One question tha
t passengers frequently ask is how Chileans feel about the United States considering the role that the Nixon administration played in the military coup. That's a hard one to answer because I obviously cannot speak for thousands, nay, millions of other people. I guess it all depends where you stand politically, and what type of political analyses you make. Also, in Chile, there are lots of people who don't have a clue about the CIA and the coup, Nixon and Kissinger, and other related issues. There are also many people in Chile who would do anything to live in the United States: They believe in the American Dream. But certainly, there are also many people who view the United States in a very negative light because of its government-level interference in Chilean politics.
Wherever you stand, there's one thing that's immutable: The major role that the United States played in the political events that unfolded in Chile from the sixties right through to the seventies. The advent of Internet has provided the world with amazing amounts of information about this period (and obviously just about everything!), but in this post I would like to concentrate on just one source, a very direct source. I'm talking (or to be more exact, writing) about The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training hosted by the US Library of Congress website. If you do a search for Chile in the series called Frontline Diplomacy, you'll be directed to a list of interviews with 100 diplomats from various walks of life and different posts who during their working experience had direct contact with Chile during the period we're interested in. You can access these fascinating interviews right here.
The website came to my attention via a very distinguished gentleman named Kenneth Guenther, who is actually the third interviewee on the list. Mr Guenther, who has an outstanding career in banking, heard one of my talks and once I finished he eloquently verified what I had said about US intervention (phew!) and told me about the existence of this online material. You will need time to browse through the swathes of information offered here, but if you don't have much time to spare, I recommend reading through Mr Guenther's interview and maybe a couple of others, for example, the interview with George F. Jones (interview 2), Michael W. Cotter (7), or George W. Landau (4).
What makes these interviews so interesting is that in the first place, the initial questions are often about the childhood and personal experiences of the interviewees, which provides us with that strange human touch that can be so endearing. Secondly, the interviews are very detailed and thorough, digging deep into the memory of these important players. In the third place, the interviewees offer their very personal opinions about Chile and its people, and it really strikes me how many of them found Chile to be a lovely and civilised society (before the coup, mainly)! However, I was also struck by the fact that many of them (not all) say that the US had "nothing to do with the coup", which at the end of the day contradicts the contents of declassified CIA memos and other documents that tell a very different story (if you'd like to see these memos neatly organised, a good place to visit is The Chile Documentation Project of which Peter Kornbluh is director, and which also offers material and contents straight from the proverbial horse's mouth! You can visit this site by clicking here.)
I shall leave you with a few choice quotations from these very interesting interviewees. I know I am taking them out of context, but I am being very careful not to manipulate information and I recommend you visit the site to read the whole interview (or at least the parts about Chile!).
Mr Kenneth Guenther (speaking about the US banks' role in Chile in 1974):
And I began exploring options to get out of the bank. I didn't like our role in Chile. We did have a major role in overthrowing a democratically-elected government and installing a right-wing military government. My father would not have been proud. It was time to think about leaving the bank...
Mr Michael Cotter:
I see today where Pinochet is. I must say that as I look back on this in hindsight, and with what the Pinochet government accomplished in reforms in Chile, that it is probably fairly cold to say so, but the cost of human lives that it took to bring about those reforms in Chile was probably cheap at twice the price. I know that it is politically incorrect to suggest this, but the fact of the matter is that, if some 3,000 Chileans died, there are a heck of a lot fewer than Salvadorans and Hondurans who died, or than have died in most other conflicts, and an order of magnitude less than the number who died in Argentina, where the estimates are ten to twenty thousand babies being sold, and everything else, which didn't happen in Chile.
I think the record has become clarified over the years. I don't think we were involved in the Pinochet coup, but I think it is fairly clear that we certainly made it clear that we would be perfectly happy to see that change of government take place.
Mr William Lowenthal:
Regarding my Chilean experience in the Allende period, I feel that the impression in this country that the Chilean Revolution came as a result of U.S. and CIA pressures is very false and very exaggerated. There have been books written about it but I don't think that the U.S. had a very large hand in it at all. The Chilean people were fed up with the Allende regime and his overthrow was a genuine overthrow by the country, by the people of the country.
t passengers frequently ask is how Chileans feel about the United States considering the role that the Nixon administration played in the military coup. That's a hard one to answer because I obviously cannot speak for thousands, nay, millions of other people. I guess it all depends where you stand politically, and what type of political analyses you make. Also, in Chile, there are lots of people who don't have a clue about the CIA and the coup, Nixon and Kissinger, and other related issues. There are also many people in Chile who would do anything to live in the United States: They believe in the American Dream. But certainly, there are also many people who view the United States in a very negative light because of its government-level interference in Chilean politics.Wherever you stand, there's one thing that's immutable: The major role that the United States played in the political events that unfolded in Chile from the sixties right through to the seventies. The advent of Internet has provided the world with amazing amounts of information about this period (and obviously just about everything!), but in this post I would like to concentrate on just one source, a very direct source. I'm talking (or to be more exact, writing) about The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training hosted by the US Library of Congress website. If you do a search for Chile in the series called Frontline Diplomacy, you'll be directed to a list of interviews with 100 diplomats from various walks of life and different posts who during their working experience had direct contact with Chile during the period we're interested in. You can access these fascinating interviews right here.
The website came to my attention via a very distinguished gentleman named Kenneth Guenther, who is actually the third interviewee on the list. Mr Guenther, who has an outstanding career in banking, heard one of my talks and once I finished he eloquently verified what I had said about US intervention (phew!) and told me about the existence of this online material. You will need time to browse through the swathes of information offered here, but if you don't have much time to spare, I recommend reading through Mr Guenther's interview and maybe a couple of others, for example, the interview with George F. Jones (interview 2), Michael W. Cotter (7), or George W. Landau (4).
What makes these interviews so interesting is that in the first place, the initial questions are often about the childhood and personal experiences of the interviewees, which provides us with that strange human touch that can be so endearing. Secondly, the interviews are very detailed and thorough, digging deep into the memory of these important players. In the third place, the interviewees offer their very personal opinions about Chile and its people, and it really strikes me how many of them found Chile to be a lovely and civilised society (before the coup, mainly)! However, I was also struck by the fact that many of them (not all) say that the US had "nothing to do with the coup", which at the end of the day contradicts the contents of declassified CIA memos and other documents that tell a very different story (if you'd like to see these memos neatly organised, a good place to visit is The Chile Documentation Project of which Peter Kornbluh is director, and which also offers material and contents straight from the proverbial horse's mouth! You can visit this site by clicking here.)I shall leave you with a few choice quotations from these very interesting interviewees. I know I am taking them out of context, but I am being very careful not to manipulate information and I recommend you visit the site to read the whole interview (or at least the parts about Chile!).
Mr Kenneth Guenther (speaking about the US banks' role in Chile in 1974):
And I began exploring options to get out of the bank. I didn't like our role in Chile. We did have a major role in overthrowing a democratically-elected government and installing a right-wing military government. My father would not have been proud. It was time to think about leaving the bank...
Mr Michael Cotter:
I see today where Pinochet is. I must say that as I look back on this in hindsight, and with what the Pinochet government accomplished in reforms in Chile, that it is probably fairly cold to say so, but the cost of human lives that it took to bring about those reforms in Chile was probably cheap at twice the price. I know that it is politically incorrect to suggest this, but the fact of the matter is that, if some 3,000 Chileans died, there are a heck of a lot fewer than Salvadorans and Hondurans who died, or than have died in most other conflicts, and an order of magnitude less than the number who died in Argentina, where the estimates are ten to twenty thousand babies being sold, and everything else, which didn't happen in Chile.
I think the record has become clarified over the years. I don't think we were involved in the Pinochet coup, but I think it is fairly clear that we certainly made it clear that we would be perfectly happy to see that change of government take place.
Mr William Lowenthal:
Regarding my Chilean experience in the Allende period, I feel that the impression in this country that the Chilean Revolution came as a result of U.S. and CIA pressures is very false and very exaggerated. There have been books written about it but I don't think that the U.S. had a very large hand in it at all. The Chilean people were fed up with the Allende regime and his overthrow was a genuine overthrow by the country, by the people of the country.
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