Chilean Military's Pentagon & CIA Connection Prior To 1973 Coup

As the Chile: CIA Big Business book noted, “It was General Augusto Pinochet, a military attache’ of the Chilean Embassy in Washington for 10 years that proved to be…the…head of the Junta” after the democratically-elected government of Chilean President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a Chilean military coup on September 11, 1973: and “Pinochet, incidentally, had his training at the U.S. bases in the Panama Canal Zone three times, in 1965, 1968 and even in 1972…” The same book also recalled:

“As early as July 1969, the CIA Santiago Station received a Headquarters go-ahead for a secret program to infiltrate CIA agents into the Armed Forces of Chile. The program lasted for four years, and its principal objective was to get CIA agents into all three branches of the Chilean military, more particularly the command-level officers, general staff officers, retired officers and enlisted men.

“Yet President Nixon’s order of Sept. 15, 1970, for a military coup to be organized caught the Santiago Station unprepared. CIA agents among the Chilean military had not enough influence as yet to push them into staging a coup…”

(Downtown 9/1/93)