1

The Other 9/11: Did the Nixonadministration overthrow ChileanPresident Salvador Allende?

2

The Pinochet extradition case became one of the firstattempts to hold dictators respsonsible for human rightsviolations

3

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Salvador Allende(Popular Unity)

Jorge Alessandri (NationalParty

RadomiroTomic(ChristianDemocrat)

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Henry Kissinger: “I don'tsee why we need to standby and watch a country gocommunist due to theirresponsibility of its ownpeople.”

Nixon personally ordered a covertaction plan to prevent the election ofAllende.

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“Track I” was a “spoiling operation”to prevent an Allende victory byfunding his opposition andfomenting splits within the Allendecoalition (Unidad Popular).

U.S. Ambassador toChile Edward Korrystruggled with the Nixonadministration for controlof the covert operation.

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Allende (Popular Unity)

Alessandri (National Party)

Tomic (Christian Democrat)

36.6

35.3

28.1

Candidate % of popularvote

Outcome of the September 1970Presidential Election

8CIA cable, 16 October 1970

Nixon secretly ordered the CIA to“make theeconomy scream” to stimulate a military coupthat would prevent the ratification of Allende aspresident. (Track II)

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The commander and chiefof the Chilean ArmedForces, General RenéSchneider, insisted that themilitary would not interferein the election.

CIA assets assassinated Schneider in lateOctober 1970 but the expected coup did nottranspire.

Allende assumedthe presidency on 3November 1970.

10

Accomplishments of the Allendegovernment:

<worker’s wages increased 50% in 1971<development projects: housing,

sanitation, health programs, land reform<expropriation of certain foreign

businesses, including the nationalizationof the copper industry

< flourishing of democratic organizationsand revolutionary popular culture

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The Allende government faced manyinternal obstacles:<UP did not have a majority in Congress and was

internally divided: Christian Democrats graduallyabandoned the Allende coalition

<Chilean military and the wealthy opposed Allende< inflation soared, which alienated the middle and

working classes< land expropriation and transportation strikes

caused disruption in the food supply

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The Allende government also had to cope withthe Nixon administration’s “destabilization”program, designed to create a “coup climate”:<Washington encouraged its Latin American anticommunist allies,

such as Brazil and Argentina, to isolate Chile<U.S. economic aid was curtailed, and pressure was exerted on the

World Bank and the Export-Import Bank to deprive Chile offurther loans

<The CIA assisted Allende’s political opposition in interimelections, and passed funds to private sector organizations thatopposed Allende

<The CIA spread propaganda about the Allende government thatexaggerated the communist threat

<U.S. military aid continued and U.S. intelligence officials kept inclose touch with Chilean military officials in order to monitorcoup plotting

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On 11 September 1973 a militarycoup led byGeneral AugustoPinochet toppledthe Allendegovernment in amilitary coupd’etat.

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Allende committed suicide in thePresidential Palace before he could becaptured by the military.

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Within a fewdays, Pinochetassumedcontrol of thejunta andbecame thedictator ofChile for thenext 17 years.

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Augusto Pinochet and U.S. Secretary ofState Henry Kissinger consulting afterthe coup.

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Pinochet’s regime imprisoned,tortured, and murdered tens ofthousands of Chileans deemed to be“communst subversives.”

Victor Jara

Charles HormanOrlando Letelier

18

Kissinger to Nixon on 16September 1973:

“We didn’t do it. I mean wehelped them” by creating “theconditions as great as possible.”

Chile’s experiment with socialism most likely wouldhave failed even without U.S. hostility, but theNixon administration did contribute significantly tothe creation of a “coup climate.”