Two fifty-year old documents related to the coup in Chile were released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department last week. The democratically elected, left wing government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 by the Chilean military, with covert CIA backing. A US-supported dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet was subsequently installed.
President Richard Nixon’s daily briefs related to the coup on September 8th as well as the 11th – the day the Chilean military seized control of the government – were released. This declassification followed repeated calls for increased transparency by progressive members of Congress, human rights groups, and Santiago.
Nixon and then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger strongly opposed the leftist Allende government and attempted to prevent its rule. George Washington University’s National Security Archive issued a statement which says “[the documents] contained information that went to President Nixon as a military takeover that he and [Kissinger] had encouraged for three years came to fruition.”
Nixon’s daily brief for September 8, 1973 reads “a number of reports have been received… indicating the possibility of an early military coup… Navy men plotting to overthrow the government now claim army and air force support.”
The document – written three days before the coup – continues with a discussion of how a fascist paramilitary group “has been blocking roads and provoking clashes with the national police, adding to the tension caused by continuing strikes and opposition political moves. President Allende earlier this week said he believed the armed forces will ask for his resignation if he does not change his economic and political policies.”
On September 11th, Nixon’s daily brief said “Plans by navy officers to trigger military action against the Allende government are supported by some key army units… The navy is also counting on help from the air force and national police.”
After Allende’s initial refusal to resign, tanks opened fire, Air Force aircraft launched rocket attacks and bombed the presidential palace. Troops stormed in and Allende shot himself.
“What followed [the coup] was a vicious, decades-long reign of terror and repression during which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, or disappeared by the Pinochet regime, which continued to receive support from the CIA,” as Common Dreams’ Jake Johnson has written.
Indeed, in 2000, the CIA conceded that “many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses… Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or [US] military.”
Hellbound and Down 