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April 4, 2002
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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April 4, 2002
Justice for Chile
Will Kissinger
Finally Pay?
By Christopher Reilly
The unsuccessful efforts by the United States
government to block the democratic process, followed by its successful
campaign to remove Chile's elected president Salvador Allende
from office in 1973, through U.S. sponsored violence, was one
of the most blatant examples of foreign election manipulation
perpetuated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the
Nixon Administration. Now, more than 25 years later, the Administration's
illegal and amoral actions in Chile may finally be catching up
with some of the individuals identified in court papers as villians
in the plot to stamp out democracy in Chile.
Victims of the repressive 17-year dictatorship
that followed Allende's removal are bringing legal actions in
both Chilean and U.S. courts against Henry Kissinger, the national
security adviser to President Nixon, and against other Nixon
administration officials for their involvement in the coup against
Salvador Allende.
In 1961, when outspoken socialist Salvador
Allende began to emerge as the likely winner of the 1964 Chilean
presidential election, the Kennedy Administration began to set
up an electoral committee to plan their efforts to disrupt Allende's
chances at winning the presidency.
One U.S. intelligence officer, commenting
on the electoral committee, was quoted in the Washington Post
in 1973, saying "U.S. government intervention in Chile in
1964 was blatant and almost obscene. We were shipping people
off, right and left, mainly State Department [officials] but
also CIA [officers], with all sorts of cover."
In a clear and crude demonstration of
the CIA's low regard for democratic processes at home and abroad,
these officials armed with U.S. taxpayer money, decided to support
Allende's opposition, Eduardo Frei. First they simply pumped
in money, U.S. tax dollars, paying for more than half of Frei's
total campaign costs, according to the U.S. Senate Report "Covert
Action in Chile, 1963-1973." The Washington Post reported
in April of 1973 that the CIA spent an estimated $20 million
on Chile's electoral politics.
This money was used, as the U.S. Senate
reported, in a "scare campaign" utilizing "disinformation"
and "black propaganda" materials in order to drive
the Chilean voters away from Allende.
One such scare tactic was reported in
William Blum's "Killing Hope." It featured a radio
spot with the sound of a machine gun firing, followed by a woman
crying: "They have killed my child - the communists!"
The announcer would then caution in impassioned tones, "Communism
offers only blood and pain. For this not to happen in Chile,
we must elect Eduardo Frei president."
Tactics such as these attempted to convince
the Chilean public that Eduardo Frei was the only non-communist
candidate, by equating Salvador Allende's socialism with communism's
"blood and pain."
According to the U.S. Senate, these scare
tactics were conducted on a major scale. "The propaganda
campaign was enormous . . . During the first week of intensive
propaganda activity, a CIA-funded propaganda group produced twenty
radio spots per day in Santiago and on 44 provincial stations
. . . By the end of June, the group produced 24 daily newscasts
in Santiago and the provinces, 26 weekly 'commentary' programs,
and distributed 3,000 posters daily."
Through money and manipulation, the CIA
successfully wrested the 1964 election away from Allende, and
installed Eduardo Frei into office, and inspiring William Blum
to write, "Testimony, once again, to the remarkable ease
with which the minds of the masses of people can be manipulated,
in any and all societies."
However, as the next presidential election
arrived in 1970, Salvador Allende was back, and more popular
than ever among the Chilean voters. In spite of the peoples'
confidence in Allende, or possibly because of it, Nixon security
adviser Henry Kissinger voiced his doubts about the ability of
a democratic process to deliver what he considered to be the
only acceptable result.
On June 27, 1970, Kissinger, in a National
Security Council meeting, said "I don't see why we need
to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility
of its own people." His remarks were later reported in Newsweek
and many other publications.
Kissinger and the Administration did
their best to prevent Allende from winning the popular vote.
Nonetheless, on September 4, 1970, Allende won the plurality
of votes from the Chilean people. All that was required for him
to assume the presidency was a vote of the Chilean Congress,
meeting on October 24, 1970 to rule on the election.
During this interim period between Allende's
victory at the polls and his eventual installation as president,
the Nixon Administration consistently threatened the Chilean
military and Congress, telling them that if Allende were allowed
to assume the presidency, all U.S. military aid to Chile would
be cut off.
The CIA at this time also considered
assassinating Allende, under the pretense of saving Chile from
communism.
According to U.S. Senate report "Alleged
Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders," CIA headquarters
sent a cable to its office in Santiago, Chile exploring the possibility
of just such an assassination and cover story. They eventually
came to the conclusion that a coup still had "no pretext
or justification that it can offer to make it acceptable in Chile
or Latin America."
In the cable, the CIA then decided that
it "therefore would seem necessary to create one [a justification
for a coup] to bolster what will probably be [the military's]
claim to a coup to save Chile from communism."
According to the Senate report, the CIA
then came up with the idea "to 'discover' intel[ligence]
report which could even be planted during raids planned by Carabineros
[Chile's police]."
Such an artificially contrived intelligence
report would probably highlight cooperation between communist
Cuba and President Salvador Allende.
However, Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief
of the Chilean Army, did not want to participate with any coup
plans that would disrupt the legal election process. The CIA
then decided to support and engineer the assassination of General
Schneider in order to clear the way for a coup. This took place
on October 22, 1970.
The CIA passed "sterilized"
machine guns, those without markings, along with ammunition to
conspirators on October 22. Later that day, General Schneider,
Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, was assassinated with
the same weapons the CIA supplied, according to the CIA's own
admission to the United States Senate, published in April of
1975.
Despite all these CIA sponsored and engineered
attempts at sabotaging the democratic process, the Chilean Congress
confirmed devout socialist Salvador Allende into the office of
president on November 3, 1970. Unfortunately for Allende and
democracy, the Nixon Administration continued its efforts to
discredit and overthrow him.
The Administration began damaging the
Chilean economy, an option that was very easy due to Chile's
dependency on the United States.
According to Blum, "new U.S. government
assistance programs for Chile plummeted almost to the vanishing
point . . . and the World Bank made no new loans at all to Chile
during 1971-1973. U.S. government financial assistance or guarantees
to American private investment in Chile were cut back sharply
and American businesses were given word to tighten the economic
noose."
This basically amounted to economic blackmail.
While the Nixon Administration was crippling
Chile's economy, the CIA was supporting extreme right-wing political
opposition groups. These groups included the Patria y Libertad
organization, which, according to the U.S. Senate, was trained
in guerrilla warfare and bombing techniques by the CIA in schools
located in Bolivia and Los Fresnos, Texas.
Meanwhile, on another front in the campaign
to discredit Allende, Time Magazine reported that CIA agents
in Allende's own Socialist Party were "paid to make mistakes
in their jobs."
The CIA used its influence to covertly
publish articles in leading Chile newspapers alleging Allende's
support for communist plans to destroy Chile.
Finally, on September 11, the Chilean
military overthrew Salvador Allende and illegally took control
of the country. The military junta then set up a dictatorship
with General Augusto Pinochet as the leader, brutally repressing
the Chilean people for the next 17 years.
The exact nature of the CIA's involvement
in placing Pinochet in power is still unknown, but the U.S. Senate
has stated, "It is clear the CIA received intelligence reports
on the coup planning of the group which carried out the successful
September 11 coup throughout the months of July, August, and
September 1973."
Further adding to speculation, Blum writes
that at the time of the coup, U.S. Navy ships were present offshore
participating in joint maneuvers with the Chilean Navy.
These maneuvers perhaps gave credence
to the reports of an airborne U.S. WB-575 communications control
plane piloted by U.S. Air Force officers that was circling the
sky during the coup and, as Blum continues, the "32 American
observation and fighter planes . . . landing at the U.S. air
base in Mendoza, Argentina, not far from the Chilean border."
One witness that could have shed further
light on the Nixon Administration's involvement in the coup was
Charles Horman. Horman, a filmmaker and journalist, was an American
living in Santiago. He was stranded in Valparaiso due to the
coup.
According to Thomas Hauser's "The
Execution of Charles Horman," Horman was with several Americans
on the day of the coup. Some of the Americans were in the U.S.
military and apparently they spilled too much information in
a conversation about the coup. According to Hauser, a retired
naval engineer told Horman: "We came down to do a job and
it's done."
A few days later the new military junta
arrested Horman in his Santiago home. He was never to be seen
again.
With the military junta led by General
Augusto Pinochet in power, the infamous killings began. All opposition
was executed or tortured, and soldiers frequently kicked down
doors of anyone they considered a threat to the regime.
Yet in spite of these early atrocities,
U.S. President Gerald Ford in the New York Times said in 1974
that the U.S. government's involvement in Chile was "in
the best interest of the people in Chile and certainly in our
own best interest."
Many Chileans would not agree with Ford's
statement. Now, many years later, relatives of Charles Horman
and General Rene Schneider, are pressing charges against Nixon
officials.
According to the March 29, 2002 edition
of the International Herald Tribune, a judge in Chile has asked
Kissinger and Nathaniel Davis, American ambassador to Chile at
the time, to respond to questions about the killing of Horman.
Relatives of Rene Schneider, the previously
mentioned general of the Chilean Army who was murdered with CIA
cooperation, filed a $3 million civil suit in Washington last
year against Kissinger; Richard Helms, former director of the
CIA, and other Nixon officials.
According to the same issue of the International
Herald Tribune, these officials were "involved in plotting
a military coup to keep Allende from power."
Kissinger has defended his actions by
stating that he initially followed Nixon's orders to organize
the assassination, but decided not to go through with it. But,
as the International Herald Tribune has reported, "the CIA
continued to encourage a coup in Chile and also provided money
to military officers who had been jailed for Schneider's death."
In addition to these lawsuits, human
rights lawyers in Chile have filed a complaint against Kissinger
and other American officials who were involved in organizing
the covert program of political repression known as Operation
Condor.
Operation Condor, explained to the Tribune,
included actions whereby "rightist military dictatorships
in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay coordinated
efforts throughout the 1970s to kidnap and kill hundreds of exiled
political opponents."
There is even worse news for Kissinger.
A judge in Argentina has announced that he is going to investigate
American support for, and involvement in, Operation Condor.
Christopher Reilly is a columnist for YellowTimes.
He encourages your comments: creilly@YellowTimes.org
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