Since 1947, US foreign policy and the CIA have been inextricably intertwined. This is partly because of the heightened use of covert action during the Cold War, which at times resulted in very public “bungled” interventions, the most obvious example being the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Intervention is always hard to hide and the Cold War saw the execution of more than two hundred American covert actions, ranging from large-scale paramilitary operations and secret wars to more discreet economic and propaganda activities. In the wake of these secret battles, public controversies have erupted about the nature and legitimacy of covert action. A sizeable body of scholarship, which encompasses contributions from officials, academics, journalists and disaffected CIA retirees, has emerged that asks whether CIA covert operations have not delegitimized US foreign policy. Furthermore, many insist that the result has been “blowback,” the creation of unnecessary enemies.

CIA intervention in Chile remains one of the most controversial episodes in the history of American foreign policy. Figures such as Chalmers Johnson and Robert Blum belong to the “blowback” school and argue that covert CIA operations have contributed to the sorrows of the empire by sowing seeds of hate in the global south.Footnote ¹ Noam Chomsky, one the world's most-cited philosophers and political dissidents, has frequently given attention to Chile, highlighting the paradox of the use of covert action by a democracy to intervene in the democratic process of another country.Footnote ² Even the more realist-minded individuals who see covert action as a normal tool of statecraft often view Chile as a disturbing episode of incompetence which has tainted the agency's image at home and abroad. In 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell effectively issued a public apology when he observed, “what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history we're proud of.”Footnote ³ Detractors of Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security adviser, have expended vast amounts of ink debating the Chilean episode, with some commentators, such as Christopher Hitchens, arguing that Kissinger's involvement in Chile presents a strong case for charging the former secretary of state with conspiracy to murder, kidnap and torture.Footnote ⁴ In short, much is at stake here as the case of Chile continues to loom large in debates on the “Nixinger” era and indeed on US foreign policy more generally.Footnote ⁵

Until recently, we have not been able to construct an authoritative evaluation of US intervention in Chile and the lack of substantive primary evidence had resulted in sensationalist accounts of the Chilean coup. However, between 1999 and 2000 almost 24,000 documents were declassified under the Chile Declassification Project, authorized by President Bill Clinton, marking the largest release of records on any country or foreign-policy issue for some time. Armed with newly declassified documents – including CIA material – many hoped that a resolution of the historical questions surrounding the Chilean coup could finally be achieved. Recently, three new scholarly accounts have revisited the policy of Nixon and Kissinger towards Chile, allowing us to re-evaluate this symbolic event within US foreign policy.

Any hopes for an emerging historical consensus are misplaced. Remarkably, in their dogged attempts to reconstruct the complex story of the Chilean coup, these scholars have reached divergent conclusions and cannot agree on the “true” nature of US involvement. We are therefore no closer to casting up an agreed answer to the key questions: did the CIA engineer the coup that overthrew the first democratically elected Marxist leader? What role did Chile play in the wider context of the Cold War? What drove Nixon and Kissinger's policy towards Chile? How significant was the role of the Soviets and the KGB in the election of Allende and the events leading up to the coup? All these questions are framed by the wider issue of whether the Chilean coup deserves its status as the archetypal symbol of illegitimate Cold War “hidden-hand” intervention.

The US campaign in Chile is pockmarked by four distinct and separate episodes of alleged covert action that dominate the body of scholarship on this controversial era. These are: (1) the attempt to foster a military coup to prevent Allende taking office (Track II), led by Henry Kissinger; (2) the murder of the commander in chief of the Chilean army, General René Schneider; (3) the economic destabilization of the Chilean economy; and finally (4) the plotting and execution of the 1973 coup that removed Allende. Writing about Chile is therefore challenging, since the scope of these covert actions spanned a decade and encompassed many facets of foreign policy. Few American officials enjoyed detailed insight into all of these activities.

Some of the scholarship of the last three years has been rather disturbing for those who like to roll out the well-worn example of mendacious CIA covert action in Chile. Kristian Gustafson's Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964–1974 issues a stern challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy of a CIA-directed coup in Chile in 1973, using declassified documents to provide a coherent and persuasive thesis. Gustafson attempts to discredit the argument that the US was responsible for the overthrow of Allende by arguing that the US did not attempt to orchestrate a coup, and in fact made efforts to strengthen opposition parties. Gustafson explores the complex roles of the CIA, the State Department and other US government agencies in Chile and demonstrates how inter-agency rivalry, distrust and political disagreements over which was the most appropriate Chilean party or senior military figures to support led to a failure of covert action.

While Gustafson asserts that covert action is “a tool of statecraft used by all the major world powers, whose study is important for its future use,” he is far from uncritical of American foreign policy.Footnote ⁶ He notes that the CIA was more often than not reluctantly carrying out orders from the Nixinger White House and criticizes the US for the lack of a formalized system of oversight for covert operations which, Gustafson asserts, might well have averted some of the failures of US policy towards Chile. He argues that in order for covert operations to succeed, there must be sufficient time for planning and executing plans, and such plans must be in line with overt aspects of foreign policy. Moreover, there needs to be coordination between all elements of the country team. By contrast, in the case of Chile from the latter part of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, “the United States was perpetually one move behind the political evolutions in Santiago.”Footnote ⁷

Allende's victory in September 1970 caught the Nixon administration entirely off guard, during a period that Kissinger referred to as the “Autumn of Crises.” In an unprecedented manoeuvre, Nixon pressed his director of central intelligence, Richard Helms, to launch covert action with almost no preparation. The decision to deliberately cut out Ambassador Edward Korry from the planning of this operation is highlighted by Gustafson to demonstrate how the distrust between Korry and Nixon was a contributing factor in the lack of coherence in US policy towards Chile, and was symptomatic of the poor relations between the Nixinger White House and the State Department. This hasty back-channel coup plot not only failed, tarnishing the reputation of the CIA, but assured the consolidation of Allende's victory. The efforts to prevent Allende's inauguration (Track II) by fostering a coup through dissident members of the traditionally constitutionalist Chilean army at virtually no notice is a clear example of how covert action that is separated from strategic thinking is likely to fail.

For Gustafson, the subsequent murder of the commander in chief of the Chilean army, General René Schneider, in October 1970 underlines the difficult relations that existed between the Nixon administration and the CIA. Evidence suggests that Nixon and Kissinger pushed a reluctant CIA into supporting a dangerous plot to kidnap the most prominent constitutionalist figure of the Chilean army, ignoring intelligence from the CIA, who recognized the risks associated with the plot. Although the author admits that the US government bears a great deal of responsibility for this event, since they conspired with General Viaux and General Valenzuela, Gustafson asserts that evidence does not reveal anything to suggest a direct link between the murderers of General Schneider and the CIA. Furthermore, Washington had withdrawn its aid and support for the plot when the kidnappers attacked the general.

Most controversially, Gustafson claims that the CIA did not play a role in the 1973 coup that removed Allende. He asserts that the newly declassified documents indicate that instead of trying to organize a coup against Allende in 1973, the CIA had reduced its contacts with the military plotters and was instead expanding pre-existing links within the increasingly marginalized Christian Democratic Party, using these sources for political intelligence. However, the military plotters did not trust the Christian Democrats, and “thus the CIA did not have the best intelligence on the coup plot as it developed.” Then, in the following the coup d'état, “the CIA focused on the political machinations of a party that the junta planned to marginalize.”Footnote ⁸ Furthermore, White House oversight of covert operations was strikingly haphazard; as a result the CIA and the State Department carried out operations incoherently, often supporting the same parties and politicians without coordination. This was symptomatic of a strained relationship between Nixon and the CIA that is commonly referred to as “the lowest point in the Agency's history.”Footnote ⁹

Hostile Intent also offers insights into covert KGB actions in Chile from 1961, using declassified Soviet documents as well as evidence from the Mitrokhin Archive. This evidence confirms Allende's links with the KGB and suggests that Soviet funding was pivotal to Allende's 1970 election victory. Gustafson contextualizes US policy towards Allende within the global picture of Cold War politics by noting that the mutual antagonism between the United States and the USSR was “extraordinarily real” and the political subversion of pro-Western democracies was seen as a direct challenge to US security. Allende's links with the KGB justified American fears that Allende was a pro-Soviet “agent of influence,” who might introduce further Soviet influence in the western hemisphere. The success of the Cuban revolution and the rise of Allende and the Chilean Marxist coalition prompted increased Soviet interest in the American sphere of influence, signalling a shift from its previous aversion to operations in the region. Latin America therefore, according to Gustafson, was increasingly viewed by the Soviets as a zone independent of the American sphere with an emerging political arena which – if exploited tactfully – could weaken US hegemony.

For Gustafson, Nixon and Kissinger's policy towards Chile was driven by US national security interests. However, with the exception of the Soviet Union bringing missiles into Cuba, no country in Latin America had either the means or the desire to attack the United States. In U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions, Michael Grow explores this further and argues that very rarely was any specific country in the continent considered a security threat.Footnote ¹⁰ According to Grow, declassified documents reveal that US policy in Latin America was driven by a combination of concerns about international credibility, a desire to advance the domestic political interests of the President, and lobbying by Latin American and Caribbean leaders. Therefore the fear of the communist threat following the success of the Cuban revolution did not drive US intervention; rather, it was the perception of themselves and their administrations.

For many years, the study of US intervention in Latin America during the Cold War has focussed predominantly on the impact of the Cuban revolution on US ties with Latin America. Gustafson's regional analysis of the impact of the Cuban revolution assesses this event as signalling a turning point for US interests in Chile. This regional dimension can be explored further through the examination of US intervention in Guatemala and the fall of Arbenz in 1954. Mark T. Hove's contribution departs from the post-Cuban revolution timeframe to explore inter-American dynamics, specifically the impact of US intervention in Guatemala and its effect on US–Chilean relations. Hove argues that the fall of Arbenz harmed US ties with Latin American states and led to a “surge of anti-Americanism” in Chile, dramatically altering Washington's policy.Footnote ¹¹

The news that substantial interference in the domestic politics of Chile was as much the work of the KGB as of the CIA will not delight critics of US foreign policy. However, Gustafson's study will need to be taken seriously, since it is well researched, combining the traditional meticulous analysis of a diplomatic historian with a wide array of evidence from new primary sources as well interviews with senior US officials, including the CIA head of station in Chile. This study adds significant factual information to what was known, or believed, about CIA involvement and effectively challenges the orthodox picture of CIA involvement in Chile.

Arguably, the question that Gustafson does not answer is how significant CIA operations were over a decade in destabilizing Chilean politics. Persistent CIA activity extended from benign propaganda to large-scale support for opposition parties, attempts to foment a military coup, and efforts to counter left-wing influence in student and labour organizations, as well as financial assistance to private-sector groups to ignite strikes. Although these operations may be considered “routine” by those who, like Gustafson, view covert action as a normal tool of statecraft, the cumulative impact of such actions commands careful consideration. Whether or not Nixon and Kissinger were behind the 1973 coup, it cannot be denied that the conditions the CIA covert operations created contributed to the demise of Allende. By contrast, Gustafson asserts that because the CIA was not directly involved in the planning or orchestrating of the coup, the explanation lies in the internal dynamics of Chilean politics. He reminds us that, in the end, it was the Chileans who were potentially the architects of their own history and that this episode is not just part of the story of American neo-imperialism.

Jonathan Haslam advances notably different propositions in his book The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile. He aims to uncover the wider involvement of international actors, such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and the CIA in Chile's struggle to establish a Marxist state in an environment that was politically and economically stable. A notably impressive feature is the close examination of the internal dynamics within Chile, including minute attention to the nature of the Socialist Party prior to Allende's victory, the mindset of the military and of Patria y Libertad and the significance of Allende's ties with the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. Haslam's work is distinct from that of Gustafson as it focusses on the progress of Allende's campaign, his election and government rather than on the Nixon administration, although the title of the book suggests otherwise. The contrasting focus of these books results in conflicting views on the question of US involvement in Chile. Haslam emphasizes the US government as the proximate cause of the coup and asserts that US economic policies towards Chile created the conditions for military intervention, whereas Gustafson argues that covert CIA operations were unsuccessful in destabilizing the Allende administration and that the breakdown of Chilean democracy was far from the intent of the CIA and Washington.

Haslam reconstructs events in Chile by tracing the course of the communist and socialist parties from the pre-war period through to the dramatic victory of Allende in 1970. This includes the emerging Marxist forces in Chile, intrinsically linked to Castro's Cuba, whilst forging ties with the USSR, but also economically tied to the US. Haslam seeks to challenge two myths surrounding events in Chile: first, that the coup was entirely a domestic matter; second, that Allende was a “Chilean Willy Brandt” directly overthrown by the CIA, a view which dominates leftist literature.Footnote ¹² Haslam seeks to dispense with both these stereotypes by enlightening the reader with new evidence that proves the events leading up to the coup to be much more complicated and tragic than contended in previous accounts.

According to Haslam, Allende suffered from remarkable delusions as to what he could expect from Havana and Moscow and to what he could achieve in Chile. The author explains the fall of Allende by primarily framing him as a politician who was ill-equipped for his position as the leader of Chile, a view reiterated by the US ambassador Edward Korry, who described Allende as having “neither the temperament nor the intellectual experience to sustain systematic management.”Footnote ¹³ Gustafson also draws attention to the striking similarity between the CIA and KGB assessments of Allende. Both detected traits which included marked arrogance and “desire for glorification,” which clouded his judgement and damaged his relations with his own party as well as with his leftist allies.

The book paints a painful picture of the tenuous relationship between Allende and Unidad Popular. He contends that existing internal tensions within the coalition caused by Allende's leadership, as well as the strained relationship between the Partido Social and the moderate Communist Party, coupled with Allende's dangerous personal ties with the increasingly militant Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, created political tensions that engulfed the leader's capability to lead Unidad Popular. As the story unravels, the reader is able to comprehend how all political actors involved contributed to what Haslam views as an inevitable fall of Allende's regime as the Marxist leader became increasingly beleaguered by historical events in a world polarized by the Cold War. These conclusions, which emphasize the complex interplay of both local and external forces in the demise of Allende's regime, perhaps give meaning to the often misunderstood subtitle of Haslam's book – “a case of assisted suicide.”

The relationship between the Chilean military and Allende's government is a theme which Haslam deploys to further demonstrate the internal struggles which faced the Unidad Popular. He shows that the military played a relatively minor role in Chilean politics until it was compelled to act. Prior to the coup, the Chilean military became divided in its support for the Unidad Popular coalition government, split between officers who supported the “constitutionalist stance,” such as General Carlos Prats, and those who felt alienated by Allende's alliances with the increasingly revolutionary Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. The resignation of General Prats from Allende's cabinet as interior minister, as well as his position as commander in chief of the army, is symbolic of the dilemmas which faced Allende and his relations with various internal actors. Haslam notes that, in resigning from Allende's cabinet, General Prats chose the military over the government, leading to the appointment of General Pinochet as his successor; a decision that had tragic consequences for Allende.

Internal economic factors, according to Haslam, also played a major role in the fall of Allende's government. The Unidad Popular coalition lacked a feasible economic programme and the consequences of the destruction of capitalism were barely considered despite the amount of foreign investment in Chile. Haslam argues that the expropriation of foreign investment, the subsequent denial of compensation to US companies and agrarian reform not only crippled the Chilean economy but also had far-reaching consequences for civil society, alienating the Chilean public, notably the middle class. The fall of Allende's regime, therefore, originated in its inability to maintain its own internal stability as the “domestic turmoil simply could not be insulated from the storms of the outer world.”

The analysis of domestic factors could be further explored through the examination of the role of opposition civil-society groups and their role in the fall of Allende. In Right-Wing Women in Chile, Margaret Power analyses the central role of conservative Chilean women in the 1973 coup.Footnote ¹⁴ The focal point is the history of Poder Feminino, a group that organized mostly upper- and middle-class women affiliated with Chile's right-wing and Christian Democratic (PDC) parties to oppose Allende. Power argues that throughout the twentieth century the right and the PDC supported women's political rights and sought to mobilize their support, while the left focussed its attention on urban working-class men and on issues associated with labour and production that excluded women. This supports the argument that conservatives' efforts to build support among women were reinforced by US foreign policy as US financial support for the PDC, the right, and groups like Poder Feminino were essential to building organized opposition to Allende.

Even so, the book provides a detailed and convincing analysis of the devastating impact of US economic policies and CIA involvement in the attempts to instigate the fall of Allende's government through massive subsidies to nationwide strikes. Evidence shows that the CIA undertook a number of steps in response to Allende's victory. These were designed to create chaos in the economy, encourage paramilitary activity, sustain a propaganda barrage and reinforce the right through financial assistance.Footnote ¹⁵ Although Gustafson concurs with Haslam that the economic destabilization of the Allende government did take place, and that the means by which it was executed were not always covert, they disagree on its importance for the 1973 coup.

Haslam does not offer a “smoking gun” that links the US government to the planning of the coup. However, he does present some intriguing off-the-record sources which indicate a secret link between the Nixon White House and the military coup plotters, theorizing that “a notable feature of the coup that always suggested special outside management was the extraordinary degree of efficiency and ruthlessness in its implementation.”Footnote ¹⁶ The suggestion is that the coup was planned by the recently appointed deputy director of the CIA, General Vernon Walters, and the son-in-law of General William Westmoreland, Hernández Westmoreland, who coordinated the plot with the Chilean military leadership through the Hotel Cerrera in Santiago. For his part, Gustafson notes that this thesis is “difficult to positively refute, outside of mentioning the lack of hard evidence to prove it in the first instance.”Footnote ¹⁷ The troublesome issue of the Vernon Walters episode illustrates the profound difficulties that confront historians when trying to delve into an event which might involve only a handful of people. It also begs the question of the role played by other parts of the US government, for example the military, in the events of 1973. However, one has to ask whether two American officials, outside the normal chain of command, could foment and execute a coup of such efficiency without the wider support and knowledge of US and Chilean officials.

By expanding on existing interpretations of US involvement in Chile during the late 1960s and the 1970s and through the assiduous use of multi-archival sources, Haslam's book achieves a sophisticated analysis of the events which led to the rise of the military in 1973. Whereas Gustafson's bibliography is made up of declassified documents from the US and UK governments, US congressional reports, memoirs, published interviews and secondary sources and off-the-record interviews and transcripts, Haslam's approach is a global one, embracing governmental archives from Chile, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US, and published primary sources and extensive periodicals and literature from Latin America. The impressive array of previously untouched sources from archives around the world provides an important new dimension the story of the failure and subsequent overthrow of the Allende government.

Like Haslam, US historian Lubna Z. Qureshi also emphasizes the importance of the CIA in the overthrow of Allende. However, she effectively challenges some of the tenets that underpin Haslam's thesis by asserting that US economic sanctions played the decisive role in undermining Allende's coalition government, which generated an internal chaos that ultimately resulted in the downfall of the first democratically elected Marxist government. In short, Qureshi focusses on CIA economic destabilization as an important lever and emphasizes US corporate interest as a key driver in American foreign policy.

Qureshi introduces the book by posing a central question: why did the foreign-policy team of Nixon and Kissinger regard Allende as a threat? The conclusion that is drawn from this analysis of events in Chile is that the White House saw Allende's regime primarily as a threat to US corporate interests. She asserts that national security was not the foremost consideration for Nixon and Kissinger's policy towards Chile during this period, in contrast to Gustafson, who claims that Allende threatened the “western way of life.”Footnote ¹⁸ Accordingly, Qureshi adopts a rather different interpretation of US policy towards Chile in the early 1970s, and draws conclusions that differ markedly from those of both Gustafson and Haslam. Qureshi claims that “Allende could never have matched the might and power of Washington and its reactionary Chilean clients,” and therefore US intervention ultimately caused Allende's fall.Footnote ¹⁹

Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende prefaces the account by delving into the significance of early US–Chilean relations through a clear explanation of the economic loss suffered by Chile during two world wars and historical foreign interests in the Chilean mining industry. Qureshi explores the impact of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and argues that, by the late 1960s, standards of living in Latin America had not improved and Kennedy's twin goals of capitalism and social justice had failed to materialize. The author also notes that Kennedy witnessed the overthrow of six democratic regimes by military forces in the region and highlights the military investment pumped into the counterinsurgency schools which trained Latin American military officers. The contextualization of events in Chile by examining the history of US foreign policy and investment across the region complements the overall thesis as it demonstrates how Chile became dependent on foreign capital and supports the author's critical analysis of US imperialism in Latin America.

Qureshi uses a “corporatist” approach to suggest that the CIA worked with US companies that had vested interests in Chile to protect American capital from a possible future Marxist regime. Both Haslam and Qureshi have noted the significance of US investment in Chile; however, Qureshi brings forth the argument that Nixon's links with US companies, for example ITT and Pepsico, framed the Nixon administration's policy towards Chile around the concern of expropriation, not infiltration or subversion. She also notes that both ITT and Pepsico were corporate clients of Nixon's law firm, and that ITT, mining executives from the Anaconda board, and the publishers of El Mercurio, all had close contact with the CIA in Santiago. Although Gustafson agrees that the CIA and ITT did have contact, he points out that it was of no long standing and that US corporations after 1970 made independent moves in supporting Chilean centrists in an attempt to save their investments, a trend which Gustafson insists that the CIA would have been unlikely to be able to stop.

In order to explain the fall of Allende's regime, Qureshi unpacks a number of themes that concentrate on US involvement in Chile. Unlike Gustafson and Haslam, who both give substantial weight to Allende's negative characteristics in explaining his failures, Qureshi's focus is on Nixon, who is described as a “self-hating ethnocentric” who nurtured “contempt for Latin American political processes.” Qureshi uses memoirs to illustrate the imperial disdain that was felt by Nixon and Kissinger, and argues that this formed the basis of their disregard for Allende's dream of social progress in Chile.

Qureshi's interpretation of the economic achievements of Allende is strikingly different from those of the other authors. In order to achieve social progress, Allende's coalition government embarked on an ambitious economic policy, which meant that by 1972, 30 per cent of Chilean industry had been nationalized. Qureshi contends that Allende's expropriation policy was “neither arbitrary, nor heavy handed,” as legal precedents were respected, and she notes increases in new public wealth and spending; greater access to public utilities, such as health care; agrarian reform, which resulted in an 83 percent rise in union membership; and a significant decrease in the cost of telephone services of 33 percent.Footnote ²⁰ By contrast, Haslam questions the social progress which was claimed by Allende by analysing infant mortality rates and literacy standards up to 1973 and concludes that there is no marked distinction that would indicate improvements during Allende's administration.

Qureshi also argues that Washington adopted a passive-aggressive approach towards Chile through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund by denying loans to Chile, thereby manipulating the Chilean economy and undermining Allende's policies. The author readily dismisses the charge of economic mismanagement that has been thrown at the Allende government, insisting that “many of the shortages … were the direct result of the machinations of Washington and the Chilean social elite.”Footnote ²¹ Central to her argument is the Hickenlooper amendment, which was designed to punish Chile for its economic policies.

A further feature of the argument is the contention that the US Defense Department's expansion of the military group programme (Milgroup) promoted alliances between the Latin American armed forces and personnel from the US military, creating a strong force which Allende was unable to counter. The author interprets the training of 1,100 Chilean officers in a seven-year period leading up to the coup as an “insurance against social reconstruction,”Footnote ²² whereby Washington was preparing the Chilean military to act in the form of a coup. Qureshi also asserts that as early as the summer of 1972, the CIA had identified Pinochet as a potential leader for a future coup, and demonstrates this by highlighting Pinochet's training at the US Army School of the Americas. In contrast, Gustafson insists that General Pinochet was unknown to the CIA, and asserts that increased US–Chilean military relations were part of a Cold War context designed to prevent a Chilean shift towards purchasing Soviet weaponry. Gustafson also notes that “at no point did the Allende government try to force the military to abandon this very overt U.S. military support.”Footnote ²³

Qureshi's central themes underpin the argument that Nixon and Kissinger, out of a general disdain for Latin America and an overriding concern for the interests of US corporations (not general Cold War strategic imperatives), “planned to solve the Chilean question by military means.”Footnote ²⁴ She regards it as inconceivable that the Chilean armed forces “would have acted without Kissinger's guarantees” of US support and maintains that support from the US was not only existent but strong. These conclusions differ in many ways from those put forward by Gustafson and Haslam and present an alternative dimension to the more recent historiography of the events in Chile.

All three texts offer lessons for current policymakers. Gustafson provides recommendations on how covert action should be carefully integrated with overt policies as well as country teams in order to be successful. Both Haslam and Qureshi, meanwhile, adopt a more global approach and remind their readers of the humanitarian consequences of military rule in Chile, which continue to impact the country today. Gustafson, finally, offers the most direct challenge to those who have used the Chilean episode ad nauseam as an aid to anti-American rhetoric, but in fact all three authors reveal this episode to be much more complex than we had hitherto suspected. More broadly, the widely varying conclusions contained in these three carefully researched texts raise some fascinating epistemological questions for historians of intelligence, diplomacy and national security. Remarkably, the greater availability of sources through the declassification of governmental documents has provided us with few firm truths and instead has served to create further divergences in the existing scholarship.