981
tl .try rN}.Lw . tt t~: - 1- ~ ~.a.,,?f.~t' ti* t
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rJQurnai.Holletin Starf Wriul' :? yz :: ? r fa-. s
~, TONINGT0N, `Conn Edward. bI yKorry, wwho i~etired from !the
Korry;could be excused.thesmile: A bit?of smiigness_Because he had
morrow.he ?said I can't :waitto- see-it.
A-smile spread across-Korry s face as he=hung. "They're running it-to-
told Korb thea,Journal would be- runnrng-,a story about him Tuesday;
;cculatiorr of any daily, newspaper in the-co untr
y,. called him: The editor
uments on htsdeskwas if.the caller could see-as-well as'hear. Minutes lat-
er an editor fiomthe `WalhStret '-Journal which' tias the `1"argest
magazineremphasizing his points by pounding. his fist and'jabbirig at_doc-
1 1. He- was. oa the 'phone with a reporter, from Editor. and 'Publisher .1 11
College. ; ?Y t Via. _ 3 { t, aw z L~ ~.' 1 +. ,le Yl
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sparsely. furnished office in the back=of- the-libraryat .nearby-Connecticut'
'~resurrectionlgaiirinomentum, every: time thetelephone; buized in'hi,
world",in thts~smallseacoast town; several-:years-'.ago :watched- hi
traordinary front page: mea culpa surely the, on -correctioa,_
ver;.
b
Timemigazjne its own story on Korry this-week, described as-"ari ex.-
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lished. what
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South ;Americai politicians and? ~ North:-:Americart counterparts. who
'weren't-so different;;.careers and lives made and shattered:-Big names. Big
He was Ieft-with tittle more than his story: one of. lies and spies, corrupt-
tried-forseven-years. to tell the; story of how his nine-year career as one of
,this.couhtry:'s; top-diplomats was destroyed.' He couldn't get a job other,
tharrpart-tune teaching at the 'college. He.had sold his house in New York
and his wifes jewelry
Kortyr's telephone asn'tstoppedringii since the artice_ appeared:
kpa[. m 1970.:In fact; the Times story supported Korry's contentions that
he-repeatedly tried Ito-stop White -.House'
?.,efforts to overthrow .' Allende:
Chileadent Salvador Allende Gossens,:a.Marxist, when he came to,
What the Timesattempted,.to do,;simply; was to.say-Korry-has been
telling the truth all these years. ;That as thre-U S. ambassador to Child from
19.67 to `1971, he had?.nothing to do with secret CIA lans to? overthrow
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830044-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830044-0
EDITOR & _PU3LIS 1E
L_ 28 F e bruar^y 1981
-a York Times clears
e envo ., 's name
By Andrew Radoif
It was an "unusual story" by all
accounts: A front page exoneration of a
former United States Ambassador to
Chile in the New York Times headlined,
"New Evidence Backs Ex-Envoy on His
Role in Chile."
The February 9 story was written by
Seymour M. Hersh who left the Times in
March 1979 to write a book on former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Hersh won his Pulitizer for international
reporting in 1970 for his stories on the Sly
Lai Massacre.- He also won several{
awards for his 1974 investigative series in
the Times on domestic spying by the CIA
and the Drew Pearson Prize in 1975 for his
stories on CIA involvement in Chile. .
Hersh, at the request of Edward -M.
Korry, U.S. Ambassador to Chile from
1967 to 1971, told Times executive editor
A.M. Rosenthal in November 1980'that
he had uncovered new evidence while
researching his book supporting the ex-
envoy's claim that he never knew any-
thing about covert CIA attempts to pre-
vent Salvador Allende Gossens from
being sworn in as that country's presi-
Rosenthal responded to the news by
assigning Hersh to write the story for the
Times.
-- "This is a very unusual story," Rosen-
thal said. "In itself it's a story. It's not a
correction. We ran stories some years
ago. The writer came across some new
information, so we ran that story."
The executive editor added he had
asked Hersh when the latter informed
him of the new evidence "not to put it in
the book before you write it for us.
In the spring of 1973 Korry had testified
to the Senate Subcommittee on Multina-
tional Corporations headed by Frank
Church, former Senator from Idaho, that
the covert plot against Allende in 1970,
known as Track. 11, did not exist.- -.?.:..
At the time, few believed Korry was
telling the truth.
On September. 17, 1974, Hersh wrote in
the Times that the subcommittee staff
said it was recommending that Korry,
along with former CIA director Richard
Helms and other-Nixon officials, bet
charged with contempt of Congress for
allegedly giving misleading testimony at
the 1973 hearings.
Korry's name was never submitted to
the Justice Department, and the former
According to Korry, after the story
appeared in the Times, as well as. other
news media including the Washington
Post, he became "a pariah" who was
unable to work in either government orl
journalism, his first career.
Koury had been U.S. Ambassador to
Ethiopia from 1963 to 1967 before assum-
ing his post in Chile. He also had been
United Press's chief European corres-
pondent based in Paris in the early 1950's
and had covered the beginnings of the
United Nations at Lake Success, New
York for UP. One of his fellow reporters
at the U.N was A.M. Rosenthal, then a
Times reporter.
Korry said he and Rosenthal had been
-friends from 1946 until the news stories
' appeared in 1974 on his role in Chile.
The ex-envoy said Hersh's story on
September 17, 1974 and two other stories
by the Times reporter on September 8 and
September 10, 1974 were some of the
most-harmful to his reputation.
. Korry said Hersh's February 9 story
ends nearly seven years of frustration in
trying to get himself heard by the major
news media including the Times.
"The story reestablishes an integrity I
was robbed of unjustly and unfairly.seven
years ago," Korey told E&P. "It's the
Times that has ended the nightmare that
began seven 'years ago."
Korry stated "an accurate reading of
the record (of his 1973 testimony)" would
show he had "inadvertently stopped it
(Track II)" by continually acting against
it "without knowing it existed."
"If he (Hersh) had called me and asked
me," Korry said, "he never could have
written what he did."
Korry contended Hersh for his
September 17, 1974 story relied on in-
formation supplied by a source on the
subcommittee instead of reading the re-
cord-The exenvoy stated that Hersh in a
recent conversation admitted to "only
skimming" the record of Korry's testi-
mony. - .. - . :-
- E&P asked Hersh if he had made such
an admission to Kong. Hersh replied the
allegation was "ludicrous. I let my record
as a journalist speak for itself."
Korry also contended that Hersh was
aware by the end of 1976 that his stories in
1974 about the former Ambassador's role
in'Chile were inaccurate.
Hersh wrote in. his February imes'
story, and told E&P, that he had con-
tacted Korry in 1976 about doing another
story to present Korry's side of what hap-
pened in Chile but had concluded the for-
mer ambassador's account was "too self-
serving to be credible." -
. But Korry said Hersh never wrote a
story in 1976 about his version of events
in Chile because it would have been
"ideologically displeasing" and dealt
with CIA involvement in the country dat-
ing back to the Kennedy administration.
Korry claimed that in 1976, Hersh had
said to him, "I may resurrect you" if he
agreed to provide the Times reporter with
information on Henry Kissinger's in-
vovlement in covert CIA operations in
Chile.
Korry said he told Hersh he would only
talk about "what I did and could swear
to."
Hersh dismissed Korry's claim of an
offer "to resurrect him" and said he "did
not want to dignify it with a denial."
Hersh did write a story for the Ti mes on
December 23, 1976 which mentioned
Korry near the end. Hersh wrote testi-
mony Korry had "volunteered in June
(1976)" to Federal investigators looking
into allegations of CIAIITT wrongdoing
in Chile was found by them to be
"'helpful."'
In that same story, Hersh credited Joe
Trento of the Wilmington News-Journal
with writing the "first published reports
of the active grand jury investigation in
the CIA-Chile connection."
Trento's story appeared December 19,
1976 in the News-Journal. It was the
second of many stories by Trento which
began appearing November 28, 1976 and
continued into 1978.
In his stories, Trento wrote at length
about Korry's account of events in Chile
and said the former ambassadorhad been
victimized by others in the government
who were his political opponents.
"Sy Hersh had all the information of
any consequence t;iat appeared in his
story on February 9, 1981 by December
19, 1976 when he had his hands on our
second story dealing with what really
happened in Chile," Trento said. "I
didn't have any preconceived notion of
Ed Korey. I checked out what he had to
say and it stood up. The readers of the
Wilmington News-Journal knew the truth
four years earlier than the people who
read the Times."
Hersh told-E&P,."I didn't trust Joe's
articles as much as I should have. At one
point, I felt one of his stories was very
bad. The later stories were very good. I
didn't think much of those stories be-
cause I was wrong (about Korry in
1974)."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830044-0