Our Man in Chile
Winner, Lawrence S.
BOOKS Our Man in THE LAST TWO YEARS OF SALVADOR ALLENDE by Nathaniel Davis Cornell University Press. 480 pp. $24.95. by Lawrence S. Winner For more than a decade. Nathaniel Davis has lived...
...Indeed, although Davis claims to have liked Allende "wholeheartedly...
...to import into Africa the odious practice of 'political destabilization.*" Later, when Davis was named ambassador to Switzerland, the Swiss trade union federation joined other critics in challenging his htness for office...
...And surely some of the funds disbursed by the CIA found their way into the hands of those persons fostering chaos and disorder...
...Government The core of Davis's case lies in his contention that U.S...
...Our country stands for good purposes in the world," he maintains, "and I believe we shall sustain the power and influence to further them...
...official stated...
...Davis devotes 130 lines to Allende's failures and five lines to the failures of the opposition...
...intervention in Chilean politics and other internal matters...
...he manages to place almost all the blame for the coup on the shoulders of the martyred Chilean president...
...venture involved a February 1973 meeting between a U.S...
...Scattered about Davis's account are many examples of more direct U.S...
...involvement in "destabilizing" activities...
...This association was reinforced by the investigations of a special Senate committee headed by Frank Church, which revealed massive U.S...
...Furthermore, he insists that most of the $6 million spent by the CIA during Allende's presidency on its "Track I" approach went to opposition parties to sustain their election campaigns, organization, and mass media outlets...
...officials had no interest in discouraging it...
...Another U.S...
...beneficence...
...Given Davis's access to high-level U.S...
...insists Davis, did not support coup-related activities...
...activities have had upon small, Third World nations...
...sponsorship of a military coup in 1970 may well have given the impression to Chilean officers that their seizure of power would be welcome in Washington...
...More recently, the him Missing has portrayed Davis as involved in the 1973 coup and in the generals' murder of a young American...
...Surely the U.S.-directed international credit squeeze proved deleterious to the Chilean economy...
...One CIA "deception operation" entailed fabricating a letter that implied a conspiracy between Castro's Cuba and Chilean police officials and then delivering it to the Chilean military...
...officials deliberately sought to establish a "record of abstention" rather than "resort to increasingly superfluous coven intervention...
...More significantly, he argues that the goal of this so-called "Track II" approach shifted from "destabilization" of the Chilean government to intelligence reporting on the coup-plotting of Chilean military officers...
...1941-1949...
...The CIA also funded some private-sector groups—composed principally of businessmen—but...
...subsidy to the Christian Democrats—ostensibly to keep "democracy" alive—was terminated immediately after the armed forces seized power...
...Surveying U.S...
...Pinochet replied that action would be premature, but he and other generals concluded a month later that a constitutional resolution of Chile's difficulties was "impossible," he claimed afterward...
...Even today, after the grim consequences of a Chilean military dictatorship have become manifest, Davis lays out the case against U.S...
...He has initiated a lawsuit against the filmmakers of Missing and...
...efforts to prevent Allende's inauguration...
...Having served as U.S...
...You are on a sinking ship," the U.S...
...Davis grants this point...
...Government information, this could be a most enlightening book, supplementing the fine work already done by the Church committee and by such investigative journalists as Seymour Hersh...
...intelligence officer and General Au-gusto Pinochet, then army chief of staff and later leader of the 1973 coup...
...Surely the CIA-funded media scare campaign against Allende had some impact on public opinion...
...Confronted with overwhelming evidence that the Nixon Administration worked feverishly in 1970 to foment a coup...
...Surely the U.S...
...apologia...
...Consequently, when Davis was nominated as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, quite a furor erupted...
...dealings with Chile, he celebrates them as wise, restrained, and infused with "an element of genuine good will...
...One wonders, though, if the Soviet ambassador to Czechoslovakia would not find similar rationalizations for his nation's conduct—indeed, if such men are not interchangeable parts in the same kind of imperial apparatus...
...Representative Andrew Young assailed his nomination as "an insult to the African people...
...In addition, U.S...
...when the armed forces seized power...
...Summarizing his case...
...Nathaniel Davis has lived under a cloud of suspicion...
...more recently, written The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende...
...But even if wc go no further than the evidence Davis presents, his conclusion seems remarkably disingenuous...
...Unfortunately, however, it is little more than an elaborate Lawrence S. Witiner is professor of history at the Slate University of New York...
...He asserts that as Chilean coup-planning reached its apex in mid-1973, U.S...
...ambassador to Chile from 197 Ho 1973...
...His vision of the future is also characterized by a stubborn faith in U.S...
...while forty-three African nations denounced the action and promised that they would "most vehemently condemn and resist any move...
...a book focusing on the question of responsibility for the 1973 coup...
...Davis concedes no mistakes, bad judgments, or moral lapses—at least on the part of the U.S...
...Albany, and the author of "American Intervention in Greece...
...He notes, however, that the coup attempt failed, as did other U.S...
...threats to cut off military aid to Chile had some effect on the attitude of the Chilean armed forces...
...Foreign Service or his appointment to comfortable professorships...
...None of the criticism of Davis's role in Chile blocked his advancement within the U.S...
...Even so, it is clear that Davis craves exoneration...
...policy toward Chile shifted between 1970, when Allende was elected president, and 1973...
...Although the U.S...
...There arc no lines mentioning failures of the U.S...
...According to the Church committee, "the interconnections among the CIA-supported political parties, the various militant trade associations, and paramilitary groups prone to terrorism and violent disruption were many...
...He also reveals that the long-term U.S...
...Even former CIA Director William Colby conceded that, having launched the coup attempt of 1970, the "CIA was responsible to some degree for the final outcome...
...Charles Horman...
...he has been associated in the minds of many persons with the bloody military coup that toppled Socialist President Salvador Al-lende and ended Chilean democracy...
...embassy had detailed information on plans for the coup months before it occurred, Davis shows convincingly that U.S...
...When are you going to act...
...Overall, Davis refuses to acknowledge the destructive effects that these and other U.S...
...In his view, the causes of the destruction of Chilean democracy are purely "indigenous...
...action to abort the coup...
...Government...
...Surely the many millions of dollars the CIA funneled to political opponents of Allende emboldened them and reinforced their support of the 1973 coup...
...Having begun his diplomatic career in postwar Prague, Davis is undoubtedly fortified in such assumptions by memories of the Soviet-backed coup of 1948...
Vol. 49 • October 1985 • No. 10
