bicycle
08-06-2007, 03:12 PM
Chile, 9/11/73
Declassified documents reveal the US government's role
in the Pinochet coup
by Peter Kornbluh
The Nation magazine, September 29, 2003
In September 14, 1970, a deputy to then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wrote him a memo, classified SECRET / SENSITIVE, arguing against covert operations to block the duly elected Chilean socialist Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency. "What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets," noted Viron Vaky. "If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us., e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.?" Vaky asked. "It is hard to argue this."
Kissinger ignored this advice. The next day he participated in a now-famous meeting where President Nixon instructed CIA Director Richard Helms to "save Chile" by secretly fomenting a coup to prevent Allende's inauguration. When those covert operations failed, Kissinger goaded Nixon into instructing the entire national security bureaucracy "on opposing Allende" and destabilizing his government. "Election of Allende as president of Chile poses one of [the] most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere," says a newly declassified briefing paper Kissinger gave to Nixon two days after Allende's inauguration. "Your decision as to what to do may be most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will have to make this year.... If all concerned do not understand that you want Allende opposed as strongly as we can, result will be steady draft toward modus vivendi approach."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Chile_9_11_73.html
Declassified documents reveal the US government's role
in the Pinochet coup
by Peter Kornbluh
The Nation magazine, September 29, 2003
In September 14, 1970, a deputy to then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wrote him a memo, classified SECRET / SENSITIVE, arguing against covert operations to block the duly elected Chilean socialist Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency. "What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets," noted Viron Vaky. "If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us., e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.?" Vaky asked. "It is hard to argue this."
Kissinger ignored this advice. The next day he participated in a now-famous meeting where President Nixon instructed CIA Director Richard Helms to "save Chile" by secretly fomenting a coup to prevent Allende's inauguration. When those covert operations failed, Kissinger goaded Nixon into instructing the entire national security bureaucracy "on opposing Allende" and destabilizing his government. "Election of Allende as president of Chile poses one of [the] most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere," says a newly declassified briefing paper Kissinger gave to Nixon two days after Allende's inauguration. "Your decision as to what to do may be most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will have to make this year.... If all concerned do not understand that you want Allende opposed as strongly as we can, result will be steady draft toward modus vivendi approach."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Chile_9_11_73.html