The Nixon administration's efforts to destabilize the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende (1970–73) is widely acknowledged as a major turning point in the Cold War in Latin America. These covert operations, however, were only the latest and most secretive episodes in a lengthy bipartisan effort to shape Chilean politics. In this diplomatic history, Sebastián Hurtado-Torres charts the bilateral relations between the US government and the reformist administration of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–70).
Drawing largely on US State Department cables between Santiago and Washington, Hurtado-Torres challenges traditional conceptions of the Chilean government and its political class as mere objects of the unilateral whims of the hemispheric superpower. He argues, instead, that Frei's Christian Democratic government and the United States came together thanks not only to a shared antipathy toward the Marxist left, but also to an overlapping commitment to modernization. This political experiment—dubbed the Revolution in Liberty—combined socioeconomic reforms and political stability with the tutelage of the United States. The Chilean government quickly became an important showcase for the Alliance for Progress and a major recipient of financial backing by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. This substantial “convergence of interests” problematically “allowed U.S. diplomats to influence decisions on what were, indeed, internal Chilean affairs” (44). US ambassadors Ralph Dungan and Edward Korry became domestic political actors to such an extent that each could be described as “something of a political confidante of the Chilean president” (129).
Though the author seeks to emphasize moments of mutual benefit, local autonomy, and “the benevolent side of U.S. foreign policy” (13), his evidence also implies a momentous power imbalance and regular US violations of Chilean national sovereignty. Whether in its covert election-tampering (to the tune of millions of dollars), negotiations over North American corporations’ monopolization of copper mines, or even in debates over domestic economic policy, Frei's government proved highly susceptible to the carrot-and-stick of US largesse. During monetary policy negotiations with his foreign sponsors, Frei told Ambassador Dungan, “I speak to my country about our dignified position although small and weak, but in my heart I know this is not true” (57). Even the generous Alliance for Progress aid dried up after a few years, and the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 effectively “hammered the last nail in its coffin” (89).
The final chapters assess the mounting polarization of Chilean domestic politics. The 1970 election of Salvador Allende's leftist Popular Unity coalition upset the Cold War status quo in Chile, in that the State Department's “commanding strategic objective had always been the same: to keep the left out of power” (186). Shortly thereafter, the Nixon administration launched its now-infamous clandestine destabilization campaign. Though left out of the loop regarding CIA plans, President Frei and Ambassador Korry also quickly landed on a military coup as the appropriate response to Allende's electoral victory. Hurtado-Torres insists that Frei, like Korry, aimed only to protect Chile's storied “liberal democracy” (160–161, 176, 201) against what he mistakenly saw as the existential threat of the left. This explanation, though, is hard to square with Frei's undemocratic tactics, which led him to later publicly back the 1973 coup that brought General Pinochet to power.
By shifting our chronological frame and examining a different corpus of documents, this new account challenges the readers’ preconceived notions regarding Cold War-era US policy toward Chile. It is compelling reading and draws our attention to a number of events and individuals in Chilean political history who have received comparatively little attention. Even though we can discern the gathering storm on the horizon throughout this monograph, it is written with great detail and a sense of contingency, allowing developments to be analyzed on their own terms and also as precursors to the breakdown of democracy.
