An Interview with Mrs. Allende: THE FALL OF CHILE

Informed Sources

photo caption left: Salvador Allende, September 11, 1973

photo caption right: Mrs. Allende in Detroit, 1973

photo credit right:  Goya Barzelatto  

An Interview with Mrs. Allende:

THE FALL OF CHILE

Reprinted from Penthouse Magazine

On September 11. 1973, Salvador Allende Gossens, the democratically elected president of Chile, perished in a hail of machine-gun fire in the Presidential Palace in Santiago. Later reported as a "suicide" by the triumphant military junta, the death of Allende culminated one of the baldest displays of imperial power of recent years. A conspiracy of the CIA, big business, international financial organizations, and right-wing elements in the Chilean military under General Augusto Pinochet (who once portrayed himself as a loyal Allende supporter) culminated in bloody reprisals against men, women, and children who were suspected of being to the left of the newly installed junta. The president's wife, Mrs. Hortensia Bussi de Allende, and her daughters were able to escape death only because they were not in the palace during the coup.

Late last year, Mrs. Allende visited the United States with an entourage of Chilean women, including Mrs. Moy de Toha, wife of the slain Chilean Minister of Defense Jose de Toha. SUN Consulting Editor Ken Kelley began talking to Mrs. Allende when she paid a visit to the United Nations. "I have constant nightmares," she said. "I imagine my door is being broken down by machine guns. I feel the helicopters hovering over my house. I hear the butts of revolvers and rifles on the door. Such is the reality for thousands of my countrymen."

At the United Nations, Mrs. Allende was instrumental in getting the General Assembly to condemn the military junta for its violations of human rights and to appeal for the release of all political prisoners. The resolution passed ninety to eight, with twenty-five abstentions, including the United States. "The resolution has great importance for the people of Chile - it marks a great victory for us, and of course, a defeat for the junta, " said Mrs. Allende.

Tlie Allende entourage then spent several days in Washington lobbying Congress for a cutoff in U.S. aid to the junta and for help in discovering the whereabouts of the more than 20,000 Chilean political prisoners. Capitol Hill was far less receptive than the UN. Pat Holt, the chief of staff for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who had previously urged normalization of U.S. - Cuban relations, told Mrs. Allende that he could do nothing about the Chilean situation because "it is not U.S. policy to interfere in the internal affairs of another country."

"In our visit this time we haven't come to denounce, but rather to complain and demand," Mrs. Allende told interviewer Kelley. "Now we are not only speaking of our 20,000 imprisoned, but about the open intervention of the CIA and ITT, about the international plot confessed to by Colby, Kissinger, and President Ford."

SUN: Referring to Chile, Henry Kissinger once said, "I don 't see why we have to stand by and watch a government go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." What is your reaction to this?

Allende: Besides its stupidity, it is very honest. Mr. Kissinger's words reflect not only his opinions, but those of the rulers of this "democracy." They reflect what he thinks of international treaties and a country's right to self-determination.

SUN: Do you think the Chilean people hold the American people responsible for the actions of the CIA and the United States government in Chile? And do you think that the people of the United States fully realize and understand just what happened in Chile in 1973?

Allende: I believe the Chilean people distinguish very clearly between the policies which led to the overthrow of President Allende and the opinions of the American people. But you must understand that the Chilean people don't really have any information. They only know what the government wants them to read in the newspapers. But the people of North America now know that a lot of money was spent by this country to overthrow President Allende's government. They know that, in addition to the S8 million spent by the CIA, there were the $400 million assets of ITT and other multinational corporations. Senator Kennedy has revealed Kissinger's approval of this intervention - which Kissinger had denied under oath to Congress. On September 12, 1974, Kennedy accused Kissinger of perjury, and of having acted, along with other members of the State Department, in a tendentious and deceitful manner in swearing that the United States had maintained an attitude of nonintervention in Chilean affairs.

It is interesting to note that, as a direct result of this "nonintervention," the junta returned to private ownership all the United States companies which had been nationalized by Allende's government. This list included Anaconda, organized in 1899 by Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and presently dominated by the Rockefeller family banks. And Nelson Rockefeller was appointed to head the administration's "investigation" of the CIA! It is ridiculous.

SUN: If you had been fully aware of the CIA's plans or of the extent of what the CIA was doing beforehand, could there have been a way to avert what happened?

Allende: I don't know if you can completely understand the tremendous power of the CIA.  Its strength is so great that it would have been very difficult to defend ourselves from the avalanche that was approaching. Perhaps the only thing we could have done was to have a struggle that lasted years instead of a coup that lasted four hours. And I can't tell you what the outcome of that struggle might have been. You must realize that all the arms the CIA had given to modernize the military were suddenly turned against the Chilean people - to kill us.

SUN: Last September. President Ford said that $8 million had been given to Chile because an effort was made by the Allende regime to destroy opposition political parties and opposition media. At the same time, CIA Director William Colby stated, "The CIA had no connection with the military coup in Chile in 1973. We did look forward to a change in government, but in the elections of 1976 by democratic political forces." What is your reaction to these statements?

Allende: The assertions of the president of the United States and the director of the CIA are absolutely false. Our Popular Unity government never limited liberties or the activities of political parties. Very few countries have had as much freedom of the press as we had in Chile, and the government wasn't even supported by a majority of the newspapers. We were a multiparty govemment and never thought of establishing a one-party state. So the pretext of the CIA for intervening in Chile - to defend democracy - is absolutely false. I wonder if Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Ford are concerned by the lack of liberty in Chile now that there is a military dictatorship there. There is no liberty in Chile now - the congress is closed and there are no unions. The coup was brought off by the most reactionary forces in the country, mainly the upper bourgeoisie and the armed forces. Many of the military men were trained in the United States, in the Pentagon and the Panama Canal Zone.

SUN: Who do you think received the CIA's $8 million?

Allende: According to Mr. Colby, the money financed the radio stations and press, especially El Mercurio, of the opposition. El Mercurio is the leading right-wing newspaper in Chile. Its owner, Augustin "Donny" Edwards, took up residence in Miami, where he was vice-president of Pepsi-Cola, during the Allende years. Its editor in chief, Rene Silva Espejo, was one of the leaders of the Chilean Nazi Party [Movemiento Nacional Socialista] in the 1930's; and its business manager, Fernando Leniz, has been made the junta's Minister or Economics. Much money also went to finance the truck owners' and businessmen's strikes. They paid the businessmen and truck owners, not the drivers, because otherwise, the strikes couldn't have lasted two months. What's more, the CIA money was multiplied several times over by being sold on the black market. But it wasn't just the ClA - there was also the economic blockade. This was when the international banks -  the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, etc., on which the dependent countries depend - cut Chile's credit so that we couldn't count on sufficient means to develop a normal economic policy.

SUN. There have been some charges that your government's mishandling of the ultraleft Movement of the Revolutionary Left [Movemiento Instituciones Revolucionaries, MIR], rather than the CIA, was responsible for the fall of the Allende government.

Allende: The problem of the MIR is a problem that any democratic country which allows all political forces to express themselves would face. This would never have led to the overthrow of the government and it is very naive to say so. The Chilean government relied on the maturity of the proletariat and on its great democratic tradition. With respect to the mismanagement of the government, I have to differ fundamentally. Any government, faced with the artificial difficulties we faced, that was able to increase its electoral support from 36 to 44 percent - which we won in the last election - wasn't mismanaged. Chilean political parties usually lose rather than gain support in off-year congressional elections.

No power in the world would intervene in another country if they believed that that country's policies alone would lead to its downfall. The United States had to intervene in Chile because it knew otherwise.

SUN: What is the current situation of the political prisoners in Chile?

Allende: There is a permanent body of prisoners who were taken during the first four months after the coup. These are political leaders, union leaders, and public employees - persons who had positions of confidence and officials elected by the people. There must be some 15,000 of these people in the entire country. But then there is a changing prisoner population that circulates among the various places of detention. Their numbers are hard to estimate; they are picked up, held for fifteen or twenty days, released, and then picked up again. It's really very hard to calculate how many there are, because generally they are people who have no particular political preference and they are picked up on any pretext. Their families are terrified and don't dare notify national authorities. Observers who have gone to Chile have returned stunned by the conditions.

SUN: What is the status of resistance to the junta in Chile now?

Allende: Our struggle is long, hard, and difficult. There is a broad resistance movement, an anti-fascist front ranging from Christians, Marxists, and non-Marxists to many people in the Christian Democratic party who now know that they were mistaken. You have to understand that clandestine work, under the conditions created by the military, is very difficult. The resistance consists of sabotage, work stoppages, and slowdowns. For example, there was a nitrate workers' strike and there was the workers' flooding of the coal mines at Lota. There's also the sabotage of the Hawker-Hunter jets. I believe the resistance is creating a multi-party program in which the fundamental aim is to attack fascism on a broad front - to attack the common enemy: military fascism. On the eleventh of each month people make a "pocket strike" and refrain from buying at stores. The junta was further isolated when a meeting of twenty-eight bishops in Santiago condemned them and above all, their economic policy of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. But the free and democratic peoples of the world must also be aware that every dollar or gun given to the junta increases terrorism and crimes against the Chilean people. We don't pretend that those of us abroad can create some great liberating army to free the Chilean people. We believe the Chilean people will seek their own way. They need international solidarity - the support of the international community. And, as I've said, we want this to take the concrete form of denying aid to the junta, denying them credit and military aid.

The junta couldn't last without international support; there isn't any magic supporting their government - only the power of arms. From the moment that all military aid is withdrawn, the junta will begin to fall.

SUN: During the three years of the Allende regime Chile had the highest rate of inflation in its history. Many observers thought that civil war was threatening the country, and the middle class in particular was very unhappy. Weren't these conditions as responsible for the coup as the actions of the United States?

Allende: No, I don't think so and l'll explain why. We had a high rate of inflation, but wages and prices were adjusted to accord with rises in the cost of living so that the mass of workers never lost their buying power. Just the opposite, in fact - never had so much been sold in Chile. Now, the middle class was unhappy, but not because they lacked anything. They had the buying power to accumulate things; their houses were full of all kinds of things, but they were defending their class interests. Moveover, they had foreign support. The Popular Unity government did not fail; there would never have been a coup without foreign intervention. North American imperialism, the CIA, and international companies like ITT and Kennecott Copper are the principal parties responsible for the coup in Chile.

SUN: What is the present economic situation in Chile today, under the junta?

Allende: The junta has been returning everything that has been nationalized - that is, compensating or returning the mines, the monopolies, the landholdings. There is a very high rate of inflation, which the junta has been unable to control, and a high rate of unemployment. reaching a million persons. Some 500,000 public employees are threatened with the loss of their jobs by the decision of the junta, which says that they will be absorbed by private industry. But there are no new major investments in industry - none. A visiting Italian businessman recently described the Chilean situation very well when he said that the prices are on a par with Frankfurt, the salaries with Saigon, and that in addition there is great unemployment.

SUN: Why do you think the junta cracked down in such a repressive manner after the coup?

Allende: Because General Pinochet and the rest of the Chilean military is unable to govern. We could only compare it with the Nazis. In fact, I think that in Chile, proportionally, the massacre has been more bloody.

SUN. Every socialist government in history, in its first stages, has had to make an effort to consolidate the army and to form a centralized government. Some of Allende's critics have said that he put humanitarian sentiments above socialism, and they say that Allende's fall is proof that socialism cannot be elected. What are your reactions to these criticisms?

Allende: President Allende was well aware of these opinions when he took office. But he never attempted to transform the government into a dictatorship of the proletariat.  He was elected on the basis of a program, and he fulfilled that program. He was preparing the people to advance to socialism. And he didn't expect that a foreign power would unleash its might against his government.

The term "destabilization," as it is used by the CIA, by Mr. Kissinger, and by others in the United States, is quite accurate -  although it would never have occured to me to use the word "destabilize" for "overthrow."

Our government was stable. It relied on the maturity of the proletariat. It was a government that counted on an army that called itself constitutionalist. I don't see, then, from an internal point of view, that the Allende government committed any error. Some people keep trying to apply a pattern to the Allende government - they say it was a Marxist government. But it wasn't a Marxist government; it was a government composed of some Marxists and of other progressives who supported it but were not Marxists. I think this is an error of international magnitude, one that is commonly made by our enemies. Instead of looking for the errors outside, where they really were, they place them inside. Of course, we had difficulties. How could we avoid them when we weren't receiving credits from abroad, when we were trying to incorporate hungry people into the system of consumption? But despite all this, the electoral support for the Popular Unity party grew at each election, and this was what made our foreign enemies desperate. It was obvious that to get rid of Allende they were going to need something more than an economic conspiracy. They needed a conspiracy of arms and the support of a foreign power in order to commit this crime.

SUN: What are the principal lessons to be drawn from the Chilean experience?

Allende: Well, we believed that, given our traditions, the forms of political participation, and the existence of a workers' organization in Chile, ours was the only country in which there could be a legal road to socialism, the so-called Chilean way. But

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Mrs. Allende

continued from page 7

unfortunately, l have to say now that it isn't enough to win with votes -  it isn't enough to win the elections. One also needs an army at the service of the people, because the professionalism of the military, to tell the truth, is a myth. And it isn't enough just to win victories in elections, one also needs a congress at the service of the people, really elected by the people and not, as happened in Chile, bought with money and influence.

Also, I don't believe that the self-determination of peoples exists - nor do the codes of international law, of international rights. All these formulations that they talk so much about in the international organizations are theoretical, even though they are supposed to govern relations between nations. The reality is rich countries and poor countries -  and the rich countries always end up dominating the poor countries, whatever their politics may be.

SUN: Do you think back with much bitterness on the past two years?

Allende: Well, one has to draw distinctions. I, fortunately, am unable to hate - which isn't to say that this is right. I have only one desire and I would die happily if I could see it fulfilled: I want to see the Chilean military live our own martyrdom.

My great satisfaction would be to see them wander around the world, just as the Nazi torturers did, ashamed of their identities, ashamed of the historical role they played, anonymous, hiding themselves in the shadows of a night which they themselves created.

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center article

photo captions:

left side top:  Mark Lane

left side bottom:  David DuBois

right side top:  William Kunstler

right side bottom:  Donald Freed  

The Bicentennial Dilemma: Who's in Control?

Ann Arbor Teach-In November 2, 3 & 4, 1975

The violent overthrow of the Allende government in Chile and the imposition of fascism in that heretofore democratic nation are only one example of the enormous power exercised, both within the U.S. and worldwide, by institutions operating effectively outside the Constitution - and in fact, outside legal, moral, or political restrictions of any kind.  The intelligence agencies, multinational corporations, and organized crime have operated beyond the reach of the Presidency, Congress, and the courts, and all are adept at manipulating the media in order to camouflage this subversion.

In order to increase public awareness of the activities of such institutions, the extent of their power, and their modus operandi, and to organize active opposition, an ad hoc group called the Ann Arbor Teach-In has organized a major conference at Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium on November 2, 3 and 4.

The conference is titled "The Bicentennial Dilemma: Who's in Control?"  A series of seven morning, afternoon, and evening programs will bring together such internationally-known experts as Mark Lane on the JFK assassination, Donald Freed on the murder of Robert Kennedy, Jeremy Rifkin (director of the People's Bicentennial Commission), Black Panther editor David DuBois, and a host of others, including Rep. Michael Harrington of Massachusetts, attorney William Kunstler, and John Marks, co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.  There will be sessions on assassinations, corporate manipulation, police repression, surveillance, and mind control.

"We have been tremendously encouraged by the widespread national interest in the teach-in," Marty Lee, one of its principal organizers, told the SUN.  "We see the conference as an initial step in revitalizing the movement which swept the nation in response to the war in Vietnam, and we hope to begin to put together the basis of a national network of activists and concerned individuals."

Tickets for individual evening sessions will be available at the door. Admission for the entire conference is $3.00.  Tickets and further information are available from the Ann Arbor Teach-In, 332 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48108 (enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope).  The Teach-In's telephone number is (313) 995-0404.

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For a complete schedule of the Teach-In's program, see page 18 of the calendar