A US Citizens' Committee known as the National Security Archive has been pressing the State Department for some years to declassify diplomatic documents on the role played by the Nixon administration in the 1973 Chilean coup. The September 11th coup brought Gen Augusto Pinochet to power and resulted in the death of the country's elected Socialist president, Salvador Allende. The Clinton administration has released the declassified document to the Citizens' Committee.
It is clear from these documents that the Nixon White House promoted the coup following Allende's unexpected election victory in September, 1970. Despite the advice of Chile's Christian Democratic president, Eduardo Frei, Allende's predecessor, and top officers of Chile's armed forces, two of whom were murdered because of their opposition to the coup, the CIA succeeded in destabilising Chile. From early September 1970, when it became clear Allende had won the election by just 30,000 votes, President Nixon and Dr Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, tried to block ratification of the Socialist candidate's election. The Christian Democrats refused to go along with the US game. At a White House meeting on September 15th, 1970, president Nixon ordered the CIA to plan a coup in Chile with $10 million seed money - "more if necessary", he said, to "make the economy scream". The CIA chief, Richard Helms, was the note-taker. "Forty-eight hours for plan of action," the order from the president read.
On September 16th, Mr Helms established a task force under David Atlee Phillips, an experienced and competent CIA hand. On October 15th, 1970, Mr Kissinger, with his military adviser, Gen Alexander Haig, and Thomas Karamessines, the CIA's deputy director of plans, conferred at the White House. Mr Kissinger ordered the CIA to "continue keeping the pressure on every Allende weak-spot in sight".
The US covert operations were code-named "Track and 11". In a secret cable to the CIA station chief in Santiago, Mr Kara messines wrote: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup . . . we are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilising every appropriate resort," but warning that the "American hand must be well hidden".
Under a plan to kidnap the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, Gen Rene Schneider, a firm democrat, the CIA shipped arms to Santiago on October 22nd from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Gen Schneider was killed by freelance Chilean army plotters because he would not go along with their plans, led by a retired general, which was not in the CIA plot. The CIA warned the retired general: "Your plans for coup at this time cannot succeed. Failing, they may reduce your capabilities for the future. Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch. The time will come when you, with all your other friends, can do something. You will continue to have our support."
The CIA proposed new activities for the retired general, "propaganda . . . black operations . . . and disinformation." Gen Carlos Prats, a former chief-of-staff of the Chilean army, and his wife, Carmen, were killed in Buenos Aires on September 30th, 1974, when a bomb was detonated underneath their car - again because of opposition to the coup. Another bomb, at Sheridan Circle in Washington, near the Irish Embassy, was used to kill Allende's ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, and his secretary. Both bomb attacks, it would appear, were the work of the Chilean secret service.
The former president, Eduardo Frei, was faulted by the Nixon White House for refusing to turn against Allende. The president's election was ratified on October 24th, 1970, despite US efforts to block it. After he was inaugurated on November 3rd, Dr Kissinger's National Security Council urged economic pressures and diplomatic isolation in dealing with Chile, but maintaining "an outwardly cool posture". Appointed army chief-of-staff on January 1st, 1973, Major Gen Pinochet staged his coup on September 11th, 1973. Lieut Col Patrick J. Ryan, a US intelligence officer, gave the following details in a report from Valparaiso, Chile, on October 1st, 1973: "Less than eight hours after the initiation of the coup, Allende was dead and a three-year experiment in socialism joined him in the grave. There are few mourners for Allende or socialism visible in Chile today.
"The armed forces' decision to forcibly remove the Allende government from power was made with great reluctance and only after the deepest soul-searching by all concerned . . . Chile was on a dead-end street. Their rate of inflation was the worst in the history of the world. Terrorists and weapons were being illegally introduced into Chile by the Cubans . . ."
Allende went on the air to rally the people. The air force located his position and bombed the presidential palace. The time was 11.15 a.m., Col Ryan reported. A sub-machine gun was lying near the body. The sub-machine gun was a present from Fidel Castro. "Obviously communist Cuba had sent one too many guns to Chile for their own good," Col Ryan said.