John Foster Dulles's staunch anti-Communism, which had fueled the CIA's covert operations in Iran and Guatemala, would leave a legacy more deadly than the relatively bloodless coups that had overthrown each of those two country's duly-elected highest government officials.
When the major power peace conference convened in Geneva in 1954 to negotiate a settlement in Vietnam between Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh nationalists and the French colonialists they had beaten to submission after six years of fighting, Dulles was determined to resist ceding total sovereignty of the country to the Communists. The result was a military truce -- not a political settlement -- that provided for a temporary partition along the seventeenth parallel with the Vietminh withdrawing to the north and former allies of the French establishing a separate entity to the south. There would be a nationwide election in two years to effect unification under one government. (Kinzer, p. 151)
Fifteen years later Henry Kissinger would inherit Dulles's misguided commitment to the containment of nationalist aspirations in Southeast Asia and the calamity that it engendered. And if Dulles exhibited a cavalier disregard for the yearning of less sophisticated but resource-rich societies to control their own destinies, Kissinger articulated a similar disdain when confronted by Chilean foreign minister Gabriel Valdes. Accused of knowing nothing about the Southern Hemisphere, Kissinger replied, "No, and I don't care. Nothing important can come from the South . . . The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance." (Kinzer, p. 198)
NOBODY LIKED DIEM
With an election looming in 1956, the Americans needed a stable government in South Vietnam, or the appearance of one, if they hoped to foil the ambitions of Ho Chi Minh, whom, according to President Eisenhower, "possibly eighty percent of the population" would vote for. Similarly, Vietnam's expatriate Emperor Bao Dai intuited that his torpid, extravagant lifestyle and preoccupation with French courtesans and Monte Carlo gambling might be in jeopardy unless he could retain a serviceable administrator. From a Benedictine monastery in Belgium, on June 18, 1954, he summoned the portly fifty-three-year-old Ngo Dinh Diem to his chateau near Cannes, persuaded him to swear to defend Vietnam "against the Communists," and named him prime minister. (Kinzer, p. 153; Karnow, p. 217)
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Diem was an ascetic Catholic, most likely celibate, steeped in Confucian tradition. He trained for the bureaucracy at the French School of Law and Administration, served as a provincial governor, and was appointed to a commission to study reform but resigned in disgust when he realized it was a hopeless endeavor. He despised the Communists, who had killed his brother and nephew, and, when held in captivity for a brief period in 1945, spurned the advances of Ho Chi Minh, who sought his "cooperation in gaining independence." He spent two years at the Maryknoll Seminary in Lakewood, New Jersey, where he met Francis Cardinal Spellman and Senators Mike Mansfield and John Kennedy, a sojourn which Bao Dai assumed would be helpful in currying favor with the Americans. (Karnow, pp. 215-218)
Diem never gained the full respect of his American ally. Although "honest, courageous, and fervent in his fidelity to Vietnam's national cause," he considered himself infallible and expected obedience. "Distrustful of everyone outside his family, he declined to delegate authority, nor was he able to build a constituency that reached beyond his fellow Catholics and natives of Central Vietnam." Because he saw his foes' uprising -- which was a political, social, and economic revolution -- in narrow military terms, "he could not effectively mobilize the South Vietnamese people against the growing insurgency." Nevertheless, to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, "Diem's the only boy we got out there." (Karnow, p. 213-214)
With the counsel of CIA operative Edward Lansdale, Diem was able to consolidate power by the end of 1955, outsmarting and outfighting his domestic adversaries and arranging the rescue of one million refugees, mostly Catholics, from North Vietnam. He called for a referendum, and if the ballots were cast under the watchful eye of Diem's agents and in some localities the tally for Diem exceeded the number of registered voters, still he won by a majority of 98.2%. He deposed Bao Dai and pronounced himself chief of state. (Karnow, pp. 222-223)
Diem was hardly willing to expose himself to a nationwide election. He cabled the State Department that such an election would not be "absolutely free" and should not be held, an assessment John Foster Dulles was not about to contradict, content to leave the matter "up to the Vietnamese themselves." No signatories to the Geneva Accord were eager to push for a political settlement, and so the deadline for such, July 1956, quietly passed and along with it another opportunity for a peaceful resolution to the intractable problem of a divided Vietnam. (Karnow, p. 224)
Open combat broke out between the two sides. Diem set out to destroy Vietminh activists who had remained in the south after the 1954 truce. If he crushed thousands of enemies, he likely created just as many more by his repressive measures against peasants who were innocent of any militance. He also motivated the battered Vietminh to strike back, which they did with a vengeance, terrorizing and assassinating government officials, hamlet chiefs, and schoolteachers. In 1960, Hanoi formalized the resistance by establishing the National Liberation Front, a coalition of dissident groups that would confront Diem politically while the guerillas, now called Vietcong, would wage war. (Karnow, pp. 227, 238-239; Kinzer, p. 154)
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With the United States not yet committed to sending ground troops to Vietnam, the task of undergirding Diem's regime was assigned to the CIA. It sent him hundreds of millions of dollars, provided a phalanx of bodyguards, and opened a direct line to Washington, DC. The agency created South Vietnam's political parties, trained its secret police, organized a dirty tricks operation, and peddled propaganda heralding Diem's future triumphs. (Karnow, p. 221; Weiner, p. 211)
Diem and his sponsor grew increasingly disillusioned with each other. Diem complained to U.S. ambassador Frederick Nolting that American troops were only intensifying the conflict by provoking strong responses from the North. Inspecting the harbor at Cam Ranh Bay, he told his aids, "The Americans want a base there, but I will never accept it." Informed by Nolting that the U.S. wished to share in the political, military, and economic decision-making processes, Diem replied, "Vietnam does not want to be a protectorate." (Kinzer, pp. 155-156)
The more Diem acted like a "a puppet who pulled his own strings," the more he exasperated an American government that was committing significant resources to the defense of his regime but was unwilling to do so under terms defined by its client. (Karnow, p. 284)
As jet fighters, helicopters, heavy artillery, and other weaponry poured into the country, Diem's battalions resisted confronting the Vietcong head-on, relying instead on American air strikes and artillery shells to do their work for them. And when soldiers were thrown into the fray, the outcome was often disastrous. (Kinzer, p. 155)
In January 1963, after watching a Vietcong contingent outnumbered ten-to-one maul a South Vietnam division, one of the top U.S. advisers, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann, reported that Diem was more interested in manipulating his officer corps to reward loyalty and prevent conspiracies against him than he was in fighting to win. Vann openly charged Diem with wanting the war to stumble along inconclusively so he could continue to receive American aid. (Karnow, p. 262)
Diem structured his administration as a narrow oligarchy composed of his immediate family and other relatives. His eldest brother Can ruled central Vietnam like a feudal warlord. Another brother Thuc was a Catholic Archbishop and an investor who had made a fortune in rubber, timber, and real estate. Diem's most trusted confidante and adviser was his youngest brother Nhu, to whom he delegated the responsibility for crafting the regime's political ideology and managing its daily affairs while he retreated into isolation and detachment. (Karnow, pp. 230, 265; Kinzer, p. 153)
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Nhu was a man of intrigue and mentally unstable, whose policies and practices undermined confidence and trust in the institutions of government. "He created a web of covert political, security, and labor groups, all in the tradition of secret societies that had flourished in Asia for centuries." He championed the vast, expensive "strategic hamlet" program; conceived in 1962 as a means of depriving the Vietcong of local support by herding peasants into armed stockades, it perversely converted many of them to enemy sympathizers by disrupting their communities, forcing them to work without pay, and displacing them miles from their fields and markets. (Karnow, pp. 255-257, 265)
In the spring of 1963, Nhu revealed his skepticism about the war effort when he "suggested that perhaps the time had come to negotiate with the Vietcong." He told a television interviewer, "I consider the communists as brothers, lost sheep. I am not for an assault against communists because we are a small country, and we only want to live in peace." (Kinzer, p. 156)
Occupying the presidential palace alongside her brother-in-law and husband was the latter's flamboyant and outspoken wife, Madame Nhu. "She often infuriated Diem in private and embarrassed him publicly with her provocative remarks, but he tolerated her out of familial fidelity." On more than one occasion she alleged that the Americans were plotting with Vietnamese dissidents to topple Diem. Her puritanism outraged thousands as she enthusiastically endorsed such measures as the abolition of divorce, the criminalization of adultery, bans on abortion and contraceptives, and the closing of bars and nightclubs. (Karnow, pp. 266-267)
Diem rebuffed repeated entreaties to liberalize his government. He announced legislative elections in August 1959, but rigged the outcome by deploying tactics like coercion of voters, ballot box stuffing, and the summary disqualification of unfriendly candidates. The following year, when eighteen distinguished nationalists presented a petition urging him to broaden his inner circle, his response was ruthless. "He closed opposition newspapers and arrested a number of journalists, students, and other intellectuals, accusing them of 'Communist affiliations.'" (Karnow, p. 235)
Diem's downfall was precipitated by a religious controversy which at first seemed trivial but swelled into a political upheaval. Among their discriminatory actions against the Buddhists during their years of colonial rule -- which included limiting the number of clergy and restricting the construction of temples -- the Catholic French required them to obtain permits to conduct public activities. Diem, a devout Catholic, never repealed the statute. "He counted on the thousands of Catholics who had fled south after the 1954 partition as his core constituency. He coddled them with key military and civilian posts, business deals, and property privileges." (Karnow, p. 278)
On May 8, 1963, Buddhists assembled in Hue to celebrate the 2527th birthday of the Buddha. The deputy province chief, a Catholic by the name of Major Dang Xi, enforced an old decree prohibiting them from flying their multicolored flag, despite having allowed Catholics a week earlier to display a blue and white papal banner commenting the ordination of Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. When several thousand protesters gathered in front of the city's radio station to hear a speech from Buddhist leader Tri Quang, the station manager canceled the speech. He called Major Xi, who dispatched five armored cars to the scene. Gunfire erupted, and the crowd stampeded. Eight women and a child were shot dead or trampled to death. (Karnow, p. 278)
"Buddhist leaders reacted by launching a nationwide campaign to defame Diem. They distributed leaflets, met with foreign journalists, and staged rallies and hunger strikes." Diem insisted that the Vietcong were to blame for the incident, and even when told by Deputy Ambassador William Trueheart that he might lose U.S. support unless the Buddhists were treated more humanely refused to make concessions. (Kinzer, p.156; Karnow, pp. 279-280)
On June 11, a sixty-seven-year-old Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Doc sat cross-legged at a busy Saigon intersection and allowed himself to be doused with gasoline and set afire. In a statement distributed to reporters, the suicide made a "respectful" plea to Diem to show "charity and compassion" to all religions. As more self-immolations followed, Madame Nhu displayed a striking lack of sensitivity when she referred to the atrocities as a "barbecue." "Let them burn," she said. "We will clap our hands."(Kinzer, pp. 156-157)
On August 20, Diem declared martial law and used it as a justification to unleash his brother Nhu's private army. Nhu's men ransacked Saigon's principal Buddhist sanctuary and arrested four hundred monks and nuns. "They staged similar assaults in other cities, rounding up more than a thousand monks, nuns, student activists, and ordinary citizens." In Hue they fought an eight-hour battle against defenders barricaded inside the Dieunde temple while two thousand townspeople rioted in protest. (Karnow, p. 285)
By now, said Robert Kennedy, "Nobody liked Diem. But how to get rid of him and get somebody who would continue the war, not split the country in two, and therefore lose not only the war but the country -- that was the great problem." (Weiner, p. 215)
On Saturday, August 28, while Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatrick (acting for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who was on vacation), and President John Kennedy were away from the capital, three lower-ranking foreign policy advisers would set in motion the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem.
The instrument was a cable drafted by Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman and National Security Council aide Michael Forrestal and sent to the newly-appointed U.S. ambassador in South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge. Both Hilsman and Forrestal had expressed doubts about Diem's competence to wage a political struggle, having reported to the president after a fact-finding mission in January that the concentration of power in the hands of Diem and his brother and "Diem's reluctance to delegate is alienating the middle and higher level officials on whom the government must depend to carry out its policies." (Reeves, Kennedy, p. 447)
On August 28, they wrote to Lodge: "U.S. Government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in Nhu's hands. Diem must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu and his coterie and replace them with best military and political personalities available. If in spite of all your efforts, Diem remains obdurate and refuses, we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved." (Reeves, Kennedy, p. 562)
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Hilsman secured the approval of his two superiors at the State Department, Averell Harriman and George Ball. Forrestal called President Kennedy at his Cape Cod retreat at Hyannis Port and explained that Lodge needed instructions about what to do if there was a coup. "See what you can do to get it cleared," said the president. Then Ball called Kennedy and read him the most important parts of the cable. "Okay," said the president, "if Rusk and Gilpatrick agree, then go ahead." Both Rusk and Gilpatrick gave their assent when contacted by Ball, as they believed they were acting in accord with the president. Forrestal made a third call at nine o'clock that night, told Kennedy he had obtained clearances from State, Defense, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs, and finally got the directive he wanted: "Send it out." (Reeves,
Kennedy, pp. 561-562)
Kennedy later regretted how the matter had been handled. During a White House meeting the following week, he sternly reprimanded Hilsman, Harriman, Ball, and Forrestal for their "impulsiveness." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Maxwell Taylor, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson all argued against a coup. At one point during the acrimonious debate, Kennedy confided to a friend, "My God! My government's coming apart." (Karnow, p. 288)
After meeting face-to-face with Diem for the first time, Ambassador Lodge was convinced he would never jettison his brother Nhu. Three days later he sent a long, lecturing cable to Washington in which he called for decisive measures: "We are launched on a course from which there is no respectable turning back: the overthrow of the Diem government . . . There is no turning back because there is no possibility, in my view, that the war can be won under a Diem administration." When Lodge recommended that the U.S. suspend all military and economic aid to Diem, the president authorized him to do so. (Karnow. pp. 288-290)
With the Kennedy Administration torn between continuing to bolster a corrupt and unpopular regime or endorsing a coup to overthrow it, only one member broached a third option. Paul Kattenburg, staff director of the Interdepartmental Task Force on Vietnam, had just returned from Saigon, where he had met with Diem for three hours. At the White House on August 31, he described Vietnam policy as "a garden path to tragedy." "At this juncture, it would be better for us to make the decision to get out honorably . . . In six months to a year, as the South Vietnamese people see we are losing the war, they will gradually go to the other side and we will be obliged to leave." (Reeves, Kennedy, pp. 576-577)
"That's just your speculation," said Secretary of State Rusk. "We will not pull out of Vietnam until the war is won . . . And we will not run a coup." McNamara nodded his approval, and exclaimed, "We are winning this war!" (Reeves, Kennedy, p. 577)
McNamara would change his mind a month later after conferring with Lodge in Saigon. He wrote in a memorandum: "Diem would not last thirty days without Nhu who handles the bribes and manipulates the power base necessary for his survival. Only a military coup or an assassination will be effective and one or the other is likely to occur soon. In such circumstances we have a 50% chance of getting something better." (Reeves, Kennedy, p. 608)
American intelligence had been aware of a burgeoning conspiracy since the night of July 4 when General Tran Van Don, figurehead commander of the South Vietnam army, met with a veteran CIA operative named Lucien Conein at a noisy Saigon night club. Don and his brother-in-law, Le Van Kim, his closest confidante, had been promoted through the ranks by Diem, but both had soured on his and Nhu's oppressive policies. Don and Kim would later recruit another dissatisfied general, Duong Van "Big" Minh, whose popularity with the army had only earned him Diem's mistrust and a demotion to "special adviser," a post with little authority. (Karnow, p. 282)
Coup planning was in its early stages, and Don had only a few details he could share with Conein. He did have one crucial question: "What will the American reaction be if we go all the way?" (Karnow, p. 284)
Born in Paris, Conein had served in French army and the U.S. Office of Special Services both in France and Indochina during and after World War II. He used the code name "Black Luigi," claimed to be an "expert liar," and was described by colleagues as "eccentric, boisterous, often uncontrollable, deeply sensitive, and thoroughly professional." "Reassigned to Vietnam in early 1962, Conein masqueraded as consultant to the Saigon ministry which allowed him to roam the country and gather information on plots against the government." (Karnow, p. 283)
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Conein's experience and underground network made him Ambassador Lodge's ideal clandestine envoy to the cabal. On October 5, Conein met with Don and Minh at the Saigon garrison headquarters where they asked for continued military and economic aid and assurances that the U.S. would not obstruct their coup. Lodge transmitted the request to President Kennedy, who, while approving it, tried to distance the administration from direct involvement: "While we do not wish to stimulate a coup, we also do not wish to leave the impression that the United States would thwart a change of government." (Karnow, p. 295)
"In the years ahead Lodge would use the same language publicly to deny personal responsibility for Diem's downfall." (Karnow, p. 295)
"A few days later, Conein conveyed the substance of that message to Minh. The green light had been flashed." (Karnow, p. 295)
Still there were second thoughts. Realizing the coup was imminent, Kennedy convened the national security council on October 29. Robert Kennedy, General Maxwell Taylor, John McCone, and Dean Rusk all expressed reservations. Perhaps the most vehemently opposed was General Paul Harkins, head of the American Military Assistance Command in Vietnam, who spoke via cable: "In my contacts here, I have seen no one with the strength of character of Diem, at least in fighting Communists . . . Rightly or wrongly, we have backed Diem for eight long years. To me, it seems incongruous to now to get him down, kick him around, get rid of him." (Karnow, pp. 299-300)
Harkin's plea shook the president. Lodge was instructed to direct Conein to inform General Don that Washington did "not find that the presently revealed plans give a clear prospect of quick results." Lodge declined to deliver the message. Instead he cabled back that the coup could only be stopped by betraying the insurgents which would make "traitors out of us." He "proposed that the rebel generals be 'discreetly' furnished with U.S. funds to 'buy off potential opposition,' and he further recommended that they be promptly rewarded with American recognition and aid after they overthrew Diem." (Karnow, p. 300)
While insisting that "we it do not accept as a basis for U.S. policy that we have no power to delay or discourage a coup," the president ultimately deferred to Lodge. "But once a coup under responsible leadership has begun," he concluded, "it is in the interest of the U.S. Government that it should succeed." (Karnow, p. 301)
The conspirators overcame one difficult hurdle when they persuaded General Ton That Dinh, the Saigon regional commander, to join them, promising him the ministry of interior in a successor regime. Diem and Nhu believed that Dinh was on their side, and they allowed him to position his troops for a rapid assault against government facilities. (Karnow, pp. 301, 304)
The coup's first casualty was not premeditated. Around noon on November 1, as senior officers were gathering at staff headquarters, Diem's loyal naval commander, Captain Ho Tan Quyen, his suspicions aroused by unusual troop movements around Saigon, was detained and shot by a band of rebel marines as he tried to flee the city. Shortly thereafter, Conein delivered to General Don a satchel containing three million piasters ($40,000); en route he transmitted to his superiors a coded confirmation that the coup was underway. (Karnow, p. 305)
At 1:30 pm, "mutinous units went into action in Saigon. Some encircled Diem's palace and his guards' barracks, while others quickly captured the police and radio stations . . . General Don announced to his officers that a military revolutionary council was seizing power, and invited them to swear allegiance . . . all but one stood up to applaud." (Karnow, pp. 305-306)
From his air-conditioned cellar, Diem telephoned General Don and offered to announce reforms and name a new cabinet. "It is too late," replied Don. "All the troops are moving on the capital." (Kinzer, p. 166)
Diem's next call was to Ambassador Lodge. "Some units have made a rebellion," he said, "and I want to know what is the attitude of the United State." Lodge was hardly reassuring. "It is four-thirty in the morning in Washington, and the U.S. Government cannot possibly have a view . . . Now I am worried about your physical safety. I have a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and your brother-in-law safe conduct out of the country. Have you heard this?" Diem replied that he had not, at the same time comprehending that Lodge had been in contact with his enemies and had betrayed him. (Karnow, p. 307)
By dawn the next morning, when insurgents stormed the palace after an all-night battle, Diem and Nhu had escaped to Cholon, the Chinese sector of Saigon. Diem telephoned Generals Minh and Don and said he was prepared to resign upon two conditions: that authority be transferred either to the vice-president or the speaker of the legislature in accordance with the constitution and that he be granted the honors due a departing president. Both were denied. Realizing the end was near, Diem told Don that he and Nhu were hiding at the Church of Saint Francis and would surrender unconditionally. (Karnow, pp. 308-309)
General Minh dispatched two jeeps and an M-113 armored personnel carrier to Cholon. Diem expressed disappointment that he was to be transported in a military truck and not a limousine and was advised that it had been chosen for protection against "extremists." Their hands tied behind their backs, he and Nhu were shoved into the vehicle. (Kinzer, pp. 167-168)
En route to Saigon, the convoy stopped at a railroad crossing. A tank officer named Duong Huu Nghia shot the brothers point-blank from the gun turret with an automatic weapon, while General Minh's bodyguard, Nguyen Van Nhung, sprayed them with bullets and stabbed them repeatedly. When he saw the bodies, a startled General Don asked, "Why are they dead?" General Minh, who had ordered the killings, replied, "And what does it matter that they are dead?" (Karnow, p. 310; Kinzer, p. 168)
Conein was home in bed when he received a message from Lodge that the president wanted to know what had happened to Diem and Nhu. He went to staff headquarters to see Minh. "They committed suicide," said the general. "They were in the Catholic Church and they committed suicide." (Kinzer, p. 168)
Kennedy was stunned when he heard the news from Michael Forrestal. According to historian Ellen Hammer, he was "shaken and depressed " that "the first Catholic ever to become a Vietnamese chief of state was dead, assassinated as a direct result of a policy authorized by the first American Catholic president." (Kinzer, p. 169)
"On November 22, twenty days after Diem was slain, John F. Kennedy himself was felled by an assassin's bullet. Not long afterward his successor, Lyndon Johnson, showed Senator Hubert Humphrey a portrait of Diem that was hanging on his wall. 'We had a hand in killing him,' said Johnson. 'Now it's happening here.'" (Kinzer, p. 208)
Saigon welcomed Diem's downfall. Crowds tore up his portrait and slogans. Political prisoners . . . emerged from jails. The city's night clubs reopened and were swamped with customers. In the countryside, peasants demolished the strategic hamlets. Elated and unrepentant, Ambassador Lodge invited the insurgent generals to his office to congratulate them on their victory, which was his triumph as well. A few days later, he cabled Kennedy, "The prospects now are for a shorter war." (Karnow, p. 311)
"Diem's overthrow was a turning point in the Vietnam War because it drew the United States across a line of commitment." It gave those in power the sense that they had incurred a debt that they needed to repay. If pulling American troops out of Vietnam had seemed wrong before the coup, that feeling only deepened afterward. (Kinzer, pp. 208, 207)
"America's responsibility for Diem's death haunted U.S. leaders during the years ahead and prompted them to assume a larger burden in Vietnam," wrote Stanley Karnow. William Colby, chief of CIA covert actions in East Asia and later director of the agency, spoke for many when he called the coup "the worst mistake of the Vietnam War." (Karnow, pp. 209, 207)
WE'RE GOING TO SMASH HIM
In 1833, fifteen years after winning independence from Spain, Chile adopted a constitution which proved to be one of the most durable in Latin American history, lasting until 1925. Ostensibly democratic, it concentrated authority in the hands of the president, Diego Portales.
Around the turn of the century, Congress wrested power from the executive but remained dominated by the landed aristocracy and beset with corruption. The Parliamentary Republic, as it was known, fostered civil liberties, expanded suffrage, and opened the political arena to two new parties: the Democrats, whose roots sprang from city workers and artisans, and the Radicals, who represented the middle class and provincial elites.
Between 1920 and 1938, Arturo Alessandri held the presidency. He was able to unite progressive Democrats and Radicals in a Liberal Alliance and promulgate a new constitution which codified his social reforms and strengthened his authority.
By 1938 Alessandri's Liberal Alliance had evolved into the Popular Front, a center-left coalition of Radicals, Socialists, and Communists formed primarily to combat the fascist parties that were gaining momentum in Europe and Latin America. Not only did the Popular Front conjoin the working and middle classes, it signified the displacement of the oligarchy as the government's source of authority. This sea change was personified in Pedro Aguirre Cerda, a man of modest means and a former schoolteacher whose warmth and authenticity won him the presidency that year.
Feuding between the Socialists and the Communists in the 1940's led to the dissolution of the Popular Front and to the election of two Radical Conservative presidents. The second one, Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, turned virulently anti-Communist under U.S. pressure. His "Law for the Defense of Democracy" banned the Communist Party and subjected its leaders to prosecution and internal exile. (Winn, II)
Videla was succeeded in 1952 by the aging dictator Carlos Ibanez, a former president (1927-1931) who reinvented himself as reformer, secured the backing of the Popular Socialist Party, and governed as a benign centrist. He repealed the ban on the Communist Party and moderated his harsh anti-crime practices but failed to deliver on the promises he had made to his leftist supporters.
The election of 1958 marked both a shift in Chilean politics from an emphasis on personality to policy and a watershed in the career of one of the country's most controversial and remarkable leaders: Salvador Allende Gossens. (Winn, III)
Born in 1908, Allende came from an upper middle class family with a long tradition of involvement in progressive and liberal causes. He graduated from medical school in 1931, and in later years would attribute his nascent political activism to his exposure to the poverty, disease, and malnutrition of the Chilean underclass while a student. In 1933 he co-founded the Socialist Party of Chile. Appointed Minister of Health, Housing, and Security by Aguirre Cerda in 1939, he sponsored legislation providing for workers' compensation, maternity care, and free lunches for schoolchildren. (Winn, III)
For the next thirty years Allende served in the Chilean Congress, rising to president of the Senate in 1966. One of his principal achievements was the development of the first universal health care plan in the Americas. He first ran for the Chilean presidency in 1952 as the Communist supported candidate of the Popular Action Front or FRAP but received only five percent of the vote. (Winn, III)
Renominated in 1958 by a FRAP that now included disenchanted Socialists formerly in the Ibanez camp, Allende campaigned on a platform calling for agrarian reform, nationalization of all foreign-owned mines, redistribution of wealth, and a foreign policy free from U.S. influence. Despite losing to the Independent Rightist Jorge Alessandri by less that three percentage points, he emerged as a credible spokesperson for a democratic-socialist agenda. Similarly, the strong showing of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, who garnered twenty percent of the vote, signified his party's dominance of the Chilean middle class center. (Winn, III)
With "his horn-rimmed glasses, tweedy jackets, and raffish moustache, Allende exuded the air of a college professor or Left Bank intellectual." Ideologically, he can best be described as a libertarian socialist committed to the betterment of his people. He frowned upon communist dogma that prescribed a single party "dictatorship of the proletariat" and sanctioned a revolutionary approach to political change. His ambition, as expressed to journalist Peter Winn, was for Chile to be the first country in history to establish a socialist state "without violence . . . because there are millions of people in the world who want socialism but without having to pay the terrible price of civil war." (Kinzer, p. 175; Winn, I)
Fearful of an uprising like the one that swept Fidel Castro to power half a decade earlier, the U.S. invested heavily in Chile's 1964 election. Once again Allende was pitted against Frei, who now had the endorsement of the Independent Rightists to bolster his chances. Dubbed the "Chilean Kennedy" for his good looks and media presence, Frei was the beneficiary of CIA largesse; the agency spent $3 million to assure his victory over Allende. It flooded the airwaves and streets with broadcasts and placards predicting that if Allende was elected, Chile would become Communist, children would be sent to Cuba, and his opponents would disappear. Frei won by a three-to-two margin. (Winn, III)
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The money continued to flow during Frei's administration, funding candidates for Congress favorable to him, subsidizing anti-Communist groups, and endowing right-wing news organizations. "Between 1962 and 1970, this country of only ten million people received over $1.2 billion in economic grants and loans -- an astronomical amount for that era." (Kinzer, p. 175; Kornbluh, p. 5)
By 1970, the left wing of the Christian Democrat Party had abandoned Frei due to his slow pace of reform. It allied itself with Allende's reconstituted FRAP, now known as Popular Unity, which had added centrist Radicals to its socialist-communist coalition. To oppose Allende, the loyalist Christian Democrats nominated Radomiro Tomic, whose leftist sentiments ensured that the Right would put up its own candidate, the seventy-five-year-old former president, Jorge Alessandri.
Allende was not a charismatic figure nor a compelling speaker, but he had a reputation as the mind and heart of the people, projected an appealing dignity, and labored tirelessly to mobilize grassroots support. He benefited from a dreadful television appearance by Alessandri, whose age and incompetence were magnified by poor lighting and makeup. (Winn, IV)
The CIA spent $425,000 on anti-Allende propaganda, while International Telephone and Telegraph, which controlled Chile's burgeoning communications system, donated $350,000 to Alessandri's campaign and prevailed upon other American companies to match it. They could not stem the tide. When the result was tabulated on September 4, Allende had a plurality of 36.3% followed by Alessandri at 35% and Tomic at 27.8%. (Davis, p. 5; Kinzer, p. 178)
With no candidate having achieved a majority, the Chilean Congress was scheduled to convene seven weeks after the election and certify the winner, traditionally the person with the most votes. Powerful forces were intent on preventing that. (Davis, p. 5)
On September 6, U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry sounded the alarm in a cable to President Richard Nixon: "Chile voted calmly to have a Marxist-Leninist State, the first nation in the world to make this choice freely and knowingly . . . There is a graveyard smell to Chile, the fumes of democracy in composition. They stank in my nostrils in Czechoslovakia in 1948, and they are no less sickening today." (Reeves, Nixon, pp. 248-249)
Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger were furious upon hearing the news. According to CIA historian Thomas Powers, as Ambassador Korry was entering the Oval Office, he heard the president mutter, "That son of a bitch." Korry looked startled. "Not you, Mr. Ambassador," said Nixon. "It's that bastard Allende. We're going to smash him." (Davis, p. 6)
Kissinger harbored a xenophobic hatred of Allende. In a briefing to a gathering of newspaper editors, he said, "There's a good chance he will establish over a period of years some sort of Communist government . . . that would present massive problems for the democratic and pro-U.S. forces in the whole Western Hemisphere." (Davis, p. 7)
Realizing his prize asset, the Chilean telephone system, was on the verge of nationalization, IT&T CEO Harold Geneen conveyed a message to Kissinger that he was willing to contribute $1 million to an anti-Allende initiative. Augustin Edwards, wealthy owner of the conservative newspaper
El Mercurio and a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant, flew to Washington DC, and through the auspices of Donald Kendall, Pepsi-Cola CEO and a friend of Nixon, obtained an audience with Kissinger and Attorney-General John Mitchell. He prophesied disaster for American business and political interests should Allende be allowed to take office. (Kinzer, p. 172)
Later that day, September 15, the president summoned CIA director Richard Helms to his office, and with Kissinger and Mitchell present, instructed him to "leave no stone unturned . . . to block Allende's confirmation. Helms left the meeting with a page of scribbled notes: "One in ten chance, perhaps, but save Chile . . . not concerned risks involved; no involvement of embassy; $10,000,000 available, more if necessary; full-time job--best men we have . . . make economy scream; 48 hours for plan of action." (Kinzer, p. 173; Reeves, Nixon, p. 250)
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Helms's anti-Allende operation would have two tracks. Track I would be made known to the State Department and the Forty Committee, the interagency group charged with reviewing all covert action programs. Its goal was to reverse by legal means Chile's ban on the president succeeding himself and engineer the reelection of Frei. It failed because Frei was averse to undermining the constitution, bribing congressmen, and conspiring with Alessandri or Tomic. (Kinzer, p. 179)
More ambitious was Track II, launched simultaneously and kept secret from Ambassador Korry, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and even the Forty Committee. CIA agents in Santiago were directed to "contact the military and let them know the U.S. government wants a military solution" to the Allende problem. (Kinzer, p. 179)
A numbers of diplomats and CIA officials learned of the project and expressed doubts. A National Security Study Memorandum concluded that "the U.S. has no vital national interests within Chile" and "the world military balance of power would not be significantly altered by an Allende government." A CIA officer wrote that Allende was not likely to take orders from Moscow or Havana and that plotting against him would be "repeating errors we made in 1959 and 1960 when we drove Fidel Castro into the Soviet camp." (Kinzer, p. 180)
Henry Kissinger's top aide on Latin America, Viron Vaky, pointed out that violating U.S. principles and policy tenets was a step taken "only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to us? It is hard to argue this." (Kornbluh, p. 11)
His boss dismissed such qualms with one of his most quoted maxims: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." (Kinzer, p. 180)
At the behest of the CIA, the U.S. military attache in Santiago, Colonel Paul Wimert, Jr., identified two disgruntled Chilean generals, Roberto Viaux, retired, and Camilo Valenzuela, commander of a key district in the capital. A successful coup, however, had to overcome an insurmountable roadblock: Army Commander-in-Chief Rene Schneider, who had no tolerance for military interference in politics. (Kinzer, p. 182)
Although not in partnership, Viaux and Valenzuela began scheming to remove Schneider. "Between October 5 and October 20, the CIA had twenty-six contacts or meetings with members of the two cabals. Allegedly, Wimert and the CIA offered $100,000 for a successful kidnapping of General Schneider." (Davis, p. 9)
On October 16, Tim Karamessines, the CIA's director of covert operations, sent a cable to Santiago reiterating the administration's "firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown in a coup" and instructing his agents to deploy "propaganda, black operations, surfacing of intelligence or disinformation . . . or anything else your imagination can conjure" in support of Viaux and Valenzuela, while wishing them "maximum good fortune." (Kinzer, p. 183)
On October 18, Wimert delivered six tear gas grenades to comrades of Valenzuela, followed early on the morning of the 22nd by three submachine guns and ammunition. (Davis, pp. 9-10)
Six hours later, while Schneider was in route to his office, a jeep struck his chauffeur-driven car. Five men surrounded him and opened fire, using weapons of their own rather than those supplied by the CIA.
As the assailants, it was later determined, were associated with Viaux, not Valenzuela, the CIA attempted to deny responsibility for the shooting despite having advised Viaux "to join forces with other coup planners." Meetings with, and instructions from, President Nixon and NSA Kissinger indicate that the CIA was acting with the understanding that its clandestine operations supporting this political assassination had the full backing of the White House. (Davis, p. 10; Kinzer, p. 184, Kornbluh, pp. 32-33)
Schneider's assassination did not have the desired effect of inducing a panic-stricken citizenry to call for a military strong man to take over and restore order; instead "it produced an overwhelming repudiation of violence and a clear reaffirmation of Chile's civil, constitutional tradition." ( Kornbluh, p. 29)
"The Chilean Congress met on October 24 and, by a vote of 153 to 24, certified Allende's election. He was inaugurated on November 4." (Kinzer, p. 184)
Richard Nixon resolved to continue if not intensify, the effort to discredit and ultimately depose Allende. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird spoke for the the administration when he declared, "We have to do everything we can to hurt [Allende] and bring him down." Their new strategy, developed in conjunction with the CIA, was to inflict Chile with severe economic distress, foment social chaos, and create the justification for military intervention. (Kinzer, p. 185; Kornbluh, p. 79)
The United States flexed its muscles to erect an "invisible blockade" against a country which was deeply dependent on it for its financial, industrial, and commercial well-being. The Export-Import Bank and the Agency for International Development announced that they would no longer approve "any new commitments of U.S. bilateral assistance to Chile." The Inter-American Development Bank reduced Chile's credit rating from B to D; other banks followed suit. The World Bank was informed that the U.S. would oppose all lending to Chile. (Kinzer, p. 185; Kornbluh, p. 83)
During Allende's three-year presidency from 1970 to 1973, the U.S. government spent $6 million on covert operations in Chile. More than $3.5 million was funneled to opposition parties. Subsidization of the anti-Allende newspaper El Mercurio -- "a bullhorn of organized agitation against the government" -- totaled $1.7 million. More than $1.5 million was passed to business, labor, civic, and militant right-wing groups to instigate protests, demonstrations, and violence. (Davis, p. 308; Kinzer p. 186; Kornbluh, p. 94 )
Undaunted, Allende moved forward with his socialist agenda. Among the reforms he enacted were social security for all workers; land redistribution; improved housing, sanitation, and health care; free meals for schoolchildren; and a higher minimum wage. He also pursued an aggressive nationalization policy.
On July 11, 1971, the Chilean Congress ratified a constitutional amendment authorizing the government to nationalize two American-owned copper mining companies, Kennecott and Anaconda, which operated, respectively, the largest underground and open-pit copper mines in the world. According to Allende's valuation formula, the two companies had generated $774 million in excess profits during the past fifteen years, a figure which exceeded the book value of their mines and thus precluded them from being owed any further compensation. (Kinzer, p. 187)
On March 21, 1972, Washington columnist Jack Anderson disclosed IT&T Chairman Geneen's furtive collaboration with the CIA, reporting that "secret documents which escaped shredding by International Telephone and Telegraph show . . . that IT&T dealt regularly with the Central Intelligence Agency and, at one point considered triggering a military coup to head off Allende's election." The whole web of covert corporate collaboration involving the CIA, the White House, and the U.S. embassy designed to provoke economic chaos and subvert Chilean democracy was baldly exposed. (Kornbluh, p. 97)
In subsequent testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, representatives of IT&T and the U.S. State Department would deny all allegations of "intervention in the political affairs of Chile." (Kornbluh, p. 103)
The Allende government announced that IT&T's majority holdings in the Compania de Telefonos de Chile would be expropriated through a vote of the Chilean Congress. (Kornbluh, p. 98)
Allende's democratic march to socialism was moving too slow for some, too fast for others. His rhetoric promised a new social order in which every man, woman, and child would enjoy a higher standard of living and all the amenities of the good life. But when aggrieved union members seized their textile mill at Yarur on April 28, 1971, Allende resisted their demands for nationalization, fearful of a revolution he could not control. "The masses cannot go ahead of their leaders," he said, "because the leaders have an obligation to direct the process and not be directed by the masses." Ultimately, he agreed to the nationalization because he was unwilling to alienate his base or splinter the socialists, whose unity was central to his political philosophy and his life work. (Winn, VI)
He was correct in his assessment. During the next two years, more than five hundred enterprises would be taken over by their workers, a movement that frightened the middle class and confirmed that Allende had indeed lost control of the process. (Winn, VI)
Chilean truckers were fiercely independent entrepreneurs who disdained nationalization. Their fears erupted in October 1972 in a provincial strike which spread rapidly across the country and engulfed other sectors of the economy. Within days shopkeepers, taxi drivers, artisans, small business and industry guilds, and professionals declared their solidarity with the truckers. (Davis, p. 109)
After weeks of fruitless negotiations, Allende acceded to the Christian Democratic Party's demand that his cabinet resign and that he replace some ministers with military officers. Among them was Carlos Prats Gonzalez, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, who was named Minister of the Interior. The strikers went back to work on November 5 after Prats promised that trucking would not be nationalized and that he would introduce legislation protecting small businessmen and artisans. (Davis, pp. 111-115)
In the wake of the settlement, Allende traveled to the U.S. seeking an audience with President Nixon, Secretary of State William Rogers, or Henry Kissinger. Rebuffed by all, on December 4 he rose before the General Assembly of the United Nations and delivered one of most memorable speeches ever heard in the great hall. He accused IT&T and Kennecott of having "buried their fangs" in his country. He asserted as a principle of international law that "a country's natural resources -- particularly when they are its very lifeblood -- belong to it." (Davis, pp. 124-125)
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"We are the victims of a new form of imperialism," he went on. "External pressure . . . has tried to cut us off from the world, to strangle our economy . . . The financial-economic blockade against us . . . is oblique, subterranean, and indirect . . . We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful weapons, from positions of great influence . . . We are potentially rich countries, yet we live in poverty. We go here and there, begging for credits and aid, yet we are great exporters of capital. It is a classic paradox of the capitalist economic system." (Davis, p. 124; Kinzer, p. 189)
In the congressional elections held in March 1973, the Christian Democrats joined the National Party to win a 60-40 majority over Allende's UP coalition of Socialists and Communists. While the margin was not enough to impeach Allende, it exacerbated the ongoing constitutional crisis that was crippling his ability to govern. The principal bone of contention between Allende and his opponents was the Three Areas Amendment, which required that all nationalizations be carried out by legislation and imposed restrictions on other mechanisms used by the government to take over a private enterprise. Allende had repeatedly refused to sign the bill into law since its passage by Congress in February 1972. (Davis, pp. 140, 58-59)
Allende's obstinacy also displeased the military leaders he had recently appointed to his cabinet; their subsequent departure was a sign that the services might abandon him altogether. (Davis, p. 146)
The CIA, which had been sewing seeds of disorder since Allende's election, recognized where lay its best hope for a successful overthrow. In a postmortem on the election, Station Chief Ray Warren stated that his agents "should attempt [to] induce as much of the military as possible, if not all, to take over and displace the Allende govt." A few weeks later, Western Hemisphere division chief Theodore Shackley, cabled Santiago "to bring our influence to bear on key military commanders so they might play a decisive role on the side of the coup forces." (Kinzer, p. 190; Kornbluh, p. 106)
On the morning of June 29, three combat groups of tanks and armored cars accompanied by one hundred soldiers attacked the Ministry of Defense and freed an imprisoned officer. They surrounded the Moneda Palace but could not subdue the palace guard. General Prats, a staunch constitutionalist still loyal to Allende, rallied troops to his cause, marched into the square brandishing a submachine gun, and quelled the insurrection mostly by the force of his personality. (Davis, pp. 171-172)
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The mini-uprising had two consequences. Faced with a revolt, Allende panicked. He went on the air and called on factory workers to mobilize, to pour into the streets, "to take over the industries" -- an illegitimate and unnecessary challenge to his military leaders' "monopoly of force" and responsibility for order. In doing so, he impaired, if not severed, his relationship with them. They in turn were not blind to the reluctance of the workers to rush to the center of the city, weapons in hand, to defend their president and the revolution. (Davis, pp. 171, 174)
Things began to fall apart. On July 25, the truckers announced another stoppage, claiming the authorities had reneged on their promises of October 1972. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, and employees of the Santiago waterworks walked off the job. Basic foodstuffs had to be rationed; coffee, tea, and sugar were scarce; produce and grain rotted in warehouses. Anti-government gangs in countryside dynamited roads, bridges, and tunnels. (Davis, p. 182; Kinzer, pp. 191-192)
In his adversity Allende turned again to his military leadership in the hope that they could restore confidence, normality, and some measure of tranquility. He appointed Prats minister of defense, naval commander-in-chief Cornejo Montero minister of finance, and air force head Danyau Ruiz minister of public works and transport. (Davis, p. 187)
Prats called the cabinet "the last chance for Chile." He wrote in his diary: "The task is great. The truckers' strike continues, as does that of the owners and professional guilds; terrorism is spreading . . . the dialogue between the government and the Christian Democratic party has, for the moment failed. The country is tired." (Davis, p. 188)
Prats's tenure was short-lived. El Mercurio published articles portraying him as treasonably pro-Communist. On August 21, several hundred army wives gathered outside his home to protest his allegiance to Allende and called him a homosexual and a chicken. The next morning his generals came to his office and declared their loyalty; six hours later, asked for a vote of confidence, they repudiated him 12 to 6. That night he wrote: "Only one road remains to me, to resign . . . I do not wish to be either the motive or the pretext for the holocaust." Thus was removed "the main factor mitigating against a coup," reported the Defense Intelligence Agency. (Davis, p. 198; Kornbluh, p. 111)
The same day the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution by a vote of 81 to 45 accusing the Allende government of seeking "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control . . . by the state . . . [with] the goal of establishing . . . a totalitarian system." It charged that the rights of citizens had been violated and freedom of press curtailed. (Wikipedia, Allende; Davis, p. 200)
Acting on Prats's recommendation, Allende appointed his deputy general Augusto Pinochet to succeed him as army commander-in-chief. Pinochet told Prats he accepted with the words: "Mr. President, please know that I am ready to give my life in defense of the Constitutional Government of which you are the embodiment." Whether or not he spoke truthfully, by all accounts his profession of loyalty was believed. "Both Allende and Prats considered him to be supremely apolitical and not especially ambitious." (Davis, p. 227; Kinzer, p. 191)
On September 6, Allende, in a speech to the Chilean national women's secretariat, disclosed that there was enough flour in stock for only three or four days. He laid the blame on difficulties in agricultural production, clogged ports, railway congestion, and the truckers' strike. (Davis, p. 214)
This announcement convinced the military -- specifically, Colonel Gustavo Leigh of the Air Force, senior navy commander Jose Merino, and Carabineros (National Police) Generals Cesar Mendoza and Arturo Yovane -- that they could wait no longer. They would act, but only with the assurance that Pinochet was with them. (Davis, pp. 214-216)
On September 9, Merino sent two emissaries to Pinochet's house in Santiago where a birthday party was in progress with a message that the navy had set the 11th as the date to act, alone if need be. General Leigh arrived and signed his name and the word "Agreed" on the back of the note. Pinochet then signed and offered his seal. Thus was the decision made final that the military services would overthrow the president of Chile. (Davis, p. 222)
Early on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, "soldiers, sailors, and marines across the country were called to duty and began securing radio stations, town halls, police stations, and other centers of power." By 7:00 AM they had occupied Valparasio. Wrote one observer: "To everybody's great amazement . . . a fight which had been expected to go on for at least three days had ended within one hour." (Davis, p. 236; Kinzer, p. 193)
At 7:30 Allende arrived at the Moneda Palace determined to defend it with the help of the carabineros on duty -- about three hundred. He chose to face his ultimate crisis at the historic seat of the Chilean presidency rather than flee to the industrial belts, arouse the workers, and risk provoking a bloody civil war. (Davis, pp. 240-243)
At 8:30 the opposition Radio Agricultura broadcast the Junta's first pronouncement of military rule, Edict No. 1, signed by Pinochet, Mendoza, Leigh, and Merino. They cited Chile's grave social and moral situation and the government's inability to prevent chaos. They demanded the president's resignation and proclaimed their resolve to liberate the country from its Marxist yoke and restore order and constitutional rule. (Davis, pp. 249-250)
As tanks and army guns surrounding the Moneda opened fire, Allende received a telephone call guaranteeing him safe passage out of the country if he would stand down. He refused. (Kinzer, p. 193)
At 9:30 the president addressed the people of Chile for the last time. "I will not resign," he said. "I will not do it. I am ready to resist by all means, even at the cost of my own life . . . I gave my word that I would respect the Constitution and the law, and I have done so. In this final moment before my voice is silenced, I want you to learn this lesson: foreign capital and imperialism, united with reaction, created the climate for the armed forces' break with their tradition . . . Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words, and I am sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain . . . that it will constitute a moral lesson which will punish cowardice, perfidy, and treason." (Davis, pp. 253-254)
Shortly before noon an aerial bombardment commenced, setting fires in the Moneda and filling the north side of the building with smoke, flames, and gases. "Part of the roof caved in, and pieces of plaster, splintered furniture, curtains, and office materials were strewn about." (Davis, p. 265)
At 1:30 PM rebel infantry entered the ground floor and overwhelmed Allende's bodyguards. Presented with an ultimatum and without recourse, he agreed to surrender. His entourage, about thirty persons including his mistress, several cabinet members, his cousin Isabel, his press secretary, two Radical Party leaders, and about half a dozen physicians, began to descend from the second floor where they had taken refuge. (Davis, pp. 247-248)
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One of the doctors, Patricia Guijon, gave this account of Allende's last moments: "The president was last in line. Passing the Independence Salon, he slipped out of the procession and -- without being observed -- entered it. He sat down on a sofa, took off his gas mask, his helmet, and his glasses. As he had threatened to do, he placed the muzzle of Fidel's gift automatic under his chin. The rifle was set on 'automatic,' and there were two shots left. He pressed the trigger. The two bullets blew out his cranial chamber. There was not much blood; only brain matter propelled in all directions." (Davis, p. 269)
Allende was buried the next day in a family vault in the Santa Ines Cemetery close to his house in Vina del Mar. (Davis, p. 274)
The Junta -- Pinochet, Merino, Leigh, and Mendoza -- formally constituted itself at 4:00 o'clock on the afternoon of the coup. At 7:10, at the military school, it held its first session and later that evening the four men took their oaths of office. Fifteen months later, in December 1974, they named Pinochet Supreme Head of the Nation by joint decree. (Davis, p. 275)
Thus ended one-hundred-fifty years of democratic constitutional government in Chile.
Investigations by the Church Committee of the U.S. Senate and the United States Intelligence Community absolved the U.S. of direct involvement in the Chilean Coup of September 11, 1973, with qualifications. The latter's 2000 report stated that "although the CIA did not instigate the coup that brought down Allende, it was aware of plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and -- because it did not discourage the takeover and had tried to organize a similar operation in 1970 -- appeared to condone it." (Wikipedia, Allende)
"Moreover, the CIA and other sectors of the U.S. government were active in operations designed to create a 'coup climate' in which the overthrow of Chilean democracy could and would take place." (Kornbluh, p. 114)
After a review of recorded telephone conversations between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, historian Robert Dallek concluded that both of them engaged the CIA to destabilize the Allende government. (Wikipedia, Allende)
In fact, on September 16, the two commiserated over the fact that they wouldn't get credit for this victory over Communism. Discussing the U.S. role, the president noted, "Our hand doesn't show on this one." Kissinger responded, "We didn't do it. I mean we helped them [and] created the conditions as great as possible." "That is right," Nixon agreed. (Kornbluh, p. 115)
Pinochet's investiture inaugurated a seventeen-year reign of terror. "One of his first acts was to order a nationwide series of raids on leftists and other supporters of the deposed regime." Thirty thousand persons were arrested and tortured; twenty-three hundred disappeared; thirteen hundred were exiled. He abolished the country's largest labor federation; banned political parties that had backed Allende; declared Congress on "indefinite recess"; removed all mayors and city councilors from office; and decreed a new legal code that forbade the appeal of decisions by military courts. (Kinzer, p. 211)
"Almost overnight Washington reopened the the spigot of bilateral and multilateral economic and military assistance to Santiago." Within two months the Department of Agriculture issued Chile $48 million in commodity credits for the purchase of wheat and corn to alleviate food shortages. During the next three years these credits were supplemented by $132 million in Food for Peace grants. The same period saw the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank authorize $300 million in loans, a thirty-fold increase from the Allende years. This largesse freed up foreign exchange for the acquisition of armaments, and by 1977 Chile had established itself as the fifth largest customer in the world of U.S. military hardware. (Kornbluh, pp. 212-214)
U.S. companies which had conspired in Allende's downfall were justly rewarded. Less than a year after the coup, agreements were reached with the Anaconda and Kennecott mining companies providing for compensation of $253 and $67 million to each respectively for the expropriation of their assets. Chile also settled with IT&T, paying $125 million for its interest in the Chilean Telephone Company. (Kinzer, p. 211)
Pinochet's criminal web extended far beyond his country's borders. In October 1975, the head of Chile's secret police, Colonel Manuel Contreras, invited his counterparts from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia to Santiago for the initial meeting of what would become the "most sinister state-sponsored terrorist network in the Western Hemisphere": Operation Condor. Its agenda: the tracking, surveillance, kidnapping, torture, and interrogation of regional militant guerillas, civilian political figures, and exile leaders living in Europe and the United States. (Kornbluh, pp. 331-332)
The Chilean secret police's most notorious crimes were the assassinations of former commander in chief Carlos Prats (and his wife) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 30, 1974, and of Orlando Letelier, former ambassador to the U.S. and minister in Allende's cabinet in Washington DC on September 21, 1976. (Letelier's American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt was also slain.) All four were victims of car bombs planted by Michael Townley, an American expatriate who had been recruited by Colonel Contreras. Until the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, the Letelier-Moffitt murders "constituted the most brazen act of international terrorism ever committed on American soil." (Kornbluh, pp. 334-335, 349, 352)
Pinochet amassed $28 million during his years in power through corruption, extortion, and outright theft. He left office peacefully in 1988 after losing the popular vote in a plebiscite by a 56 to 44 margin. He was later prosecuted for embezzlement, tax fraud, and kickbacks on arms deals. At his death in 2006, about three hundred criminal charges were pending against him for human rights violations committed during his presidency. (Wikipedia, Allende)
The U.S. did indeed smash the democratic socialist Salvador Allende. It waged economic warfare against him; funded opposition parties, publications, and propaganda; and shared intelligence with potential rebels. But the people of Chile had to suffer the consequences: seventeen years of ruthless oppression and dictatorial rule.
The coups in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Chile were not rogue operations. They were "ordered by the President" and endorsed and carried out by cabinet secretaries, national security advisers, and CIA directors. If those officials initially regarded their covert plots as great victories in the war against communism, the judgment of history has rendered a different verdict. (Kinzer, pp. 195, 216)
"In all four countries, they led to repression and reduced freedom . . . They intensified the Cold War by further polarizing the two opposing sides and thwarting opportunities for rapprochement. They undermined Americans' trust in the CIA . . . Around the world, they led millions to conclude that the United States was a hypocritical nation" willing to act brutally to overthrow legitimate governments desirous of shedding the shackles of political and economic dependency. (Kinzer, p. 216)
REFERENCES
Davis, Nathaniel. The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Doubek, James. The U.S. Set the Stage for a Coup in Chile. National Public Radio, September 10, 2023.
Fox, Senan. Remembering Salvador Allende. National Public Radio, August 21, 2013.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: The Viking Press, 1983.
Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.
Kornbluh, Peter. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York: The New Press, 2013.
Reeves, Richard. President Nixon: Alone in the White House. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Reeves, Richard. President Kennedy: Profile of Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
Winn, Peter. "Salvador Allende: His Political Life . . . and Afterlife." Socialism and Democracy, November 2005.
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