In a subsequent issue, however, one astute reader, Michael Dodge of St. Paul, Minnesota, challenged Time’s biased coverage:
Sir: Intrigued by your marvelous cold war headline, MARXIST THREAT IN THE AMERICAS, I read on to see who is being threatened. Apparently it’s some U.S. copper firms, the telephone company, and assorted juntas. Somehow, I’m not alarmed. I am, however, irritated by your persistent assumption that any form of Marxism enjoying any form of success in any part of the world is, ipso facto, a threat. This kind of thinking gave us Viet Nam. And it ignores the obvious: non-Marxist politicians have generally failed to meet the needs of the masses. I suggest we let our humanity transcend our cold war reflexes and hope that the people of Latin America are finding some kind of solution to their problems. We haven’t been much help.71
As the futility of track one became apparent, the focus shifted to track two. With the assistance of allies like Edwards, the United States proceeded to destabilize Chile politically and economically. “You have asked us to provoke chaos in Chile,” Hecksher acknowledged in a cable to Langley. Ambassador Korry warned Chilean Defense Minister Sergio Ossa, “We shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chilean people to utmost deprivation and poverty.” But even Korry later cabled Kissinger that he was “appalled” by the coup. Undeterred, Kissinger had Helms cable the CIA station in Santiago: “Contact the military and let them know USG [U.S. Government] wants a military solution, and that we will support them now and later…. Create at least some sort of coup climate…. Sponsor a military move.”72
On October 13, after a meeting with Kissinger, Thomas Hercules Karamessines, director of the CIA’s clandestine services, cabled Hecksher, “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup.” Karamessines instructed the Santiago station chief to encourage General Roberto Viaux to join forces with General Camilo Valenzuela and other coup planners in the military. The CIA provided guns and money to two of Valenzuela’s henchmen as part of a plan to kidnap General Schneider—the first step in initiating the coup. But on October 22, Viaux’s men apparently got to Schneider first and assassinated him. Exactly one week earlier, Nixon had assured Korry that he was going to “smash” that “son of a bitch Allende.”73
Allende took office on November 3, 1970, having been certified by a vote of 153–24. Two days later, Nixon instructed the National Security Council to topple Allende: “If we let… potential leaders in South America think they can move like Chile… we will be in trouble…. No impression should be permitted in Latin America that they can get away with this, that it’s safe to go this way.”74
Infuriated by the CIA’s failure to block Allende’s election and its tepid response to his coup plans, Nixon decided to clean house. Egged on by Kissinger’s deputy Alexander Haig, who urged him to eliminate “the key left-wing slots under Helms” and revamp the entire covert operations, Nixon threatened to slash the agency budget and fire Helms if he didn’t conduct a thorough purge. Haig knew that it would be “the most controversial gutfight” in memory. Helms axed four of his six deputies. Nixon ordered him to turn control of the agency over to his deputy, General Robert Cushman, and stay on as figurehead. Helms refused to go along. He also refused to have the CIA take the fall for the Watergate break-in. Nixon ended up firing him.75
The Export-Import Bank, the Agency for International Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the McNamara-led World Bank cut off economic assistance and loans to Chile. U.S. business interests in Chile helped Washington destabilize the government. The CIA jumped in, funding opposition parties and organizations, running propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and initiating demonstrations and violent actions against the government. The Chilean National Congress responded in July 1971 by nationalizing Kennecott, Anaconda, and Cerro Mining and assuming management control of ITT. Chilean authorities calculated that in light of the exorbitant profits that Kennecott and Anaconda had accrued over the years, they were entitled to no compensation. One of Anaconda’s lawyers complained, “We used to be the fucker. Now we’re the fuckee.”76 Nor was ITT in line for compensation after columnist Jack Anderson exposed the company’s efforts to block Allende’s election and destabilize Chile afterward.
On December 4, 1972, Allende took his case against the United States and the multinational corporations to the United Nations. In a powerful ninety-minute indictment that left listeners in the packed General Assembly hall cheering wildly and yelling “Viva Allende!” the Chilean president detailed the concerted attempt “to prevent the inauguration of a Government freely elected by the people and… to bring it down ever since.” “It is action,” he charged, “that has tried to cut us off from the world, to strangle our economy and to paralyze trade in our principal export, copper, and to deprive us of access to sources of international financing.” He spoke of the plight of all underdeveloped countries being ruthlessly exploited by multinational corporations when he said:
Our economy could no longer tolerate the subordination implied by having more than eighty percent of its exports in the hands of a small group of large foreign companies that have always put their interests ahead of those of the countries where they make their profits…. These same firms exploited Chilean copper for many years, made more than four billion dollars in profit in the last forty-two years alone, while their initial investments were less than thirty million…. We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful weapons, from positions of great influence…. We are potentially rich countries, yet we live in poverty. We go here and there, begging for credits and aid, yet we are great exporters of capital. It is a classic paradox of the capitalist economic system.77
Because of Chile’s “decision to recover its own basic resources,” Allende contended, international banks had colluded to cut off its access to credit. “In a word,” he declared, “it is what we call imperialist insolence.” He singled out the outrageous behavior of ITT, “whose capital is larger than the national budgets of several Latin American countries put together,” and Kennecott Copper, which, he alleged, had averaged 52.8 percent annual profit on its investment between 1955 and 1970. He decried the fact that huge, totally unaccountable “transnational” corporations were waging war against sovereign nations. “The entire political structure of the world,” he warned, “is being undermined.”78
Allende spoke on behalf of millions of Latin Americans who had been ruthlessly exploited for decades by U.S. corporations backed by U.S. diplomatic, military, and intelligence forces. It was the same indictment that General Smedley Butler and Henry Wallace had made so eloquently decades earlier.
U.S. UN Ambassador George H. W. Bush, who, according to the Chicago Tribune, had joined in the standing ovation, feebly replied, “We don’t think of ourselves as imperialists.” “The charge that private enterprise abroad is imperialistic bothers me. It’s one of the things that makes us great and strong.” Nor, he claimed, was the United States participating in any boycott of Chile. All the United States wanted to see was that the nationalized firms received just compensation.