Exclusive: The U.S. Paid Money to Support Hugo Banzer’s 1971 Coup in Bolivia

[Judi Lynn]

May 30, 2010
Exclusive: The U.S. Paid Money to Support Hugo Banzer’s 1971 Coup in Bolivia
Robert P. Baird

For nearly four decades, there’s been an open ques­tion about the 1971 coup that brought dic­ta­tor Hugo Banzer Suárez to power in Bolivia: was the U.S. gov­ern­ment involved? Thanks to newly declas­si­fied doc­u­ments, we now have an answer.

Banzer was a dic­ta­tor of Bolivia from 1971-8 and a demo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected pres­i­dent from 1997-2001. His three-​day coup in August 1971 was sig­nif­i­cant not only for the fight­ing that accom­pa­nied it, which left 110 dead and 600 wounded, but for the seven-​year regime that fol­lowed, one of the most repres­sive in Bolivia’s his­tory. Under Banzer’s rule, more than 14,000 Boli­vians were arrested with­out a judi­cial order, more than 8,000 were tortured—with elec­tric­ity, water, beatings—and more than 200 were exe­cuted or dis­ap­peared. (I’m writ­ing a long arti­cle about the legacy of the regime for Nar­ra­tive Mag­a­zine. It will hope­fully be out by the end of the year.)
Amer­i­can sup­port for Banzer before and after the coup was never in doubt. He had trained at the School of the Amer­i­cas in Panama and the Armored Cav­alry School in Texas, and in the late 60s served as mil­i­tary attaché in Wash­ing­ton. In the five months after he ousted left-​wing dic­ta­tor Gen­eral Juan José Torres, Banzer was rewarded with $50 mil­lion in grants and aid from the Nixon Administration.

But while U.S. sup­port for Banzer during the coup has been widely assumed among Boli­vians and Latin Amer­i­can his­to­ri­ans, the only proof (until now) was been a Wash­ing­ton Post report pub­lished a week after the event, which said that U.S. Air Force Major Robert J. Lundin had advised the plot­ters and lent them a long-​range radio. The report was never sub­stan­ti­ated, how­ever, and the State Depart­ment denied it imme­di­ately, assert­ing unequiv­o­cally that the U.S. played no part in the over­throw of Torres.

A col­lec­tion of declas­si­fied doc­u­ments recently released* by the same State Depart­ment proves that this denial was not only incor­rect, but a lie: the Nixon Admin­is­tra­tion, acting with the full knowl­edge of the State Depart­ment, autho­rized nearly half a mil­lion dollars—”coup money,” accord­ing to the ambas­sador in La Paz—for the politi­cians and mil­i­tary offi­cers plot­ting against Torres. The CIA handed at least some of this money over to the coup’s lead­ers in the days lead­ing up to Banzer’s seizure of power.

Min­utes from a July 8, 1971 meet­ing of the 40 Com­mit­tee (an executive-​branch group chaired by Henry Kissinger and tasked with over­sight of covert oper­a­tions) included dis­cus­sion of a CIA pro­posal to give $410,000 to a group of oppo­si­tion politi­cians and mil­i­tary lead­ers, money that they knew would be used to over­throw Torres. (Under Sec­re­tary of State U. Alexis John­son: “what we are actu­ally orga­niz­ing is a coup in itself, isn’t it?”) Though the com­mit­tee decided to wait to hear from Ambas­sador Ernest Sir­a­cusa (he opposed the mea­sure) the plan was ulti­mately approved. The same day that the coup began in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, an NSC staffer reported to Kissinger that the CIA had trans­ferred money to two high-​ranking mem­bers of the opposition.

More:
http://www.digitalemunction.com/2010/05/30/exclusive-the-u-s-paid-money-to-support-hugo-banzers-1971-coup-in-bolivia/