The Policy Dilemma
Farnsworth, Elizabeth
The U.S. government planned the overthrow of the Unidad Popular government of President Salvador Allende (1970-1973), and it has spent millions of dollars to stabilize the military government...
...aid, and asked not to be included in the FY 1978 aid program, because "the amounts included for Chile do not justify the international political exploitation (in the United States) that has sought to discredit the governments of both Chile and the United States...
...Committee on Human Rights...
...3 711 Although the junta's economic model relies upon supposedly "automatic" market forces to encourage savings and investment, Chile's bourgeoisie has not responded with productive investments...
...Further, around 50,000 Chileans have been forced to leave the country to avoid the junta's prisons and torture chambers...
...They are aware that continued support 1br the Pinochet regime has deeply affected and exacerbated certain key problems that face U.S...
...The United States is forced increasingly to show its true face, which in the long run benefits the revolutionary forces around the world...
...He was tireless in publicizing and condemning the junta's repression, and he forcefully argued the failures of the junta's economic model...
...In Chile, the Left has suffered terrible losses, but it is strong and unyielding...
...as part of their campaign against revolutionary Cuba...
...For the Chilean people, the junta's economic measures have meant terrible suffering: unemployment, hunger, and repression...
...leaders continued in 1975 to provide large loans to Chile...
...Chile Today, op...
...For these reasons, he said, ". . . we can best enhance the prospects for further human rights in Chile by continuing a balanced policy, by working in the area of human rights and by assisting that government to meet the economic problems before it" (i.e., by providing aid).'" To a certain extent, Simon's and Kissinger's lobbying efforts failed...
...3) The case of Chile highlights the problems that policy-makers face in formulating foreign economic policy...
...The only victory won by the "soft liners" was the decision to terminate credits to the junta for purchasing military equipment...
...Per-capita income is below that of the mid-1960s, and wealth is increasingly concen- trated in the hands of a few very wealthy Chileans with close ties to U.S...
...With the Vietnamese people, the Chilean people have written the truth about U.S...
...On October 12, the New York Times reported that "intelligence officials said it appeared that the F.B.I...
...In Chile, the United States justified its 1964 intervention in support of presidential candidate Eduardo Frei (then running against Salvador Allende) on the grounds that Frei was making a "revolution in liberty," and emphasized Frei's reformist pretensions...
...allies among the copper-exporting nations (Zaire, Peru, Zambia and Chile) as a major motive for what will be a very costly program...
...Now Chile is one of the main issues fueling public skepticism about U.S...
...operatives helped draft the junta's economic program and covertly supported the Chilean intelligence forces as they tried to wipe out the Chilean Left.s Although public opposition to these policies grew within the United States throughout 1974, U.S...
...The economic problems in Chile are typical of those faced by many dependent developing nations...
...and Part II, below...
...training and spare parts...
...The Washington Post, March 1, 1976...
...World Bank President Robert McNamara later admitted, while supporting the loan, that the present Chilean economy was not in good shape...
...Solidarity Poster/Finland6 "The present Chilean regime is clearly in the best interests of the world compared with the Marxist regime of Allende...
...intervention in Latin America...
...In March 1976, Antonio Ortiz Mena, president of the IDB, traveled to Chile and assured the junta that the IDB would loan it $125 million in 1976-1977.'o Ortiz Mena would not have made this promise without U.S...
...These systematic maladies were exacerbated by the 1974-1975 recession in the industrial countries...
...DOD estimates (as of mid-1976...
...Furthermore, whatever the junta's claims, it has neither solved the inflation problem nor encouraged much domestic or foreign investment (See Part Ill, below...
...DOLLARS DOWN THE DRAIN Despite massive aid, the Chilean economy remains prostrate...
...A COSTLY POLICY (1) First, Chile has contributed to a crisis of legitimacy faced by the U.S...
...2 Further, he made regular trips to Santiago in recent years...
...Today, after three years of counterrevolution, the Chilean people suffer under - and resist -- the worst conditions in Chile's history...
...As explained in Section II, below, the improvement in the foreign account simply reflects the cutback in imports caused by a reduction in domestic consumption and investment...
...The New York Times October 4, 1976, mentioned such a "freeze...
...A U.N...
...2 Rep...
...Interviews also revealed that U.S...
...In short, the U.S...
...Further, although the economic aid ceiling did include AID development assistance, PL 480 Food for Peace (Title I) loans, and Housing Guaranty Loans, it specifically did not apply to other sources of aid, such as the Export-Import Bank or OPIC...
...For a discussion of inflation in Chile, see "Chile: Recycling the Capitalist Crisis," NACLA's LA&ER, op...
...Interview with a staff aide on Capitol Hill...
...and the heads of the Second Infantry Division, the Engineer School at Tejas Verdes (a known torture center), and the paratroop and special forces school near Santiago...
...interests, while reducing political losses by publicly admitting and criticizing the junta's human rights violations...
...not yet delivered) to Chile as of mid-1976...
...But the overthrow of Allende and the massive aid for the junta also produced tremendous problems for policy-makers...
...By mid-1975 the Ford Administration faced widespread opposition to its support for Augusto Pinochet...
...interests...
...In February 1976, the World Bank authorized a controversial $33 million loan to help rehabilitate Chile's copper mining and processing facilities...
...In 1975, a group of four political officers at the U.S...
...policy-makers did not in 1975 or in 1976 foresee any alternative to the Pinochet junta which would serve U.S...
...image" caused by Chile policy...
...In order to contain that revolution, the majority of the Chilean population had to be repressed, punished for daring to try to build a new society...
...At a press conference he announced that he was "impressed by the resolve of the Chilean government to take forceful steps and accelerate the rate of growth of the economy...
...Bill Goodfellow, "Chile's Chronic Economic Crisis: 1976 and Beyond," International Policy Report, Center for International Policy, Washington, D.C., September 1976, p. 10...
...It was clear that Simon's trip was essentially a lobbying effort aimed at defusing criticisms in the United States over U.S.-Chile policy...
...and he was arrested in Costa Rica in March 1976 (where he was admitted with a Chilean passport), after being charged with plotting the assassination of Andres Pascal Allende, a leader of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), then in exile in Costa Rica.2 In Venezuela, Bosch named two Cuban exiles, the brothers Ignacio and Guillermo Novo as Letelier's murderers...
...In order to circumvent public criticism, the U.S...
...foreign policy...
...in the 1960s...
...Ties," R'ansnational Features Service, available from Box 19148 A, Los Angeles, Ca., 90019...
...Since the overthrow of the Unidad Popular government, the United States has appeared as the villain in nearly all media accounts of Chilean events...
...3 0 Jorge Cauas, Chile's Minister of Finance, traveled to Washington on September 21 and was told by Treasury Secretary Simon that the situation in Chile made it difficult to get aid through Congress...
...For example, the Drug Entorcement Administration (DEA) now has 400 agents stationed overseas, and the General Accounting Office has confirmed that some DEA agents are engaged in the same activities as their predecessors in the former Office of Public Safety (abolished by Congress in 1974), which aided police forces abroad...
...The U.P...
...government was continuing to push more aid for the junta, but was increasingly forced to recognize and deal with criticism of its policy...
...aid to Chile - especially in 1975 and 1976...
...They recognize the high political costs of continued aid for the junta...
...3. See '"Chile: Recycling the Capitalist Crisis," NACLA 's Latin America and Empire Report, November 1976...
...The current reality is that, although capitalist relations have been strengthened in Chile, capitalist development exists as an aspiration only...
...efforts, however, the Chilean economy shows only faint signs of recovery...
...9 Though incomplete in many respects, the report fueled media and Congressional opposition to U.S.-Chile policy...
...government's maneuverability in aiding them...
...government feared a revolution in Chile which would produce a second Cuba in Latin America...
...One State Department official attested to the effectiveness of this opposition, when he told us that "the corporations are always calling me up asking when the situation in Chile will change...
...This policy formulation explains the following important events of 1975 and 1976: 0 July 1975: Deputy Secretary of State Robert Ingersoll "strongly admonished" Chile's foreign minister, Colonel Enrique Valdez, for the Chilean government's decision to exclude investigators of the U.N...
...government and Congress over foreign policy formulation...
...The Washington Post, October 20, 1976...
...In short, the resistance within Chile and the Chilean solidarity movement in the United States succeeded in raising the costs to the U.S...
...government nationalized U.S...
...government would, under the 1975 policy directive, use more subtle forms of aid (the IDB, for example) and publicly criticize the junta for human rights violations, not because of any concern for the Chilean people, but because visible repression made it difficult to channel aid and investments to Chile in the required quantities...
...The Chilean newspaper, El Cronista, accused Ford of joining the ultra-left...
...The condition of human rights as assessed by the O.A.S...
...So-now we are trying to move Chile back to freedom...
...Letelier could not have served the junta's purposes...
...Basing growth projections upon the volatile copper price is extremely precarious, as the junta learned in 1975...
...and C.I.A...
...PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE: CUTTING LOSSES WITH CARTER...
...This final formulation was based on the assumption that the junta was not stable enough to withstand the internal consequences of an aid cut-off...
...The United States supported the loan, in spite of militant lobbying by church, labor and other anti-junta groups, and in spite of the fact that nine of the Bank's 20 directors, representing 41 percent of the Bank's voting stock, either abstained or voted against the loan...
...leaders and institutions today...
...government of continued aid for the junta...
...5. For more on covert operations in Chile, see "Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973," Staff Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, (G.P.O., Washington, D.C...
...At one point, Chile considered voting for it but decided not to in order to avoid the appearance that the resolution had been totally watered down...
...The United States would continue to aid Chile in 1975 and 1976 in order to enable the junta to solidify its rule, make debt payments, and begin economic reconstruction...
...THE POLICY DILEMMA 1. Michael Chossudovsky, "Chicago Economics, Chilean Style," Monthly Review, April 1975, p. 16...
...3 3 Other sources of aid - like the Commodity Credit Corporation and the IDB - will presumably remain available...
...They must be made a focus of future protests...
...Perhaps most important, throughout 1971 and 1972, Chilean workers increasingly expressed their intention to move the Unidad Popular government further than its original program anticipated, and the U.S...
...The authorization was made in the brief period between the bill's passage in Congress and the day it became law with the president's signature...
...Source: Congressional Research Service Study...
...Instead, it has indulged in speculation in financial securities and commodities...
...Economic Assistance Programs," Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, April 29 and May 5, 1976, House of Representatives (G.P.O., Washington, D.C...
...See Appendix...
...Prepared by Bruce T. Cameron, Thomas F. Beauvais...
...More congresspeople are wary of indiscriminate interventionist policies in the third world, and this greatly limits the maneuverability of contemporary "hawks" like Kissinger...
...In the brief period between the bill's passage in Congress and the day it became law with the president's signature, State rushed through $9.2 million worth of sales of spare parts to Chile (mainly for the F-5E's).s TRAINING More than 4,000 Chilean officers and enlisted men have been trained at U.S...
...The final version of the International Security Assistance Bill (passed in June 1976) did ban all military assistance and sales to Chile and limited economic aid to $27.5 million a year...
...interests - of strategic importance for the United States...
...10 As a result of the protests, "human rights" became an issue in the foreign policy debates between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford...
...Within the United States, Congress imposed limits on aid to Chile...
...See "Chile: the Status of Human Rights and its Relationship to U.S...
...aid to the junta...
...Even the editors of the Wall Street Journal recognized his persuasiveness when they took the unusual step of criticizing his Nation article in an editorial the day before he was killed...
...Finally, whatever the junta's claims, the economy is stagnating...
...Reformism of the Frei variety led in Chile to heightened class consciousness, and the election of Allende in 1970...
...sources for spare parts for these aircraft...
...Public opposition to U.S.-Chile policy and publication of some of the facts about U.S...
...The State Department now has to justify all its aid in human-rights terms...
...For U.S...
...3 Although it has tried to diversify its sources of arms (buying from Europe, Israel and Brazil, for example), it remains heavily dependent on the United States...
...3. Andre Gunder Frank, "Economic Genocide in Chile," Second Open Letter to Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, unpublished, April 1976...
...The main boast of the junta is that the foreign account is now balanced...
...ruling circles over how best to further U.S...
...October 4, 1976...
...In Chile, the junta and its civilian advisors recognize that Chile can no longer count on large amounts of bilateral aid from the U.S...
...support, covert or overt, for Chile and similar regimes will not simply stop...
...This represents a real defeat for U.S...
...November 1975: A "high-ranking State Department official" told the New York Times that U.S.-Chile relations were "strained" because of disputes over human rights issues...
...The junta's decision was made one week before the Commission delegates were to arrive...
...Thus, it is apparent that official policy for 1975-1976 aimed to maximize support for the junta, because it continued to serve U.S...
...C.I.A...
...78 assassination attempt in Rome in early October 1975, Orlando Letelier threatened the junta because he was a strong leader of exiled Chileans with much support in Europe and the United States...
...But equally important, congressional outrage at the covert action in Chile helped to build congressional opposition to covert action in Angola...
...1 9 Thus, by early September 1976, the U.S...
...NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report, January 1976, p. 14...
...and "The United States - Propping up the Junta," NACLA's LA&ER, October 1974...
...Whatever the reality of the Alliance for Progress, the United States was able at least to rhetorically emphasize legitimate goals of economic development, income redistribution and other reformist measures during the 1960s...
...December 18, 1975...
...goals in Chile...
...Under this pressure, the Ford Administration countered by making the following moves: - The Administration continued to push bilateral aid to Chile ' as well as aid from institutions not directly under Congressional control...
...As a former employee of the IDB, and Ambassador to the United States, Letelier (who also served as Minister of Defense in the UP government) was unique in his contacts in the United States and Europe...
...The Washington Post, October 20, 1976...
...When asked whether the U.S...
...Although the Alliance, at its base, aimed at keeping Latin America securely within the U.S...
...The four admitted that an aid cut-off might cause instability within Chile, and that it might lead to a change of government - perhaps in favor of the Left...
...30...
...government of supporting the junta...
...In the past three years, the junta has spent more money per capita of Chile's population on military equipment than any other country in the world, except Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia...
...Letelier was killed by agents of the Chilean military junta," because the "killing of Mr...
...had virtually ruled out the idea that Mr...
...Donald Frazer, who had pushed hardest for the stiffer limitations, considered the final bill a victory, but resolved to cut back aid still further in 1977...
...MILITARY SALES TO CHILE AND LATIN AMERICA FY 1969-76 ($U.S...
...The State Department strong-armed members of the Paris Club (a loose association of Chile's creditor nations) into rescheduling (i.e., postponing) $236 million of the $700 million in debt payments due in 1975...
...Because of this, and because of disagreements with other policies, the American public is divided as never before about American foreign policy in general...
...The Senate voted the resolution in late October, just hours before recessing for the elections...
...Thus, progressive forces in the United States who wish to aid the Resistance have a major role to play in the future...
...interests in Latin America...
...Nevertheless, any weakening of the dictatorship through further cutbacks in U.S...
...As this NACLA Report goes to press, fundamental contradictions face the persons and institutions responsible for U.S.-Chile policy, and it appears that we are at the end of one period in the history of U.S.-Chile relations...
...For more on the Harkin Amendment, see p. 28...
...Whether they are successful will depend on (1) the amount of pressure generated by the Chile solidarity movement in the United States for full public disclosure of the on-going investigation...
...For more on this, see the Appendix of this Report...
...The Washington Post, October 9, 1976, revealed that the C.I.A...
...policy in Chile, and the rest of Latin America: where revolutionary options present a real threat, brutal military dictatorships are supported as the only means to preserve U.S...
...Embassy in Santiago (at least one, and possibly all of them, was a C.I.A...
...The Executive and Congress have been at loggerheads over relations with Chile, over aid to Turkey, over the Russian grain sales, and over southern Africa, to mention only a few examples...
...government in the destabilization and eventual overthrow of the UP government...
...November 1975: The United States voted in favor of a U.N...
...The figure was higher than the 1974 ceiling of $25 million, but it specifically included housing guarantees and Food for Peace Loans in the limits...
...Co interRevolutionary Apparatus: The Chilean Offensive," NACLA's LA&ER, July-August 1974...
...Thus, Letelier's murder fits into a pattern of political murders, and many suspected the DINA, the junta's secret police, of being responsible...
...In September 1976, the junta had begun a lobbying offensive to convince U.S...
...interests...
...it opened Chile up to revolutionary exiles from other Latin American countries, giving them safe ground from which to organize socialist struggles...
...Henry S. Reuss (D.-Wisc...
...3 s The New York Times cited Kissinger's desire to assist U.S...
...This possibility, they said, should not be feared, since Chile was in no way strategic to U.S...
...The same imperatives which dictated U.S...
...Now the United States has thrown out the rhetoric of the Alliance for Progress in favor of open support for the most reactionary elements in Latin America...
...panel of inquiry recently charged that the junta's repression continues unabated...
...For details on aid, see Appendix below...
...In an article published in The Nation magazine on August 28, 1976, he effectively showed the link between the junta's economic measures and the repression within Chile...
...corporations and banks must be made the target of future organizing efforts, so that they do not give the junta the capital it needs so desperately in the years ahead...
...Nevertheless, rumors began to circulate in Washington of a "freeze" on further aid to Chile, 2 9 and a Sate Department official told a Washington-based journalist that he was preparing "contingency plans" for a total aid cut-off to Chile...
...policy-makers, who want to mystify the nature of U.S...
...Reflecting this, the U.S...
...Nor did this official foresee any alternative to Pinochet within the Chilean military, stating that U.S...
...2. The $120 million figure is an estimate given us in a telephone interview with Colonel Stewart Quig, September 2, 1976...
...For the first time, Chile was excluded from the military assistance proposal...
...After days of discussion, the OAS General Assembly adopted a mild resolution on human rights that sidestepped harsh criticism of Chile...
...government - committed as it is to expanding capitalist interests throughout the world - will continue to combat socialism in Chile...
...What may change are the tactics used in confronting revolutionary challenges in Latin America...
...Ruling circles in the United States are increasingly forced to confront opposition to their counterrevolutionary goals in Latin America, and the opposition - especially in Chile's case - has begun to severely limit U.S...
...Chile policy has produced a major propaganda defeat for the United States, and it has deeply affected and exacerbated the dissension at home over U.S...
...In Chile, the DEA is spending $45,000 a year to "train narcotics agents," and it plans to expand its program there...
...It may encourage Christian Democratic or other "democratic" alternatives to the junta's rule...
...governments may be forced to find new and less obvious means of aiding repressive regimes.* U.S...
...From the text of the Chilean note to the U.S...
...With this example to guide us, we can build a movement in this country which would put an end to U.S...
...The State Department and the Department of Defense have used every available opportunity to bypass congressional restrictions on military sales to Chile...
...foreign policy...
...involvement in the overthrow of Allende and continued open support for the military junta have laid bare the violence inherent in U.S...
...aims in Latin America, future U.S...
...Since 1972 there has been an institutional crisis in Washington caused by differing views in Congress and the Executive Branch over the correct tactics in certain key areas of foreign policy...
...6 The ban on military sales voted in 1975 theoretically includes training, but continual pressure will be necessary to assure that the U.S...
...The Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 1976...
...many members of Congress, nearly the entire media, and the Chile solidarity movement condemned the assassination as the latest in a long list of atrocities committed by the junta...
...involvement in the overthrow of Allende forced Congress to act on the Chile issue...
...The ban did not actually become law until December 1974, and the Defense Department continued to sell arms to Chile until the moment when it was signed by the president...
...Inflation continues to haunt a regime advised by self-proclaimed experts in monetary affairs...
...have tried to cover up the "Chilean connection" with the Cuban exiles...
...move in recent years towards Chile...
...The massive aid effort necessary to prop up the junta in its hour of need served its purpose - the socialist threat was temporarily staved off...
...The New York Times, May 17, 1976...
...In order to understand this apparent paradox, we must review the main events of U.S...
...For real, long-term changes in U.S...
...The economy reeled under the junta's "shock treatment," which was designed to force Chile's workers to bear the cost of the crisis produced by the fall in copper prices and the junta's restrictive economic measures...
...hegemony, the United States is forced to deal with increasing revolutionary expectations and realities in Latin America...
...investors that Chile's economic problems were nearly resolved, that corporations could invest safely in Chile and be assured of political stability and adequate profits...
...6,000 are still detained, according to this report...
...Finally, the junta announced on October 21 that it no longer needed U.S...
...More Americans now pressed for a change in U.S.-Chile policy...
...Asserting that the Administration was circumventing the Congressional ban, Senator Kennedy charged that "Within 24 hours of the House-Senate Conference agreement, they were finalizing a new commitment...
...Without U.S...
...To substantially affect the existing very costly program...
...The problems described above explain president-elect Jimmy Carter's vague, but consistent, criticisms of past policies towards Chile...
...As a result of an investigation into the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet on October 6, which resulted in the death of all 73 people aboard, Venezuelan police uncovered plans for terrorist attacks against Cuba, as well as plans for the assassination of Letelier...
...Because of the tactical disagreements within U.S...
...7. Latin America (London), January 2, 1976, reports that Chile is interested in joint weapons production with Brazil...
...6. This information was gathered in interviews in Washington with sources who must remain anonymous...
...State Department, May 1976...
...El Universal, Caracas, Venezuela, September 30, 1976...
...intelligence reports indicated Pinochet had solidified his rule by retiring (or killing) top generals who might oppose him...
...2 2 More important, Bosch has been definitively linked to the junta...
...Chile has received approximately $2 million in such sales each year since 1974 and ranked either second or third in total commercial sales to Latin America...
...Simon's trip, like Kissinger's in the next month (see below) had several purposes: (1) to legitimate the junta with his presence...
...By early 1976, the "human rights" issue became a major component of all discussions of U.S.-Chile aid, and by mid-1976 Congress was considering amendments aimed at (1) cutting off all military sales and deliveries of weapons already "in the pipeline" to Chile...
...Statement by Henry Kissinger," Department of State Bulletin, July 5, 1976...
...A State Department official made these remarks in a "background briefing" with Bill Goodfellow of the Center for International Policy...
...In December, the Senate Select Committee investigating abuses by the intelligence community published its report, "Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973," documenting the massive involvement of the U.S...
...government would support a Christian Democratic "alternative" to Pinochet, one official at the Chile Desk in the State Department said, in May 1976, "The Christian Democrats are a feckless bunch, and their programs were a disaster...
...imperial control...
...and (2) an economic aid limitation of $27.5 million, which would include most potential forms of bilateral aid available to Chile...
...The final bill represented a compromise reached by conferees from the House and Senate...
...aid institutions and even discourage loans from the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank...
...public and private aid to Chile and specifically 5 to promote private investment through the government's OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) guarantee program, which insures private foreign investments.' 3 He also urged Chile to improve its record on human rights "in order for the U.S.-Chilean economic and financial relationship to grow and in order for other countries also to support Chile's economic program...
...it reached out towards Cuba and other socialist nations...
...resolution criticizing the status of human rights in Chile...
...8. Ibid...
...policy towards Latin America and the Third World, much more is necessary...
...corporations to Chile (sales not transacted under the authority of the Foreign Military Sales Act [FMS...
...The prevailing position definitely considered maintenance of the junta - as a government which served U.S...
...See "Protection of Huinan Rights in Chile," Report of the Economic and Social Council, United Nations, October 1976...
...The truth about Chile was spread across the front page of this nation's newspapers and shown on television screens throughout the country...
...The World Bank has been especially tarnished, and President McNamara is worried about the sharp divisions within his Executive Board over the Chile issue...
...Human Rights Commission to set ground rules for its visit to Chile...
...Labor, church, and progressive political organizations throughout the United States have questioned and protested nearly every U.S...
...The "leader of the free world" is seen as leader of an unholy alliance of states poised with raised bayonets against the legitimate aspirations of human beings for a fair share of the world's wealth...
...The World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank, for example, continue to plan new loans for the junta...
...He criticized U.S.Chile policy in the foreign policy debate with Gerald Ford (the transcript is reprinted in The New York Times, October 9, 1976) and in his Playboy interview (November 1976...
...Although an analysis of its causes lies beyond the scope of this article, the persistence of triple-digit inflation (around 200 percent in 1976) strongly suggests that Chile's economic planners have failed in their effort to cut chronic inflation by restructuring the economy...
...aid would represent a real victory for the Left in Chile...
...equipment to Chile, in order to circumvent the congressional restrictions...
...Since the beginning of the Viet Nam War, the United States has faced a continual erosion in its "image," and in the last three years the events in Chile have played a key part in this...
...3 2 This was an obvious attempt (perhaps promoted by the State Department itself) to undercut the controversy over future aid to Chile...
...They bowed to the inevitable when they ceremoniously "requested" not to be included in the FY 1978 aid program...
...Pueblo, (San Jose, Costa Rica), March 29, 1976...
...2 8 Meanwhile, the State Department avoided strong condemnation of Letelier's murder and continued to draw up requests for aid to Chile in FY 1977...
...and it threatened to become a model for revolutionary change for other third world countries, and even for European countries like Italy and France...
...Chile:* Latin America Chile's rank in Latin America 1969 1.7 20.0 3 1970 .6 24.9 2 1971 2.9 50.0 5 1972 6.3 109.9 5 1973 15.0 108.3 5 1974 1975 1976" 75.1 212.3 1 48.4 154.7 1 37.5 162.9 1 Notes * Figures exclude commercial sales made directly from private U.S...
...Orlando Letelier was the most articulate spokesman in the United States to dispute these claims...
...This purpose was clear when Simon told a press conference in Cancun, Mexico, on May 17 that he would ask Congress to maintain economic aid to Chile without further cuts, on the basis of the junta's assurances of an improvement on human rights' These remarks were published in the Washington Post and the New York Times on Monday of the week that the Security Assistance Bill was to go before Congress (it was later delayed...
...After the 1973 coup, other officers trained by the United States included the director of Intelligence...
...7* October 1975: The Ford Administration sent its annual security-assistance requests to Congress...
...It would seem, then, that we can expect a cooling-off in relations between the junta and the United States in the next four years...
...6. For more on this, see "The Pentagon's Proteges...
...Finally, U.S...
...See, for example, The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 1976...
...This dissenting opinion was discussed in 1975 in policy meetings involving Chile, and it was supported by several "soft liners" within the State Department who argued that an aid cut off probably would not force any change in Chile, but that it would serve to stop the continuing erosion of the U.S...
...and (2) whether or not study and analysis by independent investigators and researchers can turn up additional information in Venezuela and elsewhere.26 Whatever the result of the investigation, the assassination of Orlando Letelier did raise considerably the political cost to the U.S...
...As NACLA goes to press, a story has surfaced replete with intrigue and byzantine connections among anti-Castro Cuban exiles, the Chilean junta, and the C.I.A...
...The four men argued that the United States was losing international prestige with its continuing support of the Pinochet government, which showed no signs of letting up on its repressive policies...
...leaders face as a result of their policies towards Chile...
...9. "Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973," op...
...3 These conditions are not just the "by-products" of military rule, but rather the very essence of the counterrevolution waged against Chile's working class, which threatened revolution in the 1970-1973 period...
...In late 1976, while still opposing measures to stabilize commodity prices through international agreements, the Ford Administration announced its intention to ask Congress for authorization to rebuild the U.S...
...Further, the United States successfully pushed for loans to Chile from the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) totaling $70.8 million...
...leaders about current U.S.-Chile policy...
...Despite massive U.S...
...It had also taken on economic dimensions...
...shells, these guns are essentially useless...
...They recognize the contradictions produced by the policies followed in Chile over the past six years...
...business interests - and especially those banks and corporations with large investments and loans in Chile - will not support any policy change which threatens to undermine "stability" there...
...Nevertheless, there should be no illusions about major changes in U.S...
...The New York Times, October 24, 1976...
...The New York Times...
...Given the class consciousness of Chile's workers, and the growing strength of the Resistance, "stability" can only be assured by a repressive government, whatever its form...
...Nevertheless, U.S.-Chile policy is increasingly costly for the U.S...
...3U.S.-CHILE POLICY SINCE 1974 Earlier NACLA Reports have described the strategic concerns which guided Henry Kissinger and others in their relentless and multi-faceted war against the Unidad Popular government and the Chileans who supported it.4 Simply stated, U.S...
...Some members of Congress, including Senators Hubert Humphrey and Edward Kennedy, and Rep...
...and the C.I.A., 2 ' however, have tried to whitewash the Chileans' role in the murder, implicating instead anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the United States...
...2 s As more information surfaced, it became clear that Bosch and the other arrested Cuban exiles were part of a hemisphere-wide, right-wing terrorist network which grew out of the C.I.A.-backed campaign against Cuba in the 1960s, and which now receives support from Chile's military government...
...Further, more research is necessary to reveal how much and what sort of equipment Chile is buying from other countries, such as Brazil, which could try to pass U.S...
...government helped overthrow Allende and then poured millions of aid dollars into Chile to prop up the junta...
...5. The Washington Post, June 25, 1976...
...The Washington Post, June 25, 1976...
...There is no doubt that Congressional opposition to aiding the junta has limited U.S...
...corporations...
...Clearly, policy makers are trying to find a new formula for furthering U.S...
...The blatant political intervention of the United States in these agencies' decision-making has further weakened the image of these institutions, which the United States has long considered central to its relations with the developing world...
...The government official who revealed this must remain anonymous...
...For example, Senator Kennedy attached an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of FY 1975 which prohibited military aid, credit and sales to Chile...
...For example, the Carter Administration may cut back capital flows to Chile from U.S...
...Most importantly, he argued convincingly that the junta's economic policies were failing and that the economy was in desperate shape...
...The magnitude of the legitimacy problem becomes clear in comparing the Alliance for Progress rhetoric of the 60s with the "Alliance for Regression" of the 70s...
...Similarly, much of the lauded increase in non-mineral exports resulted from the drying up of the internal market, as producers were compelled to turn to foreign markets...
...It is too early to know where all this information will lead, but so far the F.B.I...
...It was a brutal, desperate act, and it galvanized public opinion against the junta...
...interests...
...Failing to halt the capitalist business cycle, the Unit~ed States was unable to save its allies in Santiago from the depressive effects - especially the drop in copper prices caused by low global demand, which aggravated Chile's debt burden by forcing it to borrow in order to pay for imports and to make debt payments...
...had joined the investigation...
...Chile Today...
...Even though the "request" for no more bilateral aid may be symbolic, it does indicate the degree of dissension among U.S...
...The United States isn't pushing Frei...
...Chile had been the leader of democratic societies in Latin America, and they couldn't tolerate the kind of repression Allende brought...
...16 Kissinger balanced the criticism of Chile by calling attention to alleged human rights violations in Cuba, but the overall impact of the speech was clear: like Simon, Kissinger was warning Chile's leaders that their behavior reduced the U.S...
...Now, in a period of declining U.S...
...The Miami Herald reported in December 1974 that Bosch - then living in Curacao - was "guarded by a well-armed band of Chilean [right-wing] guerrillas and apparently has access to both money and political influence...
...In late June 1976, the State Department showed its continued determination to aid the junta by authorizing a $9.2 million credit for sales of spare parts -- mainly for the F-SE fighters...
...chairman of the House Banking Committee, took an immediate step in this direction...
...policy in Latin America for many years (in Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, and the Dominican Republic in 1965, for example), never before have so many Americans openly opposed it...
...See also, Rodney Larson, "Washington Bombing Causes Demands for Congressional Probe of Chile-U.S...
...The report quotes World Council of Churches figures which estimate that 100,000 people have been imprisoned since September 1973...
...William Simon, The Saturday Evening Post, October 1976 - In June 1976, Henry Kissinger traveled to Chile for a meeting of the Organization of American States, where he made a major speech on the human rights problem...
...but he argued to his Board of Directors that the bank "could take the risk in view of the much more extensive commitments made to Chile by the United States and other lenders...
...Santiago, Chile, May 12, 1976...
...Further, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) must be prevented from re-opening its program of insuring U.S...
...options in aiding repressive governments...
...human-rights commission has impaired our relationship with Chile and will continue to do so," he said...
...This absurd and obvious attempt to clear the junta seems destined to fail...
...Meanwhile, the junta continued to round up hundreds of new prisoners in preparation for the coming OAS meeting...
...He is a long-time leader of Cuban exiles, head of the umbrella group known as the Coordination of .United Revolutionary Organizations, and he - like others under arrest for the airline bombing - received extensive training from the C.I.A...
...The Chile solidarity movement played a key role in bringing before the public the facts about U.S.-Chile policy, and raised the domestic political cost of further aid to the junta...
...Finally, although junta apologists in the United States have counted on rising copper prices to benefit the junta," the current price is down to its lowest level in several months, falling to 55 cents per pound in October on the London Metals Exchange...
...NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES: STATE DEPARTMENT DEBATES OVER CHILE POLICY Interviews by NACLA in the State Department and elsewhere in Washington foreign policy circles* revealed that these developments produced "considerable debate" (in the words of one official), within the National Security Council and the State Department, over whether the United States should continue to aid the junta...
...The Institute for Policy Studies, for example, is conducting an independent investigation of the assassination...
...In hearings on appropriations for the IDB, he criticized the bank's loans to Chile, and specifically referred to Letelier's murder in urging that the IDB take seriously the Harkin Amendment, which forbids most loans to countries which violate human rights...
...1976...
...12 He promised to try to increase U.S...
...7 TABLE I-A U.S...
...thus it reduced the Administration's ability to bypass Congressional limitations by using these mechanisms to funnel additional aid to the junta...
...Further, the artillery on Chile's ships comes from the United States...
...rulers viewed the Allende government as a major threat to strategic U.S...
...foreign policy apparatus...
...Because of these concerns, the US...
...Like General Carlos Prats, who was assassinated in Buenos Aires in September 1974, and Christian Democratic leader Bernardo Leighton, who was the target of an unsuccessfulDeath Merchants In spite of congressional efforts to limit sales of military equipment to Chile, the junta bought an astounding $143.5 million worth of military equipment from the United States between 1973 and March 1976.' Although the International Security Assistance Act of 1976 (passed in June 1976) prohibits all future military sales to Chile (cash or credit), $120 million worth of equipment was still "in the pipeline" (i.e...
...The reluctance of foreign capital to enter Chile raises further doubts about an increase in investment capital...
...4. "Chile: the Story Behind the Coup," NACLA's Latin America and Empire Report (LA&ER), October 1973...
...The resolution cited "constant and flagrant violations of human rights" in Chile...
...They worry that workers, church groups and stockholders will protest investment there...
...State Department, San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 1976...
...3 9 He and his foreign policy advisors recognize that support for the junta is unpopular in the United States...
...government to justify aid to Chile...
...14 During his visit, the junta made several symbolic gestures to placate American criticism: it freed 49 prisoners (10 of whom had actually been released earlier) and promised to meet with the U.N...
...2) Partly as a result of public protest, U.S.-Chile policy has exacerbated the conflict between the Executive Branch of the U.S...
...The prevailing position which Kissinger (and presumably the Department of Defense) backed, won out in the end...
...Seventy percent of Chile's airplanes and helicopters were manufactured in the United States, and the junta depends on U.S...
...Ercilla...
...Within Chile, resistance continued, and the junta's repression grew more brutal...
...use of these planes will now require U.S...
...He implied that he thought the Christian Democrats were to blame for Allende's victory...
...We're stuck with Pinochet, but he's not doing such a bad job," he commented...
...Nevertheless, it was in many ways a symbolic move, since it will only affect aid granted under the Foreign Assistance Act - i.e., loans and grants from the Agency for International Development and Title I Food for Peace Loans...
...Though this reality has determined U.S...
...In May 1976, Treasury Secretary William Simon spent 10 hours in Chile, the first visit by a major American official since the September 1973 coup...
...In fact, variable commodity prices and the debt burden are recurrent and generalized problems that plague the international trade and capital markets into which the junta is so fervently seeking to insert itself...
...imperialism with their blood across the world's front pages...
...Although certain aid sources are already limited, others remain open...
...Chile relations in 1974-1976, and then look at the problems U.S...
...investments in Chile (See OPIC box, p. 20...
...stockpile of strategic materials...
...Junta apologists have treated the harmful impact of the slump in copper prices and burdensome foreign debt payments as external factors that were, by bad luck, visited upon the junta's economic plans...
...Congressional Presentation Document, Security Assistance Program, FY77...
...operative) attached a "dissenting opinion" to the Country Analysis and 4 Strategy Paper (CASP) which formed the basis for 1975 National Security Council Policy discussions of U.S.-Chile policy...
...Interviews conducted in the State and Treasury Departments at that time revealed a certain desperation among policy-makers, as they tried to justify the aid on the grounds that "things are improving, and what choice have we got anyway...
...7. The New York Times, November 19, 1975...
...In 1975 alone, 651 officers and 160 enlisted men were trained at the School of the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone...
...For example, to substantially affect the world copper price, the United States will probably have to buy at least 200,000 tons a year...
...Recognizing this, Secretary Kissinger traveled around the United States in 1975 emphasizing in speeches that without a united public, the United States will be unable to effect its will abroad...
...For all of these tasks, a strong Chile solidarity movement is necessary...
...Within Chile, the junta considered the combination of events during the past months to be, on balance, hostile to its interests.2" THE AFTERMATH OF THE ASSASSINATION On September 21, Orlando Letelier, a former ambassador of the Unidad Popular government to the United States, and an associate, Ronni Moffett, were assassinated by a bomb as they drove to their work at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C...
...Nevertheless, the military ban did not apply to the delivery of "pipeline" military items (those previously purchased but not delivered - about $120 million worth of equipment...
...facilities in the past 20 years, including all the current members of the junta...
...As events in Chile unfolded over the past three years, many Americans have come to understand the broad thrust of U.S...
...Statement of Henry Kissinger before the House International Relations Committee," June 17, 1976, Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Media Services...
...Thus, Chile was actually able to buy $48.4 million worth of arms in FY 1975, in spite of the congressional prohibition...
...The Miami Herald, December 5, 1974...
...Senate unanimously voted a resolution condemning the assassination, and many Congresspeople expressed a commitment to pursue the investigation and to cut off all aid to Chile...
...policy under Carter...
...8 By early 1976, the Ford Administration was pushed even harder by opponents of U.S.-Chile policy...
...One out of every six members of the work force is unemployed, and 60 percent of Chile's people suffer malnutrition.' The junta has murdered an estimated 30,000 people and imprisoned another 100,000, many of whom were terribly tortured...
...and (3) to undercut congressional attempts to cut back aid...
...assurance that it would lobby for such loans...
...Blatant9 Solidarity Poster/U.S.A...
...2) to convince the junta that the visibility of its repression was making it difficult for European governments and the U.S...
...They circumvented Congressional restrictions and funnelled $182 million in bilateral aid to Chile in FY 1975...
...business interests...
...THE DEATH MERCHANTS I. This figure is compiled from a listing of all military sales to Chile as of March 3, 1976, provided by the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act...
...NACLA telephone interview with James Rousch, Agency for International Development...
...We are grateful to the many people who aided us...
...foreign policy in general...
...One of the people arrested in Venezuela in connection with the Cuban plane crash, Orlando Bosch, is currently wanted by the United States for questioning about the Letelier murder...
...4 Finally, the Chilean Air Force has ordered (and begun to receive) 18 F-5E jets and A-37B counterinsurgency jets...
...2 This equipment - including sophisticated F-5E fighters - will flow into Chile in the next few years, unless "pipeline" deliveries are cut off in 1977...
...imperialism, propping up the junta has staved off socialism, but it has cost millions of dollars, threatens to cost hundreds of millions more, and with uncertain results...
...4. Telephone interview with Robert Driscoll, Chile Desk Officer, U.S...
...Congress passed a new limitation, effective December 1975, of $90 million on aid to Chile...
...interventions in Latin America in the past will determine the Carter Administration's policies...
...The F.B.I...
...In any case, the extremely low investment levels of the past 2 years will continue to limit productive capacity over the medium term...
...Further, in June 1976, the State Department circumvented the congressional ban on all military sales to Chile which was voted as part of the Security Assistance Act of 1976...
...We wish this relationship to be close, and all friends of Chile hope that obstacles raised by conditions alleged in the report will soon be removed...
...President-elect Carter would never have singled out human rights as an issue, and particularly Chile's example, if widespread condemnation of U.S.-Chile policy had not forced it to the forefront of public consciousness...
...the media publicized the terrible repression...
...In the meantime, to keep the junta afloat, the United States has authorized $350.5 million in direct economic aid in the three years since the coup and has spent considerable energies in prying money out of multilateral development agencies (like the World Bank and IDB...
...The Novo brothers were indicted in the United States in 1965 on charges of firing a bazooka at the U.N...
...For more on this, see "Merchants of Repression," NACLA's Latin America and Empire Report, July-August 1976...
...Embassy of Chile, Washington, D.C., May 1976...
...These problems run like cracks through the existing system of imperial relations, forcing the United States to spend considerable financial and diplomatic capital on mending the cracks...
...The Washington Post, February 12, 1976...
...government does not circumvent the ban by training Chileans in more covert ways...
...He appeared before the House International Relations Subcommittee and argued that Chile's press had at least publicized his statements, and that the situation in Chile was improving...
...But U.S...
...This is a real loss in terms of "image" for the United States...
...sphere of influence, it was based on the "liberal" assumption that to assure long-term stability in Latin America, some concessions to the working class were necessary...
...At best, the economy will recover gradually...
...The United States should, they argued, cut its losses by cutting off aid to Chile until it stopped visibly violating human rights...
...This "accomplishment," rather than being a sign of prosperity, actually indicates the depth of the depression...
...government planned the overthrow of the Unidad Popular government of President Salvador Allende (1970-1973), and it has spent millions of dollars to stabilize the military government which took over in September 1973...
...1 7 Upon returning to the United States, Kissinger, like Simon, lobbied for continued U.S...
...2. See Report of the Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, United Nations, February 4, 1976...
Vol. 10 • December 1976 • No. 10
