The CIA and the coup against Salvador Allende, an uncomfortable memory for the United States

The same morning 50 years ago that the Chilean palace of La Moneda was bombed with Salvador Allende entrenched inside, the then president of the United States, Richard Nixonhe was looking at a document prepared by the CIA under the title “Chile” in the White House.

Was September 11, 1973 and the intelligence services informed him that The Chilean military was “determined to restore political and economic order”although the triumph of the bang because the soldiers lacked “effective coordination.”

LOOK: Chile faces divided the 50 years of the coup of September 11, 1973 (and with the figure of Pinochet on the rise)

Just three days before, on September 8, In another report to the Republican president, the CIA had warned of the possibility that there would soon be an “attempted coup” in Chile.

Photos of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger displayed at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights during the exhibition “State Secrets: the declassified history of the Chilean dictatorship” in Santiago on October 24, 2017. (MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP). (MARTIN BERNETTI/)

Both documents have been partially declassified by the Administration of Joe Biden as a gesture of good will towards the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, for the commemoration of the 50 years of the violent coup that ended Allende’s life and established the bloody dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

The Chilean ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel Valdeswas the one who requested the publication of those reports to know “what President Nixon saw on his desk on the morning of the military coup,” the diplomat revealed in a recent interview with EFE.

“There are details that interest us, they are important to be able to reconstitute our own history,” he said days before they were announced.

CREATE CONDITIONS FOR THE COUP

Half a century after bangthere are still documents to be declassified and there are voices that demand that Washington recognize its role, not only in the overthrow of Allendebut also in the country’s previous turmoil and subsequent support for Pinochet’s repressive regime.

LOOK: What the documents declassified by the US say about the hours before the coup d’état in Chile

And it is that in full Cold Wara, both Nixon and his all-powerful National Security Advisor, the now centenarian Henry Kissingerthey feared that the democratic government of Allende would expand the socialism in the region.

There is no evidence that the United States directly orchestrated the coup, but it is known that three years earlier Nixon had ordered “to make the Chilean economy scream.” to destabilize the country and INC had supported the kidnapping and murder of the army chief Rene Schneider to sabotage Allende’s inauguration.

This has been revealed by documents published in dribs and drabs from the Administration of Bill Clinton.

Journalist Peter Kornbluhwho has been investigating them for decades for the National Security Archive, explained to EFE that although USA did not participate with troops in the banghe did convey his support to the coup plotters in case they triumphed.

Journalist Peter Kornbluh speaks in an interview with EFE, on August 15, 2023 in front of the White House in Washington, DC (EFE/Octavio Guzmán). (Octavio Guzmán/)

“The Nixon Administration had a policy of destabilizing the legitimate and constitutional Government of Allendeand help consolidate a non-democratic and non-legitimate Government that took power violently in Chile,” Kornbluh explained.

LOOK: Should the United States apologize for the coup against Allende in Chile?

“Today we continue talking about Chili because it is a symbol of the darkness of the dictatorship against the hopes of democracy,” he added.

During its 17 years, the dictatorship left more than 40,000 victims, including executed, detained, disappeared and tortured.

But his own Kissinger He met with Pinochet in Santiago, Chile, in 1976, where he downplayed human rights violations and thanked him for his “great service to the West with the overthrow of Allende.”

WOLA AND THE INTERNAL OPPOSITION

This position, however, was contested within the United States. “There was popular resistance on the part of many students against the coup; a very strong reaction,” recalls the missionary and activist Joe Eldridge in interview with EFE.

Fifty years later, Eldridge still remembers the terror he experienced when he saw the columns of smoke coming out of La Moneda that September 11.

Missionary and activist Joe Eldridge poses during an interview with EFE on August 28, 2023 at his home in Washington, DC (EFE/Octavio Guzmán).

He lived in a popular neighborhood near the center of Santiago and had been documenting the role of USA in the country’s social unrest, so he soon became a target for the Chilean dictatorship.. Two of his companions were arrested and taken to the National Stadium, the largest torture center.

When he managed to leave the country, Eldridge settled in Washingtonwhere he acquired with other allies a home that he called The House of Chile to help exiles from the South American country, like Joan Jara, widow of the singer-songwriter Víctor Jara.

Those were the foundations of the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs (WOLA), an NGO that pressured Congress to cut off military aid to the dictatorships of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, and that today continues to defend human rights in Latin America.

“Upon returning to the United States I was determined to cut off military aid and we achieved it thanks to many friends in Congress,” remember.

NO APOLOGIES IN SIGHT

The relationship of the US Government with the dictatorship cooled after the murder of the exiled Allendista Orlando Letelier in the heart of Washington orchestrated by Pinochet at the end of 1976.

At the beginning of 1977, the Democratic president took office Jimmy Carter with a promise to defend human rights abroad, although he reprimanded diplomat Brady Tyson, who had apologized for his country’s complicity in the coup.

The Boric Government believes that Washington should recognize that “there was responsibility in the weakening of Chilean democracy before Allende,” the ambassador said.

For his part, the Department of State He maintains that the declassification of the latest documents is a gesture to “better understand the shared history” between both countries.

But an apology from the United States is not on the table. “Apologizing is not part of his diplomatic language,” Eldridge said.

Source: Elcomercio