EDWARD KORRY AND THE UNSPLIT CHILEAN BEANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030088-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 88
• Publication Date: September 16, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/05: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030088-6
16 SEPTEMBER 1977
A federal grand jury has report-
edly handed President Carter a ticking
grenade, recommending multiple-count
perjury indictments against former
CIA director Richard Helms, ITT chief
executive Harold S. Geneen and'ITT
senior vice-president Edward J. Gerri-
ty. They'll be accused of having lied to
two'Senate committees in 1973 about
an ITT-CIA conspiracy to dock the in-
stalhnent of the late Salvador Allende
as president of Chile in 1970.
In addition, both the grand jury
and the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission are investigating charges that
ITt' orchestrated one of the largest
fraud schemes against the U.S. govern-
ment in history. Allegedly, it collected
$94.1 million on insurance issued by a
federal agency called the Overseas Pri-
vate Investment Corporation (OPIC) to
cover the 1971 expropriation of its $153
million investment in the Chilean Tele-
phone Company.
Attorney General Griffin Bell
Edward Korry and
the unspilt Chilean beans
has referred the case to President Car-
ter for his personal consideration on
the grounds that an -unprecedented
criminal trial of a former intelligence
chief would expose details of the CIA's
operations and national security mate-
rials during the Allende years. Further
juicing ^p the decision facing Carter:
Henry Kissinger will reportedly be ac-
cused of ordering Helms to perjure
himself before the Senate Foreign Re-
lations Committee in 1973, when the
former director denied that the CIA
had helped funnel money to Allende's
opponents in the fall of 1970.
The department has reportedly
dragged its feet on the 16-month-old
investigation because of the Helms fac-
tor. Edward M. Korry, U.S. ambassa-
dor to Chile from 1967 to 1971, told
Justice Department attorneys in early
1976 of the ITT-CIA conspiracy to de-
liver 5350,000 in ITT monies to right-
wing Allende foes in late September
1970. Korry submitted a 62-page depo-
sition in July 1976 to Justice's Criminal
Division charging MTI' with having lied l
to the Senate panels about the payoffs
and the CIA connection, with defraud-
ing-OPIC and with bribing Allende ad-
ministration members to protect ITT's
Chilean stake.
Frustrated with Justice's lack of
action on the case, Korry filed a S4.6
million lawsuit against Geneen and ITT
this May in which he also accused Sen-
ator Frank Church's Select Committee
on Intelligence with having. concealed
information relating to the ITT-CIA
conspiracy by refusing to make public
? the former envoy's February 1976 ex-
ecutive session testimony. Sources in
Justice have told 'us-that the depart-
ment met difficulties in obtaining from
the committee cables written by Korry
while ambassador that relate to the
grand jury investigation. The Church
committee summoned no ITT execu
fives to testify.during its 1975 investiga-
tion of the CIA's -covert operations
abroad, and still refuses to publish the
Korry testimony.
A federal indictment would
place Helms in the unenviable position
of having to spill secret after secret
about the history of CIA operations in
Chile in order to save his neck; he has
already begun scrambling, enlisting the
aid of old friends from within govern-
ment and without. Former Secretary of
Defense Clark Clifford and others have
made private appeals to the Carter Ad-
ministration in recent months to spare
Helms, and a recent column by Row-
-land Evans and Robert Novak wailed
that a Helms indictment and trail
"would be the single most damaging
thing that could be done to this coun-
try-"
Benjamin Civiletti, head of the
Criminal Division'in the Justice Depart-
ment, has indicated that the final ver-
dict from-the Oval Office should come
down within the next month.
_ Joseph L.- Contreras
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/05: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030088-6