https://robertreich.substack.com/p/today-50-years-ago-henry-kissinger
"As Chile marks the 50th anniversary tomorrow of the coup that brought
strongman Augusto Pinochet to power for almost 17 years — toppling Chile’s
democratically elected socialist government and resulting in the murders and
“disappearances” of thousands of Pinochet’s political opponents — it’s
important to recall the central role played by Richard Nixon and Nixon’s
national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, in this atrocity.
Kissinger — now 100 years old, and who in my humble opinion should be
considered a war criminal — urged Nixon to overthrow Chile’s democratically
elected government of Salvador Allende because Allende’s “‘model’ effect can be
insidious,” according to declassified documents posted by the U.S. National
Security Archive.
On September 12, 1970, eight days after Allende’s election, Kissinger initiated
discussion on the telephone with CIA Director Richard Helms about a preemptive
coup in Chile. “We will not let Chile go down the drain,” Kissinger declared.
“I am with you,” Helms responded. Three days later, Nixon, in a 15-minute
meeting that included Kissinger, ordered the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy
scream,” and named Kissinger as the supervisor of the covert efforts to keep
Allende from being inaugurated.
Kissinger ignored a recommendation from his top deputy on the NSC, Viron Vaky,
who strongly advised against covert action to undermine Allende. On September
14, 1970, Vaky wrote a memo to Kissinger arguing that coup plotting would lead
to “widespread violence and even insurrection.” He also argued that such a
policy was immoral: “What we propose is patently a violation of our own
principles and policy tenets … If these principles have any meaning, we
normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our
survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.? It is hard to argue this.”
After U.S. covert operations, which led to the assassination of Chilean
Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces General Rene Schneider, failed to stop
Allende’s inauguration on November 4, 1970, Kissinger lobbied President Nixon
to reject the State Department’s recommendation that the U.S. seek a modus
vivendi with Allende. While Schneider was dying in the Military Hospital in
Santiago on October 22, 1970, Kissinger told Nixon that the Chilean military
turned out to be “a pretty incompetent bunch.” Nixon replied: “They are out of
practice,” according to documents released in early August by the U.S. National
Security Archive.
In an eight-page secret briefing paper that provided Kissinger’s clearest
rationale for regime change in Chile, he emphasized to Nixon that “the election
of Allende as president of Chile poses for us one of the most serious
challenges ever faced in this hemisphere” and “your decision as to what to do
about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you
will make this year.”"
Via Kevin O'Brien.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
