William Colby’s ignoble experiment

This letter is in response to your AP article of Sept. 4 regarding the reburial of Chile’s former President Salvador Allende. Allende ruled Chile from Sept. 4, 1970, to Sept. 11, 1973; as the article pointed out, he was the “first Marxist freely elected president in a western country.” Yet, the article did not mention that the United States’ CIA invested more than $8 million in clandestine activities to oust him. Former CIA Director William Colby, in testimony to Congress, called Chile a “prototype or laboratory experiment to test the techniques of heavy financial investment in an effort to discredit and bring down a government.”

Obviously, the “experiment” worked. But why was this “test” administered? Economics. It was Allende’s dream to substantially raise the standard of living of the poor in Chile; in order to do so he instituted land reform. However, agrarian reforms angered the upper classes whose lands he expropriated, and infuriated the multinational corporations, whose conpanies he nationalized.

International Telephone and Telegraph (IT&T), one of the world’s largest multinational corporations, actually sent an 18-point plan for ousting Allende to the CIA. The United States imposed economic sanctions against Chile by cutting off loans and instituting an “informal” blockade of Chile’s coast. We heavily subsidized the opposition press, El Mercurio (still free to print under Allende) in an effort to heighten opposition to Allende. And we sent military advisers.

Finally, on Sept. 11, 1973, with U.S. instruction and financial backing, Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew and killed Allende and took over the government. Thus began the harshest and most oppressive reign in Chile’s history; it lasted 17 years. Now the new president, Patricio Aylwin, is allowing Allende’s remains to be reburied with dignity in Santiago and will allow his grave to be marked. That is a step in the right direction, for suppressing historical knowledge is no way to run a country. Let us take that to heart, as well. Allende’s overthrow is our history, too. Colby’s “experiment” worked. And it continues to work in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama… Rachael Schofield Pembroke