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Six days after Salvador Allende's inauguration, Kissinger distributed a TOP SECRET/SENSITIVE/EYES ONLY National Security Decision Memorandum titled "Policy Toward Chile" summarizing the guidelines from the NSC meeting. "The President has decided that (1) the public posture of the United States will be correct but cool, to avoid giving the Allende government a basis on which to rally domestic and international support for the consolidation of the regime; but that (2) the United States will seek to maximize pressures on the Allende government to prevent its consolidation and limit its ability to implement policies contrary to U.S. and hemispheric interests." The directive authorized U.S. officials to collaborate with other governments in the region, notably Brazil and Argentina, to coordinate efforts against Allende; to quietly block multilateral bank loans to Chile and terminate U.S. export credits and loans; enlist U.S. corporations to leave Chile; and manipulate the international market value of Chile's main export, copper, to further hurt the Chilean economy. The CIA was authorized to prepare related action plans for future implementation. The directive contained no mention of any effort to preserve Chile's democratic institutions or to work toward Allende's electoral defeat in 1976.
That same day, Kissinger called Nixon on the phone and they discussed Chile. Nixon had read Allende's inaugural speech, as reported in the New York Times. "Helms has to get to these people," Nixon told Kissinger, referring to covert operations in Chile. "We have made that clear," Kissinger replied.
According to the declassified telephone transcript of their call, Nixon and his national security advisor then discussed their rationale for intervening against Allende. "I feel strongly this line is important regarding its effect on the people of the world," Nixon stated, echoing the argument Kissinger had presented to him only four days earlier about Allende's "model effect." "If [Allende] can prove he can set up a Marxist anti-American policy, others will do the same thing." Kissinger fully agreed. "It will have ______ effect even in Europe. Not only Latin America."
READ THE DOCUMENTSThe White House, Memorandum for the President from Henry Kissinger, "NSC Meeting, November 6 - Chile," SECRET, 05 November 1970
1970-11-05
Source: Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.
The day before a National Security Council meeting to decide U.S. policy toward an Allende government, Henry Kissinger presents President Nixon with a briefing memorandum outlining three different options. Option 1, favored by the State Department, Kissinger describes as the "Modus Vivendi Strategy." It "argues that we really do not have the capability of preventing Allende from consolidating himself or forcing his failure" and that "actions to exert pressure on Allende or to isolate Chile will not only be ineffective, but will only accelerate adverse developments in Chile." The second option, backed by the DOD and the CIA, is the "Hostile Approach." This approach could be implemented through one of two ways: (i) Overt hostility and (ii) Non-overt pressure. At the end of his assessment of the three approaches, Kissinger asserts that "the dangers of doing nothing are greater than the risks we run in trying to do something" and recommends that Nixon "make a decision that we will oppose Allende as strongly as we can and do all we can to keep him from consolidating power, taking care to package those efforts in a style that gives us the appearance of reacting to his moves."
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