PINOCHET CITES CIA IN ATTACK

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180002-1
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
January 25, 2012
Sequence Number: 
2
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
May 8, 1987
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180002-1.pdf64.56 KB
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180002-1 ARTICLE APPEARED ON PAS I -/Z Pinochet Cites CIA In Attack . Chilean Speculates On Assassination Attempt Last Year 7 By Edward Cody Wavbmptn0 Pant foreign k?rvicc WASHINGTON POST 8 May 1987 PARIS, May 7-Gen. Au usto f- Pinochet, the Chilean president, suggest in an interview published today that he believes the CIA may have played a role in last Septem- ber's assassination attempt against him. In an interview with the Paris daily Le Monde, Pinochet said he has what he described as "circum- stantial evidence" of Central Intel- ligence Agency involvement. The indications, Pinochet said in the question-and-answer session, were contained in several warnings he has received between 1973 and last year, including two from a CIA operative, that the agency was un- happy with him. "Then came the assassination attempt," he was quoted as saying. "And I told myself, 'Well, well, the CIA?' " Underground leftist commandos fighting to overthrow Pinochet have said they were responsible for the assassination attempt, from which Pinochet emerged slightly injured. Chileans of the far left and their sympathizers elsewhere generally have accused the CIA of aiding Pi- nochet's rise to power and of helping maintain him in the presidency. But Pinochet told Le Monde he asked "my friend" Ambassador Vernon 1'? Wal P about the CIA suspicions, without specifying when or in what form the contact took place. Walters, a retired general and former deputy director of the CIA, is U.S. representative to the United Nations. He frequently carries dis- creet messages from the Reagan administration. Pinochet said Walters told him: "No, president, reject that. It is not possible. It is false. You have been deceived." According to Le Monde, Pino- chet's suspicion apparently was not completely allayed. The newspaper quoted him as adding, with an ap- parent allusion to the Soviet Union: "And then somebody else, very well informed about these things, told me, 'Sometimes the two pow- ers act together.' " Pinochet has run Chile since the coup he led against president Sal- vador Allende in 1973. The United States, with Richard Nixon as pres- ident, had sought covertly to desta- bilize Allende, a Marxist. But U.S. officials have maintained that the United States played no direct role in the bloody military takeover or the crackdown on Chilean leftists that followed. More recently, the Reagan ad- ministration has been signaling a desire to see a return to democratic institutions in Chile. The prodding has produced com- plaints from Pinochet, who has not said publicly whether he plans to run for president in elections set for 1989 as part of what his govern- ment has described as a staged opening to democracy. "Yes, I advocate a democratic opening," he told Le Monde. "But without the participation of certain gentlemen. In short, a protected democracy, a democracy that takes precautions. Otherwise, it risks be- ing eaten up." Marxist parties are excluded by the decree regulating political activity. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201180002-1