United States Policy toward Chile

by

Gordon L. Bowen, Ph.D.

Departments of Political Science and International Relations

Mary Baldwin College, Staunton VA 24401 USA

This essay is protected by the copyright laws of the United States and is intended for use by students studying Political Science courses at Mary Baldwin College under Prof. Bowen's supervision.  Other uses require the permission of Prof. Bowen: contact him at gbowen@mbc.edu .  This web essay last was updated December 14, 2006

This essay addresses two inter-related themes: the politics of the South American nation of Chile, and the role played by the United States in Chile.  Through a largely chronological account that begins in the 1960s, U.S. - Chilean relations are analyzed.  Especially important in this regard was the rise in 1970 of a popularly elected, socialist government led by Salvador Allende.  The responses to it by the United States first will engage us. Plots to prevent the electoral winner, Socialist Party candidate Salvador Allende, then are described, and the beliefs to those drawn to these plots are discussed. American involvement in efforts to block Allende's inauguration, known as "Track Two," is reported; and the assassination of Gen. Rene Schneider and its impact are described. Private corporate involvement in U.S. covert operations against the Allende Government, 1970-73, next is addressed, as the policies of the Allende Government and their effects are analyzed. Actions taken by the U.S. in international forums, which complemented continuing anti-Allende covert operations contributed to the developing social crisis in Chile, a period in which the U.S. used diverse methods to maintain its position of influence with the Chilean Armed Forces. In September 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet seized power in a violent military coup that would keep him as head of state until 1990. The essay then turns to the Pinochet regime and its brutal nature, focusing special attention on an act of international terrorism it committed in Washington D.C. in 1976, the murder of former diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American companion. The progress of this case and other aspects of Chilean - U.S. relations during the Reagan Administration then are the focus, including new developments in the Letelier case after 1987. The essay then engages in an analysis of the process of re-democratization in Chile after 1989, and includes comments by the current Chilean President, Ricardo Lagos, on the barriers to genuine liberal democracy that remain. An important focus falls on the ultimately futile attempts in the later 1990s (and beyond) to hold former ruler Pinochet criminally responsible for the violent crimes committed during his administration, and on other continuing obstacles to accountable limited government in Chile.

Introduction

Traditionally, Chile was closer to Britain and Germany than she was to the U.S. in its foreign relations. But, after the onset of the Cold War in 1947, Chile's democratic rulers rallied to support U.S. efforts. As was the case with nearly all other Latin American states, the U.S. assumed mutual defense obligations on behalf of Chile by virtue of the 1947 Rio Treaty. In this formal alliance with Chile the US, for a short time, found a congenial friend. Early Cold War era Chilean policies reinforced this burgeoning alliance relationship: Communist parties were banned (1947) and enthusiastic Chilean support was given in the 1950s and 1960s to U.S. efforts to stem Communists' influence in the region. In the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, Chile's military quickly adapted to the shift in U.S. military doctrine, transforming their role from one of external defense to one of being guarantors of internal security within the nation. After 1961, Chile was rewarded generously: it received the largest program in Latin America (per capita) of U.S. economic aid under President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress program. But despite such cooperation, external aid and political support, Chile's ruling Christian Democrat party found themselves challenged at the ballot box by leftists who appealed to the hopes of Chileans who remained outside the benefits of economic prosperity. By 1970, democratic Chile was on the verge of bringing to power the hemisphere's first elected Marxist government.

In this context, Chilean-U.S. relations became very strained during 1970-73. Up until 1973, Chile had been one of the few nations in Latin America to enjoy democratic government for most of its modern history. The Chilean case thus presented to the U.S. a dilemma. Which of the values said to be at the heart of our national interest would prove primary: the protection of democratic institutions, or the preservation of an anti-communist system of allies?

The Popular Unity Government of 1970

President Salvador Allende's government (1970-1973) represented a coalition of forces calling themselves "Popular Unity" (or UP) which came to power through a narrow electoral mandate (a plurality of only 39,000 votes), in 1970. Allende enjoyed the electoral endorsement of Socialist, Communist and other left wing parties, as well as the support of substantial numbers of voters who favored a non-Marxist, anti-Clerical party, the Radical Party. He came to formal office bearing burdens as well: substantial opposition from the military, and profound international opposition from the government of the US, proved to be problematic for his socialist administration.

UP won 36.3 percent of the 1970 Presidential vote for Salvador Allende Gossens; the middle of the road Christian Democrat Party or PDC and their candidate, Radomiro Tomic, won 27.8 percent; and the right wing National Party candidate Jorge Alessandri won 35.3 percent. The victory of the left in 1970 showed deterioration in the appeal of moderate forces within Chilean politics. In 1964, the results were much stronger for the center-right: Eduardo Frei/PDC: 1.4 Million votes, or 56 percent; Allende/FRAP: .98 Million votes, or 39 percent; Duran/Radicals : .125 Million votes, or 5 percent. Critical to Allende's loss in 1964 had been two factors: first, women voters proved reluctant to vote for the left. Frei out polled Allende among women 744,000 to 375,000. Second, Frei proved much more popular than Allende in urban areas, beating the socialist by a margin of 2 to 1 in the cities (Cerqueira: 265). This was part of a long tradition of Chilean workers' independent voting. One study found, for example, that 60 percent of manual workers in Santiago did not typically vote for leftist parties, 1952-70 (Smith and Rodriguez: 60).

The U.S. long had attempted to influence Chilean elections, to strengthen non-communist parties and to weaken the left. However, new techniques were used by the U.S. in 1970 which were quite different from earlier efforts to influence Chilean elections. According to the CIA in 2000, U.S. dabbling in Chilean party politics and elections began in 1962, when CIA began undertaking covert actions to assist the Christian Democrat and Radical parties.   In 1964, U.S. efforts to influence Chilean voters centered on building up the middle-of-the-road PDC party and their ultimately victorious presidential candidate, Eduardo Frei. U.S. support for the PDC began under the Kennedy administration, when, in 1962, $230,000 were authorized to be spent to "strengthen the Christian Democratic Party (PDC)... and its leader, Eduardo Frei (US Senate: 204). Always willing to hedge bets, in 1962-63, other U.S. covert expenditures helped to finance the Radical Party. In April 1964, the Johnson Administration's "Special Group" (the covert operations authorizing body in that administration) approved $3 Million "to ensure the election of PDC candidate Eduardo Frei" to the Chilean presidency (US Senate: 204). These CIA monies were used to conduct voter surveys, to train PDC candidates in public speaking, to purchase advertising for PDC candidates and to print campaign materials for the party. Other funds went to media outlets sympathetic to U.S. goals.  Additionally, State Department officials stated that it was their intention to use U.S. PL 480 "Food for Peace" funds to build the impression of "good times" among Chileans. In May 1964, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America secretly stated that "We are urgently requesting Mr. Bell's approval of a $15 million loan to provide additional support for Chile's public investment budget from now through the Presidential election September 4. We also are beginning inter-agency consultations to draw up a new PL 480 agreement of $8.5- $11.0 million, to supply key foodstuffs in short supply; an important item in the new agreement will be $4-5 million of beef, which requires a declaration of eligibility by the Secretary of Agriculture" (Mann: 2-3)

While this U.S. involvement in Chile's elections was hidden from Americans' view, it was not so invisible to Chileans. U.S. Senate investigators, for example, reported that the loser of the 1964 election, Allende, on November 15, 1965, told the New York Times that the U.S. and other "outside forces" had stopped him from winning the 1964 presidential election (US Senate: 204).  In 2000, the CIA formally acknowledged that this was true.

Support for the PDC continued, both at the diplomatic and the covert levels throughout the Frei Presidency (1964-70). U.S. covert monies authorized by the "303 Committee" supervising covert actions financed PDC-organized slum dwellers' associations, gave $175,000 in support to PDC Congressional candidates in 1965, and in many other ways assisted that centrist party. U.S. support for Radical Party candidates, a middle of the road force in the Chilean context, also extended into 1967 ($30,000), and support for various non-leftist parties' candidates was substantial ($350,000) in March 1969 congressional elections.  According to the CIA in 2000, some additional funds were expended to manipulate Chilean mass media, especially after 1967 when anti-Communist propaganda was authorized.  
 
 

above: David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon, 1976

Nixon's Fear of the "red sandwich"

As the 1970 election approached, apprehension prevailed in Washington. President Nixon later, in 1976, would recall his perceptions of Chile at this crucial time by quoting approvingly an Italian who visited him in the White House at that moment: "If Allende should win the election in Chile, and then you have Castro in Cuba, what you will in effect have in Latin America is a Red sandwich, and eventually it will all be red" (Hovey: 2883).

Guided by such perceptions, the U.S. then attempted to influence the 1970 Chilean presidential election, in a secret campaign that has come to be known as "Track One." Both public and private U.S. resources were used in a CIA-run campaign that fundamentally differed from the way the U.S. had built up Chilean democracy in 1964 by financing PDC centrists. It is not the case that the U.S. simply was more extensively involved in manipulating Chilean democracy in the latter campaign: in both 1964 and 1970, U.S. involvement had been extensive. Indeed, the U.S. in 1964 had paid over one half of PDC candidate Eduardo Frei's electoral expenses.

Some of what the U.S. did in 1970 showed continuity with the past: the U.S. supported the political party which appeared most likely to out poll the leftists. In 1970, however, this meant that U.S. funds went primarily to the establishment right wing party, the Nationalists, not the centrist groupings that had enjoyed most U.S. support in the 1960s, even though many of the reform programs of the Alliance for Progress had been denounced by the rightists we were aiding.

Moreover, some of what the U.S. did in 1970 had little or nothing to do with strengthening a democratic society so it might better resist communists' appeals. On March 25, 1970, the U.S. "40 Committee" (Nixon's covert actions authorizing subcommittee of the National Security Council) approved a $125,000 "spoiling operation," designed to cause Allende's UP coalition to appear to the Chilean public to be very dangerous( U.S. Senate: 205). "Black Propaganda" surveys of middle class areas were begun, soliciting residents' reactions to the possibility that they might be asked to take in boarders, share their homes, etc. These were modeled after CIA Col. Edward Lansdale's efforts in northern Vietnam in 1954: the appearance of local government routine planning was used to sew panic. Like earlier U.S. efforts in other Third Word venue, these pseudo-scientific surveys were specifically targeted to arouse the known fears of Chileans, as these had been identified earlier in the 1960s, through "Project Camelot" (see Garcia Marquez: 47; and Horowitz). These "surveys," and their apparent relationship to subsequent anti-democratic covert actions, confounded legitimate research by American scholars in Latin America for many years. This unseemly situation prodded the Latin American Studies Association in 1980 to adopt a code of ethics proscribing such behavior (Black: 590-592).

In June 1970, CIA Director Helms met about the Chile "problem" with the director of the large U.S. multinational telecommunications company International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), a corporation with large holdings in Chile, including its telephone company. Conveniently, ITT's director was the former Director of the CIA under President Kennedy, John McCone. Memos released later show that Helms and McCone met to discuss how to block Allende and the Communists from coming to power in Chile. This cooperation was not incidental or haphazard: in July 1970, the CIA's William Broe instructed ITT's Harold Geneen about how the corporation might use its financial resources to influence the outcome of the election. ITT then gave the Nationalist candidate Alessandri at least $350,000. Other CIA-ITT meetings continued throughout that year. These corporate efforts sustained and underscored official U.S. policy: in August 1970, the NSC Memo #97 presented to President Nixon a range of additional options on how the U.S. might act so as to block Allende from taking office (US Senate: 205).

The non-leftist parties' shares of the 1970 vote, 63.7 percent, meant that UP did not have a legislative majority. Accordingly, most of what the Allende government was able to accomplish in moving Chile toward socialism was based extant laws, principally those enacted by a left-leaning "popular front" government, 1938-41.

However, in subsequent elections, 1971-73, the UP share of total votes, and seats in legislatures and local government, increased, worrying U.S. policy makers. In 1971 municipal elections, UP won 50 percent, and in 1973 legislative elections, UP won 43.9 percent. Thus, some doubt surrounds the military's later claim that the 1973 military coup overthrowing Allende (and Chilean democracy) simply speeded up a process that voters were likely to have accomplished in 1976. Indeed, one scholar has argued that it was Henry Kissinger's strongly ideological belief that it was imperative to prevent the appearance that socialism and democracy ever could go together that most strongly motivated the U.S. to undertake a policy to prevent the 1976 election from occurring (Smith: 174). Already, laws passed during the leftist "Popular Front" government, 1938-41, provided a legal foundation on which Allende could further his goals of advancing socialism in Chile. Affirmation of Allende and the Left's legal authority to rule through further fair ballotings presented a troubling message to U.S. policymakers then advancing a regional policy that attempted to snuff out left wing threats by primarily relying on non-democratic actors and measures.
 
 

Military Plots Against Allende Prior to his Inauguration

Non-democratic actors readily were available in Chile. Irrespective of voters' decisions, significant military opposition to Allende menaced his coming to power in 1970. A group of retired and active duty officers, led by retired Gen. Roberto Viaux, first tried to organize military coups, initially aiming to unseat the outgoing Frei Administration. When this effort proved fruitless, the Viaux group then turned against Allende. The plot took shape while Allende awaited inauguration; in other words, it took place after the election which would bring him to the presidency, but before the recently elected Congress formally had confirmed him to be Chile's President.

Not all in the Chilean Military supported the plots. The officers of the Viaux group were opposed by "Constitutionalist" Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Rene Schneider and by his designated second in command, Gen. Carlos Prats. The general third in line behind these two was Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the man who would ultimately become Chilean dictator, 1973-90. Schneider reported to Pres. Frei; the commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force were his subordinants.

Viaux was not in the chain of command, but was a popular advocate for military points of view. He had actively and publicly pressured the Frei government (1964-70) over several issues: over salaries for officers, over Frei's dismissal of some top-level generals, over the arrest of mid-level officers for involvement in coup plots, and, after he led the Tacna and Yungay army units in a "military strike" on October 21, 1969 (in which pro-Viaux soldiers refused to march in the Independence Day parade), over his own forced retirement. Viaux enjoyed broad support among officers in these and other efforts.

Viaux and Gen. Pinochet were close friends, having together ordered the massacre of striking miners at the "El Salvador" copper mine in March 1966. They also were both former members of the "Linea Recta" secret society within the Chilean Army, a group banned by President Ibannez in 1957. (Linea Recta, literally means "straight line," but in its context here it means "faithful to the right line"). Viaux and Pinochet were among those officers who put pressure on the Frei government to allow military, not civilian, courts to conduct the trials for those strikers arrested in violent labor disputes, to use the military units (not civilian police) to suppress strikes, and to organize a paramilitary police unit ("Grupo Movil").
 
 

The doctrine of national security

More importantly, in an ideological sense Viaux and Pinochet both subscribed to the "doctrine of national security," an ideological doctrine developed by U.S. intelligence agencies and taught at U.S. military training schools. Consistent with the broad outlines of U.S. containment doctrine worldwide, this "doctrine of national security" held that the primary threat to Western culture and society lay in communism. Consistent with the perceptions of the 1947 Truman Doctrine, National Security thinking held that subversion from within free nations (i.e., non-communist), not conquering communist armies, were the primary threats to the non-communist world. In this view, it was citizens of each Latin American nation, not foreign "spies," who were seen to be the primary contaminating agents who would spread communism, subverting the nation. As it was applied in Latin America, professions such as education and journalism were viewed as the most polluted sectors; popular cultural trends (e.g., rock music, premarital sex, women wearing pants, etc.) also were viewed as part of a subversive plot to destroy traditional values, and thus served indirectly to advance the cause of communism. Most central to the National Security Doctrine was the view that the military alone was capable of resisting and eradicating the many faces of subversion that were undermining and destroying Latin American societies.

The Viaux group had several types of ties to the U.S. government, including specific connections to U.S. efforts to block the rise of Allende. Viaux, Pinochet and many of their key supporters had been trained at the Chilean Academy of War, which was sponsored and guided by active duty U.S. military advisors. Among the key units which supported the Viaux group was the special forces "Boinas Negras" ("Black Berets"), a rough equivalent of the U.S. Green Berets. "Boinas Negras" had been created in the 1960s by grants from the U.S. Military Assistance Program. In Summer and Fall 1970, the Viaux group consulted regularly with U.S. intelligence operatives and had received considerable amounts of small arms and ammunition from their CIA contacts.

It remains controversial whether U.S. contacts with the Viaux group constituted real approval or encouragement of the means they ultimately would use. Christopher Hutchins (2001) has cited declassified evidence that U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger personally encouraged Viaux to act, but the senior statesman has denied similar charges many times. It is noteworthy, however, that contemporaneous but separated from those clandestine activities were other U.S. efforts to stop electoral winner Allende from truly coming to power. On Sept. 8 and 14, 1970, the U.S. NSC's "40 Committee" (i.e., the covert operations authorizing subcommittee of the NSC) approved $250,000 for "Track One" use by U.S. Ambassador Korry. These funds specifically were authorized for the purpose of trying to convince PDC legislators to not confirm Allende's electoral victory, but to vote for second place finisher Jorge Alessandri instead. Rightist leader Alessandri had assured U.S. officials that, if the PDC legislators did this, and if it led to his being confirmed as president, he then would resign, thus leading to a new election. In this hypothetical "Second Presidential Election of 1970" scenario -which never was held- the plan seems to have been to permit the popular, non-communist Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei to be eligible to run for a second term, interrupted only by a short "Allesandri hiatus." However, the Constitution-minded Frei would not agree to this scheme; nor would PDC Congressmen ultimately vote as the U.S. had hoped, and this plan fizzled.

Track Two. On Sept 15, 1970, 11 days after Allende's popular election, U.S. President Richard Nixon instructed CIA Director Richard Helms to undertake other actions (thereafter called "Track Two") in a further attempt to block Allende's election as President of Chile. Helms' personal notes from the meeting show that ten million dollars was approved to this end. His notes from the meeting show that President Nixon personally was quite agitated about the Allende situation. One of the CIA operatives involved (see Phillips) recorded the Nixon-to-Helms directive: "One in 10 chances, perhaps, but save Chile. Worth Spending. Not concerned risks involved. $10,000,000 available, more if necessary. Full time job-best men we have. Game plan. Make Chilean economy steam" (LAT 1977). Helms later was convicted of perjury for lying to the Congress about these and other matters; but he served no jail time, was fined only $2000, and this was raised from CIA officers at a rally outside the court on the very day of his conviction.

In these assorted "Track Two" efforts, five days later, CIA operatives again met with management of the ITT corporation, urging ITT to join in a campaign to accelerate economic disorder in Chile. Some evidence suggests ITT refused. "Track Two" projects --initially begun to stop Allende's inauguration-- grew into a three-year long series of U.S. covert operations to destabilize Chilean democracy.

The exact relationship between the U.S.-run "Track Two" and the activities of the Viaux group remains unresolved among investigators and scholars alike (see Hutchins). What firmly is known is that the U.S. had authorized efforts to stop Allende and that, contemporaneously, the Viaux group sought this same end and worked toward it with CIA help. Earlier, Viaux had attempted three times to stimulate a military coup: prior to the 1970 election; in November and in December 1969; and again in February 1970.  CIA also maintained in 2000 that its ties to the Viaux Group of coup plotters was only one of several such relationships it maintained with disgruntled Chilean officers.  In its 2000 report, CIA characterized: "In addition to Viaux, CIA had established contact with other coup-plotters, including General Camilo Valenzuela.  Valenzuela’s group was well known by the Station and was judged to have the capability to carry out a successful coup.  CIA provided this group—which also saw the abduction of General Schneider as essential to any coup—three submachine guns, ammunition, and 8 to 10 tear gas grenades on 22 October.  (These weapons were later returned unused to the Station.)"
 

The Assassination of Gen. Rene Schneider

Chilean Generals Schneider and Prats, c.1970

The efforts of the Viaux group after the 1970 general election, but before Congressional confirmation of Allende as President, are of some interest. The tactic Viaux's used in his attempt to stimulate the active-duty officers to mount a coup was quite clever. He planned an attempted kidnapping of Chief of Staff Gen. Rene Schneider which was made to look as if the leftist (pro-Allende) Movement of the Revolutionary Left (or MIR) party had done the deed. It was anticipated by Viaux that such an appearance would lead an outraged officer corps to mount a coup against the champion of the left, president-elect Allende.

U.S. CIA personnel met on several occasions with the Viaux group to discuss their plans; one meeting occurred on October 17-18, just days prior to the fatal event.  About this meeting, the CIA in 2000 stated: "Headquarters advised the Station, and during meetings on 17-18 October a CIA officer told a member of the Viaux group, that CIA would not entertain their request for support.  The officer warned them that any coup action on their part would be premature."  Four days later, on its third try on Oct. 22, the military kidnappers nearly did abduct Schneider: however, he resisted and, in the confused scuffle, was shot dead. It is not clear whether the guns the CIA had supplied to Viaux or Valenzuela (i.e., at least three machine guns and tear gas grenades and launchers), or other guns, did the killing.  About the killing, the CIA in 2000 portrayed the event as follows: the Viaux group were "acting independently of the CIA at that time."  

Few Chileans accept that the pattern established truly is one that absolves CIA of culpability; the CIA itself in 2000 acknowledged that only weeks later it paid $35,000 to one of the members of the Viaux group who had eluded capture only the next month, in November 1970.  Incredibly, the CIA characterized this payment to an assassin as one made "for humanitarian reasons."

The Viaux group's clever plan to attribute the crime to the Left also was not accomplished: witnesses reported that the abductors had appeared in official vehicles, had been wearing Army boots, had short hair, etc. Thus, Viaux supporters in the Army, not the MIR, were blamed by the Chilean public (and by the new "Constitutionalist" Chief of Staff, Gen. Prats) for the bungled attempt. (General Prats had become chief of staff due to Gen. Schneider's death). Among the other effects of the failure of the Viaux plot was its impact on the level of cooperation between Chilean anti-Allende officers and the CIA: U.S. Senate investigators have suggested that 10 months then passed before CIA contacts with disenchanted Army elements were restored (US Senate: 183-184).

Summarizing about these matters, in 2000 the CIA stated the following (with emphasis in boldprint provided by Prof. Bowen): "Under 'Track II' of the strategy, CIA sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office after he won a plurality in the 4 September election and before, as Constitutionally required because he did not win an absolute majority, the Chilean Congress reaffirmed his victory.  CIA was working with three different groups of plotters.  All three groups made it clear that any coup would require the kidnapping of Army Commander Rene Schneider, who felt deeply that the Constitution required that the Army allow Allende to assume power.  CIA agreed with that assessment.  Although CIA provided weapons to one of the groups, we have found no information that the plotters’ or CIA’s intention was for the general to be killed.  Contact with one group of plotters was dropped early on because of its extremist tendencies.  CIA provided tear gas, submachine-guns and ammunition to the second group.  The third group attempted to kidnap Schneider, mortally wounding him in the attack.  CIA had previously encouraged this group to launch a coup but withdrew support four days before the attack because, in CIA’s assessment, the group could not carry it out successfully."

Two days after the bungled Schneider abduction, the Chilean Congress followed Chilean traditions (i.e., the Congress confirms as president the candidate for president for whom the largest share of the popular vote has been cast) and confirmed Allende as President, 153 to 35. On Nov 3, 1970, he finally was inaugurated. But his insulation from extremists in the military command was thin: Prats was the only senior officer who still supported the principle of permitting voters, even socialist voters, to determine the Presidency. Shortly thereafter, the retired Gen. Viaux was tried and convicted for crimes related to the killing of Gen. Schneider. He remained in custody during the years of the Allende government, but was pardoned and released later by Gen. Pinochet.
 
 

Continuing U.S. Opposition to the Allende Government

The Allende administration lasted less than three years, Nov. 3, 1970- Sept. 11, 1973. All sources of opposition to Allende's initial assumption of power endured, and their efforts intensified throughout the Allende administration. Conservative publishers, industrialists, foreign corporations, and key military factions continuously did their best to obstruct his programs. In a new wrinkle, a mass base of opposition to the socialist president also gradually emerged. Principally, middle class persons were involved in these growing, anti-Allende street demonstrations, especially in 1973. The new president did take some steps to mollify critics: extreme leftists of the MIR Party were tried for criminal acts, Generals were appointed to important cabinet positions, and a brief "honeymoon" was arranged with the PDC in regard to procedural questions in managing the highly divided National Congress. However, these efforts could not long contain growing resistance to Allende's administration from several quarters.

Of special significance were the international factors in the opposition to the Allende administration, for US opposition continued. On November 19, 1970, --16 days after Allende took office-- a $725,000 covert action program to support anti-Allende forces was approved by the covert action authorizing subcommittee of the U.S. National Security Council, then known as the "40 Committee." This sum was increased to $1.3 Million on January 28, 1971. Within days thereafter, U.S. President Nixon publicly stated "...we are prepared to have the kind of relationship with the Chilean government that it is prepared to have with us." But the actual U.S. policy of the period better was reflected in National Security advisor H. Kissinger's words of June 1970: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people" (NYT 1975). Democratic rhetoric had met its limits in the Cold War for "national security" in Chile; subsequently, U.S. Chilean policy would dispense with any reference to democratization as a central U.S. goal.

Military opposition to Allende initially was checked by Gen. Carlos Prats, and by the Constitutional tradition of some Chilean Army men. His resignation in the summer of 1973, therefore, made ardent anti-Communist Gen. Augusto Pinochet Allende's military Chief of Staff, and Allende viewed this as an ominous development. In retirement, Gen. Prats later (i.e., 1974) was murdered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a particularly poor place to have chosen to live in exile, given that lawlessness ran rampant in these years prior to a still more violent Army-run "dirty war," 1976-1983, against communism there. Many Chileans long suspected the murder was committed by Chilean secret agents, or by Argentine secret police working at their behest as part of Operacion Colombo and Plan Condor (the regional cooperative arrangements among secret police agencies in the 1970s). Definitive proof of these dark suspicions began to emerge after the January 19, 1996, arrest in Argentina of Enrique Arancibia Clavel, a former DINA (i.e., Chilean secret police) operative in Buenos Aires (LAWR 1996: 58-59). Arancibia Clavel was charged with participation in the murder of Prats and his wife 22 years earlier. Shortly after this arrest, key documents pertaining to the case were stolen from the office of the presiding (i.e., prosecuting) Argentine judge, Maria Servini de Cubria.  In December 2004, an Appeals Court confirmed the validity of actions of Chilean prosecutors, who earlier had indicted former Pres. Pinochet in Prats' murder, but on March 24, 2005 the Chilean Supreme Court ruled Pinochet immune from this prosecution.
 
 

Allende's Policies

Allende's domestic policies were consistent with his radical platform: socialism for Chile. Copper Mines were taken over by the state, as were other U.S. owned corporations (e.g., ITT's holdings in hotels and telephone companies). The legislative basis for these actions came from the 1930s, when a Popular Front government had enacted laws permitting great state participation in the economy. CORFO, the state planning commission, for example, had existed since 1939. Negotiations over appropriate compensation to be paid to owners of private companies seized by the government were begun, but did not reach satisfactory conclusions.

Of all foreign investment in Chile, 75 percent at that time was by U.S. firms. Total foreign investment at that time equaled about $788 million. The Allende administration nationalized many foreign and domestic corporations and, in other cases, sent government representatives to supervise production at plants that technically remained privately owned. Such actions were legal under a 1932 law; they were called "interventions". The first major nationalization was directed against Latin America's largest coal producer, Carbonifera Lota Schwager, in January 1971. In the next two years, many non-US owned firms were nationalized, including textile factories (Lannera Austral January 1971 and five others in May 1971); INESA cement (January 1971), and others. Most controversial, however, were nationalizations of U.S. corporations, especially the copper holdings of Anaconda and Kenecott (July 1971); ITT telephone company (September 1971); First National City Bank (September 1971); General Motors' truck factory (September 1971); General Tire's Chilean subsidiary INSA (September 1971) and Ford Motor Company (August 1971). Many other smaller U.S. companies also were either nationalized or endured "interventions." A similar number of nationalizations were directed against British banks and corporations.

Land reform was a key objective of the new government, for Allende's socialist agenda was not confined to the industrial sector. A land reform program, begun under Christian Democrat Frei administration was accelerated. In the early 1950s, 9.7 percent of landowners had held 86 percent of the arable farmland in Chile; 74.6 percent made do on 5.3 percent of the land. Thus, a broad consensus had developed, including the PDC and the UP, to reform the land system. How much land would be involved, and how fast it would be transferred to the poor were the key issues. Allende moved the land reform forward quickly, distributing as much farmland (1300 estates) in his first 6 months as Frei had in 6 years (1200 estates). These steps angered Chileans who favored slower and more symbolic efforts to help the rural poor.

Allende also faced a difficult macroeconomic situation. During the Frei administration, inflation was running 26 percent per year in each year 1966-70; the figure for 1970 was 32 percent. In response, price controls and rationing were instituted by Allende. By imposing price controls and rationing imported and scarce goods, inflation slowed to 20 percent in 1970. In 1972 it was 78 percent; in 1973: 353 percent; but in 1974, the first full year of post-Allende military governments, it was: 504 percent.

Allende's strategy angered middle class people who were used to being able to obtain what they wanted, when they wanted it. However, Allende's distribution of goods by rationing, and the establishment of "free milk" and other social welfare outreach programs to the poor were popular with other Chileans. Thus, polarization of society was abetted by these state actions under Allende, an outcome perfectly consistent with the expectations of his Marxist supporters that "class struggle" would define social life, but an outcome despised by Chilean patriots expecting social harmony under whatever party's rule. It is also true that economic growth had cooled considerably in Chile even before Allende took the reins of power: in 1969-70, only Honduras and Nicaragua had more slowly growing economies in the region; growth for the entire Frei period averaged barely 1 percent per year, not enough to keep up with population growth. Taken altogether, there clearly was growing social polarization in Chile for a variety of reasons.
 
 

U.S. Opposition in International Forums

The U.S. engaged in a foreign policy to exacerbate this polarization and to undermine the Allende administration. Foreign aid was cut back sharply. Chile had been the number one per capita recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America, 1960-70. In 1969, for example, U.S. aid to Chile equaled $80 Million; by 1973 it had fallen to a thin $3 Million in grant aid. Similarly, in 1969, loans to Chile from USAID had equaled $40 Million; by 1972, they had fallen to a bare $2 Million. Further, the Export/Import (EX-IM) Bank, a U.S. government entity, also refused a $26 Million loan to the Chilean National Airline (LAN Air). The U.S. government also froze the NY bank accounts of the state planning corporation CORFO, the state airline LAN Air, and Chilean National Copper Company. Ostensibly, this was done to support U.S. corporations in their claims for compensation for Chilean nationalizations of their former properties, not to abet social crisis in Chile, though these actions formed part of a set of policies that did also have that latter effect.

Some, but not all, international lending agencies acted in a manner that tended to support U.S. policy. U.S. representatives' positions against loans to Chile by the World Bank also became official World Bank positions. The following list illustrates the way in which the loan decisions of that technically non-U.S. international organization came to mirror U.S. government priorities. In 1967, World Bank loans to Chile had been $60 Million; as late as 1970 they equaled $19.3 Million; but from 1971 to 1973, no new World Bank loans were authorized to Chile. After the socialist government was removed from power, the World Bank again found Chile to be a safe investment and, in 1974 a $13.5 Million loan was granted; in 1976, a further $60 Million in World Bank funds were sent to Chile.

Not all of these U.S. efforts to use international lending agencies to squeeze Chile's economy were successful. Another international agency in which the U.S. enjoyed great influence, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), heard U.S objections but nevertheless extended a $42.8 Million balance of payments loan to Allende's Chile (US House: 386). Moreover, when the U.S. attempted to get the Paris Group of Creditor Nations to abstain from further Chilean loans, most allies balked and refused to cooperate with the U.S. on this form of economic pressure.

US official "Overseas Private Investment Insurance" (OPIC) was paid to U.S. corporations for many (but not all) of their Chilean "losses." Since early in the Cold War, it had been official U.S. policy to insist that "prompt, adequate and effective compensation in the event of expropriation" be paid by foreign governments when they take over U.S. corporations (NSC 5432: 9F[2]). But it was OPIC, not Chile, who compensated Anaconda ($11.8 Million) for the seizure of the Exotica mine. Kennecott Copper similarly received $66.9 Million (US House: 385). However, no OPIC compensation was given for the Chiquicamata or El Salvador mines, nationalized 1969 by the Frei government before OPIC existed.

Obligingly, Kennecott and Anaconda corporations also joined the U.S. government campaign against Chile by suing in local European courts to block the sale of Chilean copper valued $1.3 Million at LeHavre, France, in October 1972; and a similar sale in November 1972, at Stockholm (US House: 385). Charles Jay Parkinson, Chairman of the Board of Anaconda, had anticipated this symbiotic public-private campaign against Chile when, in April 1970, he had offered Assistant Secretary of State Charles Meyer one half million dollars of Anaconda corporate funds for use in opposing Allende (NYT 1976); Szulc: 16). It is not clear whether the State Department, or other U.S. agency, ever actually received the money from Anaconda.
 
 

U.S. Covert Operations

Irrespective of issues regarding how it was financed, the U.S. also engaged in a further chapter of covert actions against the Allende government from 1970 to 1973. These actions encouraged groups seeking extra constitutionally to remove Allende from power. It should be stressed that these actions were undertaken against Chile despite a specific CIA National Intelligence Estimate at the time which had stated "democracy is not in danger in Chile." Overall, at least $3.2 Million was spent by the U.S. government on covert efforts, 1970-73. In large measure, these actions brought the U.S. into a working relationship with Chilean political forces which intended to bring about the overthrow of the Allende government. Moreover, this trend toward U.S. use of extra-legal measures to oppose the Chilean democratic government coincided with growing misuse of executive agencies within the U.S. by the Nixon Administration. While the many criminal dimensions of the Nixon Administration fall outside the scope of this analysis about Chile, it is useful to reflect on the how corrosion of democratic norms north and south flow from attitudes such as those found in full measure in the Nixon White House. Declassified documents released by the Nixon Library in 1999 have established, for example, that on May 13-15, 1972, the very same group that only weeks later would break into the Watergate headquarters of the U.S. Democratic National Committee in Washington DC broke into the Chilean Embassy in Washington DC (Lardner and Pincus: 9). One FBI informant about this incident was shot dead in 1974, and the case never was prosecuted in the U.S.

But it was in Chile that the greatest impact of the Nixon approach was felt. With millions to spend, Nixon's team found in the extreme right, not in the Chilean moderates, worthies who would receive most of the money. Patria y Libertad ("Fatherland and Freedom"), a militantly anti-Communist gang, was underwritten with substantial sums of U.S. money. They used "miguelitos" (three pronged metal darts) to sabotage the trucks of non-striking truck drivers during an Anti-Allende strike by independent truckers owners during Fall 1972. Patria y Libertad also tried more directly to bring Allende down: they mounted two coup attempts in summer 1973. Overall, $2.8 Million was given by the CIA to groups to the right of the PDC. The U.S. also financed opposition newspapers which were sympathetic to the far right: $1.6 Million was given to El Mercurio in one 7 month period.

U.S. CIA operatives conducted black propaganda operations in Chile throughout the Allende years. Unattributed posters began to appear stating ominously: "This is your wall," implying that executions against walls soon would be as common in Chile as they had been after Castro's 1959 Cuban revolution. Wholly nonexistent groups' posters appeared, financed by the CIA. Two were the heretofore unknown "Chilean Youth" (i.e., "Chile Joven"); another was "Mothers for Chile." These ostensibly opposition groups asked: "will these children be the last to know freedom?" (etc.) in their posters which were liberally plastered about Santiago and other cities.

A full account of all CIA operations in Chile may forever prove impossible. Partly, this is due to the fact that U.S. dollars that were expended were converted into Chilean currency (pesos) on the black market, making the value of U.S. spending, in fact, worth 4 to 5 times the face value of known U.S. covert spending. Though U.S. covert operations in Chile once were thoroughly investigated by the U.S. Congress, much was not discovered until court cases two decades later unearthed additional materials, leading many to believe that much remains, and will remain, unknown. Intriguingly, the U.S. Senate Committee which investigated this affair in the mid-1970s discovered that only one fourth of actual actions acknowledged to have undertaken by the CIA in Chile,1969-73, had been approved by the executive branch's covert action authorizing committee, the "40 Committee" (as it then was known). While that Committee flirted with the idea that "rogue elephant" operations beyond the view of top U.S. intelligence officials' authorization might have occured, no sustained official investigations of the ramifications of such a finding ever have been made public.
 
 

U.S. Relations with the Chilean Military

Military to military relations between the U.S. Armed Forces and Chilean Armed Forces were reinforced in these years. It is clear from evidence reported earlier that, at least in 1970, the U.S. had tried to stimulate a military coup. The Viaux plots of 1969-70 cast a long shadow in that: (1) they were well known in Chile's officer corps and (2) U.S. military operatives cannot reasonably be expected to have denied to Chilean officers the clear U.S. support for Viaux's objectives. After having been told in mid-1970 that we would cut military aid if Allende were to be elected, U.S. policy toward Chile's officer corps shifted, moving in new direction after Allende, in fact, was inaugurated.

Training of Chilean officers in U.S. military schools in the Panama Canal Zone substantially increased: in 1969: 107 Chileans were trained there; in 1972: 197; in 1974: 260. U.S. sales of military equipment to Chile also increased: in 1969: $1.6 Million in U.S. weapons and equipment was sold to the Chilean Armed Forces; in 1973: $14 Million; in 1974: $76 Million. The U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP) also was used as a political weapon. The "carrot" of special training for Chilean officers appears to have been withdrawn, accompanied by the promise of a swift increase in the program, if and when the Chilean officers removed the socialist threat. Funding decreased during Allende's years, then MAP increased its spending under Pinochet: 1968: $7.5 Million; 1971: $1 Million; 1972: $2.2 Million; 1973: $.9 Million; 1974: $14 Million.

Most importantly, the U.S. Military Attache and U.S. Embassy staff (i.e., including CIA personnel) appear to have maintained close contact with military plotters against Allende. The full details of these contacts remain highly controversial. Some have alleged a very intimate role for these U.S. personnel (e.g., Hauser); others have stressed the propriety of all U.S. diplomats keeping in touch with significant political forces in order to communicate U.S. interests and goals. Perhaps the most authoritative investigators, the U.S. Senate's Church Committee, summarized these issues best: "Intelligence reporting on coup plotting reached a peak ...during the end of August and the first two weeks of September 1973. It is clear that the CIA received intelligence reports on the coup plotting of the group which carried out the Sept 11 coup throughout the months of July, August and Sept. 1973. The CIA's...activity... went beyond the mere collection of information. They put the U.S. Government in contact with Chileans who sought a military alternative to the Allende Presidency" (U.S. Senate..."Covert," 1975: 186).

above: Gen. Augusto Pinochet

The Pinochet Government, September 1973 to 1990

On September 11, 1973, in a clear break from Chilean political traditions, forces of each of the Chilean Armed forces mounted a coordinated military coup d'etat which overthrew the civilian Allende government. Heavy military equipment, including tanks and aircraft, were used in an assault on the Moneda Palace, where the office of the President was located. President Allende himself perished in the Moneda, riddled with machine gun bullets which, perhaps, were self-inflicted as he committed suicide concurrent with the military attack on the Moneda (Robinson: 10). In the ensuing battles in the city of Santiago, virtually all resistance was crushed within two days; and military rule was established there and elsewhere in the country. No U.S. diplomats were called home, nor was diplomatic recognition interrupted.

The issue of the degree of involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies in the coup of 1973 remains immensely controversial.  As documented earlier in this essay, substantial evidence exists of ongoing covert operations against the Allende regime throughout its tenure.  About the 1973 coup itself, the CIA in 2000 wrote the following: "Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende’s government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it.  There was no way that anyone, including CIA, could have known that Allende would refuse the putchists’ offer of safe passage out of the country and that instead—with La Moneda Palace under bombardment from tanks and airplanes and in flames—would take his own life."

A military junta (i.e., committee) established itself in power and named Gen. Augusto Pinochet as its leader. Pinochet presided over the nation, 1973-1990. In terms of economic policy, the Pinochet regime was guided by belief in the hidden virtue of unregulated free trade and open markets. These views were adapted from the economic philosophy of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. Pinochet's economic advisors were known initially as the "Chicago Boys," in that some had actually studied at that university's Economics department.

The hallmark of the Pinochet regime, however, was in the realm of politics. Consistently after its birth, the Pinochet regime earned the label as one of the world's most flagrant violators of individual human rights, and was identified as such by the United Nations and reputable international human rights organizations. In 1991, a newly democratic Chilean government itself confirmed these charges, saying "nothing justifies the torture and execution of prisoners" practiced by the Pinochet government (Robinson: 10). With the perspective time allowed it, ultimately Chilean officials interviewed 4000 witnesses. From their evidence and other evidence, Chileans in 1991 were told that the investigators had concluded that the Pinochet regime rounded up over 7000 opponents in its first months, and murdered 2025. "Violent blows that produced fractures and bloodshed were almost universal" among detainees. "Forms of semi-asphyxiation were developed in water, in other liquids, in excrement,... For women, torture was sexual and took many aberrant forms." These depraved dimensions of Pinochet's regime fully were in view far earlier: by the later 1970s Westerners' memoirs (e.g., Cassidy) described them in gruesome detail. But, with the brief exception of the Carter Presidency (1977-1981), the U.S. government consistently extended some forms of aid to the Pinochet government, nonetheless.  Indeed, the CIA in 2000 confirmed that it produced public relations documents accenting the positive elements in the Pinochet regime, stating that after the coup CIA: "continued some ongoing propaganda projects, including support for news media committed to creating a positive image for the military Junta."

Absent pressure from the U.S. to respect human rights, conditions worsened.  At the time of the overthrow of Allende, it widely was reported that thousands of individuals disappeared upon their arrests during the first years of the Pinochet regime, especially during September 1973. Reports of repression continued throughout the regime's first several years, with periods of relative relaxation alternating with bursts of roundups of official "enemies." Official Roman Catholic Church human rights groups' monitoring showed that credible sources pointed to a grim pattern: 180 "disappeared" from December 1973 to March 1974; 390 more were "disappeared" at the hands of the military and DINA (or National Intelligence Directorate) from July 1974 to February 1975; 178 more were abducted by officials from August to December 1975; and 101 more were seized and vanished while in custody, April through September 1976 (Washington Post, May 25, 1977).

The priorities pursued by U.S. administrations mattered to Chileans outside the Pinochet regime.  US Presidents Nixon and Ford did little to dissociate the U.S. from the violence directed by the regime toward its opponents.  Eighteen hundred twenty eight total disappearances and political killings attributed to the regime occurred during the Nixon-Ford era (Sikkink 2004).  During this period in which Pinochet was consolidating military rule, U.S. Food for Peace aid contributed substantially to the restoration of a semblance of order in Chile. University of North Carolina professor Lars Schoultz has reported that 85 percent of all U.S. PL 480 Title I funds for all of Latin America were granted to Chile during fiscal year 1975 (Schoultz: 88).  After Pres. Carter took office (1977) and strong pressure to respect human rights became central to the U.S.-Chilean dialogue, disappearances and political killings dropped precipitously.  Only 62 such acts of state terrorism in Chile took place in the four Carter years.  After a more pro-Pinochet Reagan Administration gained power (1981), disappearances and political killings by the regime increased, to 371 over the course of two Reagan terms, 1981-89 (Sikkink 2004).  Thus, a direct correlation existed between the degree of centrality of human rights advocacy in U.S. Chilean policy and the extent of human rights violations by the Pinochet regime.
 
 

Blowback: The Letelier Case and other Exacerbants to U.S.-Chilean Relations in the 1970s

Ironically, at the same time, some of the Pinochet regime's violence was directed internationally against the U.S., or at least against Chilean exiles living in the U.S. and their American friends. On September 21, 1976, a bombing on Massachusetts Avenue near 23rd St. in Washington DC, killed former Allende-era ambassador Orlando Letelier and his female companion, Ronni Moffitt, a U.S. citizen.

above: Letelier's 1975 Chevrolet Chevelle after the 1976 bombing

Moffitt's spouse, Michael Moffitt, who was riding in the vehicle also was seriously injured. In the next two decades, the Letelier/Moffitt case would become a major bone of contention between the U.S. and the Chilean governments. Ultimately, in 1991, a restored democratically elected government of Chile admitted that "agents of the Chilean state" had committed the assassination in the American capital (Robinson: 10), and, in 1993, two senior generals (Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza) were convicted in Chilean courts of murder in the case (Podesta: 19). The Letelier case was not the only crime committed in the U.S. by Chilean government officials. Chilean agents conducted several Watergate-style break-ins in 1972 in the Washington and New York areas (Smith 1996: 175). But the Letelier-Moffitt murder was the most spectacular "blow back" from the U.S. anti-communist crusade in the Latin American region, and by 1978, a U.S. trial of Cuban exiles and former CIA operative Michael Townley established the broad contours of Chilean Government complicity in the murder.

Even earlier, the difficult dimensions of the activities of the Pinochet group became evident to some: in the mid 1970s Congress imposed distance between the U.S. and Chile. U.S. military aid to Chile was suspended by an act of Congress (PL 94-329) in late 1976. This was not the first U.S. Congressional action against Chile: In PL 93-189, section 35, Congress had called for the release of prisoners there and had urged President Ford to pressure Pinochet to treat prisoners humanely. U.S. appropriations passed for 1974 restricted U.S. military aid to Chile to no more than $25 million; in 1975, economic aid was limited to "no more than $90 million." Earlier in 1976, all military aid was cut off, all U.S. training of Chilean officers was suspended, and economic aid was limited to no more than $27.5 million. Guided by now Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President Ford only reluctantly complied with these laws.

During the Carter period (i.e., after January 1977), charges against the Pinochet government continued to mount, and this time the executive branch took the lead. The U.S. responded with a policy to isolate Chile consistent with its broader U.S. human rights objectives. U.S. military aid to Chile was terminated altogether by President Carter's administration shortly after he assumed office (January 1977), due to gross violations of human rights there. In May 1977, officials of the Chilean government itself lent credence to charges of continuing abuses of human rights there. At that time retired Admiral Gorge Swett (military Rector of Catholic University of Chile), gave sworn testimony that secret police agents of the DINA (or National Intelligence Directorate) played a role in the abduction of one university researcher, Alejandro Avalos Davidson (WP 1977).

Outside the U.S. Government came other voices of criticism. In that same month of May 1977, the Organization of American States charged that 12 percent of all Chilean arrestees "disappeared" after being taken into custody. In October 1977, 50 mothers of "disappeared" persons themselves were arrested. In November 1978, the Chilean Roman Catholic Church presented a list of 651 documented "disappearances" at state hands. Their report stated that all should be presumed dead.

Some Americans, however, took the position that human rights violations in Chile were none of our business. When ex-president Richard Nixon expressed these sentiments (May 1977), they were distinctly out of step with public opinion, but they would not long be: "In terms of national security, in terms of our own self-interest, the right wing dictatorship, if it is not exporting its revolution, if it is not interfering with its neighbors, if it is not taking action directed against the United States, it is of no security concern to us" (to interviewer David Frost, NYT 1977).

Chilean relations with the U.S. continued to deteriorate in the final two Carter years, and beyond. To attempt to chart the cycles of official repression in Chile, then or in the 1980s, simply is to come to know its vast scale. In the context of this short reading, a comprehensive overview cannot be provided. Others have attempted this in a relatively comprehensive way (e.g., Amnesty International). Some of the best insights into the new Chilean state can be gained by reading autobiographies of its victims (e.g., Cassidy), or studies thereof (e.g., Bunster-Burotto). Some representative observations on the conditions in Chile, and the contemporaneous U.S. government actions would include the following.

Regarding the last year of the 1970s, one human rights group reported "A marked deterioration in the human rights situation [took place] during the year [of 1979]... An Amnesty International survey of some 1500 detentions during 1979 reveals that most of those arrested by the CNI or armed civilians (who probably belong to the CNI) were taken to secret places of detention and tortured by, among other methods, electric shock, suspension and severe beatings" (Amnesty International 1980: 116). "Unlawful activities of the CNI are also responsible for several unexplained deaths of political opponents of the government... including Alberto Salazar Briceno and Iris Yolanda Vega" (120). In this context, only low level of diplomatic contact marked the final months of US-Chilean relations under the Carter Administration, despite the fact that the DINA had been disbanded, only later to be re-formed under the new name Center for National Intelligence (CNI). .
 
 

Chile and the U.S. during the Reagan years

At the time of the inception of the Reagan Administration, repression still ran rampant in Chile. Human rights groups stated that "[s]ince March [1981] more than 370 people have been arrested... detention and torture are still common" (Amnesty Action 1981: 1). That same Spring, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, visited Gen. Pinochet and stated that she hoped that outstanding unresolved disputes, including the unresolved question of Chilean involvement in the 1976 murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington DC, would not obstruct restoration of cordial relations.

Toward this same end, U.S. military aid to Chile was restored and, in July 1981 and, additionally, the U.S. government reversed a six year old policy of restricting U.S. aid to Chile. Thereafter, U.S. representatives were instructed to vote in favor of loans to Chile in multilateral development bank decisions about loans to Chile. Between 1981 and January 1983, $1.231 Billion in multilateral loans were extended to Chile with U.S. support. Of this, $1.105 billion was not designated to address basic human needs by the Chilean government.

Warm relations with the US, however, did not coincide with an improvement in the protection of human rights in Chile. In 1982, Amnesty confirmed 95 new cases of torture of prisoners, and discovered that, of 60 new detainees taken after the release of this report, 18 of the 19 their doctors were permitted to talk to had been tortured (Amnesty International Report 1982: 119; and 1983: 118). Similar reports issued yearly documented the continuing pattern of state terrorism used by the Chilean government to rule its people throughout the Reagan years.

US citizens in Chile continued to encounter difficulties, but this, too, did not disrupt a warming of official ties. On September 14, 1983, U.S. citizen and ordained Roman Catholic Father Dennis O'Mara, four other priests, five nuns and 28 others were arrested in Santiago for protesting against torture of prisoners. Eight days later, on September 22, 1983, the Reagan Administration restored OPIC insurance's applicability to U.S. investments in Chile, reversing a 7 year suspension of governmental protection for U.S. investments there (WOLA 1983: 7). Though some of the religious detainees who were taken with Father O'Mara have remained "missing" to this day, he was more fortunate to simply have been expelled from Chile later, in December 1984 (WP 1985: B6).

Chilean repression intensified markedly in the months after Ronald Reagan was re-elected to the U.S. Presidency (November 1984). In November-December 1984, 32,223 persons were arrested under "State of Siege" provisions of Chilean military law. (Most eventually were released). Early in 1985, the U.S. State Department in its annual "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1984," that in Chile: "Torture and police brutality continue to be a serious problem in Chile..."

Frequently, the Reagan Administration would state that its primary objective in human rights policy was to promote democratic political institutions abroad. However, throughout 1973-88, all leftist Chilean political parties remained "banned." In a 1988 effort to legitimize denial of democratic rights to the Chilean people, the non elected military dictatorship proposed delaying for several more years holding any election for president, asking voters simply to vote "Yes" on a plebiscite said to authorize continuation of Pinochet's rule. Voters were not, however, fooled: nearly 60 percent voted "No," and a true election was scheduled for 1989.

During Reagan's second term the U.S. Administration grudgingly took some steps to distance itself from the Pinochet government, a policy to which Congress virtually insisted. In 1985, the U.S. abstained from voting in favor of a $130 million Inter-American Development Bank loan to Chile (WOLA 1985: 5-6), but only months later was the U.S. was the only nation to oppose a UN Human Rights Commission resolution which urged Chile to "restore and respect human rights." U.S. officials claimed the resolution was too strongly worded.

U.S. Chilean policy began to shift further toward a critical posture in 1986. In March, U.S. representatives co-sponsored a resolution which condemned Chile's continued violation of human rights. In July 1986, U.S. resident Ricardo Rojas and Chilean citizen Carmen Quintana were doused with gasoline and burned alive by Chilean military forces. Rojas perished, setting off an international outcry of substantial proportions. Quintana survived and recovered after a long period of hospitalization in Montreal, Canada.

The Chilean opposition, especially the far left, had been greatly weakened during the first 12 years of military rule. By 1986, some militants favored "armed struggle" as the means to accomplish their goal and, in September 1986, attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate the dictator (five of his bodyguards, however, did die). A sweeping repression of all dissidents -- centrists as well as leftists-- then took place, casting a temporary shadow over plans for a balloting in 1989. By 1988-90, some obstacles to complete democratization remained. Though most major Chilean political parties were legalized after a 1980 plebiscite authorized a new, military-authored constitution, some leftist parties which supported the 1970s elected government remained illegal.
 
 

Revisiting the Letelier Case: the long road to justice

Unresolved disputes between the two governments eventually became even more intractable during the Reagan years. On February 5, 1987, retired Chilean Army Captain Armando Fernandez Larios traveled to U.S. District Court for Washington DC in order "to clear my name." Since 1978, Fernandez had been under indictment for his role in the 1976 Letelier-Moffitt murder in Washington D.C., but Chilean officials had refused to extradite either Fernandez or Gen. Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda (the DINA secret police chief who had directed the operation) or (then Lt. Col., later) Brig. General Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who had been Fernandez's superior at the time of the 1976 murder. Fernandez testified that Gen. Pinochet himself, in 1978, had told him to "be a good soldier" and to not go to testify in the U.S. in the trial of others (e.g., Michael Townley) in the Letelier-Moffitt case. Nevertheless, in 1987 Fernandez provided U.S. courts with direct, eyewitness testimony implicating Contreras and Espinoza in the conspiracy to kill Letelier and Moffitt, killings in which he (Fernandez) admitted to playing a part. In a statement issued to the public, Fernandez said that he "hopes that his action will teach fellow officers they should not obey orders" when the orders call for crimes to be committed (Lardner: 13). Pinochet, on the other hand, called Fernandez a "deserter" and refused to act on renewed U.S. extradition requests after a final, April 1988 Chilean Supreme Court ruling barring U.S. investigators even from questioning the accused or others (e.g., Gen. Hector Orozco) implicated in a cover-up of the Letelier conspiracy (Graham: 17).

above: Letelier-Moffitt Memorial, Massachusetts Ave. near 23rd St, Washington DC (photo by Stephanie Hatlem)

The Letelier case continued to confound full normalization of US-Chilean relations in the years of the first Bush Administration, i.e. the George H. W. Bush Administration, 1989-93. Steady attention to the case by the U.S. Department of Justice eventually produced results. Pangs of conscience such as those felt by Fernandez eventually affected other Chileans, too. Late in January 1989, Pinochet's former Chilean Ambassador to the US, Jose Miguel Barros, corroborated Fernandez's charges. That month Barros told a Chilean court presided over by Judge Julio Banados that the Chilean undersecretary of the interior, Air Force General Enrique Montero, in the presence of other witnesses told him (Barros) that Contreras and Espinoza had planned the assassination of Letelier. In this same, late-1970s meeting, Barros stated that former Chilean foreign minister Miguel Schweitzer contended that Contreras and Espinoza had acted without the knowledge of ruling Gen. Pinochet (WP 1989: 20).

In April 1990, U.S. agents in St. Petersburg, Florida detained Jose Dionisio Suarez y Esquivel, charging the Cuban exile with first degree murder in the Letelier-Moffit case (McAllister: 1). Suarez long had been associated with the "Omega Seven" Cuban exiles group, an organization long suspected of having committed other acts of terrorism as part of their anti-Castro crusade. Indeed, Suarez earlier had spent nearly a year in a Washington DC jail for having refused to answer questions of a grand jury concerning the actions of that sub Rosa group. In September 1990, Suarez pled guilty to conspiring to murder a foreign official (i.e., Letelier) and was sentenced to a twelve year term (LaFraniere: 2).

After the new Christian Democrat civilian administration took office, led by elected President Patricio Aylwin, in Santiago in 1990, State Department officials reported that even the cloud over relations created by the Letelier case could be overcome. U.S. officials viewed Aylwin as "very different from the previous dictatorship and ... wants to do the right thing (about the Letelier case) and put this behind them. We are very hopeful there will be cooperation on the Letelier case" (McAllister: 4). However, the Aylwin government retained Pinochet as armed forces Commander in Chief. Perhaps in light of this ominous, enduring fact, the civilian government continued to resist U.S. extradition requests growing out of the Letelier case. Initially, instead of extraditing the accused to the US, the Aylwin Administration transferred investigation of all aspects of the conspiracy to kill Letelier from Chilean military to Chilean civilian courts. When President Bush visited Chile in December 1990, U.S. officials took the occasion to announce the removal of all U.S. sanctions against export of arms to Chile, explicitly stating that the decision taken in the Letelier case by Chile was sufficient progress (Balz: 53).

As the 1990s progressed, further progress was made in protecting Chileans' human rights, in institutionalizing democracy there, and in regard to the Letelier case. In March 1991, in the same report that detailed the 2025 killings cited above, a Chilean government Commission headed by Raul Rettig acknowledged that "agents of the Chilean state" had killed Letelier (Robinson: 10). In Florida, in April 1991, another of the conspirators, Cuban-born Virgilio Pablo Paz y Romero, the man who provided the explosives for the remote control bomb that felled Letelier and Moffitt, was arrested; he, too, pled guilty to a murder charge, in late July (Thompson: 22). Also in July 1991, the Chilean Supreme Court appointed Judge Adolfo Banados as instructing judge to advise them, and his report later that month led the court to reopen the case against Contreras and Espinoza (Coad 1991a: 29). The men then were placed in custody --a loose form of house arrest-- there in September 1991. Contemporaneous civil suits against the men filed in Chilean courts further kept the issue alive and in the spotlight in Santiago (Coad 1991b: 20). Finally, in November 1993, the two men who planned and ordered the murder on Embassy Row were convicted of the murder in Chilean courts. Contreras received a seven year sentence, Espinoza received six years. Late in May 1995, the Chilean Supreme Court affirmed the validity of the sentences, marking the final legal act available to Contreras and Espinosa in order to evade justice (Escobar: 16). Though it initially had seemed that those fighting the Cold War against Communism in Chile could "[get] away with murder" in the U.S. (see Moffitt: 23), ultimately, they could not. On October 21, 1995, Manuel Contreras joined Pedro Espinoza in a jail cell of the Punta Pueco prison (LAWR 1995:494). His personal situation eventually was improved by being transferred to house arrest on a military base to finish his incarceration, which he did, earning eventual release in January 2001.  Subsequently, Contreras was convicted April 14, 2003 for his role in a separate crime, the disappearance of dissident Carlos Sandoval.  Contreras received a fifteen year sentence for his role in this separate crime.
 
 

The Re-Democratization Process in Chile

Political change was instrumental to these legal outcomes. In August 1987, the Christian Democrats (PDC) chose a new leader, Patricio Aylwin, who in the past had been identified with the more moderate faction within the Party. Aylwin, a former senator, appears to have had a sufficiently conservative profile to ease the worries of a military government that had essentially broken the ties between the political left and its social base. A public opinion survey conducted among shanty town dwellers in Santiago in the winter of 1987 (i.e., the summer months of July-August), reported that among 920 poor households, 38.7 percent favored the PDC, 14.4 percent favored the "right" parties; and only 6 percent favored a return of an Allende-style government. The substantial portion of the sample who refused to answer the question, however, was an indication of how deep ran the suspicions of risks involved in political participation in Chile at that moment (LAER 1987: 4).

The Pinochet regime had taken little advantage of the apparent eclipse in support for leftists during its years in power, choosing to bully all civilian critics. In late January 1988, for example, the regime jailed PDC leader Genaro Arriagada and the editor of the Christian Democrat magazine Hoy (or Today). Their alleged crime? They were charged with having "insulted the military" by reporting in March 1987 about the new evidence from Washington in the Letelier-Moffitt case (WP 1988: 24). In this atmosphere of limited press freedom, the delusional Pinochet regime believed it had public support, and voluntarily chose to hold a 1988 plebiscite on the question of its continuation in office. Opposition parties, despite their differences and despite considerable intimidation from authorities, joined together to urge voters to reject the dictatorship and to vote "No" on the plebiscite. In a clear rejection of the 15 year dictatorship, a majority (53%) of voters concurred; however, 43 percent still voted to support Pinochet. Showing further his contempt for democratic procedures, in the wake of this public repudiation, Pinochet spurned calls for an immediate and open presidential election, delayed the return to democratic government until the Spring of 1990, and insisted he remain chief of the armed forces until no sooner than 1998. Interestingly, Pinochet later (i.e., February 1989) criticized the opposition's campaign in the October 1988 plebiscite, claiming that they had accepted $100 million from foreign sources and that thereby showed that they were "truly rats that travel abroad to cry for money and tell stories and infamies" (LAWR 1989: 8). U.S. media consultants in fact had worked on behalf of the Chilean opposition during that campaign (Skidmore and Smith: 144), but the $100 million allegation greatly exaggerated the extent of this foreign role.

Late in 1989, the Presidential election finally was held and PDC candidate Aylwin emerged the clear winner, polling 55 percent of the vote. He assumed office during Spring 1990. However, in the years since, Gen. Pinochet's insistence that he and others remain Senator for Life (with immunity from any prosecution) and that Pinochet himself remain Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces limited Aylwin's and his successors' complete authority. The final completion of the Contreras-Espinoza trials in the Letelier-Moffitt case thus indicated that real steps nonetheless could be taken to curb the military's continuing insulation from civilian control when those steps were carefully chosen judicial ones.

It did not hurt that Chilean democratization occurred in a time of relative prosperity. Chile's economic growth, 1986-93, averaged 6.3 percent a year, the highest in Latin America (Skidmore and Smith: 145). The Aylwin Government succeed in continuing this quickening trend: in the early 1990s GNP growth equaled nine percent (1992), and similarly robust levels of growth continued throughout the 1990s.

Chilean institutions ably were led throughout the 1990s by centrists in coalition with Socialists, and the Aylwin Administration, 1990-93, peacefully transfered power to an elected successor, Eduardo Frei. Frei, the son of Chile's president of the same name (1964-70) kept the Christian Democrat-Socialist coalition (called Concertacion) together in his campaign, and polled a fat 58 percent of the ballots. Dictatorship that yielded to democracy had marginalized the Right in Chilean politics. Moreover, the once influential Communist Party was still more thoroughly spurned by voters; leftist ballots increasingly were given to the center-left Concertacion coalition, not the more extreme Communists. In turn, the Frei government smoothly solidified democracy's permanence: in the election of January 15, 2000, Ricardo Lagos, candidate of the ruling Christian Democrat-Socialist coalition defeated former Pinochet aide Joaquin Lavin 51 to 49 percent. In 2006, Michelle Bachelet replaced Lagos, winning election as the first female president of Chile.  Ironically, both Bachelet and Lagos once had been jailed by Pinochet, and Bachelet had been tortured under Pinochet's regime.

But, even with prosperity and electoralism in place, Chile remained uncertain of whether the reconstruction of a liberal society could be complete so long as many crimes associated with the Pinochet regime remained beyond judicial accountability. As Lagos put it in 1999, "Chileans face a dilemma that is more complex than how much justice and how much forgiveness to strive for. They must also grapple with the issue of how much popular sovereignty to regain. Unlike former dictatorships such as Brazil and Spain, which returned to full democracies and even held constituent assemblies, Chile did not regain popular sovereignty entirely. Pro-dictatorship forces were able to preserve authoritarian enclaves, including the "institutional senators" who are not elected but rather appointed through mechanisms that favor the right-wing opposition.

Moreover, the military still exercises considerable influence through the National Security Council. Incomplete popular sovereignty in Chile has meant that although Chileans have voted consistently and overwhelmingly for the center-left coalition government..., the executive does not hold a majority in the Senate and continually sees its projects vetoed by the opposition. The question at hand is how to consolidate the process of transition to democracy" (Lagos).  This was underlined later in 2001, when a Chilean Appeals Court ruled Pinochet incompetent to stand trial due to his various medical conditions.

above: Funeral of Augusto Pinochet, Dec. 12, 2006

Solidifying Chilean Democratization: The Centrality of the Pinochet Case

It often seems that since the end of the Cold War, crusaders such as Pinochet are mere antiques, relics of a dark but remote past: quaint, but not too important. But Pinochet, and the other perpetrators of crimes well described as Pinochetism, long continued to destabilize democracy in Chile. Until his death on December 10, 2006, his mere presence in Chile provoked anger among many Chileans, and adoration in others, for he and his cronies embodied the difficult fact that impunity from prosecution, not justice, has been joined to post-Pinochet democratization. It is not just the thousands of Chileans who lost family members for whom this outcome is unsatisfactory. It is at odds with the growing international consensus that, if national courts fail in the task of holding gross human rights violators accountable, then the international community must.

Thus, the collision of the values of the Cold War with the values of an age of global human rights fittingly focused on Pinochet, the man, who died at 91 years of age, still under indictment for kidnapping, torture, and murder in his homeland, but held legally unaccountable first due to his health, and ultimately by his death. The route to this point has been circuitous. Late in 1998, Pinochet --rather foolishly-- traveled to Britain for medical treatment, where, while receiving treatment, was detained, later to languish under house arrest in Britain for over a year while national courts there weighed, and ultimately in January 2000 rejected, extradition requests from Spain (and other countries) which sought to try him for his crimes in Chile that were committed against their nationals. A promise of eventual legal accounting in Chile had helped convince British courts to permit his release.  Though in May 2000, the Chilean Court of Appeals in a 13-9 ruling (Current History 2000a: 294) lifted Pinochet's immunity from prosecution that was given to him in the late 1980s as a "lifetime senator," another court then reversed that decision.  In August, 2000, the Chilean Supreme Court, in a 14-6 ruling, affirmed the Appeals Court ruling (Current History 2000b: 350), pointing toward an eventual trial.  

Chilean courts repeatedly had been stymied by a series of medical explanations for why the former dictator still could not be tried, claims touching on alleged dementia and assorted ailments; all of which produced delays that seemed to many to form little more than an excuse to avoid answering any legal charges. Meanwhile, evidence continued to pile up: late in January 2001, an indictment for 57 murders on Pinochet's orders dating from 1973 again was issued by a Chilean prosecuting judge, Juan Guzman (Bonnefoy: 13).  That decision also was then reversed by an appeals court on grounds of Pinochet's alleged ill health, July 9, 2001 (Current History 2001: 299), a decision re-affirmed in 2002.  The prosecution continued to appeal this denial of due process, and pursued additional charges.  On December 13, 2004 the Appeals Court certified that Pinochet was healthy enough, and mentally fit enough, to stand trial for offenses Guzman alleged that Pinochet committed as part of "Operation Condor," the 1970s international intelligence and murder ring that targeted opponents of right wing regimes throughout southern Latin America.  That court decision then was appealed by Pinochet's lawyers and on January 4, 2005 the Chilean Supreme Court, in a 3 to 2 ruling, upheld the Appeals Court ruling.  With no further appeals possible, Pinochet finally was to stand trial in the Spring of 2005 for crimes in the 1970s.  But that trial never reached completion as the ultimate fate of all, in this case a natural death, stopped it.

The attempted Spanish extradition of Pinochet from Britain, and the prospect of a trial in Chile, all roiled Chilean politics. Coalition partners divided over the issues, threatening the stability of the governing team. Rightist defenders of the man have been able to rally support for their policy visions by evading answering the charges made against him, and emphasizing nationalistic values (e.g., the sovereignty of Chile's system and courts), instead. All of this has served to underline the larger dilemma: if not justice here within the Chilean nation, where will justice be found?  President Lagos (1999), while campaigning for the presidency, expressed this dilemma well: "Chileans have learned that a transition to democracy must address the legacies of a troubled past since these may eventually reemerge. But if nations are to deal with the tyrants in their midst, they should retain the option to do so within the confines of their own laws, with a functioning international-law regime as a backup instrument against impunity." That international-law regime once appeared to be emerging. In 1998, at Rome a treaty creating an International Criminal Court for just such crimes was agreed to; more than one hundred twenty states became signatories to the document; and in its final week of office in 2001, the Clinton Administration signed the ICC treaty on behalf of the United States.  However, he never submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification, and his successor (George W. Bush) sharply objected to any U.S. involvement with the new court.

Perhaps through the ongoing trial process in Chilean courts, perhaps through the ICC, a broader conception of justice one day will be realized, so better to set the foundation stones of democracy in Chile.  It is useful to reflect on the fact that Pinochet never acted alone: his was a regime ordered through numerous powerful institutions, institutions filled with loyal men, now aging pensioners, but culpable individuals nonetheless. As was Pinochet, so too are these men: nearly all have remained unaccountable for crimes that official Chilean inquiries have confirmed did occur.

Thus, the legacy of the Cold War in Chile, indeed the legacy of the Cold War in Latin America, still remains to be defined for history. Is impunity for the practitioners of Pinochetism its final lesson?  Or must a posthumous judicial determination on Augusto Pinochet, one based on a full accounting of the evidence, be made concerning the man and the means of rule he used? What of the other men who used vile means on behalf of the Pinochet Government?  The final foundation on which democracy in post-Cold War Latin America remains to be set.

web archives:

Students wishing to research Chilean politics, and U.S.-Chilean relations, may wish to take advantage of extensive declassified U.S. Government documents available on the worldwide web:

• The (apparently complete and unedited) 1975 U.S. Senate Select Committee report on U.S. covert operations in Chile is available in Spanish and English, at derechos.org, a Latin American human rights website.

 

• The September 2000 Hinchey Report, written by the CIA to chronicle its activities in Chile during the Allende and early Pinochet years (apparently complete and unedited) also is available from the same organization. The CIA website once had a version of this same report available, but CIA web documents frequently are readdressed, making imperative the provision of multiple web addresses here.  In May 2005, CIA had the 2000 Hinchey Report here.

 

• The National Security Archives, a private public interest research organization housed at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. maintains the most extensive collection of declassified materials about Chile. Peter Kornbluth has organized hundreds of valuable declassified CIA, NSC, FBI, and other U.S. documents into a Briefing Book on Chile.

 

• Materials about the Letelier-Moffitt case are plentiful online, and include:
  • Online memorial in Chile (in Spanish)
  • Transnational Institute resources about the case. Includes life biographies, timelines, links to other archives, photo gallery.
  • D.C.ist website on the case.  Presents the site and case in the context of a travel guide to Washington.
  • Original photos of the Letelier-Moffitt Memorial, Washington D.C., taken in 2005 by Prof. Bowen's student Stephanie Hatlem (MBC-class of 2005): photo 1, photo 2, photo 3.

   

• To visit the site of the Letelier-Moffitt assassinations, and the Letelier-Moffitt Memorial, using the D.C. Metro system: take the Red Line to Dupont Circle (Q Street exit). Follow Q Street west to Massachusetts Avenue. Cross to the opposite sidewalk and walk northwest one-and-a-half blocks on Massachusetts Avenue to Sheridan Circle.
   

  
   

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____. "An Autocrat Runs for Political Life," Insight 3, 46 (November 16, 1987): 9-19.

____. "Ex-Envoy Testifies in Letelier Case," Washington Post (January 26, 1989): 20.

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