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Documents reveal U.S. funding for Chile coup
 
November 13, 2000
Web posted at: 8:04 p.m. EST (0104 GMT)


From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials released documents on Monday acknowledging the CIA had 
provided covert aid 30 years ago to undermine Chile's government, but analysts say some of the 
most important documents have not yet been made public. 

"The documents that would be revealing ... are still missing and still need to be declassified," 
Peter Kornbluh, Chile Documentation Project director at the National Security Archive, told 
CNN. The National Security Archive is a nonprofit organization that has campaigned for release 
of the documents. 

One document, Kornbluh said, indicates that in 1991 the CIA destroyed a file on Manuel Contreras, 
the former head of Chile's secret police now serving a sentence for the 1976 car bombing in 
Washington that killed Orlando Letelier, a prominent Chilean opposition leader. Letelier's American 
assistant Ronni Moffitt also died in the blast. 

CIA officials have said the file would not have information useful to U.S. Justice Department 
investigators, who are trying to determine whether Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who toppled Chile's 
president and then ruled the country for 17 years, also should be indicted for Letelier's murder. 

"One of the key questions raised by this document is why that file was destroyed ... and what 
was in it that was destroyed," Kornbluh said. 

"We cannot have a full record until all the documents are released," Kornbluh said. CIA officials, 
meanwhile, said only a few documents were not released. 

Covert aid 
U.S. officials released 16,000 government documents on Monday, including a CIA memorandum 
indicating $1 million in covert aid had been given to Chilean opposition parties in an effort to 
undermine then-Chilean President Salvador Allende socialist government. 

The United States previously released 7,000 records regarding its involvement leading up to the 
September 11, 1973, coup led by Pinochet that toppled Allende. 

Many of the documents, however, have been blacked out to protect sensitive information. U.S. 
President Bill Clinton had ordered in February 1999 that the documents be made public. 

"Today, we are closer than we've ever been to the absolute truth of this incident," Tom Blanton, 
National Security Archive executive director, told CNN. 

White House officials said the documents were released to allow the public to determine for itself 
whether U.S. actions had undermined democracy and human rights in Chile. 

"Actions approved by the U.S. government during this period aggravated political polarization 
and affected Chile's long tradition of democratic elections and respect for the constitutional order 
and the rule of law," the White House said in a statement. 

Among the information contained in the documents released Monday: 

  � The CIA provided secret funding to Chilean opposition parties in the early 1970s to try to 
    undermine Allende's government. 

  � The funding had been approved by U.S. officials just three weeks before Allende was toppled 
    by Pinochet. 

  � The Christian Democratic Party -- now Chile's largest party -- and the Radical Party of the Left 
    had received the money from the CIA. U.S. officials blacked out the names of other 
    recipients. 

  � The CIA had given Christian Democratic candidates funding as early as 1964. 

Senate committee findings 
Kornbluh told CNN that the CIA -- which provided $350,000 to help fund the coup -- had not 
played a direct role in the coup. 

CIA officials had previously said the agency had not instigated the coup, but had been aware of 
military plotting to overthrow Allende. 

However, a Senate committee chaired by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, had confirmed that the CIA 
had participated in covert operations in Chile, and that the agency had attempted to foment a 
military coup in 1970 after Allende had been elected president. 

"It is important to view these events in their proper historical context," CIA spokesman Mark 
Mansfield said. 

"CIA activities were conducted within the framework of what was U.S. policy at the time, and covert 
actions were undertaken at the direction of the White House and interagency policy coordination 
committees," Mansfield said. 

CIA election operation 
Researchers hoped the documents would provide details of a possible U.S. government role in 
toppling Allende's democratically elected government, and in support of Pinochet. 

"It may be of interest that in 1964, CIA conducted a (deleted) election operation in Chile (deleted) 
which contributed to the election of Eduardo Frei to the presidency," said a memo, written before 
March 1969 elections. 

Allende was Frei's main opponent in that election. Frei died in 1982; His son, also named Eduardo 
Frei, is Chile's immediate past president. 

Last year, Clinton ordered U.S. government departments and agencies to find documents to highlight 
human rights abuses, terrorism and political violence in Chile before and after the coup. 

The order was given after Pinochet was arrested in London pending an extradition request by a 
Spanish judge, who sought to put the former Chilean leader on trial for rights violations. 

Pinochet was released due to poor health nearly 500 days later. He was returned to Chile, where he 
faces trial for abuses that prosecutors allege he committed during his years in power. 

Prosecutors have said 3,000 people either were killed or disappeared under Pinochet's administration. 

"With these documents, the history of U.S. intervention in Chile and our support for the Pinochet 
regime can begin to be rewritten," Kornbluh said. 

CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor, The Associated Press and Reuters 
contributed to this report.