THE CIA'S CHILEAN CONNECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020074-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 74
• Publication Date: September 19, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020074-2
1 g SEP 19'74
The CIA's Chilean Connection
In the best of all possible worlds, na-
tions would not intervene in the
domestic affairs of other nations.
Unfortunately, we do not live in such a
world, our ancestors did not and it is
highly unlikely that our descendants
will.
Indeed, in the interdependent world
in- which we live the distinction be-
tween domestic affairs and foreign
policy is blurred. And it can be argued
that there is no such thing as non-
intervention, since the failure to inter-
vene is itself a form of intervention
with its own probable consequences.
Intervention has two faces, positive
and negative. Did we not intervene in
the domestic affairs of India, to the
detriment of the opposition parties,
when we poured billions of dollars
worth of aid into the governments con-
trolled by the ruling Congress Party?
Is not West Germany intervening in
the domestic affairs of Italy by grant-
ing a $2-billion loan that is perhaps
the last chance of preserving democ-
racy in Italy?
In the Chilean affair, there has been a
leak of secret testimony from CIA
Director William Colby to the effect
that the agency poured $11 million into
Chile to prevent the election of Marxist
President Salvador Allende and to
"destabilize" his government after he
became president.
One does not have to approve of the
military regime that seized power in
Santiago last year - and we do not-
to recognize that Allende was a friend
neither of this country nor of democra-
cy. Nor has much been said by Har-
rington or other foes of the CIA about
the arms and money Cuba was pour-
ing into Chile with the apparent
intention of ultimately subverting that
country's democratic institutions.
Nor was there any obligation on the
United States to provide a regime
inimical to its interests with soft loans
from the World Bank, the Inter-Ameri-
can Development Bank and the
Export-Import Bank. The fall of the
Allende government was due as much
to its narrow political base, incompe-
tence and excesses as to any covert
American political, action taken
against it.
This does not mean that the proce-
dures for congressional oversight of
the CIA do- not require overhauling
and strengthening. It does not mean
that agency officials have a right to lie
to or mislead congressional commit-
tees, although the leaking of secret
testimony by congressmen can only
encourage such officials to be some-
thing less?than candid.
But we have to recognize that we
live in a tough neighborhood and that
the gang down the street is not exactly
squeamish in the means it uses to at
tain its ends and to frustrate
ours.
The present regime in Chile is an
authoritarian one. But it is not to-
talitarian in the sense that Castro's
Cuba is: the possibility and the means
of a return to democracy still exists in
Chile. Had Allende and his foreign ;
backers had their way, that option
might have been foreclosed. Over the
long term, that $11, million may turn
out to have been a good investment, 4
not for the copper companies or even
for the United States but for the Chi-
lean people and the cause of democra-
00743
Approved For Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09TOO207RO01000020074-2