THE DEATH OF ALLENDE: JUST WHAT DOES IT SAY?

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6
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RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
2
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
July 6, 2010
Sequence Number: 
4
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Publication Date: 
June 5, 1985
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OPEN SOURCE
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6 CLAREMONT COURIER (CA) 5 June 1985 Just dopy it Sell? THE LAST TWO OF SALVADOR ALLEHQE by Nathaniel Davis Ptbk red tar the Comet Umersiry Press Reviewed by DOMW M. Bvay and Mai bmM wpp MM. Mr. Bray is a professor of political science at Califon i State Unr ersity, Los Angeles and Mrs. Bray G c for Of Latin American studies at the same school. E role of ambass'iador is an in- herently tragic one. By tradition it is highly honorific, carrying with it the prestige of representing, even embodying the per of nations and of kings. Yet, although an ambassador may need experience and 4kii to carry out his or her (usually his) duties, he is essenti&Iy without any personal power at all. In modem times, ambassadors for the most riul nation the world has ever known have become c 4 a 1 pore impotent. The system of covert activities which represents a fundamental, but usually unacknowledged, arm of US international relations requires that accredited diplomats be provided with a mantle of deniability which leaves them ignorant of aspects of policy being im- plemented through their embassies-that little island of national property in a foreign land over which they are supposed to wield sovereignty. The description Mr. Davis provides of the role of his predecessor, Ambassdor Edward Korry, in Chile dur- ing the election of Salvador Allende amply nw s the fact. Korry was kept in ignorance of Track II, the CIA plot to prevent Allende from becoming president of Chile. Davis makes much of the fact that the Track II scenario was to be a kidnapping of General Rene Schneider, chief of staff of the Chilean Army, rather than the assassina- tion it became. He also spends a chapter trying to ascer- tain whether Allende lost his life during the coup through assassination or suicide. The correctness of these facts does have historial value. But does this deal with the fue- damental historic issues? The basic premise of US foreign policy in Latin America, and in many other parts of the world, which Mr. Davis spent his life trying to help carry out, is-that US power should predominate. This involves putting into place and maintaining through overt and covert means .governments of foreign nations that officeholders in the United States regard as conducive to the continuation of US hegemony. This is a bipartisan foreign policy. There may be disagreements from time to time, or can shifts in judgment about which types of foreign leadership will promote US hegemony, but the fundamental right and need to play this worldwide game is never questioned. It is the basic acceptance of this position that make Op ly researched account is not a diplomat's a controversial policy of Richard Nixon. Nixon and Henry Kissing i- made it their project to over- throw the democratically-elected Allende because he was a Marxist. He was also a democrat determined to bring about a peaceful, legal transition to socialism. In his in- troduction Davis concedes that he has not been able to "reveal all", because some information remains classified. However, he does assure us that "No false impressions have been knowingly created by artful omission" (p. xiii). However, the American Institute of Free Labor Develop- ment (AIFLD) is widely believed to have been an in- strument of the CIA and is considered by many writers to have been an important conduit for destabilization in Chile. In his discussion of this issue, Davis acknowledges only that AIFLD activities were controversial in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America because "free trade unionism is usually a politically sensitive matter". (p. 40) D AYIS's account seems primarily motivated toward establishing that the United States was not covertly involved in organizing the coup which over- threw the Unidad Popular government of Presi- dent Allende. He does this by a lengthy ex- amination of the public record, augmented by the personal assurances of the regional head of the CIA, David Attlee Philips, that this was so. Logically, the lack of documentation is not ade- quate to demonstrate something did not happen. And, somehow, one is not reassured by the protesta- tions of Mr. Philips, whose presumed training and prac- tice would not dispose him to acknowledge anything as yet unrevealed. Moreover, Mr. Davis does not cover all the bases. One issue which he does not deal with is the matter of psychological warfare which was raised in a book that he does use extensively in the section on the death of Allende. This work, Death in Washington by Donald Freed and Fred Lap(iis, describes the use of the newspaper El Mercurio for subtle psychological tech- niques to create a national climate conducive to the destabilization of Chilean society. It was the authors' con- tention that this as directed by the CIA. CONTINUED STAT ILLEGIB STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6 Z History wW have to wait to pass Judgment on whether or not the US was directly involved in the Chilean coup. Davis's discussion, lengthy as 4 is, does not erase doubts from the minds of those who know the history of t7S involvements in other areas. Davis's own resignation as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa because of by that Bute Secretary of State Kissinger's desire to use covert activities in Angola is a case in point. However, it is not covert action alone that helps foment a coup. Yes, the United States set the stage for the overthrow of the government and constitution in Chile. But that is not extraordinary. Since the World War II era the US government has been instrumental in the overthrow of three chief executives in Guatemala, two in Honduras and the Dominican Republic, and one in Panama, Bolivia, Brazil, Grenada, Guyana and El Salvador and it is currently trying to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. This is the context of the Chilean events, this and US efforts to manipulate rulership throughout the Third World. In the past US presidents have tried to kill the Cuban president with poison, high-powered weapons and a Mafia contract. Honored persons like Nathaniel Davis are gentlemen in a world'meaner and greedier than the concealing diplomatic niceties of their offices. Today in the realm of real power our government demands that a small Central American country says "uncle" on pain of continuing to suffer from murderous invading bands dispatched by. the CIA. Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460004-6