Coverup in The Senate: The CIA in Chile

THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE on Intelligence set out to investigate "numerous allegations made about U.S. covert activity in Chile during 1970-73." In a report issued last week, the committee claims to have shown that allegations holding the U.S. largely responsible for the overthrow in 1973 of the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende are false, or at best half true. In fact, the Church Committee's conclusions themselves rest on a series of half-truths and omissions.

The Church Committee demonstrated that three American presidents supported covert action against Allende; that American corporations poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into opposition to Allende, including support to the truckers' strike which played a key role in toppling the regime; and that the CIA itself distributed over $20 million to prevent Allende's election and to overthrow him once he came to power. Nevertheless, the committee claims that the CIA was not directly involved in the 1973 coup.

Although the Church Committee had the power to subpoena government officials, (including high level CIA and State Department officials up through Kissinger), it did not challenge the decision of Ford and Kissinger to prohibit these crucial witnesses from testifying on grounds of "national security."

Large portions of the documents it requested from the CIA and the State Department were not released, and those released were heavily censored. Furthermore, the division the Church Committee makes between the activities of American corporations and those of the CIA is misleading, since most of the companies involved--ITT, Pepsi-Cola, Anaconda Copper--have a long history of involvement with the CIA, providing cover jobs for agents in return for CIA defense of their interests abroad.

Thus, while the Church Committee has not shown that the CIA was involved in the coup preparations, this does not prove that the agency was not coordinating the movements of funds and weapons between the U.S. and the Chilean opposition. Until all existing documents are examined and all involved government officials including Secretary Kissinger are forced to testify, the truth will not be established. The Church Committee should be forced to subpoena these documents and witnesses, and to take the issue to the courts, if necessary to secure them. Its current report is essentially a coverup, and the committee should not be allowed to expire until it has produced the information for which it was established.

U.S. responsibility for the demise of the Allende government is no "left-wing political myth," despite the attempts of the New York Times and the rest of the American press to vindicate their ideological coverage of the events leading up to the 1973 coup. The Allende government was overthrown by American trained soldiers supplied with American money and weapons, suported by American-funded opposition press and strikers. That is only the covert side of American responsibility in Chile--the U.S. also destroyed the Chilean economy by organizing boycotts of its products, shutting off its international credit, and denying its industries essential spare parts. From start to finish the U.S. was the driving force behind the destruction of Chilean democracy, and its attempts to disguise this overwhelming truth makes the Church Committee report a travesty.