‘A pretty incompetent bunch’ Kissinger to Nixon after failed Chile coup in 1970 english elpais com international 2023-08-09 a-pretty-incompetent-bunch-kissinger-to-nixon-after-failed-chile-coup-in1970 html August 9 2023 Chile Declassified documents from the U S National Security Archive reveal a telephone conversation between the president and national security advisor after the failed CIA-backed plot Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon in the White House 1973 Bettmann Getty Images While the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army General René Schneider was dying in the Military Hospital in Santiago on October 22 1970 after being shot three times by rightwing extremists U S president Richard Nixon called his national security advisor Henry Kissinger The objective was to oversee an operation aimed at preventing the inauguration of the elected president the socialist Salvador Allende which was scheduled for November 3 After the military failed to take power following the attack on Schneider Kissinger told the U S leader that the Chilean military turned out to be “a pretty incompetent bunch ” according 1 2 to declassified documents released Tuesday by the U S National Security Archive which the institution’s senior analyst Peter Kornbluh includes in the recently published 50th anniversary Chilean edition of his book The Pinochet File A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability Five weeks before Allende was due to assume the presidency Nixon had ordered a CIAbacked plot to block the socialist’s inauguration When Kissinger explained the theory that the military would not take advantage of the social chaos resulting from the Schneider assassination attempt to seize power Nixon replied “They are out of practice ” “The congressional election is tomorrow and the inauguration is November third What they could have done is prevent the Congress from meeting But that hasn’t been done It’s close but it’s probably too late ” Kissinger says in the declassified “telcon” with Nixon on October 23 1970 When he finally addresses the attempt on Schneider’s life — the original plan was to kidnap him not assassinate him — Kissinger posits to Nixon that there was “a turn for the worse but it hasn’t triggered anything else ” “The next move should have been a government takeover by the military but that hasn’t happened ” Washington’s aim was to create a “coup climate” in Chile Kornbluh director of the Chile Documentation Project at the Washington-based U S National Security Archive notes that in the conversation between Kissinger and Nixon “they say nothing that alludes to regret over the assassination of General Schneider they are totally focused on the incompetence of the Chilean military which failed to execute the coup to seize power shut down Congress and block Allende’s inauguration ” When the call from Kissinger came in Nixon had already received the CIA report on the attempt against General Schneider “The plot was to pay for and support an action against Schneider because he was commander-in-chief the highest-ranking military officer and a supporter of the Constitution and therefore the elections and their results The other lowerranking generals could not mobilize their troops without his permission Without that General Camilo Valenzuela was able to climb the ladder ” notes Kornbluh The Chilean government has formally requested that U S President Joe Biden’s administration publish documentation from 1973 and 1974 on what was said in the Oval Office before and after the coup led by Augusto Pinochet “We still don’t know what President Nixon saw on his desk the morning of the military coup ” Chile’s ambassador to the United States Juan Gabriel Valdés said during an interview with EFE “There are details that remain of interest to Chileans that are important for us to reconstruct our own history ” Kornbluh has also backed the petition “If not now on the 50th anniversary when ” 2 2