LETTER RE COVERT ACTIONS TAKEN IN CHILE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 16032130
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: March 3, 2022
• Case Number: F-2019-02353

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SELECT COMMITTEE TO
STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH
RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES
(PURSUANT TO S. RES. 21, 14712 CONGRESS)
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510
Mr. Breckinridge:
As we discussed.
Bill Bader
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Mr. Chairman:
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The staff study on Chile focuses on what is labeled "covert
action" by the Central Intelligence Agency. Covert action, as
defined by the Central Intelligence Agency, describes a policy
tool for all seasons and purposes. To the Agency the term
"covert action" means "any clandestine operation or activity
designed to influence foreign governments, organizations, per-
sons or events in support of the United States foreign policy."
The definition of "covert action" was not always so embrac-
ing, and indeed the term itself was only coined in recent years.
This question of defining "covert action" is important as the
Committee addresses the central questions:
-- As an instrument of foreign policy what can covert action
do under what circumstances?
More fundamentally, should covert action be permitted? If
so, under what rules and constraints?
Over the past months, the Committee has coqucted a series
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of hearings on a variety of covert action case studies. As you
have stated, Mr. Chairman, Chile has been chosen as one case of
a major covert action the Couwattee will examine in public session.
Therefore our interest is not only what happened in Chile but
what the Chilean experience tells us about covert action as a
foreign policy option of a democratic society.
It is important to note -- and for the public to understand --
that the objectives, the techniques, and the political control
of covert operations have changed over the years. There is
nothing immutable or sacrosanct about covert action -- what has
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been so fundamentally altered in the past can surely be changed
or even abolished in the future.
It was only in late 1947 -- two and a half years after the
end of World War II -- that the United States formally decided
that clandestine intelligence collection activities of the U.S.
government had to be supplemented by what was described as covert
psychological operations (propaganda and manipulation of the press).
By the late spring of 1948 the Soviet threat was held to
be of such seriousness that "covert operations" were expanded to
include to counter Soviet propaganda and Soviet support of labor
unions, student groups, and political parties, economic warfare,
sabotage, assistance to refugee liberation groups, and support
of anti-Communist groups in occupied or threatened countries.
Gradually, covert action was extended to include countries
all around the world. Burgeoning from the experience of countering
the Soviet Union and its satellites in 1947 and 1948, the CIA
had major covert operations underway in roughly.50 countries by
1953; a commitment of over 50% of the Agency's budget during the
1950's and 1960's.
In broad terms -- and in the language of the trade:-- covert
activities since coming of age in 1948 have been grouped around
three major categories: propaganda, political aCtion, and para-
military activities. In the experience with Chile, the largest
covert activiites were those in the categories of propaganda and
political action. Paramilitary activities -- that is, covert
military assistance and operations -- were not employed to any
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Propaganda
As revealed in the staff paper, the largest covert action
activity in Chile was propaganda. The CIA Station in Santiago
placed materials in the Chilean media, maintained a number of
assets or agents on major Chilean newspapers, radio and television
stations, and used "black" propaganda -- that is, material falsely
purporting to be the product of a particular group. For example,
the Station used "black" propaganda to sow discord between the
Chilean communists and the socialists. In some cases, the form
of propaganda was still more direct. The CIA Station financed
Chilean groups who erected wall posters and distributed political
leaflets -- (a number of these leaflets were designed by the
CIA Station in Santiago) to influence the outcome of Chilean
elections.
Let me give you an illustrative range of th'& kinds of propa-
ganda projects that were undertaken in Chile during the years
1961-1974:
Subsidization of two news services, one domestic, one'
hemisphere-wide to influence Chilean public opinion.
Operation of a press placement service. '
Development of a commercial television service in Chile.
Support of anti-Communist propaganda activity through
wall posters, leaflets, and other street actions.
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Use of an Agency controlled news agency to counter
Communist influence in Chile and in Latin America
Placement of anti-Soviet propaganda on eight radio
news stations and in five provincial newspapers
By far the largest -- and probably the most significant --
instance of US manipulation of the media is the money provided
to El Mercurio, the major Santiago daily during the Allende
regime.
On September 9, 1971, the Forty Committee authorized some
$700,000 for El Mercurio; and added another $900,000 to that
authorization in April of 1972. The CIA judged that El Mercurio,
the most important opposition publication, could not survive without
covert assistance because of heavy pressure from the Allende
government. This pressure included restriction on the availability
of newsprint and the withdrawal of government advertising.
The CIA subsequently concluded that El Mercurio and-other media
outlets supported by the Agency had played an important role in
setting the stage for the September 11, 1973, military coup which
overthrew Allende. To give you some reference point as to the
potential impact of a propaganda project of the scale of the
El Mercurio project, one has only to imagine the potential impact
on the United States public opinion if a foreign country subsidized.
the budget of- the New York Times and controlled a number of its
employees.
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As outlined in thereport, these propaganda programs went
to considerable lengths during the buildup of pressure against
Allende to convince the people of Chile that Allende threatened
their security and their future. At one point, anxious to
reinforce the notion of the close connection between Allende
and Fidel Castro, the CIA sought to find a picture of Allende
and Castro together. When it was discovered that no such picture
existed in their archives, the Agency proceeded to manufacture
such a picture and then distribute the photograph widely in Chile.
Political Action
In the intelligence trade, covert political action aims to
influence without attribution to the United States political
events in a foreign country. Political action can range from
recruiting an agent from within a foreign government for the
purpose of influencing that government to subsidizing political
parties friendly to U.S. interests. Starkly pu,t, political
action is the covert manipulation of political power abroad.
From 1964 to 1968 the CIA undertook a wide range of projects
aimed to influence political events in Chile by:
Wresting control of Chilean university student organiza-
tions from the Communists
Supporting a women's group active in Chilean i political
and intellectural life and hostile to the Allende govern-
ment.
Combating the principal Communist-dominated labor union
in Chile.
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The most impressive political action in Chile was the massive
efforts made over the decade from 1964 to 1974 to influence the
Chilean elections. The Central Intelligence Agency in 1964, for
example, spent over $3 million in election programs, financing
in the process over half of the Christian Democratic campaign.
Chile is not a large country. Had a foreign government provided
an equal amount per capitaof covert support to the Democratic
national campaign of 1964 the Democratic National Committee would
have had an additional $60 million -_-.-elmost ten_timeS.,the,amount
they actually had available. These election efforts in Chile were
not limited to the providing of subsidies of political parties.
Inter-agency election committees were established, in Washington
and Santiago, composed of the State Department, White House and
CIA officials to man an American-style campaign which included
extensive political
paid for by the CIA, (the importing
of an _election expert from, the United States), and voter registra-
tion and getting-out-the-vote drives. At one pint in the 1964
election the Station in Santiago complained that the Christian
Democratic political leadership was becoming increasingly dependent
on the CIA and that the CIA had to take an ever-increasing hand
in managing the campaign.
In all the cases I have described, the major objective of U.S.
covert policy. in Chile was to influence, control, contain, and
manipulate political Power in the country. In addition, as the
Committee's assassination report documents, covert action in
Chile took a violent turn from political manipulation to the so-
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At the express request of the American government's most
senior officials, the CIA established links to several groups of
Chilean military officers who were plotting a coup. It offered
money and weapons and eventually passed weapons to a group of
Chilean officers. The CIA knew that the plotters' plans began
with the kidnapping of the Chief of Staff of the Chilean army,
the man who stood in the way of a successful coup, General
Rene Schneider. Although the United States apparently was not
directly involved in the abortive kidnapping attempt which re-
sulted in Schneider's death, the Track II episode stands as testi-
mony as to how far the United States has been willing to go to
influence covertly the course of Chilean politics.
The Control Process
As "covert action" has evolved Over the years, so have the
various systems of political approval and control of covert activi-
ties. A major finding of the Staff study on Chile is that the
approval and monitoring process for covert-action in Chile was
sound in theory but in practice proved to be completely vulnerable
to a President or a National Security Advisor who, apparently with-
out fear of being held politically accountable, decided to ignore
established procedures.
It is fair to say, however, that ensuring that the covert
operations of the government were consistent with U.S. policy,
has been a longstanding problem. To be truly "covert," operations
must be guarded from public scrutiny --- and thereby guarded from
public accountability. Accountability: the procedures for
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insuring that covert actions are and remain under the direct
control of the senior officials of the executive branch and
the Congress is difficult and the central issue of covert action.
Coordination and approval procedures for covert action have
ranged from an initial short period of State and Defense Depart-
ment control to the situation of the 1950's when the burden fell
on the Director of Central Intelligence to insure that covert
action programs and projects were in conformity with existing
National Security Council directives. Even in the early years
of the the so-called "Special Group" -- a coordination and con-
trol committee established in 1955 consisting of representatives
from the Office of the President, the Department of State, and
the CIA -- the DCI was given discretion to determine when projects
were submitted to this group. Not until 1963 did the CIA estab-
lish formal criteria based on political sensitivity for submission
to the Special Group, renamed the 303 Committee. In the case of
Chile, CIA presentations to this Committee and 'its successor group
-- the 40 Committee -- involved a formal submission of projects
which were reviewed, often amended, and sometimes rejected. In
theory all covert action projects submitted to the 40 Committee
are coordinated and cleared with the Ambassador as well as the
Assistant Secretary of State of the area concerned.
When we turn to the record of actual covert activities in
Chile, however, this record suggests that, although thee estab-
lished executive processes of authorization and control were
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generally adhered to, there, were -- and remain -- genuine
shortcomings to that process:
-- The Agency determines which covert action projects are
submitted to the 40 Committee were on the basis of the
political sensitivity of a project.
-- Ambassadors and other State Department officials were
informed of covert activities depending on how interested
the Ambassadors were and how forthcoming their Station
Chiefs were.
After major projects are approved by the 40 Committee,
they often continue without searching re-examination.
The Agency conducts annual reviews of on-going projects,
but the 40 Committee does not undertake a review unless
a project is recommended for renewal, or there is some
important change in operation or. cost.
Clandestine collection of human intelligence (which may
be just as politically sensitive as a 'covert action" wit-
ness U.S. contacts with the Chilean military during
1970-73) is not the subject of 40 Committee review.
Finally, there remains the critical question of the dangers
which arise when the very mechanisms established by the Executive
Branch for insuring internal political accountability are circum-
vented or frustrated.
The President instructed that support of the militaiy coup,
a Track II be operated without informing the U.S. Ambassador in
Santiago, the State Department, or any 40 Committee member save
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Henry Kissinger. The President and his senior advisors thus
denied themselves the Government's major sources of counsel about
Chilean politics. And the Ambassador in Santiago was left in
the position of having to deal with any adverse political spill-
over from a project of which he was not informed.
The danger was greater still. Whatever the truth about
whether Track II continued after October 15, 1970, -- an issue
which is the subject of conflicting testimony -- all participants
agreed that Track II constituted a broad mandate to the CIA.
The Agency was under great pressure and given to believe it had
virtual carte blanche authority to prevent Allende from coming
to power, by military coup if necessary. Having been given
little guidance about what subsequent clearances it needed from
the White House, CIA consultation with the White House in advance
of specific actions was less than meticulous.
Mr. Chairman, against the above background on the meaning
and varieties of covert action, Mr. Inderfurth*will discuss the
major covert actions taken in Chile.
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