Ridge – Not a true believer – Allende is not a hero of mine – but – as I think Hitchens once pointed out – Allende deserves credit (not unlike Mossadegh) for never calling out for armed struggle to defend the “revolution” – His own morality did not correspond to Hit/Mugab/Chavez – Being friends with Fidel in 1970 was a little diff from choosing to be tight w/ him after dictatorship had gone on for 40 more years…- BTW – Allende supported both Chezck and Hungarian revos (Castro took the straight party line……

FYI -Here’s the Wiki entry on the “US Involvement/Corporate Business Interests” in the Chilean Coup…Seems crazy to
Main article: United States intervention in Chile
The possibility of Allende winning Chile’s 1970 election was deemed a disaster by a US government desirous of protecting US business interests and preventing any further spread of communism during the Cold War. In September 1970, President Nixon informed the CIA that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable and authorized $10 million to stop Allende from coming to power or unseat him [34]. The CIA’s plans to impede Allende’s investiture as President of Chile were known as “Track I” and “Track II”; Track I sought to prevent Allende from assuming power via so-called “parliamentary trickery”, while under the Track II initiative, the CIA tried to convince key Chilean military officers to carry out a coup.[34]

After the 1970 election, the Track I operation attempted to incite Chile’s outgoing president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, to persuade his party (PDC) to vote in Congress for Alessandri. Under the plan, Alessandri would resign his office immediately after assuming it and call new elections. Eduardo Frei would then be constitutionally able to run again (since the Chilean Constitution did not allow a president to hold two consecutive terms, but allowed multiple non-consecutive ones), and presumably easily defeat Allende. The Chilean Congress instead chose Allende as President, on the condition that he would sign a “Statute of Constitutional Guarantees” affirming that he would respect and obey the Chilean Constitution, and that his reforms would not undermine any element of it.

Track II was abortive, as parallel initiatives already underway within the Chilean military rendered it moot.[35]

The United States has acknowledged having played a role in Chilean politics prior to the coup, but its degree of involvement in the coup itself is debated. The CIA was notified by its Chilean contacts of the impending coup two days in advance, but contends it “played no direct role in” the coup.[36]

President Allende’s economic policy had involved nationalizations of many key companies, notably U.S.-owned copper mines. This had been a significant reason behind the United States opposition to Allende’s reformist socialist government, in addition to his establishing diplomatic relations and cooperation agreements with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Much of the internal opposition to Allende’s policies came from business sector, and recently-released U.S. government documents confirm that the U.S. funded the truck drivers’ strike,[37] which had exacerbated the already chaotic economic situation prior to the coup.

The most prominent U.S. corporations in Chile prior to Allende’s presidency were the Anaconda and Kennecott Copper companies, and ITT, International Telephone and Telegraph. Both the copper corporations aimed to expand privatized copper production in the city of El Teniente, Chile, the world’s largest underground copper mine. At the end of 1968, according to Department of Commerce data, U.S. corporate holdings in Chile amounted to $964 million. Anaconda and Kennecott accounted for 28% of U.S. holdings, but ITT had by far the largest holding of any single corporation, with an investment of $200 million in Chile. In 1970, before Allende was elected, ITT owned 70% of Chitelco, the Chilean Telephone Company and funded El Mercurio, a Chilean right-wing newspaper. Documents released in 2000 by the CIA confirmed that before the elections of 1970, ITT gave $700,000 to Allende’s conservative opponent, Jorge Allesandri, with help from the CIA on how to channel the money safely. ITT president Harold Geneen also offered $1 million to the CIA to help defeat Allende in the elections. [38]

After General Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told U.S. President Richard Nixon that the U.S. “didn’t do it,” but “we helped them…created the conditions as great as possible.” (referring to the coup itself)[39]. Recent documents declassified under the Clinton administration’s Chile Declassification Project show that the United States government and the CIA had sought the overthrow of Allende in 1970 immediately before he took office (“Project FUBELT”), but claims of their direct involvement in the 1973 coup are not proven by publicly available documentary evidence, but many documents still remain classified.
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