Days before Salvador Allende ratified Chile’s presidency in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a Chilean right-wing media mogul to block the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, according to recently declassified documents.
Documentation, published The new Spanish edition of archivist and author Peter Kornblu’s Pinochet files includes Nixon’s September 15, 1970 agenda showing an Oval Office meeting with Agustín Edwards, owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group.
The previous day, Edwards met with CIA director Richard Helms. Detailing the thoughts and aspirations of many Chilean military personnel, he prompted Nixon to demand a “game plan” for a coup that would prevent Allende from taking office.
Allende defeated his rival Jorge Alessandri in the presidential election, but failed to secure a clear majority.
Covertly and with the support of the White House, a military plan was developed to seize power, dissolve Congress, and prevent Allende’s inauguration.
Alongside ammunition and money, Edwards forwarded the military’s demands for “explicit and specific guarantees” and “assurances that they would not be abandoned or excluded.”
“Chile is one of the most infamous CIA covert operations with a clear connection to the President of the United States who ordered the overthrow of a democratically elected government. “These documents remind us of the bad foreign policy of the United States in Chile,” Kornblu said.
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