Covert Action In Chile 1963 1973

CONTENTS I. Overview and Background A. Overview: Covert Action in Chile B. Issues C. Historical Background in Recent United States-Chilean Relations II. The Range of Covert Action in Chile A. Covert Action and Other Clandestine Activities B. Covert Action in Chile: Techniques C. Covert Action and Multinational Corporations III. Major Covert Action Programs and Their Effects A. The 1964 Presidential Election B. Covert Action: 1964-1969 C. The 1970 Election: A "Spoiling" Campaign D. Covert Action Between September 4 and October 24, 1970 E. Covert Action During the Allende Years, 1970-1973 F. Post-1973 IV. Chile: Authorization, Assessment, and Oversight A. 40 Committee Authorization and Control: Chile 1969-1973 B. Intelligence Estimates and Covert Action C. Congressional Oversight V. Preliminary Conclusions A. Covert Action and U.S. Foreign Policy B. Executive Command and Control of Major Covert Action C. The Role of Congress D. Intelligence Judgments and Covert Operations E. Major Covert Action Programs Appendix. Chronology: Chile 1962-1975

Kristian Gustafson's Hostile Intent reexamines one of the most controversial chapters in U.S. intelligence history, the Central Intelligence Agency's covert operations in Chile from 1964 to 1974. At the request of successive U.S. presidents, the CIA in conjunction with the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency first acted to prevent Chilean socialist Salvador Allende from becoming the democratically elected president of his country and then tried to undermine his government once he was in office. Allende's government eventually fell in a bloody military coup on September 11, 1973. President Richard Nixon's administration and corporate interests were not sorry to see him go, but did U.S. covert operations actually play a decisive role in Allende's downfall? The declassification of thousands of U.S. government documents over the last several years demands that historians take a new look. Since 1973, most observers have maintained that U.S. machinations were responsible for the success of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's coup that forced Allende's fall and suicide. This assessment has been based on a thin documentary record of U.S. activity, the myth of an all-powerful CIA, and the CIA's checkered history of covert action in Latin America. However, Gustafson convincingly shows the conventional wisdom about the impact of U.S. actions is badly flawed. His meticulous research is based upon an intensive examination of previously unavailable U.S. records as well as interviews with key figures. Hostile Intent is the most comprehensive account to date of U.S. involvement in Chile, and its provocative reinterpretation of this involvement will shape all future debates.

Text of both the Church Committee and Hinchey Reports on US Covert Actions in Chile between 1963 and 1973, including the in involvement of the CIA in the coup and the possibility of its participation in the "assassination" of Salvadore Allende