officials also backed economic measures to squeeze Allende's government. spent $8 million on covert actions between 1970 and the 1973 coup, according to a 1975 Senate report. What followed were more attempts to shore up opposition. The CIA's efforts failed, however, and Allende was sworn in on Nov. The Marxist was elected president in 1970 but was overthrown in a coup in 1973. A top general who opposed a coup was killed in a kidnapping plot.ĪFP via Getty Images Salvador Allende is pictured in February 1973. In addition to continued propaganda efforts, the CIA met with Chilean military contacts in a direct effort to foment a coup to stop an Allende presidency. officials to do whatever they could to prevent Allende from taking office. Under the constitution at the time, the decision then went to Chile's Congress to vote between the top two finishers. Still, Allende narrowly won in a three-way contest in early September 1970. International businesses, most notably International Telephone and Telegraph, were involved as well, passing funds to Allende's main opponent. spent hundreds of thousands on a "spoiling operation," much of it propaganda aimed at preventing Allende from taking power. In the months before the election, the U.S. (Allende's campaign did receive $350,000 from Cuba, according to CIA estimates, and at least $400,000 from Moscow, according to one book on the history of the KGB's foreign operations.) Kissinger was especially concerned about the example it would set for Western European countries to have a socialist freely elected. interests and as a friend of the Soviet Union. They perceived Allende as a threat to U.S. president and Henry Kissinger his assistant for national security affairs. The influence proved effective: Allende lost.īut Allende ran again in 1970. spent massively on anti-communist propaganda and support for Allende's opponent in 1964. He had pledged to nationalize the mostly U.S.-owned copper companies, a large industry in Chile. ![]() officials were especially concerned about Salvador Allende, a self-proclaimed Marxist and a member of Chile's Socialist Party who ran for president multiple times and was a leading contender in the 1964 election. Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution in Cuba alarmed Washington about communism and threats of Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere. interventions in Latin America go back more than a century.ĭuring the mid-20th century, the Cold War shaped much of policymakers' thinking. had been meddling in Chile's politics for years by the time 1973 rolled around. ![]() spent massively to try to prevent him from becoming president. to have a hand in the coup, how it occurred, and what happened afterward.ĪFP via Getty Images An undated photo of Chilean politician Salvador Allende. What follows is a history of what led the U.S. foreign policy."īut first, it's necessary to explain what happened. Chile galvanized, it crystallized in the minds of so many, what was wrong with U.S. "It was the suddenness, the abruptness in a country that had a long tradition of honoring democratic governance. 11, 1973, "galvanized public opinion in a way that no other activity, no other coup, no other military dictatorship in Latin America did," says Joe Eldridge, a longtime human rights advocate who was in Chile when it happened. In effect, the coup in Chile led to human rights concerns and Congress taking on a larger role in U.S. role in Chile's democratic collapse became known, activists took action. The brutality in Chile, thousands of miles away, would have repercussions back in the U.S. Augusto Pinochet, more than 3,000 people would be disappeared or killed and some 38,000 would become political prisoners - most of them victims of torture. Fifty years ago in Chile, the United States worked to end the presidency of an elected Marxist and, in turn, helped usher in an authoritarian right-wing dictatorship.ĭuring the ensuing 17-year rule of Gen.
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