Nixon, Kissinger on Allende's overthrow in Chile

[Judi Lynn]

Nixon, Kissinger on Allende's overthrow in Chile

US: The following is a selection of comments made by former US President Richard Nixon and his then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger that reveal Washington's role in the 1973 overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende:

-- 1970 -- Kissinger to CIA director Richard Helms (after Allende's election): "We will not let Chile go down the drain."

-- 1971 -- Nixon to Treasury Secretary John Connally (after Chile decided not to compensate US companies following the nationalization of the copper industry): "I have decided we're going to give Allende the hook... He is an enemy... All's fair on Chile. Kick 'em in the ass. Ok?"

-- July 1973 -- (Two months before the coup) Nixon: "I think that Chilean guy may have some problems." Kissinger: "He has massive problems..." Nixon: "If only the army could get a few people behind them."

-- September 16, 1973 -- Kissinger: "The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown." Nixon: "Isn't that something. Isn't that something." Kissinger: "I mean instead of celebrating -- in the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes." Nixon: "Well we didn't -- as you know -- our hand doesn't show on this one though." Kissinger: "We didn't do it. I mean we helped them... created the conditions as great as possible." Nixon: "That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played." -

See more at:
http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=world/nixon-kissinger-allendes-overthrow-chile#sthash.KWoYnKuH.dpuf

[Judi Lynn]

1. How the Chilean coup forever changed Canada's refugee policies

How the Chilean coup forever changed Canada's refugee policies

EVA SALINAS

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Sep. 06 2013, 11:04 PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Sep. 08 2013, 10:45 AM EDT

First came the sound of low-flying planes, then of explosions. Marc Dolgin, the young diplomat in charge of Canada’s embassy in the Chilean capital of Santiago, huddled by the radio at work and soon realized the bombs were falling on the presidential palace.

It was Sept. 11, 1973. The military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet had begun, opening a dark chapter of torture and repression for Chile. And over the next few days, Mr. Dolgin would make a fateful decision that would help reshape Canada’s foreign policy, galvanize Ottawa to create an immigration category for refugees and alter forever the lives of thousands of Chileans.

Across the city that day, a young leftist professor named Claudio Duran realized that he was in mortal danger as the tanks rolled in and the junta began rounding up anyone suspected of supporting the dead president, Salvador Allende. With nothing more than the clothes he was wearing, he went into hiding, slipping through the shadows as he moved from the home of one friend after another. After about a week, he and his family turned up at the Canadian mission seeking refuge. Mr. Dolgin let them in.

There was no diplomatic precedent for his decision to offer shelter to Chileans who were fleeing the widening net cast by the junta. Six years later, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took most of the staff hostage, the Canadian embassy famously helped six American diplomats evade detection and fly home – the dramatic “Canadian caper” that was fictionalized in last year’s Oscar-winning film Argo.

More:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/escape-from-chile/article14176379/

[Judi Lynn]

2. Britain and Chile 40 Years After Pinochet’s Coup

Weekend Edition September 6-8, 2013

The ‘Other Special Relationship’

Britain and Chile 40 Years After Pinochet’s Coup

by PATRICK TIMMONS
England

Ask anybody from Santiago about the noise heard in the Chilean capital’s skies on the morning of Sept. 11, 1973, and they will probably tell you about the screeching roar of the British Hawker Harrier jets as they bombed La Moneda. Within minutes the planes had set fire to the presidential palace. After the air attack on the president’s offices, Chile’s army, directed by Augusto Pinochet and a group of generals, stormed the building. President Salvador Allende died in the attack.

Britain had been supplying all branches of the Chilean military with arms even under Allende, the democratically elected president ousted by Pinochet, who was his defense minister. In 1973, with British matériel and more than a nod and a wink from the CIA, a more than century-old Latin American democracy fell to authoritarianism. Pinochet stayed in power from 1973 to 1990 and sustained friendly, special relations with London and Washington, D.C., even as concerns about human rights abuses mounted.

In 2013, the anniversary year of Pinochet’s coup, Britain is aggressively refreshing its ties to Chile’s military establishment. From May 28-30, Chile’s defense minister visited London for annual bilateral defense discussions. Earlier in May, a 15-member delegation of military and civilian security and defense officials from 11 countries came to Chile on a “study tour” organized by Britain’s Royal College of Defense Studies with the support of the UK Embassy in Santiago. Chile’s defense minister welcomed the group. In late July and early August, “academics” from the British Army’s college at Sandhurst traveled to Santiago to train students from Chile’s defense institutions in counterinsurgency techniques.

There’s no secret to Britain’s current ties to Chile’s military: the British government has advertised these visits on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, stating that counterinsurgency training “was organised as part of the ongoing efforts to reinforce and strengthen the close ties between the British and Chilean Ministries of Defence.

Chile is an ever-present reminder to the West of the excesses of Cold War anti-communism. Pinochet seized power for the country’s capitalist establishment and labeled his leftist antagonists violent extremists. Pinochet did not shirk from calling his opponents terrorists and subversives. The dictator governed Chile through terrifying presidential rule from 1973 until 1990. A million people went into exile, tens of thousands were tortured, and thousands died or disappeared without a trace, often in the allied causes of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism or anti-communism.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/06/britain-and-chile-40-years-after-pinochets-coup/

[99th_Monkey]

3. Not to mention Chilean Ambassador Letelier assassinated (In Wash DC) by CIA "asset" with car-bomb.

Questions linger 34 years after Letelier assassination
September 22, 2010 * RT

It was an act of international terrorism conducted right in the heart of Washington DC’s international zone – embassy row.

"We’re standing in the spot of the most infamous act of international terrorism to ever take place before September 11th, 2001,” said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive.

Newlywed Ronnie Karpen Moffitt was only 25 years old. Born and raised in New Jersey, her colleague was former Chilean Minister Orlando Letelier. Both were violently killed by a car bomb planted underneath Letelier’s car.

Letelier was the target of the hit. He was a member of the leftist Chilean government of President Salvador Allende before a US backed military coup put dictator Augusto Pinochet in power. It led to a lethal campaign known as Operation Condor.

"Operation Condor, which was a hemispheric wide association to murder people, especially former officials,” said Saul Landau, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

The assassination was carried out by DINA, the Chilean secret police, under the orders of Manuel Contreras, the head of DINA. Contreras was also a paid CIA asset.

http://rt.com/usa/questions-linger-letelier-assassination/

[proverbialwisdom]

4. More.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22095116

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I am reading "Nixon" by Stephen Ambrose

Who seems to be a fan, very very detailed book.

Ambrose talks about the fact that only a few insiders knew of the taping system, that it was voice activted,
which of course adds a certain dimension to Nixon's comments.
The odds are good Kissinger did not know. Apparently he was not an "inside" guy like Halderman and Eichmann.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Nixon and Kissinger did an astonishing amoung of damage.

It's odd knowing that Republicans like George Bush still revere Kissinger so much.

Buncha sociopaths!

On edit:

In case this photo wasn't included in the Nixon book you've been reading, this is George H. W. Bush's dad, Prescott Bush with Richard Nixon. Really creepy, I'd say!

[center][/center]

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Actually, it's an audio book

which makes "reading" it more bearable, in a way.
After all these years, I can now appreciate Nixon's intelligence, while marveling at his overweening ego.
And, being reminded that bugging an opponent's office was considered a crime,
I am almost nostalgic for that period in time

how far we have come.

[Judi Lynn]

8. That's good to hear. Definitely would have a real advantage.

"How far we have come."

For sure! They weren't as skilled at this sort of thing back then. Now they've got it down!

Really staggers a person looking back at the picture painted for school children before they start finding out the truth later in life. Quite a difference. A lot of people don't seem to be able to make the leap between what a child will swallow and the truth he/she must discover growing up as part of the learning experience natural to active, healthy minds!

[Judi Lynn]

9. George Harrison's music was used as torture device in Augusto Pinochet's Chile

George Harrison's music was used as torture device in Augusto Pinochet's Chile
11 Sep 2013 00:00
By Jonathan Symcox

"Played at intensely high volumes for days on end, the otherwise popular songs were used to inflict psychological and physical damage"


The music of Beatle George Harrison and Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias was used to "inflict psychological and physical damage" on prisoners in dictator Augusto Pinochet's Chile, according to a new study.

Pinochet, who seized power as part of a military coup 40 years ago today and died in 2006, regularly tortured political opponents with songs such as Harrison's My Sweet Lord and the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange.

"Music brought prisoners together because it was a way to deal with their terrible suffering," said University of Manchester researcher Dr Katia Chornik. "But music was also a form of testimony. Many prisoners did not officially exist, so many were to disappear without trace and songs were a way of remembering who they were and what they believed in.

"Pinochet's system also used music to indoctrinate detainees, as a form of punishment and a soundtrack to torture.
"Played at intensely high volumes for days on end, the otherwise popular songs were used to inflict psychological and physical damage."

More:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/george-harrisons-music-used-torture-2265137#ixzz2ebHBij2A

[Judi Lynn]

10. Chile: The first dictatorship of globalisation

Chile: The first dictatorship of globalisation

When General Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s left-wing government in Chile, Mike Gatehouse was among the thousands of activists arrested. On the 40th anniversary of the coup he describes the hope and then the horror of the time



I arrived in Chile at almost exactly the half-way point of the Popular Unity government. Salvador Allende had been elected President on 4 September 1970, at his fourth attempt at the presidency, heading a coalition of his own Socialist Party, the Radical Party (like Britain’s Labour Party, an affiliate of the Socialist International), the Communist Party and several smaller parties, one of them a splinter from the Christian Democrats.

The mood in the country in March 1972 was still quite euphoric, following substantial and hugely popular achievements such as the nationalisation of Chile’s copper mines and the pursuit of a more radical land reform. People still felt that now, at last, they had a government which belonged to them and would bring real and irreversible improvements for the poor and the dispossessed. In the words of the Inti-Illimani song: ‘Porque esta vez no se trata de cambiar un presidente, será el pueblo quien construya un Chile bien diferente’ —This time it’s not just a change of President. This time it will be the people who will build a really different Chile.

Radicalised culture

Chile was an intensely exciting place to be. Everyone was ‘comprometido’ —committed, involved. There was no room for being in the words of the Victor Jara song, ‘ni chicha, ni limonada’ —a fence-sitter, neither beer nor lemonade. Political debate was constant and ubiquitous among all ages and classes of people of the left, centre and right. Newspapers (most of the principal ones still controlled by the right), magazines, radio and TV discussed every action of the government, every promise made by Allende and his ministers and every move of the opposition with a depth, sophistication and venom almost unimaginable in Britain today.

The changes were not only political, they were profound changes in the national culture. Most of the popular singers, many actors, artists, poets and authors identified closely with Popular Unity and considered themselves engaged in a battle against the imported, implanted values of Hollywood, Disney, Braniff Airlines, the ‘cold-blooded dealers in dreams, magazine magnates grown fat at the expense of youth’ in the excoriating words of Victor Jara’s song ¿Quien mató a Carmencita? There was a vogue for playing chess and in cafés and squares you would see people earnestly bent over chess-boards while conducting vehement political debates.

More:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/chile-the-first-dictatorship-of-globalisation/