If one element is clear today after a partial declassification of documents on the military coup in Chile in 1973, it is the role not only of the CIA, but also of the then U.S. President Richard Nixon.
The Nixon administration (1969-1974) was closely involved in efforts to prevent Salvador Allende from taking power in 1970 and in the subsequent overthrow of his government on September 11, 1973, said an article published on the Common Dreams website.
The files that came to light are daily reports that Nixon received the very day of the coup against the Popular Unity government and three days before that event that changed the history of Chile.
“Several reports have been received… indicating the possibility of an early military coup,” stated a daily report by Nixon on September 8, 1973, in which he noted that “Navy men plotting to overthrow the government now claim the support of the army and air force.”
Nixon, who once ordered the CIA to “make the (Chilean) economy scream,” also received a daily briefing on the day of the coup, just before Allende was killed and the fascist dictatorship took power, the journalistic material recalled. “Navy officers’ plans to unleash military action against the Allende government have the support of some key army units,” it noted in the September 11th report. “The navy also has the help of the air force and the national police,” he said.
Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean army took control of the government and what followed was a cruel reign of terror and repression that left tens of thousands murdered, tortured or disappeared.
As the CIA admitted in a 2000 report, “many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses… they were contacts or agents of the agency or the U.S. military.”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York, has pushed for the disclosure of “all information” at the State Department, CIA and Pentagon detailing her country’s involvement in the coup. In July, the congresswoman introduced an amendment to the annual military policy bill to that end, but the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee blocked the vote.
For Ocasio-Cortéz> “It is time for the United States to recognize its history of contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America” and take full public responsibility “for our historic role.”
