Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964–1974

Abstract

The rise and fall of the Allende administration has been and still remains a topic for intense debate. Basically there are two ideological camps: those who favor Dr. Allende and describe him as the victim of a U.S. directed putsch, and those who blame the fall of the Unidad Popular (UP) on Chilean domestic forces. Kristian Gustafson belongs to the latter group.Beginning in 1960, the United States became more deeply interested in Chile. Believing Eduardo Frei constituted the best alternative to the Marxist Dr. Salvador Allende, the Kennedy administration helped elect the Christian Democrat to the presidency. The Frei government also received U.S. economic largesse and technical aid. Washington still favored the Christian Democrats, even when it became clear that Radomiro Tomic and the PDC’s left wing had more in common with the UP forces than Frei and his adherents. The failure of Washington to recognize this fundamental shift in the locus of power and its refusal to support robustly the candidacy of Jorge Alessandri resulted in the UP’s 1970 triumph and Allende’s winning the presidency. President Richard Nixon, whose anticommunism had brought him to the attention of the U.S. public, overreacted: he ordered the CIA to work with anti-Allende forces to prevent the Unidad Popular leader from taking power.The proposed plot called first for the armed forces to prevent Allende’s inauguration and then to reschedule elections so Frei could return to power. When General Rene Schneider, the army’s commander, refused to cooperate, the conspirators decided to kidnap him so his successor could mobilize the military. As soon as it became clear that this plan seemed likely to fail, Washington ordered its operatives to cut ties with the plotters. Some of the coup’s backers nonetheless persevered. The attempted kidnapping of Schneider resulted in his death, thereby guaranteeing that the army would not intervene. Allende became president. After three years of chaos, the armed forces would successfully overthrow the UP government, replacing it with a military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. The collapse of the Allende regime became a cause célèbre for the Left, elevating the dead president to a martyrdom equaled only by that of Che Guevara. These same forces also blamed the United States for meddling in the events which ended the Allende regime.Employing a variety of primary sources including interviews, Gustafson carefully dissects the events. While admitting that Washington intervened in Chilean internal affairs, the author makes two points: most nations, not just the United States, meddle in the affairs of others, and Washington’s interference was limited to supporting opposition press and political parties; Chile’s domestic blocs and the armed forces, not the White House, overturned Allende in 1973.The author attributes the lion’s share of blame for the Schneider fiasco to President Nixon and his advisor Henry Kissinger. Together they pushed a reluctant CIA into precipitously supporting the harebrained scheme to kidnap Schneider, even when the agency recognized that it would not succeed. The author admits that the U.S. government bears a great deal of responsibility for colluding, however briefly, with the forces that killed Schneider. But, he also acknowledges that Washington had withdrawn its aid when the kidnappers attacked the general.Rather than demonstrate Washington’s skills when dealing with the Allende regime, Gustafson paints the American political establishment, diplomatic personnel, and intelligence agents not as skilled saboteurs, but Keystone cops. Washington failed to cultivate Alessandri’s Partido Nacional until it was too late; U.S. ambassador Edward Korry failed to recognize the PDC’s drift to the Left, and his refusal to help Alessandri, coupled with his poor relations with the CIA station chief Henry Heckscher, undermined the anti-Allende efforts. It did not help that initially the State Department did not regard the prospect of a UP government as cause for concern. Not surprisingly, then, Gustafson concludes that the forces which overthrew Allende were Chilean. Washington may have nurtured the anti-Allende opposition, but it did not foment or abet the 1973 coup.On the whole, Gustafson has written a well-reasoned study. His allegations, unlike many of those who have traditionally favored the UP, are founded in documents. Free of all but a few factual errors, he makes a sound presentation of his argument. I fear, however, that many historians or students of diplomatic history will not accord his study the merit it deserves. Although Gustafson based his work on solid primary sources, some scholars may dismiss his research as biased or seriously flawed because they disagree with his conclusion. Gustafson’s book, because it provides a needed contrast to many interpretations of Allende, is a study worthy of consideration.