INTERVIEW WITH SEYMOUR HERSH

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP91-00901R000500150028-0
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RIPPUB
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K
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4
Document Creation Date: 
December 19, 2016
Document Release Date: 
December 20, 2005
Sequence Number: 
28
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Publication Date: 
November 23, 1982
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TRANS
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RADIO N REPORTS, IN 4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE MARYLAND 20815 656-4068 PROGRAM The Today Show STATION WRC-TV NBC Network DATE November 23, 1982 7:00 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C. SUBJECT Interview with Seymour Hersh TOM BROKAW: There are new charges out this morning that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were responsible for the death of President Salvador Allende of Chile. Judy Woodruff is in our Washington studio with the reporter who broke that story. JUDY WOODRUFF: We are with Seymour Hersh, who is working on a book right now on Henry Kissinger. You have an article coming out in The Atlantic magazine this month. It's being released today. And what exactly are you accusing Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon of doing? SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, let me make clear I'm not accusing them of the death of Allende in '73. We don't know what happened in '73, if he was overthrown and killed or committed assassin- ation [sic] during the overthrow. What I'm saying is we've been looking at the wrong issue. The real story isn't what happened in '73. It seems to me one of the stories we could look at is what happened in 1970 when Allende was elected. WOODRUFF: And what are you saying their precise involvement was? % HERSH: I'm saying that I started out writing a book about Kissinger, Nixon, and their foreign policy, and I decided to take a good hard look at how policy is made, what really happens. And I've discovered that in Chile in 1970 the CIA thought, Richard Helms and others... WOODRUFF: Excuse me. Now we're seeing pictures of Allende's inauguration, and this was in November of 1970. Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP9I-009O1R0Q0500150028-0 OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. 9 NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES Approved For Release 2006/01/12: CIA-RDP911-00901R0009, i ARTICLM APPEARED THE WASHINGTON POST ON P11. . --, 23 NOVFWBFP 1982 New Charges lT Reported In CIA Plot on Allende By John Dinges epectal to The Washington Post CIA activities to prevent Salvador Allende from assuming the Chilean presidency in 1970 were more exten- sive than previously acknowledged in- official accounts, author Seymour M. Hersh asserts in the December issue -of Atlantic.Monthly. - Hersh charges, based on the ac- count of an unnamed "close associ- ate" of then-CIA director Richard Helms, that President Nixon "spe- cifically ordered the CIA to get rid of Allende"-an order that Hersh 'con'- tends amounted to a go-ahead to as- sassinate Allende if necessary. "Helms -told the associate there - was no doubt in his mind at the time accounts from a half-dozen alleged participants in the Chile operations, including two deep-cover CIA oper- atives- whose identities were previ- ously unknown. The agents, called "false-flaggers" by the "CIA because of their use of' false Latin American passports as cover, were veteran agents assigned to give CIA money and instructions to "extreme right-wing terrorists," in- cluding cashiered Gen. Roberto Viaux and other Chilean 'military leaders plotting against Allende, Hersh writes. Viaux led a kidnaping attempt Oct. 22, 1970, that resulted in the murder of the head of the Chilean armed forces, Gen. Rene what Nixon meant," Hersh writes.-' -Schneider-an: 'operation thg `CIA The "close associate, r# ti t liar disavowed writes, was relating He s', tk ersh quotes ie tSa x i 11 l t~~y at- account of a Sept. 15, 1970, Oval Of- tache in Chile at the time, Col. Paul lice meeting of Nixon and then naC. Wimert Jr., as saying he gLred tional security adviser Henry A: they [the false-flaggers] had ~.,been Kissinger, who the source said later . sent to ; Santiago to;.arrange for Al- "pressured [Helms] again on' the sub= lende's death:"' ject,:- ." According to the article, an Me in Helms testified in 1975 'hearings:-` the National Security Council; .Yeo- before the Senate Intelligence Com= man Charles E: Radford, told'Hersh mittee that Nixon's orders at that- that he saw option papers -that:dis- meeting referred to Allende's over-, cussed ways to assassinate Allende. throw and did not "in his mind" in- Hersh's article does not cite any ev- elude assassination. idence that plans to kill Allende Hersh's account, which is adapted were put into operation. from his forthcoming biography of Kissinger, does not contain the kind ' of smoking gun evidence that would drastically alter the picture drawn in the 1975 Senate hearings.- Testimony then revealed that the CIA financed an unsuccessful covert propaganda campaign against Al- lende's election, and later partici- pated in various plots with Chilean politicians and military leaders to keep him from taking office after his plurality victory in September, 1970. Approved or eabev046/bd41d6miXIA-RDP91-00901 R000500150028-0 STAT Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901R0005001 ARTICLE -T j .ON PACE THE WASHINGTON TIMES 23 NOVEMBER 1982 CIA reportedly got OK for Allende slaying BOSTON (UPI) -Former President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, gave the CIA "a blank check" to arrange the assassina- tion of President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1970, it was reported yesterday. CIA Director Richard Helms was approached by both men and Nixon gave him a "blank check. to move against Allende without informing any- one," according to an article in the December issue of Atlantic Monthly .magazine. . The Chilean president was killed in a coup three years later but there was no known evidence of CIA involvement. The Atlantic Monthly article is an excerpt of Seymour M. Hersh's book, "The Price of Power: Kissinger in Nix- on's White House" Helms told the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975 he did not consider assassination to have been included in Nixon's authorization to move against the Chilean president but the former CIA director reportedly told a different story to a "close associate" reached by Hersh. "In a later conversation ... Helms provided a much more credible. description of what took place on Sept. 15: Nixon had specifically ordered the CIA to get rid of Allende;" Hersh wrote. "Helms told the associate that there was no doubt in his mind at the time what Nixon meant." Helms was pressured again on the subject at least one time by Kissinger, the article said. The Intelligence Committee reported Nixon authorized the CIA. to stage a military coup if possible 'to prevent Allende's election. in -October _ the Chilean military. known to be eager evidence of American-backed sination plotting. Hersh said he also interviewed CIA agents who took part in an intensive anti-Allende campaign in late 1.970 and obtained highly classified CIA files not turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee. He reported Yeoman Charles E. Rad- ford, who handled documents in a National Security Council office, was shocked to discover in 1970 a White .House paper proposing different ways to kill Allende. The article said Helms ordered four. veteran CIA agents into Chile between Sept. 1S and Oct. 24, 1970, the day the Chilean Congress confirmed Allende's election. The agents,ao known as "false-. Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500150028-0 I Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901R0005 THE NEW YORK TIMES 23 NOVEMBER 1982 New Charges Are Raised on Plots By the C.I.A. ? to Topple Allende By LESLIE H. GELB Spxia toTW Nero YCek T1ma WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- American intelligence officers maintain that ef- forts to overthrow President Salvador Allende Gossens of Chile continued long after Secretary of State Henry A. Kis- singer testified they had stopped, ac- cording to an article in The Atlantic Monthly. In the current issue of The Atlantic, Seymour M. Hersh names and quotes Central intelligence Agency officials who were involved in the coup plotting as having said they had reason to be- lieve they were simply carrying out the orders of President Nixon and Mr. Kis- singer. 1 ese activities began in 1970 with the prospect of Mr. Allende's elect tion and ended in .1973, when Mr. Al- lende died in a militarycoup. Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, Mr. Kissin- ger stated in sworn testimony in 1975 ? that covert plans to topple the Allende regime were terminated on Oct. 15, 1970, and that he heard nothing further about any such American actions. He was supported in this by Alexander M. Haig Jr., who was Mr. Kissinger's deputy, and by Mr. Nixon. They stated, in effect, that whatever happened after that date, the Central intelligence Agency did on its own. Mr. Hersh names and quotes C.I.A. agents and cites classified documents showing extensive . contacts between American covert operators and Chilean coup plotters, including the passing of money to those Chileans subsequently convicted of assassinating Gen. Rene. Schneider, the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, who stood in the way ` of efforts to overthrow Mr. Allende.. . Mr. Hersh's account alsq cites intelli- gence officials and others. who would not be identified as saying- that the C.I.A. was pressed by the White House in the fall of 1970 to arrange for the as- sassination of Mr. Allende. To support this charge, Mr. Hersh describes what be says was a conversation between Richard Helms, Director of Central In- telligence at the time of the coup plot- ting, and "a close associate" of Mr. Helms. The associate said that Mr. Helms had told him that the White . House had ordered him to get rid of Mr. Allende and that there was no doubt-in his mind what the White House meant A spokesman for Mr. Kissinger, asked about the Hersh article today, said, "He has nothing to add to what be has previously written on the subject." Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000560150028-0