Under orders from President Richard M. Nixon, the CIA mounted a full-tilt covert operation to keep Allende from taking office and, when that failed, undertook subtler efforts to undermine him. Those efforts "never really ended," the CIA's director of operations at the time, Thomas Karamessines, later told Senate investigators.
mtholyoke.edu
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The internet is full of discussions on how the US supported Pinochet. Look below for some declassified files on CIA's involvement with "regime change" in Chile which was basically installing a dictator in place of a democratically elected government.
gwu.edu
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Re Allende was a president elected without a majority
Allende was elected with 38% of votes. While not majority, this was perfectly democratic under their constitution and the CIA had no business poking around with a democratic election.
Re "we could not have prevented the coup had we wanted to, and therefore that the decision was made to establish good relations with the likely successor. The spread of socialism per se had nothing to do with it"
With all due respect, that is wrong. The spread of socialism had a lot to do with it, and the US influence was far stronger in the whole coup d'etat than "we could not have prevented it if we wanted to", as you can see in the declassified documents below:
CHILE: 16,000 SECRET U.S. DOCUMENTS DECLASSIFIED
CIA FORCED TO RELEASE HUNDREDS OF RECORDS ON COVERT OPERATIONS
gwu.edu
(I pasted the contents below. Click the address above and you will see the links to the actual declassified documents)
Among the key documents declassified that shed considerable light on the history of U.S. involvement in Chile, and the repression of the Pinochet regime are:
Detailed minutes of the “40 Committee” meetings—the high-level interagency group chaired by national security advisor Henry Kissinger—which oversaw U.S. efforts to undermine the election and government of Socialist leader Salvador Allende. These meetings reveal strategies of “drastic action” planned to “shock” Chileans into taking action to block Allende.
Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Minutes of the 40 Committee Meeting, 8 September 1970, September 9, 1970.
Files on National Security Council and cabinet meetings chaired by Richard Nixon recording his administration's commitment to “do everything we can to bring Allende down” after covert efforts to foment a coup to prevent his inauguration failed. (Dozens of other White House, CIA and NSC records, used by Frank Church’s special committee reports on Chile in 1975, have been declassified for the first time.)
Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, Subject: Chile, September 17, 1970.
Memorandum of Conversation, NSC Meeting - Chile (NSSM 97), November 6, 1970.
CIA memoranda and cables on the assassination of Chilean General Rene Schneider, including a heavily censored review of the agency’s susceptibility to charges of involvement in his murder by coup plotters in October 1970.
A CIA intelligence report, dated September 1972, on Augusto Pinochet’s belief that Allende should be forced from office.
Heavily censored National Security Agency intercepts of conversations and information on the September 11, 1973 coup.
U.S. government efforts to avoid pressuring the Pinochet regime on human rights atrocities.
Memorandum for Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, Subject: Chile, July 25, 1975.
Department of State Cable, Subject: Operation Condor, August 24, 1976.
FBI and DIA records showing that U.S. intelligence had obtained the Chilean address of U.S. citizen Frank Teruggi, who, like Charles Horman, was detained by Pinochet’s military after the coup at his home, taken to the national stadium, and executed.
Memorandum for Acting Director, FBI, Subject: Frank Teruggi, October 25, 1972.
FBI Memorandum, [Information on Frank Teruggi], October 25, 1972.
Memorandum for Acting Director, FBI, Subject: [Deleted] SM - SUBVERSIVE, November 28, 1972.
DINA requests for organizational support and training from the CIA.
CIA briefings to the State Department on Operation Condor and planned assassinations abroad.
Documents that for the first time link General Pinochet to a pair of Chilean intelligence agents later tied to the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C.
Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: Two Chilean Army Officers on Paraguayan Passports, August 23, 1976.
Department of State Memorandum, [Pinochet-Stroessner Telephone Conversation], September 1, 1976.
Department of State Memorandum, The Paraguayan Caper, October 15, 1976.
CIA Spot Report, Subject: Juan Williams Rose and Alejandro Romeral Jara, December 12, 1991.
Reports from CIA and other agencies on Manuel Contreras, his meetings with U.S. officials, and his efforts to obstruct U.S. investigations into the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt.
Department of State, Resume of USG Evidence & Defense Position in the Contreras, et al., Extradition, ca. 1979.
CIA Report, [Contreras and Human Rights], July 10, 1975.
CIA Report, [Contreras Luncheon with Deputy Director of Central Intelligence], August 1975.
Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda Visit to Headquarters, August 23, 1975.
CIA Summary, Chile [DDCI Luncheon for Contreras, August 25, 1975], December 12, 1991.
Department of State Cable, Offer/Threat by Manuel Contreras, February 10, 1989.
CIA Name Trace Request, Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, Pedro Espinosa Bravo, et al., May 21, 1991.
“With these documents the history of the U.S. role in Chile and the Pinochet dictatorship can be rewritten,” said Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. He noted, however, that many CIA records remained heavily blacked out. “CIA censors continue to dictate what Chileans and Americans alike can know about this shameful history,” he said. National Security Archive officials pledged to pursue all legal means to press the CIA to fully disclose still classified documentation. |
