Allende’s Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (40 page)

By the time OAS delegates met in Lima in July 1973 to discuss the inter-American system’s future, however, it was clear that Santiago was wary of obviously antagonizing the United States. When Chile’s representative spoke out stridently against the United States and Davis complained to Letelier, for example, the United States instantly received an apology. Indeed, Letelier, who had recently been appointed Chile’s new foreign minister, claimed that he had had no part in the speech and that Chile
certainly did not want to “create additional difficulties” where the United States was concerned.
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Two days later, when Chile’s delegate addressed the meeting, he was notably more “restrained.” As Washington’s ambassador in Lima recorded, he now stated that Chile did not want the United States out of the OAS, but rather wanted an organization that engaged the United States and the Latin Americans together on “more equitable terms” and encouraged “positive, fruitful dialogue.”
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In spite of these modifications, the main problem with Chilean hopes of impelling transformation of the inter-American system was the absence of any cohesive “Latin American bloc.” At the Lima meetings, U.S. diplomats observed a “great many, sometimes contradictory, Latin ideas” and were unimpressed by the “concept of Latin American unity,” either politically or in the approaches regional states adopted toward the “conceptual framework of the inter-American system itself.” Although they acknowledged Peru’s “concepts of economic security” were broadly supported, U.S. officials reported that Chilean efforts within a subcommittee on the OAS’s structure “floundered … when great majority of delegates demurred.”
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Of course, behind the scenes, the United States nevertheless continued to work through Latin American allies to undermine Chile’s position. “We will need … cleared counter-proposals of our own … some of which can presumably be voiced by friendly governments,” one U.S. diplomat advised the State Department in reference to follow-up talks on the OAS’s future scheduled for later that year.
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One such “friend” U.S. policy makers believed they could “count on” was Banzer’s Bolivia.
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Another was obviously Brazil, whose cooperation in the inter-American system was highly valued.
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In fact, Peru’s president, Velasco Alvarado, had told Rogers the United States put too much “faith” in Brazil when the secretary had visited Lima two months earlier.
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In reality, many Latin American nations shared the Chilean frustration with the United States’ policies in the region. But Allende’s ability to convert a general widespread restlessness into practicable systemic change was dependent both on Latin American unity and on Washington’s willingness to negotiate the underlying principles of its foreign policy. And despite promises to end “paternalism” that the secretary of state had delivered throughout the region in May 1973, U.S. officials still plainly believed that they knew best. As Rogers had forcefully implied when he met Allende, the United States had a system that “worked” and this—or at least something similar—was also the best system for Latin America to follow. Words and personal attention from high-level U.S. officials could
also not hide the fact that the United States tolerated only nationalism it judged to be “constructive” and relied on loyal states to “feed” its prescriptions for development throughout the hemisphere.

Sitting next to Ramon Huidobro’s wife on his way home from a visit to Argentina in late May 1973, Allende voiced his concerns about surviving as president. “If I can get to spring [September],” he told her, “I can save myself.”
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At each political turn that Allende had taken in his last year in office, however, it had seemed as if he had run into a dead end. Certainly, in late 1972 and early 1973, Chile had found itself precariously drifting between East and West, powerless to influence systemic change, and losing face among those who had earlier shown Allende sympathy. Much of this stemmed from a lack of clear direction and agreement within government as to precisely what Chile’s foreign policy should hope to achieve and how. Having gone from largely trying to avoid Cold War categorizations, it is true that a sector of Santiago’s foreign policy team then earnestly tried to fight the Cold War on a global scale. But when Allende’s much-anticipated trip to Moscow failed, Santiago’s efforts to “induce a change” in U.S. behavior toward Chile remained stymied by the lack of consensus within the Chilean government as to what the best course ahead might be. As Allende avoided a painful choice of either backing down or embracing confrontation head on, Chile’s U.S. strategy oscillated between managing conflict and avoiding it—privately appealing to Washington and publicly denouncing the United States at the same time. Ultimately, Allende did not compromise Chilean sovereignty by going back on the “excess profits” bill his country’s Congress had unanimously passed. But, then again, faced with a soaring budget deficit crisis back home, he also failed to assert Chilean independence in the way he had initially promised. (In fact, during Allende’s time in office, Chile’s indebtedness had grown by a staggering $800,000 for each day of his government.)
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For its part, the United States was unimpressed with Allende’s efforts to play Washington off against Moscow and impelled by profound certitude in its chosen path. When Nixon and Kissinger sought détente with the Soviet Union and China to solve their own problems in Vietnam and ease the costs of continued international tension, they had been impressed by indications that Moscow and Beijing were keen to work with them and awed by the power of those that they went to negotiate with. But in Santiago,
they and Rogers saw ingratitude, weakness, and proof that socialism was misguided. This was very much the attitude Nixon had had of even center-left politicians in South America when he visited the region six years earlier. Then, he had described a “battle of ideas” still very much up in the air in the region. But this battle was now moving much closer to being decided.

Even so, what surprised U.S. onlookers was the relative insignificance that Chile’s economic difficulties had on the election results in March. When whole swathes of Chile’s population appeared unlikely to recognize the error of their ways and Allende’s democratic opponents seemed destined to move ever further to the left, Washington singled out a coup as the only way it could truly “save” Chile and ensure that the “battle of ideas” was decisively won in favor of capitalism and the United States. The question mark hanging over this prospect was whether the Chilean armed forces could shake off their divisions and decisively intervene against Allende.

Indeed, from a U.S. perspective, a successful coup was by no means predetermined. Allende’s maneuvers between different factions of the Left and his efforts to placate his opposition (particularly in the military) were certainly more and more difficult. However, U.S. intelligence analysts still concluded that there existed three possible Chilean futures over the next two or three years of which only one was military intervention in domestic affairs. The other two—a political standoff between Left and Right and consolidation of Allende’s government—were respectively considered as “most likely” and “roughly equal” possibilities to that of a coup.
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As they waited on the sidelines, U.S. observers therefore typically hedged their bets. Ambassador Davis wrote home that “
chance
,
blunder
, or the winter food riots that are widely predicted … could
conceivably
lead to ignition and the coup
possibility
has to be considered.”
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For their part, the Cubans were more convinced than ever that the military would intervene and that the only way to resist an inevitable coup was to mobilize Chile’s population and prepare it to resist. Yet faced with an inward spiraling circle, Allende refused to take a different nondemocratic or violent road. Ultimately, the question ahead was whether he would have a choice. The UP’s ability to draw on class loyalty may have provided it with electoral strength and moral legitimacy, but it did not solve the question of power, let alone the basic necessities of a functioning state. As the government’s economic policies faltered, the UP’s parties argued, and the middle and upper classes in Chilean society took to hoarding food and bolstering the black market, Allende appealed for external economic support to meet
his country’s growing import needs. In this respect, his dynamic foreign policy toward Latin America, Europe, the Soviet bloc, and China began to pay dividends in the form of assembling a complex jigsaw puzzle of new credits and assistance. However, this took on the character of an increasingly desperate race against time rather than a long-term solution that would keep the government in power until presidential elections in 1976.

Simultaneously, Allende’s position in the world, the manner in which his foreign friends responded to him, and the way he approached his external enemies all contributed to the arguments raging within Chile regarding the future of the government’s revolutionary project. Stirred up by propaganda, Chile’s right wing had certainly grown horrified by Cuba’s involvement in the country. As one of the country’s future military leaders wrote in his diary, Chile had become a “tragic” “laboratory” for “foreign ideologies, foreign personalities,” and un-Chilean “theories” of revolution.
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On the other hand, members of the armed forces feared Santiago’s alienation of the United States. Even Allende’s constitutionally minded commander in chief of the Chilean army, General Prats, had warned the president that the military was waiting for the government to define its international position so its leaders could decide where they stood.

The president had traveled to Mexico, New York, Moscow, Algiers, and Havana, leaving Prats in charge in Chile, serious conversations had taken place within the Chilean navy as to whether it should seize the opportunity to launch a coup d’état against the government. As one of those involved in these conversations remembered years later, it was Admiral José Toribio Merino—a key figure in the group that led the coup in September 1973—who had put a brake on this endeavor: “If we move now,” he reportedly warned, “we are going to take over this chaos … [and] they are going to blame us for this situation. Because the truth is we do not have any alternative project that we can utilize to save the country. What is more, with the world propaganda that exists in favor of this government, we cannot risk adventuring alone on an unknown path.”
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And as coup plotters busied themselves trying to secure allies and formulate an “alternative project,” Allende’s government struggled to maintain a semblance of progress within the confines of constitutional democracy, limiting extralegal military preparations for a possible conflict. As it turned out, the opposition in Chile would not be so restrained.

The Chilean Coup and Its Fallout

In mid-August 1973 a retired Chilean admiral, Roberto Kelly, arrived in Brasilia on a highly secret and special mission. His goal was to inform the Brazilians that a group of Chilean plotters was poised to overthrow Allende’s government and then to sound them out about the international repercussions this could have for Chile. The plotters’ primary concern was that Peru might take advantage of a coup to seize disputed territory on the Chilean-Peruvian border. Kelly was therefore in town, waiting nervously at a hotel, to find out what Brazilian intelligence services knew about Lima’s intentions. As Kelly recalled years later, fears of Peruvian intervention seemed real at the time, as its military regime was regarded as being sympathetic to Allende and had recently signed a new arms deal with the Soviets. The Brazilians were also the only ones that the plotters believed they could trust to deliver reliable intelligence on this front. It was therefore fortunate for Kelly, and for Admiral José Toribio Merino, who had sent him to Brasilia in the first place, that the Brazilians had enough information to offer definitive reassurance. Indeed, Kelly boarded a plane back to Santiago in good spirits. The
golpistas
now had a green light, if they could unite the majority of Chile’s other military leaders behind their goal.
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Achieving unity and guaranteeing the success of a coup in Chile still remained a big “if” in mid-1973. In the months between May and September 1973, U.S. officials monitoring plotting in the country had been relatively unimpressed with the progress toward this goal. Although the Nixon administration was highly sympathetic to the prospect of a coup, its reading of the situation within Chile and its concern for its own image also meant that this did not translate into a precise policy to accelerate military intervention against Allende. Instead, as Kissinger himself admitted days after 11 September, the U.S. “created the conditions as great as possible.”
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Of course, this distinction did not stop finger-pointing at “U.S. imperialism” as having directed, planned, and organized the coup after
the event, especially given worldwide attention to Washington’s intervention in Chile while the UP was still in power. Few were also surprised—and everyone knew to whom he referred—when Allende, in his last ever radio address, blamed “foreign capital and imperialism, united with reactionary elements” for having “created the climate” for the coup.
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Yet, in trying to understand the international dimensions of Chile’s coup and the seismic impact that it had on the country’s international standing, the distinction between “creating the conditions” for a coup and “masterminding” it is important.
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As we shall see, it was the Chilean military—not Washington—that ultimately decided to act, and despite Cuban preparations to face a coup, it was also Allende and the Chilean Left that were ultimately unable to defend the revolutionary process that they had initiated. Indeed, both the Nixon administration and Castro were deeply frustrated with their inability to manage Chilean events and were unprepared for the decisive role that General Augusto Pinochet would play in ensuring that the coup succeeded.