CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A022000120002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2003
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 8, 1972
• Content Type: REPORT

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Top Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Central Intelligence Bulletin
Top Secret
C C.1
8 June 1972
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Central Intelligence Bulletin
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CHILE--A Review of Recent Political Developments
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CHILE--A Review of Recent Political Developments
President Allende and his quarreling coalition
partners are engaged in a prolonged reappraisal of
their relationships and their progress in creating
a socialist system through democratic institutions.
Leaders of the seven parties of the Popular Unity
(UP) coalition have been meeting for over a week in
search of a new modus operandi. The question is
how to consolidate and extend the "revolution" in
the face of growing disunity in the coalition and
a stronger challenge from the opposition.
Allende has participated on several occasions
in this effort to overcome the stubborn conflicts
that have dogged the coalition since it was put to-
gether in preparation for the 1970 presidential
election. He has admitted that his government lacks
majority support, but he blames this on the refusal
of the coalition parties to work together to make
the experiment succeed. Allende was conciliatory,
agreeing to adopt drastic measures if all the UP
settled on that policy, but he made clear his own
preference for a moderate course of consolidation
of the socialist program already well in motion.
He told the politicians to settle their differences
this week so that he could reorganize his cabinet.
The Communists and Socialists, the major part-
ners and the major adversaries within the coalition,
have dominated the discussions, backed by their
sycophants among the smaller parties. The Commu-
nists insist on the need for caution, non-violence,
compromise, and consolidation--particularly in the
economic field. They are usually supported by the
Radicals and Social Democrats, who merged into one
party this week, as well as by another minuscule
non-Marxist group. The Socialists, on the other
hand, want a much faster pace in overturning the
legal and economic ground rules that keep the oppo-
sition alive. They argue that armed confrontation
is inevitable, that UP forces must prepare for it,
and that a "reformist" approach is self-defeating.
Two rival breakaway factions of the Christian Demo-
crats line up with the Socialists.
(continued)
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The deepening dispute between the coalition
partners has focused increasingly on their respec-
tive attitudes toward the most important far left-
ist force outside the coalition, the Movement of the
Revolutionary Left: (MIR). The MIR's disruptive ac-
tivities have been a provocation to rightist groups
and an irritant to the military who, the Communists
fear, may react by attempting a coup. The Commu-
nists are even more sensitive to the MIR's assump-
tion of the role of champion of the lower classes,
a group the Communists fear they have lost because
of their identification with a government that has
made more promises than it can fulfill. The Commu-
nists also see the MIR as a potent weapon that is
used against them by Socialist leftwingers who
sponsored the revolutionary group.
The Communists' determination to curb this
threat was tested in mid-May after the MIR demon-
strated in Concepcion in defiance of an official
ban. The Socialists and their UP colleagues joined
the MIR in blaming the Communists for police action
and resulting violence. The Communists seized on
this incident and the widespread tension over fear
of violence to press their point in the UP that the
MIR had gone too far. Internal differences within
the Socialist Party forced its leader, Carlos Alta-
mirano, to make a lukewarm disavowal of MIR excesses.
The perpetually disorganized Socialist Party,
although it boasts Allende as a member and has been
the largest votegetter in the coalition, is now
significantly weakened by innumerable other divisive
personal rivalries and the taint of corruption.
Allende is unpopular with most of its leaders. They
do not believe he shares the party's most unifying
sentiment, its resistance to Communist domination
of the different forms of political cooperation
that have linked the two parties for 20 years.
Altamirano's decision to make a tactical retreat
on the MIR rather than risk a showdown with the
disciplined Communists is not popular among fellow
extremists in his party. As a quid pro quo, however,
he may have gained Communist acquiescence in the
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plebiscite he wants on some key issues as a means of
proving the government's popularity and giving it
new momentum.
For Allende, conflict between the two Marxist
parties has given him opportunities to play his
favorite role as the ultimate arbiter of political
power in Chile. For a more effective government,
he needs an end to their conflict, but he recognizes
that their strongest point of agreement is that they
must act in concert to control him.
Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats plug away
at the difficult job.of coordinating the spreading
but disparate opposition. They have few effective
weapons against a government that is powerful de-
spite its weaknesses, and their abhorrence of be-
coming identified with conservative political forces
further limits their effectiveness. The military
services, increasingly disturbed by the excesses of
the government that is their responsibility to up-
hold, are trying unobtrusively to moderate its di-
rection. Allende's tendency is to defer to some of
their demands, but the Communists and Socialists so
far have found ways to block most military influence.
Nevertheless, Allende harbors the hope of bringing
more military officers into his cabinet.
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