[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 124 (Thursday, September 17, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1753-E1755]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1753]]
      ANNIVERSARY OF TRAGIC COUP IN CHILE AND THE ROLE OF THE CIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 17, 1998

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, September 11 was the 25th 
anniversary of the military overthrow of the democratically elected 
government of Salvador Allende in Chile, a country which had a long and 
democratic history. The National Security Archives has just released on 
the Internet dramatic documents they obtained through the Freedom of 
Information Act and elsewhere clearly showing the United States' 
efforts to overthrow the Chilean government. U.S. officials had 
maintained that they had no organized effort to topple Allende's 
government.
  In the end, the bloody 1973 coup that ushered in almost 20 years of 
brutal military dictatorship was the work of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and 
the Chilean Army under his command. They newly declassified documents, 
however, show extensive U.S. covert operations to try to prevent 
Allende from taking office in 1970, to encourage a military coup and to 
destabilize his government and the Chilean economy until the coup took 
place.
  During the subsequent congressional investigation of U.S. covert 
activities in Chile, then CIA director Richard Helms told Congress that 
the CIA and other national security agencies of the United States had 
not attempted to destabilize or overthrow the Allende government. Helms 
was later convicted in federal court for lying to Congress and was 
fined $2,000. The documents below clearly show that President Richard 
Nixon could not tolerate the presence of socialist President Allende, 
despite his having won office in a free and fair democratic election.
  This is what New York Times reporter Tim Weiner wrote about the 
documents in an article this past Sunday. ``They show how much the 
United States was committed to thwarting Mr. Allende even before he 
took office, and they illustrate a fact that was not well understood 
during the cold war: The CIA very rarely acted as a rogue elephant. 
When it plotted coups and shipped guns to murderous colonels, it did so 
on orders from the President.''
  One of the most important things about the documents, however, is 
what is missing from them. It is widely believed that the United States 
has additional key documents that would help resolve ongoing legal 
battles concerning responsibility for acts of terrorism that took place 
on behalf of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and around the world, 
including the United States. U.S. officials, however, continue to 
refuse to declassify or share with prosecutors in other countries these 
key documents.
  The United States, which has an avowed interest in the rule of law, 
the elimination of international terrorism, and the promotion of 
justice and democracy in Latin America and throughout the world, should 
make available documents that will reveal critical additional 
information concerning the perpetrators of crimes and human rights 
atrocities committed on behalf of Pinochet dictatorship.
  Below is a New York Times summary of the documents on the National 
Security Archives website (http://www.seas.gwu,edu/nsarchive/), as well 
as two newspaper columns from the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald 
about the significance of the anniversary of Chile's bloody coup and of 
these new documents.
  I commend these materials to my colleagues' attention.

             [From the New York Times, September 13, 1998]

  All the President Had to Do Was Ask; The C.I.A. Took Aim at Allende

                            (By Tim Weiner)

       From 1970 to 1973, the United States sought to overthrow 
     the Government of Chile and its democratically elected 
     President, Salvador Allende, whom it deemed a Marxist threat 
     to American interests. Under orders from President Richard M. 
     Nixon, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a full-tilt 
     covert operation to keep Dr. Allende from taking office and, 
     when that failed, undertook subtler efforts to undermine him. 
     Those efforts ``never really ended,'' the C.I.A.'s director 
     of operations at the time, Thomas Karamessines, later told 
     Senate investigators.
       Twenty-five years ago this week, on Sept. 11, 1973, the 
     Chilean military seized power. The junta, under Gen. Augusto 
     Pinochet, ruled until 1990. Its death squads murdered more 
     than 3,000 people, and it jailed and tortured thousands more. 
     Chile is still trying to come to terms with the damage done 
     to its democratic institutions.
       The declassified Government documents excerpted below were 
     collected by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit 
     research group in Washington that has sought to uncover 
     secret records since 1985. They were posted on its website 
     (www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive) on Friday. They show how much 
     the United States was committed to thwarting Mr. Allende even 
     before he took office, and they illustrate a fact that was 
     not well understood during the cold war: The C.I.A. very 
     rarely acted as a rogue elephant. When it plotted coups and 
     shipped guns to murderous colonels, it did so on orders from 
     the President.
       United States Ambassador Edward Korry, in a cable titled 
     ``No Hopes for Chile,'' advised Washington on Sept. 8, 1970:
       Civility is the dominant characteristic of Chilean life . . 
     . And civility is what makes almost certain the triumph of 
     the very uncivil Allende. Neither the President nor the Armed 
     Forces have the stomach for the violence they fear would be 
     the consequence of intervention.
       The Ambassador followed up on Sept. 11 with a new cable, 
     ``The Communists Take Over Chile.''
       There is a graveyard smell to Chile, the fumes of a 
     democracy in decomposition. They stank in my nostrils in 
     Czechoslovakia in 1948 and they are no less sickening today.
       On Sept. 15, Richard M. Helms, Director of Central 
     Intelligence, took handwritten notes at a White House meeting 
     with President Richard M. Nixon, Attorney General John 
     Mitchell, and the national security adviser, Henry M. 
     Kissinger.
       1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!.. worth spending . 
     . . not concerned risks involved . . . no involvement of 
     embassy . . . $10,000,000 available, more if necessary . . . 
     full-time job--best men we have . . . game plan . . . make 
     the economy scream . . . 48 hours for plan of action.
       On Sept. 16, William V. Broe, chief of the C.I.A.'s Western 
     Hemisphere division, met with Mr. Helms and other senior 
     C.I.A. officers.
       The Director [of Central Intelligence] told the group that 
     President Nixon had decided that an Allende regime in Chile 
     was not acceptable to the United States. The President asked 
     the Agency to prevent Allende from coming to power or to 
     unseat him. The President authorized ten million dollars for 
     this purpose, if needed. Further, the Agency is to carry out 
     this mission without coordination with the Departments of 
     State or Defense. . . . The Director said he had been asked 
     by Dr. Henry Kissinger . . . to meet with him on Friday, 18 
     September, to give him the Agency's views on how this mission 
     could be accomplished.
       On Oct. 16, a cable went out from C.I.A. headquarters to 
     Henry Heckscher, C.I.A. station chief in Santiago, Chile, who 
     had doubts about the plots.
       It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown 
     by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire 
     prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue 
     vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate 
     maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate 
     resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented 
     clandestinely and securely so that the United States 
     Government and American hand be well hidden. . . . Please 
     review all your present and possibly new activities to 
     include propaganda, black operations, surfacing of 
     intelligence or disinformation, personal contacts, or 
     anything else your imagination can conjure which will permit 
     you to press forward toward our [deleted] objective.
       Plans were already in motion. Five days earlier, on Oct. 
     11, Mr. Broe sent this cable from C.I.A. headquarters to the 
     Santiago station:
       SUB-MACHINE GUNS AND AMMO BEING SENT BY REGULAR [deleted] 
     COURIER LEAVING WASHINGTON 0700 HOURS 19 OCTOBER DUE ARRIVE 
     SANTIAGO LATE EVENING 20 OCTOBER OR EARLY MORNING 21 OCTOBER.
       The United States did not spur the Chilean military to act, 
     but it was not for want of trying, as shown by an internal 
     C.I.A. report, ``Chilean Task Force Activities,'' dated Nov. 
     18.
       On 15 September 1970, C.I.A. was directed to try to prevent 
     Marxist Salvador Allende's ascent to the Chilean Presidency. 
     . . . A military coup increasingly suggested itself as the 
     only possible solution to the Allende problem. Anti-Allende 
     currents did exist in the military and the Carabineros, but 
     were immobilized by the tradition of military respect for the 
     Constitution. . . . [The C.I.A.'s propaganda efforts 
     included] special intelligence and ``inside'' briefings given 
     to U.S. journalists. . . . Particularly noteworthy in this 
     connection was the Time cover story which owed a great deal 
     to written materials and briefings provided by C.I.A. . . . . 
     C.I.A. briefings in Washington [deleted] changed the basic 
     thrust of the story in the final stages according to another 
     Time correspondent. It provoked Allende to complain on 13 
     October, ``We are suffering the most brutal and horrible 
     pressure, both domestic and international,'' signaling out 
     Time in particular as having ``openly called'' for an 
     invasion of Chile.
       Another report, ``Postmortem on the Chilean Presidential 
     Election,'' by Mr. Helms to Gen. Alexander Haig, Mr. 
     Kissinger's military aide, weighted the stakes.
       On 3 November 1970, Mr. Salvador Allende became the first 
     democratically elected Marxist head of state in the history 
     of Latin America--despite the opposition of the U.S. 
     Government. As a result, U.S. prestige and interests in Latin 
     America and, to some extent, elsewhere are being affected 
     materially at a time when the U.S. can ill afford problems in 
     an area that has traditionally been accepted as the U.S. 
     ``backyard.''
       From November 1970 until September 1973, when the military 
     seized power, the C.I.A.

[[Page E1754]]

     spent $8 million undermining President Allende. When the coup 
     came, the United States knew about the plans and encouraged 
     them, but played no direct role. Three weeks later, a United 
     States military intelligence officer reconstructed the day.
       D-DAY 11 SEPTEMBER H-HOUR 0600
       Chile's coup d'etat was close to perfect. Unfortunately, 
     ``close'' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. . . . 
     Original plan called for President Allende to be held 
     incommunicado in his home until the coup was a fait accompli. 
     H-hour delay in Santiago permitted Allende to be alerted at 
     0730. Allende immediately dashed to the palace . . . [where] 
     he had access to radio communications facilities which 
     permitted him to personally implore ``workers and students, 
     come to the Moneda and defend your Government against the 
     Armed Forces.'' The hour was 0830. . . . Military had all 
     roads to Santiago blocked. Lid was on TIGHT inside city. 
     Everyone on streets not wearing right color jersey stood an 
     excellent chance of getting shot. Allende managed to 
     personally broadcast two ``MAYDAY'' messages. The first, at 
     0830, sounded strong and confident as he summoned the workers 
     and students. The second at 0945 sounded morose, almost as if 
     he was preparing the eulogy for his dying government. It was 
     his last broadcast as the Air Force soon located and rocketed 
     his antennae. The hour was 1015. . . .
       Allende was found alone and dead in his office off the 
     inner courtyard. He had killed himself by placing a sub-
     machine gun under his chin and pulling the trigger. Messy, 
     but efficient. The gun was lying near his body. A gold metal 
     plate imbedded in the stock was inscribed ``To my good friend 
     Salvador Allende from Fidel Castro.'' Obviously Communist 
     Cuba had sent one too many guns to Chile for their own good. 
     The hour was 1345. . . .
       Semper Fidelis
       Patrick J. Ryan
       Lieutenant Colonel, USMC
       Postscript: After 17 years as Chile's dictator, General 
     Pinochet relinquished power to a civilian government in 1990. 
     But he remained commander in chief of the armed forces, 
     stepping down from that post only last March. In a farewell 
     ceremony. the old general praised the armed forces as ``the 
     savior of democracy'' in Chile.
                                  ____


              [From the Boston Globe, September 13, 1998]

                       Chile's `disappeared' past

                          (By Peter Kornbluh)

       [Peter Kornbluh is a senior analyst at the National 
     Security Archive, a Washington, D.C., documentation center. 
     Declassified US documents on Chile can be accessed on the 
     archive's website: www.seas.gwu.edunsarchive.]
       Twenty-five years ago Friday--on Sept. 11, 1973--the 
     country that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda once described as ``a 
     long petal of sea, wine, and snow'' was transformed from 
     Latin America's foremost social democracy to the region's 
     darkest dictatorship.
       The military takeover of Chile led by General Augusto 
     Pinochet, a name that has since become synonymous with gross 
     violations of human rights, market the beginning of a 
     repressive 17-year regime. During that blighted time, Sept. 
     11 was designated a national holiday. No longer. Today, it is 
     simply a day of reflection on the past for many Chileans 
     whose lives were inalterably changed by the violent coup and 
     its bloody aftermath.
       But while many in both Washington and Santiago would like 
     to forget those events, Chile's is a history that demands to 
     be remembered.
       Having launched a covert effort to overthrow the 
     democratically elected socialist government of Salvador 
     Allende in 1970, and having welcomed the coup with aid and 
     support in 1973, the United States is inextricably tied to 
     these events in Chilean history.
       It was, after all, President Nixon who in September 1970 
     ordered the CIA to ``make the economy scream'' in Chile, to 
     ``prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.'' It 
     was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as recently 
     declassified CIA records show, who told the agency that ``it 
     is firm and continuing policy that Allende should be 
     overthrown by a coup'' and directed that the agency ``should 
     continue keeping the pressure on every Allende weak spot in 
     sight--now . . . and into the future until such time as new 
     marching orders are given.'' Allende was assassinated in the 
     coup.
       At the time of Pinochet's takeover, the United States made 
     every effort to stabilize the new military junta's grip on 
     power. Even as reports of mass arrests, summary executions--
     including of two US citizens--widespread torture, and 
     disappearances flooded the media, the CIA initiated new 
     clandestine operations designed, according to their own 
     documents, to ``assist the junta in gaining a more positive 
     image, both at home and abroad,'' The Nixon White House, in 
     the meantime, opened the floodgates of economic and military 
     support to the new regime.
       The Central Intelligence Agency's actions in Chile also has 
     a significant impact in the United States. Once the CIA's 
     covert involvement in the overthrow of democracy there became 
     known, that revelation helped fuel the first wide-scale 
     national evaluation, in the mid-1970s, of the morality and 
     propriety of covert operations abroad.
       Similarly, the case of Chile established human rights as 
     part of the lexicon of US foreign policy. Public outrage over 
     White House acceptance of Pinochet's atrocities became the 
     catalyst for organizing a permanent human rights movement in 
     the United States. With Chile as their battle cry, US human 
     rights advocates forced the passage of pioneering legislation 
     in Congress mandating sanctions on governments that abuse 
     their citizens--sanctions that were applied first to the 
     Pinochet regime.
       ``I hold the strong view that human rights are not 
     appropriate for discussion in a foreign policy context,'' 
     Kissinger told Chile's foreign minister in 1975. It is the 
     height of irony that, as a result of US intervention in 
     Chile, public pressure forced future policy makers to 
     incorporate the moral precepts of US democracy at home into 
     the US posture abroad.
       Yet, despite its historical importance, the coup and its 
     aftermath have been institutionally expunged from the 
     national consciousness--in both Chile and the United States.
       In Chile, observes Isabel Allende, niece of the late 
     president, discussions of events 25 years ago are considered 
     ``in really bad taste.'' The threatening shadow of the still 
     powerful Chilean armed forces, the weakness of civilian rule, 
     and the affluence of free-market capitalism has produced a 
     self-imposed sociopolitical oblivion to the past.
       In the United States, the national scandal over the Nixon 
     administration's effort to overthrow a democratically elected 
     government is considered ancient history--even as the full 
     story of the CIA's role in the coup, and US knowledge of 
     Pinochet's atroscities, remains buried in still classified US 
     government archives.
       In both countries, the powers-that-be would prefer that the 
     skeletons remain locked in the national closet . . .
       In the United States, there are victims of Chile's human 
     rights atrocities who also deserve answers. There is the 
     family of Charles Horman, executed in Chile's national 
     stadium 25 years ago today (about whom the movie ``Missing'' 
     was made). There are the families of Ronni Moffitt and former 
     Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, both killed by a car bomb 
     planted by Chile's secret police in September 1976--the most 
     notorious act of international terrorism ever in Washington, 
     D.C.
       In Chile, history is easier to hide; General Pinochet, who 
     designated himself a ``senator-for-life'' before 
     relinquishing power in 1990, told Chile's leading newspaper 
     this month that he ``had nothing to do'' with any human 
     rights violations that took place during his rule. In Chile, 
     there is neither the documentation nor the power to challenge 
     him.
       In the United States, however, keeping the secrets of the 
     past is far more difficult. Slowly but surely, documents--CIA 
     reports, National Security Council options papers, State 
     Department cables--are being declassified under the Freedom 
     of Information Act.
       Moreover, Spain has asked the Clinton administration to 
     release numerous documents relating Pinochet's ``crimes 
     against humanity''--part of an international human rights 
     lawsuit the Spanish courts have filed against military 
     authorities in Chile and Argentina.
       Since many of the thousands of the still-secret US 
     documents on Chile are now, or soon will be, more than 25 
     years old, they fall under President Clinton's 1995 executive 
     order on national security information mandating that records 
     of that age and older be fully declassified.
       The CIA and other national security agencies are resisting 
     compliance with the order, but with public pressure it is 
     possible that the hidden story of the US role in Chile, and 
     detailed US intelligence documentation on human rights 
     atrocities there, will eventually be released.
       ``You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you 
     free,'' reads the Gospel of John emblazoned in the foyer of 
     CIA's headquarters. Indeed, the truth is a right of freedom 
     that both Chilean and US citizens deserve.
                                  ____


                [From the Miami Herald, Sept. 11, 1998]

                    U.S. Crippled Chile's Democracy

                            (By Saul Landau)

       [Saul Landau is the Hugh O. La Bounty Chair of 
     Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge at California State 
     Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a fellow at the Institute 
     for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He is the co-author of 
     Assassination on Embassy Row, the story of the Letelier-
     Moffitt killings.]
       Today is the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-supported coup in 
     Chile. On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military overthrew the 
     elected government of Salvador Allende and established a 
     dictatorship that ruled until 1990. The United States played 
     a prominent role in these events.
       The CIA began to instigate violence in Chile following the 
     September 1970 election of Allende, who headed a socialist 
     coalition.

[[Page E1755]]

     ``I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go 
     communist because of the irresponsibility of its own 
     people,'' National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger said at 
     the time. In testimony before a Senate investigating 
     committee in 1975, CIA Director Richard Helms told of how 
     President Nixon gave him ``the marshal's baton'' to conduct 
     covert activities designed to stop Allende from being 
     inaugurated in November 1970.
       Helms's covert staff tried to bribe Chile's Congress and 
     its military to deny Allende the presidency. Failing on that 
     front, the agency paid an extreme right-wing group to 
     assassinate Gen. Rene Schneider, Chile's chief of staff. When 
     even that murder didn't succeed in blocking Allende's 
     inauguration, the CIA began to destabilize his government.
       For three years CIA officials helped instigate strikes in 
     strategic sectors of the economy, promoted violence, and 
     initiated smear campaigns against Allende in the media. 
     Washington applied a credit squeeze to make Chile's economy 
     squirm.
       This destabilization campaign had its desired effect. 
     Social conflict grew to the point where the Chilean military 
     commanders, with U.S. encouragement, decided to stage a coup. 
     As tanks and aircraft bombarded the presidential palace on 
     Sept. 11, 1973, U.S. Navy vessels appeared off Chile's coast. 
     U.S. intelligence vessels monitored activity at Chile's 
     military bases to notify the coup makers, should a regiment 
     loyal to the Allende government decide to fight.
       Allende died in the assault, alongside dozens of his 
     supporters. Cabinet ministers and other staff were arrested 
     and thrown into a concentration camp. No charges were brought 
     against them.
       Chile's institutions were destroyed, including the 
     Congress, the press, and trade unions. Troops burned books 
     deemed subversive. The junta began a systematic terror 
     campaign, arresting, torturing, and murdering thousands of 
     ``suspected subversives.'' A Chilean-government agency 
     estimates that the reign of terror between 1973 and 1990 
     resulted in the deaths of some 2,300 Chileans.
       Pro-Allende Chileans took refuge abroad, but even there the 
     long arm of strongman Augusto Pinochet's secret police 
     managed to reach them. In September 1976 in Washington, D.C., 
     Michael Townley, a U.S. national and a bomb expert employed 
     by Chile's secret police, recruited five anti-Castro Cubans 
     to help him carry out an assassination. The assassins placed 
     a bomb under the car of Orlando Letelier, Allende's former 
     defense minister. The bomb killed Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. 
     Both victims worked at the Institute for Policy Studies.
       The FBI discovered that the Chilean dictatorship had 
     organized a six-country alliance of secret-police agencies, 
     which provided surveillance on each other's dissidents and 
     helped assassinate the most troubling exiled opponents. FBI 
     agents also learned that the CIA knew considerable detail 
     about this ``Condor Operation.''
       In the late 1980s the United States, embarrassed over 
     Pinochet's ``excesses,'' pushed for a referendum to end 
     military rule. Pinochet was defeated, but he forced the 
     civilian government to accept him as head of the army until 
     he retired in March of this year. He then became ``senator 
     for life,'' a post that he had arranged for himself.
       Fortunately, Chile has returned to democratic procedures. 
     But 17 years of military rule have taken an immeasurable toll 
     on its people.
       How would we Americans feel if another government decided 
     that our voters had exercised poor judgment and sent 
     saboteurs to undo by force the results of our election?
       This is what we did to Chile. We altered its destiny.