LETTER TO THE HONORABLE GEORGE BUSH FROM DANIEL INOUYE - 1976/09/29

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Argentina Declassification Project - The "Dirty War" (1976-83)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 03303946
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: April 3, 2019
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2019
• Publication Date: September 29, 1976

Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C03303946
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WASHINGTON. D.C. 205to
SENSITIVE
The Honorable George Bush
Director of Central Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Mr. Bush:
September 29, /976
REPLY -)?..f.,EAS
REFER TO. R#4645
7 7 - QQ..
On September 22 Mr. William Miller requested, on be-
half of the Committee, information from the CIA on the
recent assassination of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando
Letelier. I am grateful to you for the briefing you gave
when you met with Senator Baker and myself on September .27.
The Select Committee would like to request the following
information:
1. There have been reports (see attached article
entitled "Chilean Bomb Victim Told FBI of
Threats to Life, Friends Say") that Letelier
was recently discussed at a high-leve.( policy
meeting within the Chilean government. Does
the Agency have any information related to
this meeting or others in which Letelier was
discussed?
2.
3. Attached is an article by Mt. R.2.L=.1.1a,u
en-
titled "The Tribulation of Chile:"- It ap-
peared in the October 10th issue of the
SENSITIVE
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3.3(b)(1)
3.3(b)(1)
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Nue
The Honorable George Bush
September 29, 1976
Page 2
4.
National Review. Please note pages 1110 to 1112.
Would the Agency please comment on the accuracy
of Mr. Moss observations.
Does the Areticy have ,,my information on the. al-
leged di.sembarkment of a nilean secrh pol.Tce-
man in New :York on August 25 (see attached ar-
ticle entitled "FBI Agents Investigating Letelier
Killing Get Tip High Chilean qecret Policeman
Flew to U.S. Last Month")?
5. Does the Agency have any information related to
the assassination of Chilean General Calos
Prats zalez -and the shooting last October of
i ean Christian Democrat Bernardo Lei=g4 in
Rome?
6. Does the Agency have any information related to
Chilean MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left)
activities in the United States, especially as
those activities may relate to the Letelier.
murder?
7.
Thank you very much for your assistance in this matter.
Attachments 3
Daniel Inouye
Chairman
SENSITIVE
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44400
s.�
The Via c.h4nciton Post
September 23, 1976
eltiLean
.01 'Threats to Life, Friends Say-':
By Stephen .T. Lynlon
��� � and Ronald KeKter
Ni3shingto,-, Port St:ar 1-vvitxri
Orlando Letelier, former
Chilean ambassador to the
United Slates for the Marx-
ist. All government,
told � his friends and co-
workers_ that he had re-
ceived repeated threats
aganst his life before he
was killed here Tuesday by
a bomb in his ear.
Anonymous callers, some
, speaking in Spanish. had
continually warned him for
more than a year that hp
would be killed unless he
stopped criticizing the mil�
itary junta that ousted the
late Pr d en t Salvador
Allemte,Sept: 11, 1973 Lete- �
tier's colleagues said yester;
day. le' � �
Last week, Letelier re-
ceived a letter from a well
Placed Chilean, his cowork-
ers said. The letter allegedly
reported a high-level discus.�
sion in the present Chilean e
government over whether
Lel cher should be killed be-
cause of his outspoken criti-
cisms of the current regime
in Chile. ' �
The government in Chile �
has disavowed any link with
',etchers death and has de-
pineed the bombing.
Letelier, 44, who served as
Allende's foreign minister
and minister of defense in
1973 after his tenure as am-
has.sador to the United.
Stales, was killed when a
bonTh exploded underneath.
.11i3 car as he drove to work
through SheridairCircle NW
Tuesday morning with .two ,
colleagues. Ronhi �and, Mb'
chael Moffitt. Ronni Mortitt �
was also � killed. Hee hus-
band was hospitalized. brief-
ly for shock.
,111 tlirce worked for the
Institute for 'Policy Studies,
a private research "t Ii inke
tank." where Letelier di-
rected a foreign- affairs re-
search program.
1,11;ia1 S. Mori t cein o,
Letelier's assistant, said in
an interview yesterday that
lie had told her of receiving
thrpats against his life about
twice a month. "It, usually-
came at odd hours (at his office) or at
'fibrne,". she said. The message, in es-
sence, she added, was that if he con-
tinued his activities against the present
junta .of Get7, Augusto Pinochet, Letelier
� wbulcl hilted or "eliminated."
�;..Patil Weiss, charman of the Institute
�: for Policy Studies, recalled that Lete�
� Itter';fast, April had told him three or
four times of warnings ,by callers who
� said, "We're going to get you."
,. _James Petras, a political scientist at
the State University of New York; re-
� counted a conversation with Letelier
Letelier said, according to
this account, that he had been warned.
b" the Chilean Embassy itself that he
would face what Pet ras described as
"unforeseen difficulties" if lie con-
tinued his attacks on the junta.
existence of the letter in which
Letelier was allegedly alerted to a
'Chilean government el bate e over
whether he should be assassinated
ewas disclosed by, Eqbal Ahmed and
other coworkers at the Institute for
?Click Studies. They did not produce
the letter itself, however.
7 �
� ..A.Inried an(' other- institute offielele,
tvlin. asked not to be identified, also
.deClined to name the Chilean who
rrt'edte the letter, saying they wanted
�
to avoid endangering him. The letter
wa Said to have recounted h debate
ebet:tv'een Chilean "hawks" who wanted
feller killed, and "dove;;" who oh-
'jEcteci. to his suggested assassination.
�-��t Vas unclear yesterday whether
Leteliee had reported � the recurring
threats ageinst. hint to the FBI or
'sought Fla. protection. A. spokesman
- for the FBI's Washington field office.
which is taking part. in the investige-
., tion:of his death, denied that. Lacher.
lied, told Wenn of any such threats.
Monteeino said, however, that.
Letelier had told her he had reported
The warnings in the FBI. In Rome yes-
;1-tediY, Agence France-Presse quoted
jiortensia Allende, the former Chi-
ll-can president's widow, as saying
;Leteiier had repeatedly requested F13.1.
.
,broteetion. �
�
pb According to Mrs. 'Montecino, Letee
eTier had said FBI agents .visited hint
ertegularly and were notified when be
eihanged his resideneee"The F131 told;
im if' anything unusual happened to
qeport it to the she, said: -
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But Mrs. Monteeina and others
noted that Letelier- did not take any
_special security precautions himself.
"Ile felt, "If I'm going to be afraid of
anything, I won't de a thing,' she
said:
Rafael Otero, counselor for- public
.affairs at the Chilean Embassy, said
in an interview yesterday that no one
Irons the embassy had becer ques-
tioned by either the FBI or the Dis�
trict pollee about the bombing.
Otero said that the Chilean -ambas-
sador to the United States, Manuel
Trucco, had contacted the State De-
partment to offer "full cooperation"
in the Investigation. "We're very inter-
ested in going on with this investiga-
tion because this Is the worst thing
that could happen to my country at
this moment." Otero said.
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�1101
Otero suggested that Let elier.'s 'mur-
der, and those of other Chilean exiles
in other cotintries that preceded it,
have come in the fall and were timed
to coincide with the opening of the
United Nations General Assembly ses-
sion.-' � �
"We are asking to help. It's the first
Opportunity to find out who is making .
this attack aeair.st the Chilean peo.,
pie," Otero said. � ,
When asked about reports of
threats made here and reportedly in
Chile against Letelier; Otero referred -
to the lifting cf.Letelier's Ctkilean
rift-
cnldp on Z-.pt, 10 by thc! -
VelniTir.i,-13t. Otero sQid th.-,j, the
"Chilean government doeJn't need
other means" beyond revoking a per-
son's citizenship. �
Otero, a short, stout mon, was cairn,.
during much of the interview until in-
formed' that he was being widely de-
scribed by Chilean exiles and leftists
� in Washingtors as being the represent-
ative of the National Directorate of
Intelligence (DINA), the most Impor-
tant secret police agency in Chile. ��
Hearing this, Otero responded. with
� laughter and said that this report was
"very funny." Otero denied having .any
role in DINA. The reports, lie said.
were a way ''for the extreme left to
point the finger" at him, and he said
he would report the information to
the U.S. State Department today since
he took it as a threat against him. �
Otero also raised and denied .
ports that he was affiliated with the
CIA in Chile. Describing himself as a
journalist, Otero said he had pub-
lished SEPA,. an anti-Allende maga-
zinc, and that he had been Imprisoned
28 times "during Allende."
Otero raised the question a to why!".
the explosion of Letelier's car occur- '
red within 100 feet of the Chilean am-
bassador's residence ' at 230.5 � MassaL:
chusetts Ave. NW. � � .4�
At several points during :.the inter-
view, Otero repeated his � assertion '
that the Chilean government had not
had anything to do with � Letelier's.
murder. "We know we don't have any,'
thing to do with this murder," Otero.
said. "We know . . . It's the .worst
thing that can happen."
City police and FBI officials re-
'ported no significant developments
yesterday in their investigation of the
bombing, "This is not going to be eas-
ily'solved," said Assistant U.S. Attor-
ney Eugene Propper, who is coon.
*dinating the investigation. Results of.
laboratory studies of evidence col.
lected after the explosion will not be
available for a week or more, he said
2 --
Sources close to the investigation
previously said the blast appeared to
have been caused by a skillfully con-
structed plastic bomb that was shaped
to concentrate the main impact of the
explosion upward into the' driver's,
seat. The bomb was apparently atta-
ched to the car's undercarriage, these
sources said, and may have been set
off by a rerpote-contro.lect radio de-
vice. �
Propper met for about Ilk hours
pesterday with D.C. police and FBI of-
ficials involved in the investigation.
Invpstigators, he said, are interview.'
in,g and
making cla.,cks on airports and rail.
� road stations, and compiling a list of.
recent visitors to- the United Stat.0,
from Chile.
A memorial service for Leteli.ei:hare
been planned for -3 p.m. Sunday a�; St,
Matthew's Cathedral, 1725 Rhode
' land Ave. NW. It will be preceede'ct.bj%
a protest 'march, beginning at- 12:34
p.m. at Sheridan Circle, accordirig.I.O.
the, Institute for Policy Studies.: Lccte,-
lier will be buried in 'Venezuela,�re--
�
lative said yesterday. �
Yesterday afternoon. several ,hun-
dred demonstrators gathered in Du-
pont Circle to protest the deaths 'of
Letelier and Mrs. Moffitt, which the'
blamed on the Chilean government.
The demonstrators, who chanted. and
'carried � signs, stayed for about.111/2 �
�hours. � �
In -Congresi' yesterday, Letelrer's
�death set off several controversies.
Rep. Toby Moffett (D�Conn.)' Nyak
thwarted' in an attempt to Introduce
f� by unanimous -consent a resolution,
with 135 cosponsors, -condemnIng
Letelier's killing. It .was 'blocked � by,
� objections from. Rep. John ra.;
' Ath-
brook (R-Ohio). �
� Later Rep. Donald ItI. FrasIr
'Minn.). chairman of the House Stik
committee on International Organiza;
tions. issued' a statement charging.
that the FBI had failed to investigate
Information supplied by his Subcoilit
� mittee about the alleged arrival In Ihe.
United States. in August of a
� pectert Chileamintelligence agent:Xri
FBI spokesman termed Fraser's state-
ment -"unfair.' Ile' said the FBI ..was
trying to reach the man who had sup.-
plied Fraser's Subcommittee with, the
information.
. � �
Also contributing to this article'
were Washington Post staff writers.-
Lawrence Meyer and Joe Ritchie.
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LETTER FRCM,1 CHILE
T WAS A JOT boy scoutish of them, but the soldiers
.t. who overthrew S:iIvdur Allendc thnuf2h: that they
id earned the E.rAtude or the American people, and of
the West in gerleral. For one thing, they had prevented the
transfoN-na;ion of Chile into a sort of Latin American
Czechoslo�.-akia, complete wk:Lr Soviet bases. For another,
they staunch believers in the mar'Net economy and
the Tositive role of foreign investment. They set about
deionalizing foreign businesses that h.1.1 been confiscated
under Allende, and agreed to pay hancome compensation
to American copper companies that had been. taken over
�Mort:, in the ease of Cerro, than the hook value that the
Cur rcioc itaeif had planed on ie Ch..iri assets If itihi
ciftin't make the Chile of the generals a pro-We,,terri
country, deserving of friendly support (even f not the
miniature Marshall Aid program needed to repair the
.�COC".()rilic havoc wrought by three years of Marxist misrule)
what would?
Alas, how little these soldiers understood the mood of the
times in Washington or London. With the spirit of Helsinki
about, it is not done to attack Communists too stridently.
Since the intellectual defense of capitalism has become a
minority cause in most of the countries that owe their'
present affluence to it, these disciples of Adam Smith and
Milton Friedman were a positive embarrassment. Chile,
after all, is a backward, developing country, and the liberal
Establishment has been telling us for decades that the only
appropriate economic strategy for such"places is the smash-
and-grab redistributionism propounded by such bodies as
the' UN Economic Commission for Latin America. Any-
way, the soft-core masochism of the liberal Establishment
has 110w reached such exticmities that any' oittsidar who
fails to gr::tify.its need for an endless recital of the crimes
and horrors perpetrated by, the West is immediately dis-
missed as a fascist beast. Aid, from this perspective. is an.
act of expiation: you give it to people who You that
you have wronged them and that they. have a right to
squeeze you for every penny they can get.. It is not some-
thing that you give to people who tell you that they admire
you, not for what you are but for what you were and might
have been, if you had been able to. sustain a more assertive
faith in your own vmiica an:I traditions_
vies lutany tr,ffimi..;ivall,.! about (i-;::::rzt
Pinochet U.garte and his colleagnc!;, in thiv t.:note-xt, ic that.
they were pro-American. Such presumption hr.ut to be:
punished, "We choose our friends," came the shrill rebuke
from Capitol Hill. "Our friends do in,t choose.'
And how could Chile fait to be an unpopular cause in
America, since the coup against Allende was linked, in the
public psyche, �vitlt the Watergate era, with disaster in
Vietnam, with CIA dirty tricks, and with hanky-panky by
ITT?
Since the myth that General l'inochet was an invention
of Richaid Nixon and the CIA befuddles the view like a
pea-soup fog whenever the topic of Chile comes up. I
better dispose of it swiftly. I have described the antecedents
of the coup in detail elsewhere. It is enough here to make
two basic points. First: or course it is true that the CIA
was involved in Chile: it had not yet been reduced to a
press-cuttings agency. It is also true that iloptt up at the
The Tribulation of Chile
ROBERT MOSS
OCTotititt 10. 1975
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I 105
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. 'cool Nore
� White Floa3c \ye% wring out contingency plans. But if
the. CIA had reJlLy been ohle tu en7ineer the fall of Allende
lot $S miiai --a pittance even compared \\ith what it
spent in Chile in the 19603 supporting Christian Democrats
and left-wing priests�it would have secured the sale of
the century. What it mainly did was to keep alive some of
the chief constraints on a wo'Cild-he totalitarian government,
such as a free press and independent trade unions. Second:
the coup \vas merely the sharp cutting edge of a broad.
based, and esstritially-home-grown, coonterrei�ohdion which
bore a resemblance, in some respects, to the current popular
upheavals against the pro-Communist regime in Portugal.
The junta has subsequently isolated itself from some of its
original civilian supporters, but there is no 'doubt that it
was welcomed by a majority of the Chilean population on
September II, 1973. That this simple 'fact has been success-
fully camouflaged in much of the reporting then and since
is a tribute a) to the lavishly. financed and brilliantly con,
cciveiJ Marxist propaganda can]paign that. ha.; been \teJ
against Chile, and b) to the amazingly insular approach
of modish Americ,an commentators, who write as if nobody
but the Ct.'', is capable of setting tip a right-wing regime, '
Remember the appalling legacy
of the Allende regime which had destroyed
faith in the constitution and
the party system and made political
violence a way of life in Chile
Oh yes, the junta has not served its own image well by its
treatment of political dissidents or its unapologetic decision
not to return�in any determinate future�to the democratic
system. There are serious charges for the junta to answer on
human rights, and on the abuse of power by its own security
services, and I do not intend to gloss over it. But it is
useful at this stage to make one simple observation about
the way that this reates to the junta's image abroad. If the
military regime in Chile, following the example of all self-
respecting Communist revolutionaries, had flatly decided
to shut out all foreign reporters, civil rights investigators,
and sundry do-gooders for a period of, say, six months after
the coup, our diet of horror stories from Chile would have
beers meager indeed. It is to the credit of the junta that
(unlike the new masters of Cambodia and South Vietnam,
and unlike Mrs. Gandhi) it has not imposed a blackout of
this kind. Almost everyone has attacked Pinochet for
refusing to admit a UN Human Rights Commission in July
and this decision would indeed appear, in its context, to
have been a major diplomatic error. But are the editorial
writers of the Washington Post or the New York Times
demanding that the UN should send similar commissions
to Cambodia, South Vietnam, and India, and, if not, why
not?
The sad fact is that it is neither the quantity of the
repression in Chile nor the junta's treatment of its foreign
Mr. Moss iv ihe editor of The (London) Economist's For-
eign Report and the author of Chile's Marxist Experiment
nod The War of the Cities.
I 106 NATIONAL REVIEW
critics that is the real source of the selective outrage tha
(kids it focus in Pinuellet. It is that the'junta. being. right
wing and open to some forms of Western influence, i
preeminently get-at-able. If a country goes Communist, tin
consensus among 9Lif press � crusaders and "concerned'
academics appears to be� ..the- caso is closed. Their logic
rims as The new lords of "1-to Chi Minh City'
won't- let se, visit their 're- education"- centers. But esen
it is true that dire things go on there, you can't make ar
omelette without breaking eggs--and who are we, from
the guilt-ridden �Vest, to question the morality of an Asiar
revolution?
T
YY ELL, WE KNOW by now how these double standard.:
work. If I were to write, by way of apology for some of tisc
mistakes or excesses that have been committed in the new
Chik, that you can't makt3 an omel'At.::
eggs, many pL:ople- would be: delighted f'.; nyCM
a pike. Remember that it is far harder�and }:tks fat
longer�to rebuild than to destroy. Remember the appalling
legacy of the Alle.nde regime which, by systelmatically vio.
kiting the laws, had destroyed faith in the constitution and
the party system and made political violence a way of life
in Chile. You can't wish away an historical experience as
shattering as that, and revert to some milder age of demo-
cratic politics predating the holocaust. Even if you could,
it would probably be impossible to produce a democratic
government in Chile at this stage with the guts, and the
popular backing, to sustain the current program) of eco-
nomic reconstruction which is at last beginning to bring
inflation under control---but at the cosi of a bitter recces-
.sion, bringing in train considerable social suffering.
A military junta is not, and can never be, a permanent
form of government, in a country as sophisticated and
politically-minded as Chile. But .it is my contention that
military rule is, inescapably, a necessary transitional phase
in Chile, and that its harshness and duration are likely to
be increased, rather than diminished, by American con-
gressrn6n and others who wave big sticks from afar instead
of offering constructive advice based on the realities- of the
situation. Phrases like "invisible blockage" or "destabiliza-
tion" that were used by liberals to describe. past American
policy toward Allende might equally well be applied to
current American policy toward Pinochet. An old friend,
a senior man in the Chilean navy, .astonished me during a
recent visit when he exclaimed, apropos of the Turkish
decision to take over most of the American bases, that
"I wish- that we-had so-me American bases. If we could do.
what the Turks have done, Congress might begin to under-
stand that if you kick your friends around for long
enough, you won't have any left!"
His outburst was provoked, of course, by the congr-.
sional decision last year to block arms sales to Chile that
were not negotiated before July 1, 1974 and to limit eco-
nomic aid for Chile to an annual $25 million. The U.S. arms
embargo means that the Chileans cannot even get ammuni-
tion and spare parts for their American-made weapons,
although a dozen F-5 fighter planes are still in the pipeline,
with delivery expected to commence next March. The
embargo hurts more than it would .have anyway since
Congress, in its wisdom, did not decide to stop arms sales
to Peru simultaneously.
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Corisider, for a morve!it, !ht. inor,-.1ity of the
Chilean arms embargo. It seem: N c 1 st there arc only
ty.aa irreproachable reasons for reftedigi weapons to
someone. The fIrst is that he may one day attack you. This
unlikely Cu be the case with Chile, unless you think
that the Chilean navy�stung beyond forbentance�might
one day send a flotilla steaming north to ;hell Teddy
Kennecty' summer retreat. Second, you may not want to
sell � arms to your friend's -enemy---although there will be
C3SeS (as with Greece and-Turlrey, or N,,:typt and Israel)
where both parties to a regional courhzt may be regarded
as "friends." Now who is Chile likely to attack that could
be regarded as a friend of the United States? Since Pi-
nochers recent: hoot of shrewd diplomacy with President
Banzer of Bolivia, there is only one country in Latin
America v/P1-1 wi-lich Chile is li'Kely to tu to In any
fu :Lire, and that is Pei-H. Peru inay not b as
wholly committed to the Russians as is commonly sup-
posed, but it has received more than 300 Soviet tank's,
together with Communist instructors and other assorted.
'Communist weaponry (see below). If there is to be an-
other "War of the Pacific," it is likely to he Peru that strikes
first. We may wake up a few months from now to find that
Congress' arms policy toward Chile has left it partly dis-
armed in the face of an attack by possibly the most
important Soviet prot� on the Latin American mainland.
This is all the niore likely to happen if the Soviet bloc
succeeds in its plot to have Chile suspended by the cre-
dentials committee of the UN General Assembly in its
current session, thus adding to Chile's international isolation.
'What really concerns the Peruvians is a secret accord
between Chile and Bolivia whose eventual effect will be to
supply the Bolivians_with tlr:ir long-desired corridor to the
sea�through territory in northern Chile that is still claimed
by Peru. As a first step, Bolivian soldiers are being allowed
to supervise the transport of Bolivian imports via the
Atacama-La Paz railroad. As a later step, General Pinochet
is said to have agreed to build a new port north of Iquique
for exclusive Bolivian use. A very minor, but revealing,
We,ttion of the new Chilean-Bolivian. ententc was the
sion from the recent se.:ortit edition of General Pi-
noehet's hook Geopolfficx {written when he was a staff in-
structor) of certain unflatteriug references to Bolivia's past
territorial claims on Chile.
These developments� hardly delight the Peruvians, who
arc clinging to their own Century-old claim to Chile!.
nitrate-rich 'northern prir:inces. The Peruvians are- also
bound to think hard about the fact that they have been
presented with an opportunity that is unlikely to be .re-
peated. In -a year or so, Chile is- likely to have recovered
from the worst of its current economic troubles and to
have taken delivery of those F-5s, badly needed to match
Peru's Mirage fighters. But, for the moment, the- 'Peruvians
enjoy a 6 to 1 superiority in ground weaponry and a more
than 2 to I stip-e..rierity in airc.raft. reAy t_o Id
are just for decoration?
The Russians have been Peru's biggest benefactors. Ac-
cording to an authoritative secret list to which I have had
access, the Peruvian army has taken delivery of 350
Soviet-made T-54 and T-55 tanks, seven Ciech-built. 122mrn
field guns, 200 Yugoslav-made 105rnm mortars, 50,000
Kalachnikov rides, iwo batteries of SAM-3 and SAM-,6
missiles, and an unknown quantity of SAM-2 and SAM-7
missiles, The Russians have also begun delivery of a .con-
signment of thirty Mi-a. helicopters.
NLIKE the Chileans, the Peruvians have -no difficulty
U
shopping around. Uncle Sans appears to be less scrupulous
about selling hardware to a proto-Communist dictatorship.
than to an anti-Communist one. The Peruvians have taken
delivery of eight of a consignment of 36 A-37-B planes, two
four) "Guppy" class submarines, 84 (of 150) APC-113
armored cars, three (of nine) Grumman Tracker planes.
They have also been negotiating the purchase of up to
16 F-5 fighter planes and one hundred tank transport
vehicles capable of operating in the �kind of mountain
country characteristic of eastern Chile. It is hardly stir-
prising that the Chilean military are somewhat -embittered
by this sales list. I have gone into some detail, because I'
think that a full explanation of why American arms policy
has been "business as usual" in relation to Peru, but not,
in relation to Chile, is the least that the Administration--
and the U.S. Congress�owes to the government in San-
.
tiago.
I used that dubious phrase "invisible blockade." Well, it
is a pretty visible blockade in the case of the arms sales�.
not to mention the fact that Chilean officers are no longer
permitted to attend training courses in American defense
institutions.. That is another minor stroke of genius. Some
congressional staffers think that the Chilean military are
"gorillas," and that they should be cut off from the educa-
tional influences of the outside world. The Ford Foundation
and some American universities seem 'to reason the same
way. The Ford Foundation has decided to end grants to any-
one working inside Chile (much to the chagrin of left-wing
Christian Democrats as well as conservative academics)
and confine its support to Chilean exiles. The University of
California has severed its !inks with the University of Chile.
Isn't it funny how the left liberals who promote "con-
vergence" theories in relation to the Communist world:�
i.e., Let's see more of then] and they'll become more like
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opposite when it comes to dealing vth a
eou'utty7
'I :e or coarse, been no economic blockuile of the
but American aid and credits have.hardly been mug-
nanimous7-certiiinly not by comparison with what the so,
Yiet bloc did for Allende. All in all, U.S. aid and credits
to the juntu. during it two years prohahly total sonic
S300 million, less than haif what the Warsaw Pact coun-
tries doled out to Allende over his three years in office,
And there have be..t.'n a few snags along the way. Robert
McNamara at the Workl Li.tiik (a very busy man who is
said to find time to meet we,Aly with a group of Chilean
exiles) has been particularly reluctant to sanction credits
for the junta. -
rNrk: 1..S1 WORD abOLIt iN American ale in Chile. It SCe111;;
to he a long-staading convention with the State Depart�
nv_ult that Our Mao in. Santiago shoilid be temperamentally
incompatible with the government to which he is accred-
ited. Allfinde had to reckon with the shrewd conservative
Nathaniel Davis; the junta has to contend with the liberal
David Popper, whose past contretemps with Senator Joe
McCarthy�and the fuss that was made about it at the time
of his appointment�did not exactly help him to find his
feet on the rather Manichean terrain of present-day Chile.
His relations with the junta are notoriously frigid, and are
not improved by the fact that the close liaison between. his
political staff and left-wing Christian Democrats is an open
secret. The mlitary seem to believe, rightly or wrongly,
that the project of the U.S. Embassy�or at least an ele-
ment within it�is to engineer the return to power of the
Christian Democrats, "the American party," at the earliest
possible opportunity. Many of the blunders committed in
Chile might have been averted if the Americans�and some
of. the West Europeans�had made a more sustained at-
tempt-to offer practical guidance rather than try to resusci-
tate a long-lost past.
This much by way of introduction. The present condition
of Chile, a country which I have grown to love and to
which I feel a strong personal commitment, depresses me
in many respects, and I am not going to pull any punches
in describing where things have gone wrong, and where
they -need to be changed. But the attempt to isolate Chile
from outside aid and support, which will be pushed further
at the UN this fall, can only�if successful�make condi-
tions in Chile worse. To the extent that the United States
is seen to be floating along with such a policy, it risks
driving Chile into that ever-growing, stridently nationalistic
lobby of nations for which terms like "right-wing" or "left-
wing" become irrelevant.
Pinochet is called a "fascist" not because he puts people
in jail without trial, but because his government is anti-
Communist and supports private enterprise. Velasco was
trot called a "fascist," because he made anti-American and
anti-capitalist speeches and was on good terms with the
Russians. There is an easy, if unpalatable, option for the
Chilean generals if, in the long run, the West fails them,
and that is to catapult over to a Peruvian-style "national
socialism" that would not greatly respect human rights and
democratic principles but could count on Third World ap-
proval. I shall return to this scenario in discussing the long-
range political alternatives for Chile; it is one that d;!,1