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Related: About this forum4 Things to Remember About Chile's 1973 Coup
4 Things to Remember About Chile's 1973 Coup
Chile remebers its socialist president Salvador Allende
Published 26 June 2016
June 26 marks the birthday of former president Salvador Allende, who died in the coup.
Salvador Allende, the iconic left-wing leader and one of Chiles best known presidents, was born on this day on June 26, 1908. The tragic fate of his government, overthrown in a right-wing coup in 1973, changed the history of the countryand regionforever. On September 11, Allende's socialist was toppled by a U.S.-backed military coup led by Augusto Pinochet, barely three years after being elected.
Allende wasn't the only casualty of the coup, as thousands of Chileans were subsequently tortured, jailed and killed by the military regime. Democracy in Chile was irreparably altered, and even now the country continues to be scarred by one of the darkest eras of fear and repression on the continent.
After winning the 1970s presidential elections in Chile, the left-wing Salvador Allende worked toward social reforms and justice, nationalizing natural resources, building homes for the poor and focusing on better access to health and education.
Allende fought until the last hours of his life to defend the social gains and constitutional order. On his last speech, just minutes before the military bombed the presidential palace, he gave Chileans one last message of hope. I will not resign. Placed in a historic transition, I will pay the loyalty of the people with my life. And I tell them I have the certainty that the seed that we have planted in the dignified conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled. You have the power, they can destroy us, but social progress cannot be stopped neither by crime nor by force. History is ours, and people make it happen.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/4-Things-to-Remember-About-Chiles-1973-Coup-20160626-0012.html
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)the US-led coup against Allende was a seminal turning point, and a disastrous one, for the US, for the people of the world, for peace.
Just as (imo) the Iran coup radicalized Islam against the West, so Pinochet installed Chicago School economic policy and started its viral spread to the detriment of us all.
elleng
(135,161 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)and the changes he made to the economy, with U.S. backing. Everyone else doesn't see it that way.
1954 was a hot year for US maneuvers in other countries, considering Eisenhower also had the military overthrow Guatemala's beloved populist President, Jacobo Arbenz, on behalf of United Fruit, a big deal to both his Secretary of State, and his brother, the CIA head, as you know.
What an ugly year for US foreign affairs.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)Personally I think we wouldn't need it at all if we didn't have it. Given where we are, a good start would be to deprive the intelligence services of all operational abilities.
And as much as I admire Eisenhower's stance on war and the military-industrial complex, I really wish he had applied those same standards to covert operations.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)I've wondered about the disparity of what he knew and what he did, as well.
It could be he only said it in leaving, hoping it would generate some resistance to an evil problem which was growing larger.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Trust NO ONE who parrots the Official Story.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Wounded Bear
(60,241 posts)in The Shock Doctrine. The CIA used it as some kind of a training mission.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)By god, they did it, too.
The CIA were everywhere in that hellish spectacle.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)AntiBank
(1,339 posts)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Chile-DVD-Region-NTSC/dp/B002EOVWVQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466984004&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Battle+Of+Chile
here is it for free
The Battle of Chile Pt 4 Chile Obstinate Memory
https://kickass.unblocked.one/the-battle-of-chile-4of4-chile-obstinate-memory-xvid-mvgroup-t9309119.html
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)alfredo
(60,127 posts)Everything in a scene is there for a reason. It was a reminder of his part in that mess.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)alfredo
(60,127 posts)Many of his students were involved in the "Chile Miracle."
"The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein spends a lot of time discussing Chile.
http://shockdoctrinesummary.blogspot.com/2009/04/1970s-chile.html
"Lesson learned: the formula works. Combining a political shock (the coup) with ensuing fear and torture tactics ensures that market changes will occur without protest, without public awareness."
-----
The shock doctrine was used on us in the wake of 911. The Patriot Act was one of the "reforms." We were too scared to question what Bush was doing. Of course some of us weren't cowed.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)It's so good knowing this book is out there, and will probably continue to be read for a long time to come.
Some people do remember the odd stories arising all over the country indicating the instant polarization created, the rancor and suspicion of anyone who didn't support all US gov't efforts the minute it happened.
There were events which happened like Gov't agents who showed up at the apartment door of a woman who had a large poster on her wall which could be seen from the hallway of George W Bush and his record for capital punishment deaths when he was the governor in Texas. Clearly someone had tried to turn her in for subversion, or something.
Then there was a visit paid to a car barn where there were various cars painted, called "art cars," I believe, because someone had concluded one of those cars seemed subversive," etc., etc., etc.
A drunk arrested in a bar who had been heard yelling about the "Burning Bush" which apparently was taken to be a death threat against the President.
Who doesn't remember Ari Fleisher started immediately intimidating the members of the Press at press briefings, indicating every one of them was being watched, read, examined, and could easily get him/herself in trouble if the government didn't like his/her product?
The announcement people should watch each other, and plumbers, housepainters, electricians, delivery men, etc. should be sure to turn in names of anyone they discovered might seem to be up to no good, terror-wise.
We had instant panic.
Sihks being killed within a day or two because criminally insane people mistook them for "Islamic" people they would like to kill.
Total madness, and it was ALL peachy keen, in the end, because the disturbance was good ol' Americans worried about self-defense.
Anything's allowed in that case, as it seems.
Sure glad you took the time to remind us of the unavoidable connection. A lot of people just don't get it, yet, and probably won't. Sad.
whathehell
(29,587 posts)I urge any who haven't seen it to do so pronto
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)which was immediately shunned and possibly blacklisted in the US when it came out, although it was widely received everywhere else.
Wikipedia:
The 1972 movie State of Siege by Costa-Gavras is based on the story of Mitrione's kidnapping.[18] The film was not available for home video in USA in a good-quality edition until late May 2015, when it was issued on standard and Blu-ray DVD by Janus Films/The Criterion Collection.
The kidnapping and the execution of Mitrione are also central to the plot of the novel El color que el infierno me escondiera by Uruguayan author Carlos Martinez.
More on US gov't torturer, Mitrione, at link.
Wiki info. on State of Siege:
The film opened to positive reviews from critics and is regarded as one of Costa-Gavras' finest works since the 1969 film Z. While it was released one year later in American theaters, a storm of controversy developed. Many U.S. officials hated the movie and even stated that it was a heap of lies about U.S. involvement in Latin America and other third world countries. In Washington, D.C., it was removed from a special screening at the John F. Kennedy Center,[1] only to be run uncut on a local TV station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Siege
The movie Missing was so well done. I still feel grief for the US American family just thinking about their suffering. Their ordeal was undoubtedly duplicated by the family of Frank Teruggi, Jr. , who was taken by Pinochet, too:
Arrest and death[edit]
On September 20, 1973, nine days after coup d'état, Frank Teruggi, in the same way as Charles Horman, was seized by Chilean military at his home and taken to the National Stadium in Santiago, which had been turned into an ad hoc concentration camp, where prisoners were interrogated and tortured and many were executed.
In the film Missing, by Costa-Gavras, Teruggi is depicted as a contributor for a small newspaper and friend of Charles Horman who had spoken with several US operatives that assisted the Chilean military government. The film alleges that Horman's discovery of US complicity in the coup led to his secret arrest, disappearance, and execution.
American complicity in the Chilean coup was later confirmed in documents declassified during the Clinton administration.The declassified documents mention Terrugi as one of the Chilean military executions and initially US embassy officials in Santiago released the false information that he had returned to the United States. His body was later found in a Chilean morgue among the "unidentified bodies" of the victims of the regime.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Teruggi
So much evil was implemented so long ago by people acting in the name of the US citizens. It has been a horrific story, and it's time people awakened and started informing themselves instead of allowing themselves to be lulled back to intellectual sleep by propaganda being spread by our corporate stenographers.
Everyone should really see Missing. It's impact will never be diminished by time.
watoos
(7,142 posts)in 2002 and 2003. The people there still hadn't forgotten what we did in 1973. One Chilean lost it on me because he knew I was American. It took the manager of the bar to intercede. After I explained that I didn't vote for Bush and that I didn't like Henry Kissinger, we eventually, sort of became friends.
The people from Chile were so nice, almost shy, that it surprised me when a 19 year old waitress told me that she knew the secret of life. She said that smart people know that they are stupid but stupid people don't know that they are stupid, and Bush is stupid. They were very much against our invasion of Iraq.
Chile had a flourishing middle class under Allende, but since it was Socialist we had to overthrow it. Milton Friedman sent his cronies to Chile from the Chicago School of Economics and set up his supply side economics, the middle class disappeared and only the rich were educated. It's what they have been pushing in America also.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)alfredo
(60,127 posts)They did everything they could to undercut Allende
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)in his office and stacks of pornographic material in his desk.
Wonder how he would have had time, had he been so afflicted, to try to keep Chile running while they were busily tearing it apart.
The rumor campaigns they also throw in to their assaults upon leftists are truly mind boggling. You have to wonder what kind of malicious fool would involve himself in such slimy acts against someone they are trying to destroy for his politics.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)for his behavior, his effect on the US American political system, his hatred-fueled acts against minority Americans, etc.
It's as if it never happened.
They cling to his evil, the Atwater Commandments.
JEB
(4,748 posts)"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming."
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)Wounded Bear
(60,241 posts)lot of truth in what they write, the truth of having suffered, largely at our hand.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)to avoid being witnesses to their own assassinations.
They have witnessed and documented unbelievable suffering, haven't they? Such excellent, penetrating writers.
Eduardo Galeano was in Colombia, once, walking in Bogotá, when he saw, written upon a wall, Let's save pessimism for better times. He saved the experience and mentioned it in a letter to his wife.
US Americans generally have NO idea of the suffering their government has inflicted upon innocent, good people for no reason whatsoever than muscle-flexing, power-grabbing, greed, and the need to dominate everything in sight. They don't know, they are also too indifferent to care in so many cases.
It all works out for right-wingers who enjoy the idea of dominating by extension millions and millions of people they see as inferior since they don't have the power to fight back, and have different physical features. There are sell-out, greedy pigs in the Americas who identify with the privileged classes, who also love being the wealthy ones in a sea of suffering, and they don't want it changed.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)Have you heard Augusto Pinochet said that not even a blade of grass moves in Chile without his permission?
There are universes between the two statements.
Your Pablo Neruda statement almost brings tears to the eyes, if you're not careful. It's powerful.
alfredo
(60,127 posts)The Neruda character was delightful
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-postman-il-postino-1995
zentrum
(9,866 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)alittlelark
(18,906 posts)is an incredible read..... I now feel the need to dig into the library......
alfredo
(60,127 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)As I understand it, he and his wife took her in because her father(Salvador's brother) was a hopeless drunk.
Herman4747
(1,825 posts)The criminal on the right was most helpful to the criminal on the left in obtaining & maintaining power:
All of Hillary's loving acolytes must undoubtedly have many strong reasons for Hillary to actively seek advice from the person on the right:
It would be great to hear these reasons!
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)A million fold worse than Charles Manson and a dozen other killers combined.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)"Saving South America from socialism, one murderous dictator at a time."
It's okay, though, we've learned our lesson. We'd never try to micro-manage the political system of an entire region today by sowing chaos to ensure future access for American business interests.
Right?
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)It makes one's skull wince imagining there is actually anyone trying to substitute that rat poop as legitimate commentary.
We did it "back then" is supposed to clean the slate, and exonerate them for everything which has happened since then!
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Seriously, the war business doesn't even work for American corporations at this point. Just the Halliburton's and Blackwaters of the world make out.
We're not going to "defeat" radical Islam anymore than we did the Red Menance, but it doesn't seem to matter.
JEB
(4,748 posts)It is threads like this that make DU useful to me. Thanks to all who remember and share their insight.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"... l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." -- Henry Kissinger on the US-backed coup d'etat in Chile.
The Nixon Administrations Response to Salvador Allende and Chilean Expropriation
EXCERPT...
...Following a meeting regarding U.S. policy on expropriation on the Presidential yacht Sequoia on June 10, 1971 (details of which have yet to be declassified) the Administrations hard-line position gradually began to take shape.
A number of important meetings took place the day after the Sequoia meeting. During this first meeting, Nixon and Kissinger discussed Chilean attempts to secure new loans and renegotiate their existing obligations. Nixon fumed over the unwillingness of the Congress to do more for Brazil, which, in contrast to Chile, was led by friends of the United States. Nixon and Kissinger also discussed the assassination of the former Chilean Cabinet Minister, Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, on June 8, 1971 by a Chilean anarchist group, Vanguard of the People. Nixon and Kissinger chuckled at the Allendes accusation that the CIA had orchestrated the assassination, noting that Zujovic was a conservative opponent of Allende, and probably the last person the U.S. Government would want to assassinate. Besides, as Kissinger noted, the CIA was too incompetent to pull off such an operation, recalling that the last person whom the CIA assassinated had lingered for three weeks before expiring.(vi)
SOURCE w/details, tapes, yada...
http://nixontapes.org/chile.html
Wonder what "expropriation" they talked about? Cuba? Chile? Chicago? Wonder how many CIA victims took three weeks to expire? And that was back when assassination was still illegal, before the world changed on 9/11.
Operating on behalf of Nixon and Wall Street, the CIA and Milton Friedman & Friends perfected the art of turning the screws through austerity in Chile.
"The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom's Awful Toll"
Orlando Letelier
August 28, 1976
EXCERPT...
The Economic Prescription and Chile's Reality
SNIP...
These are the basic principles of the economic model offered by Friedman and his followers and adopted by the Chilean junta: that the only possible framework for economic development is one within which the private sector can freely operate; that private enterprise is the most efficient form of economic organization and that, therefore, the private sector should be the predominant factor in the economy. Prices should fluctuate freely in accordance with the laws of competition. Inflation, the worst enemy of economic progress, is the direct result of monetary expansion and can be eliminated only by a drastic reduction of government spending.
Except in present-day Chile, no government in the world gives private enterprise an absolutely free hand. That is so because every economist (except Friedman and his followers) has known for decades that, in the real life of capitalism, there is no such thing as the perfect competition described by classical liberal economists. In March 1975, in Santiago, a newsman dared suggest to Friedman that even in more advanced capitalist countries, as for example the United States, the government applies various types of controls on the economy. Mr. Friedman answered: I have always been against it, I don't approve of them. I believe we should not apply them. I am against economic intervention by the government, in my own country, as well as in Chile or anywhere else (Que Pasa, Chilean weekly, April 3, 1975).
SNIP...
A Rationale tor Power
SNIP...
Until September 11, 1973, the date of the coup, Chilean society had been characterized by the increasing participation of the working class and its political parties in economic and social decision making. Since about 1900, employing the mechanisms of representative democracy, workers had steadily gained new economic, social and political power. The election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile was the culmination of this process. For the first time in history a society attempted to build socialism by peaceful means. During Allende's time in office, there was a marked improvement in the conditions of employment, health, housing, land tenure and education of the masses. And as this occurred, the privileged domestic groups and the dominant foreign interests perceived themselves to be seriously threatened.
Despite strong financial and political pressure from abroad and efforts to manipulate the attitudes of the middle class by propaganda, popular support for the Allende government increased significantly between 1970 and 1973. In March 1973, only five months before the military coup, there were Congressional elections in Chile. The political parties of the Popular Unity increased their share of the votes by more than 7 percentage points over their totals in the Presidential election of 1970. This was the first time in Chilean history that the political parties supporting the administration in power gained votes during a midterm election. The trend convinced the national bourgeoisie and its foreign supporters that they would be unable to recoup their privileges through the democratic process. That is why they resolved to destroy the democratic system and the institutions of the state, and, through an alliance with the military, to seize power by force.
In such a context, concentration of wealth is no accident, but a rule; it is not the marginal outcome of a difficult situation -- as they would like the world to believe -- but the base for a social project; it is not an economic liability but a temporary political success. Their real failure is not their apparent inability to redistribute wealth or to generate a more even path of development (these are not their priorities) but their inability to convince the majority of Chileans that their policies are reasonable and necessary. In short, they have failed to destroy the consciousness of the Chilean people. The economic plan has had to be enforced, and in the Chilean context that could be done only by the killing of thousands, the establishment of concentration camps all over the country, the jailing of more than 100,000 persons in three years, the closing of trade unions and neighbourhood organizations, and the prohibition of all political activities and all forms of free expression.
While the Chicago boys have provided an appearance of technical respectability to the laissez-faire dreams and political greed of the old landowning oligarchy and upper bourgeoisie of monopolists and financial speculators, the military has applied the brutal force required to achieve those goals. Repression for the majorities and economic freedom for small privileged groups are in Chile two sides of the same coin.
CONTINUED...
http://www.ditext.com/letelier/chicago.html
Three weeks after this was published in The Nation (Aug. 28, 1976), Orlando Letelier was assassinated by a car bomb in Washington, D.C.
WHAT THE IMPERIALISTS DID TO CHILE IN 1973 THEY ARE DOING TO THE USA TODAY.
The author helped implement the privatization scam for Nixon, Pinochet, CIA and the globalist crowd. They want to do it here, of course:
President Clinton and the Chilean Model.
By José Piñera
Midnight at the House of Good and Evil
"It is 12:30 at night, and Bill Clinton asks me and Dottie: 'What do you know about the Chilean social-security system?' recounted Richard Lamm, the three-term former governor of Colorado. It was March 1995, and Lamm and his wife were staying that weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.
I read about this surprising midnight conversation in an article by Jonathan Alter (Newsweek, May 13, 1996), as I was waiting at Dulles International Airport for a flight to Europe. The article also said that early the next morning, before he left to go jogging, President Bill Clinton arranged for a special report about the Chilean reform produced by his staff to be slipped under Lamm's door.
That news piqued my interest, so as soon as I came back to the United States, I went to visit Richard Lamm. I wanted to know the exact circumstances in which the president of the worlds superpower engages a fellow former governor in a Saturday night exchange about the system I had implemented 15 years earlier.
Lamn and I shared a coffee on the terrace of his house in Denver. He not only was the most genial host to this curious Chilean, but he also proved to be deeply motivated by the issues surrounding aging and the future of America. So we had an engaging conversation. At the conclusion, I ventured to ask him for a copy of the report that Clinton had given him. He agreed to give it to me on the condition that I do not make it public while Clinton was president. He also gave me a copy of the handwritten note on White House stationery, dated 3-21-95, which accompanied the report slipped under his door. It read:
[font color="green"]Dick,
Sorry I missed you this morning.
It was great to have you and Dottie here.
Here's the stuff on Chile I mentioned.
Best,
Bill.[/font color]
Three months before that Clinton-Lamm conversation about the Chilean system, I had a long lunch in Santiago with journalist Joe Klein of Newsweek magazine. A few weeks afterwards, he wrote a compelling article entitled,[font color="green"] "If Chile can do it...couldn´t North America privatize its social-security system?" [/font color]He concluded by stating that "the Chilean system is perhaps the first significant social-policy idea to emanate from the Southern Hemisphere." (Newsweek, December 12, 1994).
I have reasons to think that probably this piece got Clintons attention and, given his passion for policy issues, he became a quasi expert on Chiles Social Security reform. Clinton was familiar with Klein, as the journalist covered the 1992 presidential race and went on anonymously to write the bestseller Primary Colors, a thinly-veiled account of Clintons campaign.
The mother of all reforms
While studying for a Masters and a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, I became enamored with Americas unique experiment in liberty and limited government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the first volume of Democracy in America hoping that many of the salutary aspects of American society might be exported to his native France. I dreamed with exporting them to my native Chile.
So, upon finishing my Ph.D. in 1974 and while fully enjoying my position as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a professor at Boston University, I took on the most difficult decision in my life: to go back to help my country rebuild its destroyed economy and democracy along the lines of the principles and institutions created in America by the Founding Fathers. Soon after I became Secretary of Labor and Social Security, and in 1980 I was able to create a fully funded system of personal retirement accounts. Historian Niall Ferguson has stated that this reform was the most profound challenge to the welfare state in a generation. Thatcher and Reagan came later. The backlash against welfare started in Chile.
But while de Tocquevilles 1835 treatment contained largely effusive praise of American government, the second volume of Democracy in America, published five years later, strikes a more cautionary tone. He warned that the American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. In fact at some point during the 20th century, the culture of self reliance and individual responsibility that had made America a great and free nation was diluted by the creation of [font color="green"] an Entitlement State,[/font color] reminiscent of the increasingly failed European welfare state. What America needed was a return to basics, to the founding tenets of limited government and personal responsibility.
[font color="green"]In a way, the principles America helped export so successfully to Chile through a group of free market economists needed to be reaffirmed through an emblematic reform. I felt that the Chilean solution to the impending Social Security crisis could be applied in the USA.[/font color]
CONTINUED...
http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_clinton_chilean_model.htm
Democratic solutions work because they are Democratic, not capitalist.
forest444
(5,902 posts)Chile's private pension system is often cited as the best thing that's ever happened to them (especially by Pinochet apologists), and a model for the region and the U.S.
What many do not know is that each account pays 30% commissions from the top, and consequently 80% of Chilean retirees end up with nothing or close to it in their pension accounts. They thus depend on a state subsidy to cover the minimum $200 pension Chilean law guarantees - and Chile's expensive (Pinochet, btw, left out the police and military from the scheme; they get state-run $1,500 pensions).
So that's a "private" pension system for you: the profits are private, but the state, in Chile's case, spends 6% of GDP - one third of its federal budget - on bailing out retirees with hollowed-out pensions. Sweet!
Chile can afford to do this thanks to its copper - which nets it $40 billion in exports and mostly remains state-owned. Nevertheless, calls for a switch to a national social security system, or least a choice between the two, have been growing.
Argentina had a smilar experience with its private pension funds between 1994 and 2008 - when they were nationalized by the much-demonized Cristina Kirchner administration. Argentina did keep the private option - but almost nobody takes it.
Minimum pensions in Argentina meanwhile rose from $50 a month to $450 by the time she left office 7 months ago, with 70% of prescriptions issued free of charge. Were they still doling out $3 billion a year to bail out private pension funds, they probably couldn't have afforded these improvements.
Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)"... l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
From an allegedly intelligent man. Of course, he knew he was speaking to a lunatic when he said it. He was probably feeding him what he knew the loon would love to hear, to encourage him to go for broke against the people of Chile in destroying their elected President. Nixon's cheerleader.
That has to be one of the most hideous statements we're likely to hear from any public official.
Thank you, Octofish, for taking the time to post this amazing information. It's all so necessary to know for anyone of conscience.
LessAspin
(1,336 posts)Judi Lynn
(162,144 posts)From the Steven Kinzer tweet's NY Times obit.:
He promptly began using his business and political contacts in the United States to urge American officials to intervene to prevent an Allende victory, traveling to Washington to make his case. To further that cause, his newspaper group received money from the Central Intelligence Agency.
When the effort failed with the election of Mr. Allende in September 1970, Mr. Edwards immediately put El Mercurio in the service of destabilizing the new Socialist government.
Days after the election, Mr. Edwards met with Richard Helms, the director of C.I.A., at the request of President Richard M. Nixons national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, according to United States government records that have since been declassified.
Mr. Edwards discussed with Mr. Helms the timing for a possible military coup against Mr. Allende and those who might take part in it.
Edwards not only advocated a pre-emptive military coup in his meeting with Helms, but also supplied intelligence on potential coup plotters that the C.I.A. could enlist, said Peter Kornbluh, head of the Chile Declassification Project at the National Security Archive in Washington. Based on the declassified record, history will remember him for his betrayal of the democratic institutions of his own country.
El Mercurio went on to spearhead a propaganda campaign against the Allende government, again drawing C.I.A. support about $2 million. El Mercurio had been receiving C.I.A. funds since the 1960s, the declassified documents show.
. . .
Mr. Allende was overthrown by the military in September 1973 and died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds during the coup. El Mercurio pledged immediate loyalty to the new military rulers, led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. It was one of the few newspapers allowed to publish, as it continued to receive C.I.A. funds to portray the military junta in a positive light, according to the declassified documents.
. . .
Throughout General Pinochets 17-year dictatorship, El Mercurio lent credence to the militarys misinformation campaigns and denied the extensive, and well-documented, human rights violations taking place.
. . .
In 2015, the Chilean Journalists Association Ethics Tribunal expelled Mr. Edwards from the organization because of his papers past ties to the C.I.A., its actions to subvert democracy and its history of covering up human rights crimes under the Pinochet government.
Last year, Mr. Edwardss name appeared in the so-called Panama Papers, the 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which had helped some of the worlds wealthiest people including politicians, athletes and business moguls establish offshore bank accounts. He was listed as one of the clients.
Posting this information here was a tremendous help to those of us who've been aware of the treacherous influence of this horrific newspaper, and its betrayal of the people of Chile.
It would have been far longer, no doubt at all, until it was more widely known.
What a shame the original Edwards ever moved to the Americas. His family's presence has been deadly, but they all made out like bandits, of course!
Thank you to LessAspin for your decision to share the news here.
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