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The Archive of United States National Security released unpublished documents that reveal Washington’s strategies to destabilize the socialist government of Salvador Allende.
The document details the methods that were employed, including US officials that would collaborate with other governments in the region –Mainly Brazil and Argentina–, to join forces against Allende.
To achieve the purpose, multilateral banks’ loans to Chile and Chile would be quietly blocked. US export credits and loans would be canceled.
At the same time, US companies would be recruited to leave Chile and the international market value of our country’s main export – copper – would be manipulated to damage the domestic economy, the Spanish newspaper El País published.
In parallel, the CIA was allowed to prepare action plans related to the future implementation of the strategy.
“If there is a way to overthrow Allende, better do it”Nixon indicated at the meeting, according to Helms’ manuscript, which is part of the documents published in the last hours.
President Nixon had decided: a hostile aggression program would be adopted, but low-key, to destabilize Allende’s ability to govern.
“Our main concern in Chile is the possibility that (Allende) can consolidate and the image projected to the world will be its success”Nixon said when giving instructions to his national security team.
“We will be very cold and very correct, but doing things that will be a true message for Allende and others,” added the 37th US president.
“While we knew a lot about the machinations of the Nixon government to prevent or destabilize the Allende government, it is extremely important to have these documents, including handwritten notes and transcripts of telephone conversations,” said the Chilean-American historian Iván Jaksic. to the aforementioned medium.
“It is surprising to see how what previously appeared to be speculation was more than true. The harshness of the language and the measures that are proposed to pressure the Allende Government and send unequivocal signals to other countries are frankly chilling, ”adds the 2020 National History Award.
“They are the words of power and, with these documents, there is no doubt that behind each word there are concrete measures that had a direct impact on the agony our country experienced in those years,” says Jaksic.
Kissinger’s role
The National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, made a high-level effort to meet with Nixon alone before he did. National Security Council.
According to a memorandum where an official from the President’s Cabinet justified the postponement of the meeting, Kissinger had warned: “Chile could end up being the worst failure of our Administration: ‘our Cuba’ in 1972.”
The meeting between Nixon and his National Security Advisor was finally held in the Oval Office. For an hour, Kissinger submitted a full study for the aggressive approach to win in the long term towards the socialist government of the Popular Unity (UP).
“Your resolution on what to do about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will have to make this year,” he warned Nixon, dramatically.
“What happens in Chile during the next six to 12 months will have ramifications that go far beyond the relations between the United States and Chile,” he stressed.
Still, the new documents confirm what various US officials have tried to deny for years: that the White House had direct responsibility for the democratic breakdown that our country suffered in 1973.
That situation caused nothing more and nothing less than 17 years of a military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet, who ended up handing over power cornered by the categorical victory of the “NO” in the 1988 Plebiscite.
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