Agustin Edwards: A Declassified Obituary

[Judi Lynn]

Declassified CIA, White House Documents Reveal Collaboration between Chilean Media Mogul and Highest Level of Nixon Administration

Kissinger Set up Secret Meetings for Edwards with Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms

Documents Record Edwards Covert Coup Plotting to Overthrow Allende in Chile

Washington, D.C., April 25, 2017 – Media mogul Agustin Edwards Eastman, who was widely regarded as the Rupert Murdoch of Chile, died on April 24, at age 89, leaving a legacy of close collaboration with Henry Kissinger and the CIA in instigating and supporting the September 11, 1973, military coup. Edwards was the only Chilean—civilian or military—known to meet face-to-face with CIA Director Richard Helms in September 1970 in connection with plans to instigate regime change against Socialist leader Salvador Allende, who had just been elected president.

Declassified CIA and White House documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University show conclusively what Edwards repeatedly denied – that he and his newspaper, El Mercurio, became a critical part of U.S. plans to foment a military coup against President Allende.

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AGUSTÍN EDWARDS EASTMAN: A DECLASSIFIED OBITUARY

September 15, 1970, was a dramatic day in the life of Chilean media mogul, Agustin Edwards Eastman. His day began at 8am, with breakfast in the office of Henry Kissinger, then national security advisor to President Richard Nixon. At 9:15am, Kissinger had arranged for Edwards to secretly see Nixon in the Oval Office. Although there is no documentary record that the meeting with the president took place, later that day at the Madison Hotel in downtown Washington D.C., Edwards became the only Chilean—civilian or military—known to meet face-to-face with CIA Director Richard Helms. At 3:25pm that afternoon, President Nixon called Kissinger and Helms into the Oval Office and instructed them to covertly try to “save Chile” by orchestrating a military takeover. “I have this impression that the president called this meeting,” Helms later testified before the U.S. Senate, “because of Edwards’ presence in Washington and what … Edwards was saying about conditions in Chile.”

Edwards’ extraordinary influence on U.S. policy and CIA intervention in Chile did not stop there. When CIA covert action—which included the assassination of Gen. Rene Schneider—failed to block Salvador Allende’s inauguration, the Edwards media empire became the leading clandestine collaborator in fomenting a military coup d’etat. President Nixon personally authorized covert CIA funding to sustain El Mercurio so that it could become a media megaphone of opposition, agitation and misinformation against the Allende government. In the aftermath of Allende’s overthrow, the CIA explicitly credited its media propaganda project in Chile for playing “a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of 11 September 1973,” and continued to secretly funnel money to the Edwards group so that El Mercurio could “present the Junta in the most positive light for the Chilean public.”

Throughout his long life, Sr. Edwards denied any of these things ever happened. He claimed that he and El Mercurio never received any secret funding from the CIA; on the meeting with Helms, according to his sworn testimony before Chilean Judge Mario Carroza, he declared: “esta reunión se efectuó días después de la elección de Salvador Allende oportunidad donde se comentó las circunstancias de haber salido un presidente comunista en un país democrático, pero en ningún caso se pensaba en un Golpe de Estado o algo parecido.” (Translation: “this meeting took place a few days after the election of Salvador Allende which gave me the opportunity to comment on the circumstances that had permitted a communist president to win in a democratic country. At no time did we discuss a coup or anything like that.”)

But formerly classified White House and CIA records on U.S. intervention in Chile posted by the National Security Archive today provide the historical truth that, during his life, Edwards could never admit. Among the key revelations in the documents:

More:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2017-04-25/agustin-edwards-declassified-obituary