Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet thanks his patron Henry
Kissinger, after the U.S.-backed coup that
put him in power
and toppled Salvador Allende.
U.S.-Backed Chilean Coup Led to Sarin Gas Attacks (El Espectador, Colombia)
"The animosity and expectations in opposition to Allende were so unanimous among U.S. officials - he was more feared than Fidel Castro himself - that they wanted Chile to have a dictatorship similar to the one they supported in Brazil, which backed total war on the left.
... They acted behind the scenes to prompt the Chilean army renegades to look
to their Brazilian counterparts. The latter would act as direct sponsors of the
coup, being the first to provide chemical weapons with which to conduct total
war against the left."
In
1973, he claimed the defense of freedom and the protection of vulnerable people
as a "moral" argument to justify U.S. intervention in Latin America.
As with Syria today, back then, the dilemma that confronted the U.S. government
was whether to "wait and protect our interests" against "
irresponsible" leaders through diplomatic channels, or "act now and
prevent the consolidation of its leadership." Both ways of speaking and
both quotes - the moral and that of crude realism - come from the same person: Henry
Kissinger, in a memo prepared for President Richard Nixon in 1970.
In
that memo, Kissinger reflects on the U.S. response to the
election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile.
The question was not whether the U.S. should support such a sovereign decision,
which was irresponsible according to Kissinger. No. The question was whether to prevent it with
subtlety or the use of a hammer.
The
facts were irrelevant. The decision didn't follow an analysis of events and
their consequences. As today, it was made to confirm decisions taken beforehand
- and to prevent responsibility for the intervention from being pinned on people like Kissinger
or Nixon.
They
decided to opt for a limited intervention and act through a third party, using
allies prepared to do their dirty work in keeping with U.S. goals. Intervention
in Chile was subject to a calculation about the impact it could have on the
balance of power. However, the animosity and expectations among U.S. officials in opposition to Allende were so unanimous - he was more feared than Fidel Castro himself - that they wanted Chile to have a dictatorship similar to the one they supported in Brazil, which backed a total war on the left.
Therefore,
they acted behind the scenes to prompt the Chilean army renegades to look to
their Brazilian counterparts. The latter would act as direct sponsors of the coup,
being the first
to provide chemical weapons with which to conduct total war against the
left.
The
renegades had their own motives that the U.S. didn't always recognize. For
example, the religious fundamentalism inherited from the Spanish right, which
allowed them to demonize the left. This fundamentalism also made clear its legal
and economic approaches, which were just as extreme if not more so than the fashion
from Chicago [the Chicago
school of economics].
This
even informs the constitution that in November, Chilean youth,
those men and women who today have rehabilitated the name and words of Allende, want to get rid of.
