Salvador Allende during his inaugural parade, November 3, 1970 (photo credit: Naul Ojeda)
Chile Marks 50th Anniversary of Salvador Allende’s Election
Declassified Records Capture U.S. Reaction to First Free Election of a Socialist Leader
September 4, 1970, Historic Vote Prompted Nixon/Kissinger Regime Change Effort
Washington D.C., September 4, 2020 – “Chile voted calmly to have a Marxist-Leninist state, the first nation in the world to make this choice freely and knowingly,” U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry dramatically reported to Washington in a cable titled “Allende Wins” on September 4, 1970. “[W]e have suffered a grievous defeat; the consequences will be domestic and international; the repercussions will have immediate impact in some lands and delayed effect in others.”
On the 50th anniversary of the history-changing election of Salvador Allende in Chile, the National Security Archive today posted a selection of previously declassified documents recording the reaction of U.S. officials to the first democratic election of a Socialist leader in Latin America, or elsewhere. Since the early 1960s, U.S. policy makers had dedicated tens of millions of dollars in overt aid and covert actions to preventing the popular head of the Chilean Socialist party from being elected. Allende’s victory set in motion a furious effort, ordered by President Nixon, supervised by his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, and implemented by the CIA, to destabilize Chile and undermine Allende’s ability to govern—an effort that set the stage for the September 11, 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. “I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” Kissinger famously told his top aides.
Before the election, U.S. officials believed that the CIA “spoiling operations”—covert propaganda efforts to undermine Allende’s popularity before the election—would succeed. In a confidential conversation with Chile’s Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei on the evening of September 3, 1970, Ambassador Korry predicted that the conservative National Party candidate, Jorge Alessandri, would defeat Allende in a three-way race. When Frei asked who would win, according to Korry’s report on their meeting, “I replied that I believed Alessandri would gain no less than 38 pct, that Allende could not realistically hope for more than 35 pct and that [the Christian Democrat candidate, Radomiro] Tomic might surprise the Marxists by squeezing in second, thus making it a tighter all round race.” In fact, Allende narrowly defeated Alessandri with 36.3 percent of the balloting; Tomic came in a distant third.
Ambassador Korry filed no fewer than eighteen election-day reports on the September 4 balloting. Report number 1 suggested a “very large” turnout “without incident,” with Chileans so committed to voting that hospital patients were being “brought to polls on litters, some appearing to be indulging in their last rite….” As Allende’s narrow victory became apparent, however, the tone of Korry’s reporting changed from humorous observation to angry denunciation of Chile’s political culture for creating the conditions for, and then civilly accepting, Allende’s democratic election.
When his cable, “Allende Wins” was first declassified more than 25 years ago, the second paragraph was entirely redacted. But a more recent declassification for the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series revealed that the censorship was not intended to safeguard sensitive national security information, but rather to hide the melodramatic and abjectly insulting nature of the ambassador’s opinions. “We have been living with a corpse in our midst for some time and its name is Chile,” reads the redacted graph. “The decomposition is no less malodorous because of the civility which accompanies it. Chileans could as usual chatter endlessly on television and radio and in the early hours today as if nothing had changed and the screen switched from variety shows to roundtables of politicians pontificating as foolishly as ever. Chileans like to die peacefully with their mouths open.”
(photo credit: Naul Ojeda)
Even before the votes were fully counted, Allende’s election triggered a series of covert U.S. contingency plans designed to block his inauguration. Since no candidate had won a plurality of the balloting, the strategy focused on influencing the October 24, 1970, vote of the Chilean Congress to ratify the winner—through bribery and economic disruption, and a possible military coup. On the day of the election, Kissinger’s office reviewed a TOP SECRET/EYES ONLY CIA planning paper for the “40 Committee” which approved covert operations. The CIA initially saw “no chance that any action by US can influence [Chilean] Congressional vote to defeat Allende”—a position that Nixon and Kissinger refused to accept. The next day, CIA headquarters transmitted a cable to its station chief in Santiago asking for an assessment on “chances of overturning an Allende’s victory.”
Proposals to covertly intervene in Chile’s political affairs did prompt a brief debate inside the Nixon administration. Viron “Pete” Vaky, a State Department official assigned to Kissinger’s office, argued that efforts to bribe Chilean congressmen, if exposed, “would be disastrous, this administration’s Bay of Pigs.” Wimberley Coerr in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research also used the “Pigs’ Bay” analogy in presenting his “personal view” on “Post-September 4 Operations.” Coerr argued that “subornation” of Chile’s internal political system was “beyond the pale” and “would hurt our prestige and effectiveness in Latin America (not to mention the United States Government’s reputation with its own citizens) even more than did Pigs’ Bay.” Secretary of State William Rogers also expressed his concern about “getting caught doing something.” “After all we’ve said about elections,” Rogers stated in a phone call to Kissinger, “if the first time a Communist wins the U.S. tries to prevent the constitutional process from coming into play we will look very bad.”
Both Nixon and Kissinger rejected these arguments as well as the broader State Department position that the U.S. should establish a modus vivendi with Allende and bolster the opposition in the next presidential election in 1976. On September 12, they discussed Allende’s election on the phone. “Does State want to give [Chile] aid?,” Nixon asked. “Let Alicande [sic] come in and see what we work out and work out opposition to him,” Kissinger responded describing the State Department position. “Like against Castro? Like in Czech?,” Nixon responded. “The same people said the same thing. Don’t let them do that,” the President instructed Kissinger.
Three days later on September 15, 1970, Nixon gave an explicit order to CIA Director Richard Helms to foment a military coup in Chile in order to prevent Allende’s inauguration.
“These documents remind us that Allende’s election was a turning point, not only in Chilean and Latin American history but in United States and world history,” noted Peter Kornbluh who directs the Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. “A half century later, the Nixon administration’s imperial response to Allende’s democratic election continues to resonate.”
As additional 50th anniversaries of the various elements of U.S. covert operations in Chile arrive in the coming weeks and months, the National Security Archive will continue to post records that illuminate these historic events.
Document 1
State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States series
On the evening of September 3, 1970, Ambassador Edward Korry meets with Chilean president Eduardo Frei to discuss the elections the next day. Korry predicts that Allende will lose and Jorge Alessandri of the National Party will win. Frei relates to Korry that he has met with Salvador Allende who has voiced concerns that several thousand U.S. citizens, far more than in past years, have recently come to Chile, raising suspicions that the U.S. is running a covert operation against the elections. Frei himself voices concerns that the U.S. military has also asked for more visas than normal. He also relays rumors that factions of the Chilean military are planning a coup if either the Christian Democrat, Radomiro Tomic, or Allende win the election.
Document 2
Chile Documentation Project collection
This cable is the first of eighteen sent by the U.S. embassy reporting on the election in Chile. It notes that the turnout is large, and that Chileans are so committed to voting that some are being carried on gurneys from hospitals to polling stations. The cable also reports that the military is in their barracks, a suggestion that all is normal during the vote.
Document 3
FOIA and State Department Foreign Relations of the United States series
In this vitriolic cable, which Ambassador Korry drafted on September 4 and sent to Washington early the morning of September 5, he provides a lengthy denunciation of Chile’s political factions that have allowed Allende to narrowly win the election. He blamed Chile’s right wing forces for “wandering in a myopia of arrogant stupidity,” and credited Allende for being “smarter” by focusing on “bread and butter issues.” The voting was not yet over, Korry wrote, “but the stink of defeat is evident and the mounting roar of the Allendistas acclaiming their victory arises from the streets below.” Kissinger received the cable and passed it on to President Nixon who read it and highlighted key passages. “An excellent perceptive job of analysis,” Nixon wrote at the bottom of the document.
Document 4
Clinton Administration Chile Declassification Project
In this memorandum for Henry Kissinger, one of his deputies, Viron Vaky, summarizes a CIA paper on Chile that will be used for discussion at the next 40 Committee meeting. The CIA paper discusses contingency planning for covert operations to influence a vote in the Chilean Congress scheduled for October 24, 1970, to ratify the winner of the election. The CIA plans to use a “Chilean cut-out”—a covert asset in Santiago—to bribe Chilean legislators and buy their vote in favor of Alessandri. The paper, however, suggests that if Allende wins the election, there is little the CIA can do to influence the Congressional ratification process. Vaky takes the opportunity to argue that covert intervention in Chile’s political process, if exposed, will be a disaster for the U.S. image in Latin America and “this administration’s Bay of Pigs.”
Document 5
Clinton Administration Chile Declassification Project
CIA headquarters cables the station chief in Santiago to ask a number of questions about thwarting Allende’s inauguration. One question concerns the influence of the CIA’s leading Chilean asset, who has remained unidentified for half a century, who the agency wants to use to influence President Frei to block Allende’s ascension to the presidency. Could Frei press the military toward a coup? The CIA also seeks the opinion of the station chief and Ambassador Korry on key Chilean legislators who could be pressured, or bought, into voting against Allende’s ratification.
Document 6
Clinton Administration Chile Declassification Project
This memo, written by INR official Wimberley Coerr to Assistant Secretary of State Charles Meyer, offers a personal argument against ‘’subornation” of Chile’s electoral process. Coerr asks that the risks of an Allende government be weighed against the risks of exposure of U.S. covert intervention. He suggests that U.S. officials are not considering that other political parties and the military in Chile can act as national counterweights to Allende’s Marxist agenda. The costs of getting caught, he accurately predicts, will be high for U.S. interests in the region and the U.S. government’s reputation with its own citizens.
Document 7
National Security Archive Kissinger Telcon collection
In this phone conversation between Henry Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers, the two discuss Rogers’ concerns that the United States not get “caught” intervening covertly in Chile’s electoral processes. Rogers makes his case for discretion. Kissinger tells him that “the President’s view is to do the maximum possible to prevent an Aliente [sic] takeover, but through Chilean sources and with a low posture.” (Note: the date of September 14 on this page of the document is incorrect. The phone conversation took place on September 12.)
Document 8
National Security Archie Kissinger Telcon collection
During a phone conversation with President Nixon about a terrorist hijacking in Jordan, Kissinger declares that the “big problem today is Chile.” He briefs Nixon on the State Department’s resistance to intervening to block Allende’s inauguration. Nixon supports Kissinger’s position to favor an aggressive response to Allende’s election over any kind of accomodation; the president demands to see all cables going from the State Department to Santiago, in order to assure that the State Department positions reflect his own.