“Make the Economy Scream”: 50th Anniversary of US 9/11/1973 Coup of Allende (9/18/23) (Part 2/2)
Bringing Light Into Darkness - News & AnalysisNovember 12, 202300:24:1338.81 MB

“Make the Economy Scream”: 50th Anniversary of US 9/11/1973 Coup of Allende (9/18/23) (Part 2/2)

“Make the Economy Scream”: Tools of US Foreign Policy on the 50th Anniversary of US 9/11/1973 Coup of Allende & Chilean Democracy Current president, 36-year-old Gabriel Boric of the left-wing Approve Dignity coalition was sworn in as the youngest President in Chilean history on March 11 2022. Some 14 out of 24 ministers in Boric’s cabinet are women. Seven of the cabinet members are in their 30s, and the average age is 42. Chile is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America. One percent of the country’s population owns about a quarter of its wealth. During his election campaign, Boric promised to introduce radical reforms to the current free-market economic model and bring the citizens’ demands raised during the 2019 social outbreak to the halls of government. During his victory speech in December 2021, Boric once again vowed to bury neoliberalism. “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it would also be its grave,” he said. He also ratified his commitment to reducing the glaring disparities in the country by increasing spending on public services. “We no longer will permit the poor to keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality,” he added. However, the primary focus of the show tonight is to document how all major sectors of the Chilean political and economic system were penetrated by the CIA under the direction of Henry Kissinger, Everything from the funding monies of influence into the Christian Democratic party and other alternatives to Allende’s Popular Unity Party, monies into the police and military, into radio and print media. Monies that sought to control the labor unions and labor movement, through the AFL CIO and CIA collaboration and the 1972 Trucker’s strike all funded by clandestine US CIA government monies; Documents many of them recently declassified explains how our foreign policy was to make sure it was impossible for Allende to govern and to make the economy scream by any and all means necessary. To understand US intervention and the subversion of autonomous civil and military structures of countries throughout the world is to take a giant step in understanding US foreign policy and its complete disregard for international law and basic ethics to respect the autonomy of other nations. Chile provides the prototypical example that we deconstruct tonight. Siempre fieles, Pgatos 9/17/23 pgatos00@gmail.com If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

[00:00:00] Just a reminder, the following program has been pre-recorded and the views expressed do

[00:00:05] not necessarily reflect the views of Co-op Radio, its Board of Directors, Volunteers,

[00:00:11] Staff or Underwriters.

[00:00:12] We welcome an ongoing dialogue with our listening public.

[00:00:16] Please also know you can contact the producer of the show Pedro Gatos at P.Gatos that's

[00:00:24] P.G.A.T.O.S., the number 00 at gmail.com with any questions, comments or recommendations.

[00:00:32] That's P.Gatos00 at gmail.com.

[00:00:35] We now rejoin Bringing Light Into Darkness episode on Chile and the 9-11 1973 coup.

[00:00:44] Enjoy!

[00:00:45] So before we return to the discussion of the 1973 coup, I wanted to finish up a more

[00:00:53] current evaluation of Chile with one more article.

[00:00:56] This one was written this year, April 21st 2023.

[00:01:01] It was in the Financial Times.

[00:01:04] Chile's President moves to bring Lithium under state control was the name of the

[00:01:10] article.

[00:01:11] And again we're talking about the new President Gabriel Boric promising to impose stricter

[00:01:17] environmental rules connected to Lithium.

[00:01:21] He unveiled plans according to this article to bring the Lithium industry under state control.

[00:01:27] It apparently, that is Chile, is the world's second largest producer of this metal which

[00:01:33] is crucial to electric car batteries.

[00:01:36] Chile is also among a number of nations and the latest in a series of countries seeking

[00:01:43] greater control over key mineral resources.

[00:01:48] After Mexico nationalized its Lithium industry last year in Zimbabwe banned unprocessed Lithium

[00:01:55] exports.

[00:01:57] Indonesia is curbing exports of commodities including nickel which is used in batteries.

[00:02:04] So I think this is very instructive.

[00:02:06] These developing countries that are traditionally been penetrated by multinational investment

[00:02:13] are learning that this neoliberalism of allowing other countries to pilfer their own resources

[00:02:22] has to come to an end if they're going to have any chance of having a successful economy

[00:02:27] for their own people.

[00:02:29] President Boric, his proposal, it falls short of full nationalization.

[00:02:34] Instead, it envisions a majority state-owned partnerships with private companies for the

[00:02:40] exploration and production of Lithium deposits.

[00:02:44] The article goes on to indicate that Chile's Lithium deposits are located in salt flats

[00:02:49] and its existing production in the Atacama region comes from evaporating brine, a highly

[00:02:57] water-intensive process in a country that suffers droughts.

[00:03:02] So President Boric said future projects would only move ahead after consultations

[00:03:08] with local communities and should use new technologies that minimize water consumption.

[00:03:14] This is the environmental concern that they are prioritizing apparently now.

[00:03:19] A quote, these salt flats are not just Lithium, he said.

[00:03:23] They are people.

[00:03:24] They are communities.

[00:03:26] They are water in the desert.

[00:03:27] They are the home of cultures thousands of years old.

[00:03:31] Meanwhile, Chile is the world's biggest copper producer and has the world's largest

[00:03:36] proven reserves of Lithium.

[00:03:37] But apparently there is still work to be done in order to exploit those minerals and resources

[00:03:46] in an environmentally safe way.

[00:03:49] So that's a little bit about the current affairs in Chile as we speak.

[00:03:54] And for the balance of the show, we wanted to turn our attention to the coup of 1973-911

[00:04:04] that I believe is really important to understand because it really points to the arrogance of

[00:04:11] U.S. foreign policy in the sense of how we penetrate the civil society sectors and the

[00:04:18] economic sectors of all of these nations that we wish to control their political

[00:04:24] and economic destiny, meaning at the same time allowing U.S.

[00:04:30] investment to be unencumbered by environmental laws and high labor costs, etc.

[00:04:37] So think about what that means for a second.

[00:04:40] If we promote countries that respect democratic rights and protect workers' interests

[00:04:46] and provide them with safe working conditions and good wages that can support a family,

[00:04:52] that's less profiteering potential for investment capital.

[00:04:56] But if you can pay people pennies on the dollar for their labor like in Haiti and so many other places,

[00:05:02] then it makes sense from an economic perspective, a corporate economic perspective,

[00:05:08] to support the most repressive types of governments that pay their workers the least amount of money

[00:05:13] and don't provide them the basic needs that dignity demands.

[00:05:17] And therein lies why we were so vehemently opposed to Salvador Allende coming to power

[00:05:23] or any progressive candidate that would prioritize the majority populations,

[00:05:29] economic health and educational welfare above anything else.

[00:05:34] And so this is really a story of to what extent we clandestinely penetrate all of these sectors

[00:05:42] that we will detail shortly in order to make sure it is us that determine who comes to power

[00:05:48] and who doesn't in order to make sure that we control the investment climate

[00:05:54] for these big multinational corporations.

[00:05:57] And this is the root of all wealth inequality, the wealth that's generated and disproportionately where it goes.

[00:06:04] And as we said at the beginning of the show,

[00:06:07] the relationship between the CIA and multinational corporations and U.S. foreign policy,

[00:06:14] it reflects an interlocking and a overlapping nature of corporate and government involvement in these nations,

[00:06:23] in this case Chile, that allows U.S. corporations to dominate key sectors of national economies

[00:06:31] that they invest in.

[00:06:32] So I was just shocked by how the CIA had penetrated virtually every sector of Chilean life throughout the society.

[00:06:41] The book CIA file edited by Robert L. Borsage and John Marx, 1976,

[00:06:49] they have a very detailed chapter on Chile called destabilizing Chile, which would be instructive to read.

[00:06:57] And when it came to Chile, probably the most trustworthy resource when you're trying to study that history

[00:07:05] since you can Google Chile and get all of these different takes on what happened,

[00:07:11] the fact is there's only one truth.

[00:07:12] And the National Security Archive is a repository of all of these memos and state department reports

[00:07:22] that slowly come out and get declassified over time.

[00:07:26] And in one of them, the Chile 1964 CIA covert support in the Frey election detailed,

[00:07:33] Frey F.R.E.I. was a, I believe, a Christian Democratic presidential candidate

[00:07:39] that received all sorts of monies from the CIA.

[00:07:42] And the sourcing for that claim we will provide shortly,

[00:07:46] as well as the monetary amounts given to this Christian Democratic political party in Chile.

[00:07:52] And their main interest was what?

[00:07:54] Was to make sure that Allende never came to power.

[00:07:58] In the United States opposition to Allende, it didn't start just around 1970 when he was elected president.

[00:08:06] It started several years before he was elected president of Chile.

[00:08:10] Declassified documents show that from 1962 through 1964,

[00:08:16] the CIA spent $3 million in anti Allende propaganda

[00:08:21] to, quote, scare voters away from Allende's frappe coalition end quote.

[00:08:26] And then they spent a total of $2.6 million to finance the presidential campaign of Eduardo Frey.

[00:08:33] The source again for these numbers in 62 and 64 is Chile 1964 CIA covert support in Frey election detailed.

[00:08:45] This is the National Security Archive that was documents retrieved June 25, 2015.

[00:08:52] Another was the memorandum for the 303 committee final report March 1969 Chilean congressional election,

[00:09:01] which was a U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian document that was also retrieved by the NSA on June 26, 2015.

[00:09:13] Meanwhile, we in the United States have laws that disallow another nation from actively seeking to influence

[00:09:21] the internal politics, political processes such as media influence, infiltration of trade unions,

[00:09:29] funding or otherwise seeking to influence political parties and the politics of our nation.

[00:09:36] In fact, any action that disaffects or seeks to influence the sovereign choices and actions that make up the moving parts of our democracy

[00:09:45] are illegal to tamper with and can be prosecuted accordingly.

[00:09:49] Yet monies were approved and allotted to the following forces in Chile in the 1970 election and before that we're opposing the election of Salvador Allende.

[00:10:03] And then when that failed and following the democratically elected government of the Salvador Allende electoral victory,

[00:10:10] monies continue to pour in to these civil sectors.

[00:10:14] This is a story in which you will learn what went on behind the scenes not being reported by mainstream media.

[00:10:20] It includes efforts in direction headed by the National Security Council director at the time,

[00:10:27] Henry Kissinger, who was in charge of U.S. plans to prevent Allende's ascendancy to the president or failing that if he did become president,

[00:10:38] which he did then destabilizing his regime until a military coup could overthrow him.

[00:10:45] This governmental agency that Henry Kissinger was running and in charge of was called the Committee of Forty.

[00:10:53] It was a watchdog body to oversee covert operations.

[00:10:58] It was a semi clandestine body of which Henry Kissinger was the chairman between 1969 and 1976

[00:11:06] and maintain the ultimate supervision over U.S. covert actions overseas during this period.

[00:11:13] The CIA was originally set up by President Truman, but in Eisenhower's first term it was felt necessary to establish

[00:11:20] a monitoring or watchdog body to oversee covert operations.

[00:11:25] So again, according to the Ocean Press book Chile, the other September 11th that was published in 2003,

[00:11:34] it was Kissinger that was in charge of U.S. plans to prevent Allende's ascendancy to the presidency

[00:11:41] or failing that to stabilizing his regime until that military coup could overthrow him.

[00:11:45] In fact, in June 1970, John McCone, a former CIA director and at that time a consultant to the CIA

[00:11:55] and a director of international telephone and telegraph, IT&T.

[00:11:59] IT&T made a financial killing of phone service in Chile and the last thing they wanted to see

[00:12:06] was Allende come to power who would certainly challenge that cozy relationship.

[00:12:11] They subsequently held a number of conversations regarding Chile with CIA director at the time,

[00:12:18] Richard Helms.

[00:12:19] In fact, it was Helms notes that were declassified but in his notes his prophecy and his notes say

[00:12:28] that an economic squeeze on Chile will cause its economy to scream.

[00:12:34] That was the policy and that's the policy today that we use in other nations

[00:12:41] to try to change their politics.

[00:12:42] If we don't like their politics through sanctions and through other means,

[00:12:48] we will seek to make their economy scream.

[00:12:50] According to the chronology Chile 1970 to 1973 by James Cockroft and Jane Canning in the book

[00:13:01] already mentioned Chile, the other September 11, the Ocean Press 2003 book.

[00:13:07] Listen to these expenditures.

[00:13:09] June 27, 1970 the Committee of 40 approves money for additional anti Allende propaganda

[00:13:17] operations to the tune of $300,000.

[00:13:21] On September 8 and September 14, 1970 the Committee of 40 approves $250,000 for the

[00:13:30] ambassador at the time.

[00:13:32] The Committee of 40 approves $25,000 for support of Christian Democratic candidates.

[00:13:41] Here we are paying for and influencing the political party within Chile that opposes Allende.

[00:13:48] January 28, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves 1.4 million votes for the

[00:13:55] purchase of radio stations and newspapers and to support municipal candidates and other political

[00:14:03] activities of anti Allende parties.

[00:14:06] March 22, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves another 300,000 for the purchase of radio

[00:14:15] stations and newspapers and to support municipal candidates and other political

[00:14:21] parties.

[00:14:23] The Committee of 40 approves another 300,000 for additional support for Christian Democratic

[00:14:29] party.

[00:14:31] May 10, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves $77,000 for the purchase of a press for the

[00:14:39] Christian Democratic Party newspaper.

[00:14:41] The press apparently is not obtained and the funds are used to support the paper.

[00:14:46] July 19, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves $100,000 for emergency aid to the Christian Democratic

[00:14:53] party to meet short-term debts.

[00:14:56] May 26, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves $150,000 additional aid to the Christian Democratic

[00:15:05] party to meet debts.

[00:15:07] July 6, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves support for the opposition candidates in a

[00:15:15] Chilean by-election to the tune of $150,000.

[00:15:20] March 22, 1971 the Committee of 40 approves additional support for the Christian Democratic

[00:15:27] party of $300,000.

[00:15:30] But political parties was not the only arena that we were penetrating and manipulating

[00:15:37] within the Chilean civil and political landscape.

[00:15:41] The CIA had penetrated virtually every sector of Chilean life throughout the society.

[00:15:47] In cooperation with and often undercover supplied by the AFL-CIO, the CIA had infiltrated the

[00:15:54] labor movement.

[00:15:56] This according to the CIA file book we referred to earlier, look what happens here.

[00:16:02] The most powerful U.S. labor union, the AFL-CIO ostensibly created to support and advocate

[00:16:10] for workers' rights instead reveals its real loyalty to big business interests rather than

[00:16:18] an over workers' interests.

[00:16:20] Again, to be clear, the U.S. most prestigious labor union international organization, the

[00:16:28] AFL-CIO is complicit here in infiltrating and stunting workers' rights to fight the

[00:16:36] decades of gross exploitation that has allowed huge profits to be drained from the Chilean

[00:16:42] country into big corporate accounts while they, the Chilean majority population, are

[00:16:49] left with an insurmountable national debt.

[00:16:52] This is criminal and as you dig deeper it reveals an evolution of criminality in

[00:16:57] which labor unions have been bought off to exploit workers in other countries and if they

[00:17:03] are bought off there what makes you think that they're not bought off here in our own

[00:17:08] country but that's a story for another day.

[00:17:10] But in the summer of 1972, again this is from the CIA file, the organizers of the

[00:17:18] Confederation of Truck Owners strike also received CIA money in order to allow them

[00:17:24] to pay strike benefits during a 26-day nationwide truck strike.

[00:17:28] Our CIA was paying this Confederation of Truck Owners union through the AFL-CIO

[00:17:36] monies to maintain a paralyzing strike against the Allende government in 1972.

[00:17:44] All part of this larger strategy to make the economy scream.

[00:17:49] Other funds went into support of the strikes and demonstrations that plagued the Allende

[00:17:54] regime. 188 leaders of the White Collar Trade Association received training in the

[00:18:02] United States from the AIFLD, the American Institute of Free Labor Development.

[00:18:10] This is an agency that according to former CIA agent Philip Agee was set up by the

[00:18:17] AFL-CIO under the control of the CIA. Again this is sourced from the CIA file.

[00:18:25] Quote, agency operators had bought their way into the local press.

[00:18:31] The country's largest paper, El Mercurio, was a regular recipient of CIA funds

[00:18:37] according to the CIA file. In addition to paying $25,000, this according to

[00:18:43] William Colby, a former CIA director to help an individual purchase a radio station,

[00:18:49] the CIA spent large sums on El Mercurio, the shrill conservative daily that openly

[00:18:56] advocated insurrection against the Allende government. El Mercurio was

[00:19:02] financed because according to Colby it was the only serious political force among

[00:19:08] newspapers and television stations there. Additional monies went to the Chilean

[00:19:15] military and police services through CIA operatives. In Chile, as in Brazil, these

[00:19:21] right-wing think tanks were established to distribute propaganda, organize

[00:19:27] paramilitary units, coordinate intelligence, and train demonstrators and saboteurs.

[00:19:33] In Chile, as in Brazil, massive amounts of money poured into the country to support

[00:19:39] strikes, demonstrations, and other anti-government activities. Again, the CIA file.

[00:19:46] And just to end this segment, again from the CIA file, quote,

[00:19:52] this permanent intervention in local politics in Chile had become a fact

[00:19:58] of life in Chile and was not insignificant.

[00:20:02] CIA operative Philip A.G., in his book, Inside the Company, described how a smaller

[00:20:09] CIA contingent in Ecuador operating on a budget of less than a million dollars

[00:20:15] annually was able to penetrate without great effort every major political party,

[00:20:21] the police, the military, the cabinet, the media, and the trade unions in that

[00:20:27] country, end quote. This was all supplemented by significant monetary expenditures

[00:20:33] to influence these various sectors within civil and military sectors of Chile.

[00:20:39] A program was created in order, in the words of the authors of the CIA file,

[00:20:45] to make it impossible for Allende to govern. This is really instructive

[00:20:50] because this is what goes on behind the backs of our knowledge in all of these countries

[00:20:57] that we seek to influence with our foreign policy interventions.

[00:21:02] This is the formula plan that has been replicated time and time again,

[00:21:07] both before and after the Allende government was so blatantly targeted.

[00:21:12] Imagine that a democratically elected government elected despite the subversive acts

[00:21:18] orchestrated and funded through the United States government to prohibit its electoral success.

[00:21:24] And despite all that U.S.-funded and orchestrated policy of trampling on democratic principles

[00:21:31] to subvert the democratic will of the Chileans, Allende and his platform

[00:21:37] still elected the power. You would hope the subversion would cease,

[00:21:41] yet the subversion and trampling of sovereignty continued.

[00:21:46] Since Uncle Sam did not get his desired outcome, he continued his criminal behavior

[00:21:51] until three years later it culminated in a coup that resulted in the death of Allende

[00:21:57] and thousands of deaths and disappearances followed that coup.

[00:22:03] And lastly, let me just make this comment about Make the Economy Scream.

[00:22:07] By 1970, according to the CIA file pages 79 and 80, you can check it out,

[00:22:15] loans by government controlled financial institutions, for example,

[00:22:21] the Agency for International Development, which of course is a state department entity,

[00:22:28] but also the Export-Import Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank,

[00:22:33] the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank had given Chile the highest per capita foreign debt in the world.

[00:22:42] Meanwhile, Anaconda Copper and IT&T contributed money to Allende's opponents

[00:22:49] and in the summer of 1970, IT&T offered the CIA $1 million to help prevent Allende's election.

[00:22:59] That offer was conveyed by John McCown, a member of the IT&T's board of directors,

[00:23:05] formerly the head of the CIA and still on the roll as a CIA consultant.

[00:23:11] This is how you make the economy scream.

[00:23:14] You control or have disproportionate influence in international lending

[00:23:21] and the conditions that can be denied or otherwise compromised.

[00:23:26] And at the end of the day, what wasn't used there so much in that period,

[00:23:30] but is used more now are sanctions, ways to make the economy scream.

[00:23:36] So this is why this history of all of these different ways

[00:23:40] in which the Chilean economy was controlled by U.S. interests,

[00:23:46] whether it was newspapers, whether it was other media, the penetration of labor,

[00:23:52] whether it was trying to influence and political party participation,

[00:23:57] whether it was paying trucker strikes.

[00:23:59] All of these things that if anyone did it in our country would be a crime

[00:24:03] that they would be absolutely prosecuted for.

[00:24:06] We do routinely and did routinely in Chile and Lord knows where else today.

[00:24:12] See you next week.