9
The story of Chile and Richard Nixon can be told in a nutshell. In September 1970, a Marxist candidate named Salvador Allende finished first among all candidates for the Chilean presidency with 37 percent of the vote. Under Chilean tradition, the race was then decided by vote of the legislature, and when that happened, the leading candidate was invariably given the office. Upon Allende’s first-place finish, President Nixon immediately instructed the CIA to see what it could do to have the legislature disavow past precedent and elect a non-Marxist president. That didn’t work. Nor did subsequent attempts by the United States to organize a coup to remove Allende from office.
The arguments against disturbing the results of the Chilean campaign were many. Most important, Allende did not threaten to establish a Marxist state but rather served as an elected Marxist candidate within a functioning democracy. Second, a coup would lead to military rule and the prospect of widespread executions and a societywide denial of human rights. Third, the United States would undoubtedly be blamed for the coup, not only within Chile but throughout the hemisphere. Nixon saw things the other way, as was well articulated in our interview. While making the case for a U.S.-engineered coup d’état, he denied that the 1970 coup, in which Allende lost his life, had been made in the U.S.A., saying it had resulted from Allende’s own disastrous economic policy.
Much as was the case with our Vietnam interrogation, my approach here was to play the devil’s advocate, a role I welcomed. By the time these interviews occurred, Chileans were in the grip of a murderous dictatorship, presided over by General Augusto Pinochet, one that would endure until the late 1980s, when Pinochet—mistaking the deference paid the man who carries the gun for public adulation—permitted a free election to take place. Chileans promptly voted him out of office.
FROST: One of the most controversial aspects of your foreign policy, namely Chile. And there were the Chilean elections in September 1970, and after those elections of September the fourth popular tradition suggested that Allende the Marxist would be elected as president in a joint session on October the twenty-fourth. And in a meeting with the CIA director, Richard Helms, on September the fifteenth, 1970, you did direct him, didn’t you, to take such steps as were necessary to prevent Allende from coming to power?
NIXON: Yes, there was such a meeting, ah…we did not discuss the specific steps, the only steps that were discussed, ah…was the use of economic measures that might be effective. And in listing whatever political groups were to be involved, ah…in preventing Allende from coming to power, enlisting of course the major military leaders. Because, of course, the military had great influence in Chile, on a political situation.
FROST: But if—
NIXON: A military coup however, was not what was contemplated, and of course it did not take place.
FROST: No, but a coup was one of the things that Mr. Helms could have felt was certainly not ruled out?
NIXON: Well, let’s understand what a coup would have been in this instance, ah…first we talk about the election. This was a case where as so often happens in the non-Communist world, the non-Communists fight among each other. The Communists are always united. Virtually always. Now, in this case, Allende got thirty-six percent of the vote. Ah…the very conservative candidate got thirty-five percent of the vote and the third-party candidate, ah…the party of former President Frei, got the rest of the vote. So, as far as the people of Chile were concerned, as far as the vote was concerned, ah…the individual who had received a little over a third of the vote, Allende, was going to come to power unless the other two parties would get together and, in the Congress of course, vote for maybe a neutral candidate or some third candidate…because the other two parties unfortunately probably disliked each other or fought each other more than they fought Allende, which is the great tragedy in the Western, or should I say, the non-Communist, world today.
So that was the situation we were confronted with. What I anticipated was that, ah…it might be possible under the circumstances since Allende had not gotten, ah…a majority of the popular vote, that the other two parties should get together and, ah…with proper press support and, ah…support from the military that they would be able, through a coup, if you want to use that term, to prevent him from coming to power. There was no discussion, of course, of “coup” in terms of a…military operation…of sending in…which would require the huge commitment of arms and so forth. We also have to understand that that was not a new policy as far as the United States is concerned. Back in 1964, ah…we spent over four million dollars in the election campaign itself, to defeat Allende and, ah…it was generally considered to be a very good move on our part to do so at that time by some who became critics of our attempts to keep him from coming to power this time.
FROST: But nevertheless, you wanted to prevent him from coming to power and there had obviously been lots of cases in democracies of where people have come to power by a vote, well, in your own case the first time it was forty-three percent—
NIXON: Yes…and, ah…John Kennedy had a forty-nine percent because of the third-party candidate in 1960.
FROST: Right.
NIXON: That’s quite true.
FROST: The unique thing here really was that—
NIXON:—neither of us was running against a Communist.
FROST: No, indeed…ah…but the unique thing here, isn’t it that, can you think of any other example where the United States in…recent United States history…attempted to interrupt the constitutional processes of a democratic government?
NIXON: Well, it depends on what you mean by recent…ah…well…you mean the last four or five years? No, I can’t think of any.
FROST: But given that it hasn’t happened in recent years and that Chile has a strong democratic tradition and so on…and Chile’s a small country, does that mean that you think that today, if France or Italy was about to vote a Marxist into power, that similar steps should be taken to try and prevent it?
NIXON: I think in the case of France and Italy today, ah…and because of the, what I think the…totally irresponsible activities of the Church Committee and some of the media in, in its attacks on the CIA, some of the attacks were justified, ah…but…this total discrediting of the CIA, creating the impression they’re a bunch of assassins. That they’re running off on their own trying to poison people and this and that and the other thing, you know, some of the horrible examples that have been printed in the press and, ah…put on television and testified to and so forth and so on…In view of that situation, ah…the possibility of a so-called covert activity in a country like France or Italy is out of the question. I would only point out that, ah…as far as those major countries are concerned, like France and Italy, I would think that now that they are strong enough, ah…with their own traditions and that the non-Communist forces are strong enough, ah…that when they look down, frankly, the gun barrel and see the possibility of a Communist minority, well organized, well heeled, ah…joining with some splinter party, ah…which is on the left but not Communist and taking power, that this will mean a coalition developing among the non-Communist parties, I think this would, I would…I would think this would happen in Italy, just trying to be a prophet, and I could be proved to be wrong. And it could happen in France, although the recent indications as I read after the municipal elections, are that it might be very difficult in France for, ah…Giscard d’Éstaing and the Gaullists to work together to prevent the Communists-Socialists group…if they are in coalition from getting a majority of the vote.
And they have to face the fact that the people of Europe, the people of any country where they have this decision to make, that as far as the U.S. commitment to NATO is concerned, in my view, speaking as a political observer, it will be…be…impossible to keep up the U.S. commitment and get the funds from the Congress for NATO if the Communists get it. When the Communists get in, the U.S. will get out.
FROST: But at the same time, summing up your feelings, what you are mentioning about covert activities being found out and so on is that if, ah…a Marxist takeover looked as though it was around the corner, ah…you would regret the fact that we couldn’t engage in covert activity in France or Italy, really. Because we’d be found out.
NIXON: Let me say, ah…let’s get our priorities as far as morality into proper perspective here. Ah…what we’re really talking about is the real world…not the world as I know you want and as I want it. Different as our backgrounds are…we would prefer a world in the great Anglo-American tradition in which, ah…we have freedom of expression, ah…in which there are not covert activities, there are no fears, no repression…or if there is, that, when it is punished, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it isn’t that kind of a world. We live in a world where at the present time the greatest threat to free nations is not from Communist nations, potential aggressor nations, marching over borders, it is not from Communist nations with huge nuclear armaments launching a nuclear strike, but the threat to free nations is through Communist nations, potentially aggressive Communist nations like the Soviet Union, like Cuba, for example, like Chile if Allende had stayed in power. Burrowing under a border rather than over a border—
FROST: But—
NIXON:—and supporting, and supporting the Communist Party. Now, let’s face it, let’s look at the situation in Italy. Let us suppose that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the other Eastern European countries states…ah…put in, ah…tens of millions of dollars to help the Communist Party in Italy, ah…what are the Christian Democrats going to do? Or the other parties going to do? Can they get any help from the outside? And the answer is, unless the free world develops some method to deal with this kind of covert support by an outside power of Communist forces within countries, then those countries are going to be taken away…one by one.
FROST: What did you have in mind in Chile when you said that you wanted the CIA or you wanted America to make the economy scream? What did you have in mind?
NIXON: Well…Chile, of course, is interested in, ah…obtaining loans…ah…from international organizations…where we have a vote…and I indicated that, ah…wherever we had a vote…where Chile was involved that, ah…unless there were strong considerations on the other side, that we would vote against them. Ah…I felt that as far as Chile was concerned, since they were expropriating American property—they expropriated, Allende did, it took him only three years to expropriate two hundred and seventy-five firms. I know that, ah…as far as—
FROST: He hadn’t done that on September the fifteenth—
NIXON: Yeah…I know…but I knew that was coming…all you had to do was to read his campaign speeches. Let us…we forget when we talk about Allende that his history went back, we knew him in 1964 when both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations spent a total of over four million dollars to keep him from coming to power.
FROST: Why—
NIXON: Because they knew that he was a Marxist and they knew what he would do to Chile and the effect that would have on the countries neighboring on Latin America. But in his campaign, early in 1970, he said, ah…with Cuba in the Caribbean and with Chile on the southern cone, we—he meant Castro and Allende—will make the revolution in Latin America. Now, we had fair warning of that, now, why was Chile, even though it is a small country in terms of population, it has common borders with Argentina, ah…it can have influence in Bolivia…it can have an influence in Brazil…it can have one also in Peru…and all of those countries had significant problems and all of them were concerned about the possibility of a beachhead of communism in Chile that would export in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba, that is, exporting revolution and didn’t want another one—Chile—doing it—
FROST: But there are two things there, surely…one is that Cuba, which everybody would say is Communist in the traditional sense of the word, Cuba has been totally unsuccessful in its export of revolution or anything else since 1958 and Allende just didn’t turn out that way. He turned out to be a Marxist…he worked within the system for the three years. He never attempted to introduce political pressure. That only came later. Ah…he continued to work within the system to the extent where it was predicted he would lose the next election.
NIXON: Well, as a matter of fact. Let’s well understand, ah…Allende played it very clever, but he…he…played it as a Chilean would rather than as a Cuban would. The Chileans being, ah…frankly less volatile than the Cubans, I would say, but on the other hand…there wasn’t any question about his turning all the screws that he possibly could, ah…in the direction of making Chile a Marxist state. There wasn’t any question but that he was cooperating with Castro. There wasn’t any question that Chile was being used by some of Castro’s agents as a base to export terrorism into Argentina, to Bolivia, to Brazil. We knew all of that.
FROST: But he never—
NIXON: And also, now, as far as repression is concerned, after all, he did that in a subtle way. But we would have called it repression if it had been done in Vietnam. We would have called it repression if it had been done among any one of our friendly countries today. Ah…for example the government-owned television station. The only program that they had was simply Marxist philosophy…as far as government advertising was concerned, he squeezed the press…in addition to, ah…shutting down the UP office or UPI office for a time ’cause he didn’t like one of their stories…and shutting down El Mercurio, the biggest paper…first ordering it for a week and then, because of an outcry, cutting it down to a day, because he didn’t like some of their stories…But he also had a very subtle power in the sense that there the government advertises in the paper and so, he proceeded to do everything that he could to cut that advertising down and that was why the United States in that period, ah…very properly, I believe, and President Carter, I think, has shown right judgment in indicating that there was nothing illegal about this and, as a matter of fact, therefore had indirectly approved it in that period—
FROST: We…indirectly—
NIXON:—in that period…we helped subsidize the Chilean press in order to keep it free, to keep it alive.
FROST: You mean President Carter’s indirectly proved that—
NIXON: No…he just said that he has checked the record and he found that there was nothing illegal in any activities as far as Chile was concerned.
FROST: But when you look at that list of…I mean…them closing the UPI office—
NIXON: I don’t mean that he said that he would have done it…but he said there was nothing illegal—
FROST: When you look at the closing of the UPI office, for instance, and things like that…all of those things are trivial compared with what followed Allende…I mean, Allende, with all of that list, looks like a saint compared with the repression of Pinochet…
This moment presented Nixon with the opportunity to offer his traditional “realist” spin on U.S. interests with smaller states. Simply stated, it was to support the stability of right-wing dictatorships because they lack the internationalist design of left-wing governments. It is a view that shaped U.S. policy toward the Third World throughout the Cold War and for which we have yet to devise a workable substitute.
NIXON: That’s right…I am not here to defend and will not defend repression by any government…be it a friend of the United States or one that is opposed to the United States. But I would make this comparison…as far as Allende was concerned…he was an opponent of the United States, he also was an opponent of the non-Communist governments who were his neighbors. He was an ally of Castro, ah…in other words, we’ve got to separate our views with regard to what kind of dictatorships are, not that one dictator…any dictatorship is good, but in terms of…national security…in terms of our own self-interest, the right-wing dictatorship, ah…if it is not exporting its revolution, if it is not interfering with its neighbors, if it is not taking action directed against the United States, it is therefore of no security concern to us. It is of a human rights concern. A left-wing dictatorship, on the other hand, we find that they do engage in trying to export their subversion to other countries…and that does involve our security interests.
FROST: In fact, what they have now with Pinochet is a right-wing dictatorship…what they had with Allende was a left-wing, or Marxist, democracy…it was never a dictatorship.
NIXON: Let’s understand—
FROST: Was it…was it, though?
NIXON: No…I don’t agree with your assertion whatsoever…I, oh…I would—
FROST: It was not a dictatorship, was it?
NIXON: It was…you said it was not…a dictatorship…and my point is Allende was a very subtle and a very clever man. But he was…it was not a dictatorship in, ah…the sense that Castro’s Cuba is a dictatorship…ah…it was not a dictatorship in that sense, certainly. On the other hand, as far as the situation in Chile was concerned, he was engaging in dictatorial actions, which eventually would have allowed him to impose a dictatorship. That was his goal…
FROST: But the…CIA reported shortly before his death that he was no threat to democracy. He wasn’t planning to abolish democracy, and he was going to lose in the next election.
This question presented Nixon the opportunity to slam the CIA, something he seemed to do with great gusto. Had the Agency performed as poorly as Nixon suggested? Or was Nixon bitter over the Agency’s failure to do his Watergate bidding and ask the FBI to halt its investigation?
NIXON: Based on the CIA’s record of accuracy in their reports, I would take all that with a grain of salt…ah…they didn’t even predict that he was going to win this time. They didn’t predict that was going to happen in Cambodia…they didn’t even predict that there was going to be, ah…the Yom Kippur War. As far as the CIA is concerned, at that point—and now I understand it is being improved, and I trust it will be under the new leadership—at that point its intelligence estimates were not very good on Latin America. I also go back to the point that in terms of, ah…what we really had here in Chile, I think it was graphically described to me, even though you and many of our audience may disagree with what we did in Chile…and disagree with my defense of it…but I have to state what I believe, and that’s what we’re here for in this program…and I’m going to continue to do it. I don’t care whether it’s popular or not…we must have in mind the fact that what is not popular today maybe has to be made popular if we’re to survive tomorrow. And that’s what I’m talking about. Because here is what was involved in Chile…I remember months before he even came to power in 1970, that when it was thought that he might run again…an Italian businessman came to call on me in the Oval Office and said, “If Allende should win the election in Chile and then you have Castro in Cuba, what you will in effect have in Latin America is a red sandwich. And eventually it will all be red.” And that’s what we confronted.
FROST: But that’s madness of him to say that. I mean, how—
NIXON: It isn’t madness at all…it shows somebody saying, cutting through the hypocritical double standards of those who can see all the dangers on the right—
FROST: No…no…but surely…no, but I—
NIXON:—and don’t look at the dangers on the left.
FROST: No, but surely, Mr. President, there’s two…you’ve got little Cuba and little Chile…and all those enormous countries in between…it’s like…if it’s a red sandwich, it’s got two pieces of bread here and here and an enormous bit of beef in the middle. I mean, are you really saying that Brazil should feel itself surrounded by Cuba and Chile?
NIXON: All that I can say is that, as far as Brazil is concerned, ah…as far as Argentina is concerned, the other countries in that part of the hemisphere, ah…I have visited most of them…in 1958, for example…ah…and I can testify to the fact that many of their governments are potentially unstable. Ah…I can testify to the fact that also they do have a problem of subversion. They do…they fear it…maybe their fears are greater than they should be, but…what we are concerned about in Latin America, and you have to be concerned, is the instability of so many of the governments there. Oh, I’m not suggesting that Chile’s going to launch an armed invasion of Argentina or of Brazil, for example…of course they’d get clobbered. And I’m not suggesting that Cuba is going to take an amphibious force over and take over Venezuela.
But I do know this…Castro has caused plenty of problems to his neighbors…and is continuing to cause problems, and Chile will continue to. I will not take your assumption that it was madness…a madman, in effect, or that it was madness for him to even suggest this. Well, he’s mad like a fox, because what he’s doing is taking the historical view…and that is, he knows the nature of communism, the threat, I say again, is not the…even the size of the country. It’s the fact that they have the beachhead. It’s the tactics they use. And in this instance…it’s having a base to infiltrate from outside. Sending people under borders and over borders and so forth…I didn’t mean that it was an immediate threat, but I meant that if you let one go, you’re going to have some problems with others…so we’ll just let the red sandwich sit right there because…obviously you’ve got other subjects to cover.
FROST: Well, we’ll stick to this one.
NIXON: I…oh, I can take this one as long as you want.
FROST: But the point is, really, what I really wanted to say was that Allende won the election, as you said, albeit with thirty-six percent…we wanted to prevent him from coming to power. As it turned out, whatever may have lurked in the secret heart of a Marxist working within the democratic system, ah…he hadn’t abolished the democratic system…he hadn’t abolished the principal election or anything else, and that was abolished by Pinochet. Now, in retrospect, looking back, don’t you think the Chileans have had this tradition of democracy going back to 1818, with three temporary interruptions in between…nothing interrupting it since 1932, till Pinochet, in retrospect, don’t you think that the Chileans were a better judge of what would preserve their democracy than you were?
NIXON: Who do you think overthrew Allende? You see, there’s the point you’ve missed. Allende, at the time he had been in charge of government with his programs that destroyed agriculture and discouraging foreign investment, ah…because obviously, I wasn’t going to approve any American loans to companies to invest in Chile when it might be expropriated. That was one of the economic squeezes we put on them—
FROST: The main reason—
NIXON:—but in any event…well, let’s look at what happened. We forget Allende was thrown out of office not by any outside coup, he was assassinated…his assassination took place or his death, whether it was assassination or suicide…there seemed to be some argument there…as it was in the case of Diem, but be that as it may, he was a casualty. As far as Allende was concerned, it had ruined the Chilean economy. Inflation was three hundred percent. It took him only three years to take Chile, which had had a pretty good record up to that time in meeting its international obligations…to make Chile one of the poorest credit risks in the whole world. Ah…now, under the circumstances, with that kind of a record, it was the Chilean people, ah…the Chilean leadership that supported the people…even the women marched in the street…and so forth…the labor unions turned against him…they overthrew Allende.
I come back to the proposition that I made previously, ah…and, ah…as far as the countries that have Communist governments are concerned, and this is true of those in Eastern Europe, it’s true of Cuba, ah…I think it will eventually prove in Angola…although we don’t have any word out of it yet…it will be true in other parts of the world as well…ah…but as far as popular support…I would have to say that Foster Dulles was right…that the great failure of communism is that they seem irresistible in their ability to conquer a country either over or under a border, but they are totally inadequate and always fail in winning the support of the people of the countries they take over. Allende lost eventually; Allende was overthrown eventually…not because of anything that was done from the outside…but because his system didn’t work in Chile…and Chile decided to throw it out. Now, what they have now, I don’t approve of the repression, I would hope that the Chilean people, Chilean leadership, would change their policies. But I can only suggest this…neither the British nor the French nor the Americans, ah…can any longer take the position that our form of democracy—and each of it differs, the French have a different one from the British, the British a different one from the Americans, and the Italians have a different one from anybody else. But the point is, our form of democracy…our form of freedom will not work in many other countries in the world.
FROST: But on that principle…surely we shouldn’t have tried to interfere in the process in Chile. I mean, we should surely believe in self-determination in the sense we went to war for it in South Vietnam and we said indeed we’d accept whatever government they elected even if it was a Communist one, much less a Marxist one. Ah…surely we should have done the same thing for self-determination in Chile. I mean, how do you decide which results in a democracy you don’t accept. I mean, what are the rules? We tried to prevent Allende from coming to power…(who’d won) because we didn’t like the result. We should not try to impose our will on other countries…you said, therefore, we shouldn’t have tried to impose it on Chile.
NIXON: Well, it’s obvious that, ah…we’re in an area where we have a very spirited and friendly disagreement. Because we’re both on the same side. Ah…we both want freedom of choice for all the world. We would both like a situation where there is no discrimination in voting. We would both like a situation where there was freedom of press and freedom of religion all over the world. We would both like a situation where everything was perfect as it is in Britain, as it is in America. And we know very well it isn’t perfect either place, and it’s never going to be because men are men and women are women and none of us are perfect…but the point that I’m making in the case of Chile and what distinguishes it from the other is this…that when, as was the case in Chile, you have a situation where an outside force, the Cubans, put three hundred and fifty thousand dollars at a minimum into the election in 1970—that got Allende into power. The Soviet Union put in what is called by the CIA’s report an amount that is unknown. I would imagine it was in the matter of millions of dollars, because when they play, they play hardball. And when you have a situation where a government comes into power supported by an outside power, a Communist power, ah…then I believe that there is justification for supporting those…seeing that those who are not Communist and who are in the majority at least have an equal show at the ballot box. Ah…and second…that, ah…once the election process…electoral process takes place, to keep their right to dissent alive by supporting their newspapers and their radio stations and so forth.
FROST: But they hadn’t had—
NIXON: Because what we had is—
FROST:—equal shot at the ballot box?
NIXON: Yeah…it wasn’t an equal shot, because basically when you have, in this instance, when you had Allende, with massive support from outside of Chile by Communists, and because a division within the non-Communist forces in Chile and perhaps the United States not recognizing how serious the problem was…very little support from the United States on the other side…it wasn’t that fair a fight.
FROST: But the three hundred and fifty thousand from Cuba is just equivalent to the sum from IT&T, and we spent that eight million dollars over that three-year period in—
NIXON: Oh, now we’re talking about this period—
FROST:—in the period after—
NIXON:—the election…I’m talking about the period before the election—
FROST: But we support the non—
NIXON:—before the election, and I should also point out that in that instance you’re leaving out how much the Soviet Union put in.
FROST: Do you think that over these years the Soviet Union…does your reading of reports, et cetera, et cetera, suggest that they put in as much as the United States?
NIXON: Where?
FROST: Into Chile.
NIXON: I don’t know how much they put in, but my point is, they put in enough that they, they, ah…I would certainly say matched us dollar for dollar and probably did…it was used better due to the fact of the division, as I said, among the non-Communist forces.
FROST: If you had to choose a word to describe the Pinochet regime, what adjective would you use…brutal?
NIXON: Well, when they are brutal, yes, ah…when they are dictatorial, I would say they are dictatorial. Ah…I would also have to, on the other side, indicate that they are non-Communists and that they are not enemies of the United States and that they do not threaten any of their neighbors. Now, basically, what we have to understand—and this does not justify a right-wing dictatorship or any kind of dictatorship—but what we have to understand is that, in this instance, the present Chilean government is engaging in activities that we disapprove of in terms of its internal policies. But as far as its external policies are concerned, they don’t threaten any of their neighbors and they don’t threaten us.