"Make the Economy Scream": Secret Documents Show Nixon, Kissinger Role Backing 1973 Chile Coup
"Make the Economy Scream": Secret Documents Show Nixon, Kissinger Role Backing 1973 Chile Coup PDF Print E-mail
Written by Democracy Now!
Friday, 12 February 2016 13:12
Originally published on September 10, 2013
Source/Video: Democracy Now!
We continue our coverage of the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende with a look at the critical U.S. role under President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Peter Kornbluh, who spearheaded the effort to declassify more than 20,000 secret documents that revealed the role of the CIA and the White House in the Chilean coup, discusses how Nixon and Kissinger backed the Chilean military’s ouster of Allende and then offered critical support as it committed atrocities to cement its newfound rule. Kornbluh is author of the newly updated book, "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability," and director of the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. In 1970, the CIA’s deputy director of plans wrote in a secret memo: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. ... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [the U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden." That same year President Nixon ordered the CIA to "make the economy scream" in Chile to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him." We’re also joined by Juan Garcés, a former personal adviser to Allende who later led the successful legal effort to arrest and prosecute coup leader Augusto Pinochet. See Part 2 of this interview here.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: I wanted to ask about the U.S. role in all of this, and let’s turn to a recording of President Richard Nixon speaking in a March 1972 phone call, acknowledging he’d given instructions, quote, to "do anything short of a Dominican-type action" to keep the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, from assuming office. The phone conversation was captured by his secret Oval Office taping system. In this clip, you hear President Nixon telling his press secretary, Ron Ziegler, he had given orders to undermine Chilean democracy to the U.S. ambassador, but, quote, "he just failed. ... He should have kept Allende from getting in." Listen closely.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Yeah.
OPERATOR: Mr. Ziegler.
RON ZIEGLER: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: What did you—have you said anything, Ron, with regard to the ITT in Chile? How did you handle—
RON ZIEGLER: The State Department dealt with that today.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, they did?
RON ZIEGLER: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: What did they do? Deny it?
RON ZIEGLER: They denied it, but they were cautious on how they dealt with the Korry statement, because they were afraid that might backfire.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Why? What did Korry say?
RON ZIEGLER: Well, Korry said that he had received instructions to do anything short of a Dominican-type—alleged to have said that.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Korry did?
RON ZIEGLER: Right.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: So how did—how did that go? He put that out?
RON ZIEGLER: Well, Anderson received that from some source. Al Haig is sitting with me now.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, yeah.
RON ZIEGLER: It was a report contained in an IT&T—
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Oh, yeah.
RON ZIEGLER: —thing, but—
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Well, he was. He was instructed to.
RON ZIEGLER: Well, but—
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: I hoped—but he just failed, the son of a [bleep]. That’s his main problem. He should have kept Allende from getting in. Well—
RON ZIEGLER: In any event, State has denied—
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Has State Department handled it?
RON ZIEGLER: —it today, and they referred to—to your comments about Latin America and Chile and—
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Yeah, fine.
RON ZIEGLER: —and so, you just refer to that on that one.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Fine, OK.
RON ZIEGLER: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Right.
AARON MATÉ: That’s President Nixon speaking in 1972. Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, can explain to us what Nixon is talking about here, and put it in context of the U.S. role in destabilizing Chile?
PETER KORNBLUH: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger launched a preemptive strike against Salvador Allende. They decided to stop him from being inaugurated as president of Chile. He hadn’t even set foot in the Moneda Palace, when Nixon and Kissinger just simply decided to change the fate of Chile. Nixon instructed the CIA to make the Chilean economy scream, to use as many men as possible. The first plan was to actually keep Allende from being inaugurated as president. And then, when that plan failed, after the assassination of the Chilean commander-in-chief that the United States was behind, General René Schneider, Kissinger then went to Nixon and said, "Allende is now president. The State Department thinks we can coexist with him, but I want you to make sure you tell everybody in the U.S. government that we cannot, that we cannot let him succeed, because he has legitimacy. He is democratically elected. And suppose other governments decide to follow in his footstep, like a government like Italy? What are we going to do then? What are we going to say when other countries start to democratically elect other Salvador Allendes? We will—the world balance of power will change," he wrote to Nixon in a secret document, "and our interests in it will be changed fundamentally."
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5578-qmake-the-economy-screamq-secret-documents-show-nixon-kissinger-role-backing-1973-chile-coup
= new reply since forum marked as read
