Document Text Contents
Page 1
The Rules of the Game:
Allende’s Chile, the United States and Cuba, 1970-1973.
Tanya Harmer
London School of Economics and Political Science
February 2008
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
PhD in International History, Department of international History, LSE.
Word Count (excluding bibliography): 99,984.
1
Page 2
UMI Number: U506B05
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript
and there are missing pages, th ese will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
Dissertation Publishing
UMI U506305
Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Page 134
information “Bolivian exiles, Cubans, Eastern Europeans and other leftist foreigners” were working
for Chile’s intelligence services.114 Chile certainly became a place of curiosity, refuge and solidarity
for revolutionaries around the region and reliable evidence suggests that limited numbers of Latin
American revolutionaries received training in Chilean camps.115 By the end of 1972, many of
Uruguay’s Tupamaros sought refuge in Chile and Brazilian left-wing exiles in Chile numbered
approximately one thousand by 1973.116 Allende knew and met with Latin American revolutionary
leaders whilst he was president, including Tupamaros who often joined his intimate Chilean and
Cuban friends at El Canaveral, his private secretary’s weekend home.117 However, when in August
1972, Argentinean political prisoners belonging to the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo
(Revolutionary Army of the People or ERP) hijacked a plane with 92 passengers and landed it at
Santiago’s airport, Allende was put in a difficult position.118 This not only provided Allende’s
opposition with evidence of links to ‘foreign extremism’, but even when Santiago sent the prisoners
to Cuba, this also temporarily damaged his working relationship with Argentina.119
Speculation also abounded about the Chilean Left’s intervention in Bolivia. To Santiago’s
horror, US Defence Secretary, Melvin Laird, publicly used such allegations to justify increased US
military spending programme in the country.120 Despite being a convenient justification for
increased spending, Washington actually had no precise or compelling intelligence. Instead, the
State Department noted, “some extra-legal support, principally from the Socialist Party, has already
been given, and aid to subversives from Castro or other sources will almost certainly transit through
Chile” but acknowledged there was “no known direct GOC support for subversives against other
neighbouring countries”.121 Even Brazil privately acknowledged Cuba’s support for revolutionary
199
movements in the hemisphere had diminished.
However, as Allende strove to deny intervention in neighbouring countries, the United
States bolstered the region’s counter-revolutionary dictatorships. Kissinger regarded Bolivia’s right-
wing dictator Hugo Banzer as a “friend”. During his first year in power, the US increased aid to
Bolivia by 600 percent and the White House intervened to ensure economic aid would not be
1 99
conditional on La Paz’ fiscal performance. Kissinger’s assistant, William Jorden, argued
Banzer’s “heart [was] in the right place” and that Bolivia had “progressed nicely” by expelling
Soviet personnel and cracking down “hard” on “leftists”. Indeed, Washington was struggling to
keep up with Bolivia’s right-wing dictator. Despite receiving extensive economic assistance and 45
percent of Nixon’s Military Assistance Programme (MAP) expenditure for Latin America,
132
Page 135
Washington received “complaints” of “too little too late”.124 These complaints notwithstanding, and
compared to earlier Brazilian preoccupations, Brasilia’s Foreign Minister now remarked favourably
on increased US support to Bolivia when he met Secretary Rogers. In September1972, he reflected
| on the “much improved” situation in Uruguay where the Tupamaros' leadership had “virtually
disappeared” following a government crackdown with Brazilian and Argentinean help (In just three
1
months, Uruguay’s civilian-military regime took 2,600 prisoners). Foreign Minister Barboza
noted the Southern Cone’s revolutionary “snowball had been reversed” and that the Chile’s road to
socialism was nearing its end. As he told Rogers, Chile in 1972 resembled Joao Goulart’s final days
in 1964.126
As the tide turned against Chile’s revolutionary process at home and abroad, Allende had
| found it hard to attract external assistance or pull his government together. Allende had dismissed
| his controversial Minister of the Economy back in June and appointed the more pragmatic
Communist, Orlando Millas, to deal with Chile’s financial difficulties.127 But abroad, Moscow was
increasingly reluctant to bail out the UP. Allende’s curious decision to send the anti-Soviet radical
Socialist Altamirano to the USSR in June in search of assistance must not have helped, especially as
198
it occurred only a month after Brezhnev’s summit with Nixon. Rather than being governed by
superpower relations alone, however, the Soviet leadership was disdainful of the UP’s performance.
A report by the Latin American Institute at Moscow’s Academy of Sciences commissioned by the
Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in mid-1972 described the Chilean situation as
“uncertain and unstable”. The report predicted the months ahead would be “agitated and tense”,
concluded that the UP only had partial political power and that Chilean parties had no fixed ideas,
190
means or potential for launching Chile on a road to socialism in the foreseeable future.
The Soviets also regarded the Chileans as being wildly optimistic about what the Soviet
Union could provide. In early 1972, the UP had proposed increasing trade between Chile and the
USSR from 7.8 million rubles in 1971 (achieved mainly as a result of Soviet wheat and tractor
exports) to $300 million a year by 1975. The Chileans also suggested that they would pay for
immediate Soviet imports after presidential elections in 1976 whilst selling Chilean products to
I
j Moscow and demanding immediate payment in hard currency. As those who compiled the
| Institute’s report noted, the Chilean plan implied the USSR would have to comply with conditions it
had not granted any other developing country. Considering the USSR was desperate for grain itself
133
Page 268
Sigmund, P.E: The Overthrow o f Allende and the Politics o f Chile, 1964-1976,
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977).
- Sigmund, P.E: Multinationals in Latin America, (Madison, Wisconsin:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1980).
Skidmore, T.E and Smith, P.H: Modem Latin America, 5th edition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
Skierka, V: Fidel Castro (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004).
Smimow, G: The Revolution Disarmed: Chile 1970-1973 (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1979).
Smith, J: History o f Brazil, 1500-2000: Politics, Economics, Society, Diplomacy (New
York: Longman, 2002).
Smith, P: Talons o f the Eagle: Dynamics ofUS-Latin American Relations, 2nd edition,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Spooner, M.H: Soldiers in a Narrow Land: The Pinochet Regime in Chile (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999).
Stephanson, A: “Fourteen Notes On the Very Concept of the Cold War”, H-Diplo:
Essays, http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/essavs/PDF/stephanson-14notes.pdf
Suarez Salazar, L: Madre America: Un Siglo de Violenciay Dolor (1898-1998), (Havana:
Ciencias Sociales, 2004).
- “La Politica de la Revolucion Cubana Hacia America Latina y el Caribe:
Notas Para Una Periodization” in Cuadernos de Nuestra America, vol.3,
no.6 (July-December 1986).
Sulzberger, C.L: The World and Richard Nixon (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987).
Suri, J: Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise o f Detente. (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2003).
Sweig, J: Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground,
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Timossi, J: Grandes Alamedas: El Combate del Presidente Allende (Havana: Ciencias
Sociales, 1974).
Ulianova, O: “La Unidad Popular y el Golpe Militar en Chile: Percepciones y Analisis
Sovieticos”, Estudios Publicos , vol.79 (Winter 2000).
Urban, J.B: Moscow and the Italian Communist Party (London: IB Tauvis, 1986).
Veneros, D: Allende: Un Ensayo Psicobiografico (Santiago: Editorial Suamericana,
Senales, 2003).
Verdugo, P: lnterferencia Secreta: I I de Septiembre de 1973 (Santiaogo: Editorial
Sudamericana Chilena, 1998).
Wesson, R: The United States and Brazil: Limits o f Influence (New York: Praeger, 1981).
Westad, O.A: The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making o f Our
Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory, (London:
Frank Cass Publishers, 2000).
Winn, P: Americas: The Changing Face o f Latin America and the Caribbean, 3rd edition,
(Berkley: University of California Press, 2006).
266
http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/essavs/PDF/stephanson-14notes.pdf
Page 269
Unpublished:
Michael, D, Nixon, Chile and Shadows o f the Cold War: U.S-Chilean Relations During
the Government o f Salvador Allende, 1970-1973, PhD Thesis, George Washington
University, 2005.
Santoni, A, La via cilena al socialismo nella riflessione del Partito comunista italiano.
Un mito per una strategiapolitica (1960-1973), PhD Thesis, University of
Bologna, 2006.
Spektor, M, Equivocal Engagement: Kissinger, Silveira and the Politics o f U.S-Brazil
Relations (1969-1983) PhD, Oxford University, 2006.
267
The Rules of the Game:
Allende’s Chile, the United States and Cuba, 1970-1973.
Tanya Harmer
London School of Economics and Political Science
February 2008
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
PhD in International History, Department of international History, LSE.
Word Count (excluding bibliography): 99,984.
1
Page 2
UMI Number: U506B05
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript
and there are missing pages, th ese will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
Dissertation Publishing
UMI U506305
Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Page 134
information “Bolivian exiles, Cubans, Eastern Europeans and other leftist foreigners” were working
for Chile’s intelligence services.114 Chile certainly became a place of curiosity, refuge and solidarity
for revolutionaries around the region and reliable evidence suggests that limited numbers of Latin
American revolutionaries received training in Chilean camps.115 By the end of 1972, many of
Uruguay’s Tupamaros sought refuge in Chile and Brazilian left-wing exiles in Chile numbered
approximately one thousand by 1973.116 Allende knew and met with Latin American revolutionary
leaders whilst he was president, including Tupamaros who often joined his intimate Chilean and
Cuban friends at El Canaveral, his private secretary’s weekend home.117 However, when in August
1972, Argentinean political prisoners belonging to the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo
(Revolutionary Army of the People or ERP) hijacked a plane with 92 passengers and landed it at
Santiago’s airport, Allende was put in a difficult position.118 This not only provided Allende’s
opposition with evidence of links to ‘foreign extremism’, but even when Santiago sent the prisoners
to Cuba, this also temporarily damaged his working relationship with Argentina.119
Speculation also abounded about the Chilean Left’s intervention in Bolivia. To Santiago’s
horror, US Defence Secretary, Melvin Laird, publicly used such allegations to justify increased US
military spending programme in the country.120 Despite being a convenient justification for
increased spending, Washington actually had no precise or compelling intelligence. Instead, the
State Department noted, “some extra-legal support, principally from the Socialist Party, has already
been given, and aid to subversives from Castro or other sources will almost certainly transit through
Chile” but acknowledged there was “no known direct GOC support for subversives against other
neighbouring countries”.121 Even Brazil privately acknowledged Cuba’s support for revolutionary
199
movements in the hemisphere had diminished.
However, as Allende strove to deny intervention in neighbouring countries, the United
States bolstered the region’s counter-revolutionary dictatorships. Kissinger regarded Bolivia’s right-
wing dictator Hugo Banzer as a “friend”. During his first year in power, the US increased aid to
Bolivia by 600 percent and the White House intervened to ensure economic aid would not be
1 99
conditional on La Paz’ fiscal performance. Kissinger’s assistant, William Jorden, argued
Banzer’s “heart [was] in the right place” and that Bolivia had “progressed nicely” by expelling
Soviet personnel and cracking down “hard” on “leftists”. Indeed, Washington was struggling to
keep up with Bolivia’s right-wing dictator. Despite receiving extensive economic assistance and 45
percent of Nixon’s Military Assistance Programme (MAP) expenditure for Latin America,
132
Page 135
Washington received “complaints” of “too little too late”.124 These complaints notwithstanding, and
compared to earlier Brazilian preoccupations, Brasilia’s Foreign Minister now remarked favourably
on increased US support to Bolivia when he met Secretary Rogers. In September1972, he reflected
| on the “much improved” situation in Uruguay where the Tupamaros' leadership had “virtually
disappeared” following a government crackdown with Brazilian and Argentinean help (In just three
1
months, Uruguay’s civilian-military regime took 2,600 prisoners). Foreign Minister Barboza
noted the Southern Cone’s revolutionary “snowball had been reversed” and that the Chile’s road to
socialism was nearing its end. As he told Rogers, Chile in 1972 resembled Joao Goulart’s final days
in 1964.126
As the tide turned against Chile’s revolutionary process at home and abroad, Allende had
| found it hard to attract external assistance or pull his government together. Allende had dismissed
| his controversial Minister of the Economy back in June and appointed the more pragmatic
Communist, Orlando Millas, to deal with Chile’s financial difficulties.127 But abroad, Moscow was
increasingly reluctant to bail out the UP. Allende’s curious decision to send the anti-Soviet radical
Socialist Altamirano to the USSR in June in search of assistance must not have helped, especially as
198
it occurred only a month after Brezhnev’s summit with Nixon. Rather than being governed by
superpower relations alone, however, the Soviet leadership was disdainful of the UP’s performance.
A report by the Latin American Institute at Moscow’s Academy of Sciences commissioned by the
Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in mid-1972 described the Chilean situation as
“uncertain and unstable”. The report predicted the months ahead would be “agitated and tense”,
concluded that the UP only had partial political power and that Chilean parties had no fixed ideas,
190
means or potential for launching Chile on a road to socialism in the foreseeable future.
The Soviets also regarded the Chileans as being wildly optimistic about what the Soviet
Union could provide. In early 1972, the UP had proposed increasing trade between Chile and the
USSR from 7.8 million rubles in 1971 (achieved mainly as a result of Soviet wheat and tractor
exports) to $300 million a year by 1975. The Chileans also suggested that they would pay for
immediate Soviet imports after presidential elections in 1976 whilst selling Chilean products to
I
j Moscow and demanding immediate payment in hard currency. As those who compiled the
| Institute’s report noted, the Chilean plan implied the USSR would have to comply with conditions it
had not granted any other developing country. Considering the USSR was desperate for grain itself
133
Page 268
Sigmund, P.E: The Overthrow o f Allende and the Politics o f Chile, 1964-1976,
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977).
- Sigmund, P.E: Multinationals in Latin America, (Madison, Wisconsin:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1980).
Skidmore, T.E and Smith, P.H: Modem Latin America, 5th edition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
Skierka, V: Fidel Castro (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004).
Smimow, G: The Revolution Disarmed: Chile 1970-1973 (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1979).
Smith, J: History o f Brazil, 1500-2000: Politics, Economics, Society, Diplomacy (New
York: Longman, 2002).
Smith, P: Talons o f the Eagle: Dynamics ofUS-Latin American Relations, 2nd edition,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Spooner, M.H: Soldiers in a Narrow Land: The Pinochet Regime in Chile (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999).
Stephanson, A: “Fourteen Notes On the Very Concept of the Cold War”, H-Diplo:
Essays, http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/essavs/PDF/stephanson-14notes.pdf
Suarez Salazar, L: Madre America: Un Siglo de Violenciay Dolor (1898-1998), (Havana:
Ciencias Sociales, 2004).
- “La Politica de la Revolucion Cubana Hacia America Latina y el Caribe:
Notas Para Una Periodization” in Cuadernos de Nuestra America, vol.3,
no.6 (July-December 1986).
Sulzberger, C.L: The World and Richard Nixon (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987).
Suri, J: Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise o f Detente. (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2003).
Sweig, J: Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground,
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Timossi, J: Grandes Alamedas: El Combate del Presidente Allende (Havana: Ciencias
Sociales, 1974).
Ulianova, O: “La Unidad Popular y el Golpe Militar en Chile: Percepciones y Analisis
Sovieticos”, Estudios Publicos , vol.79 (Winter 2000).
Urban, J.B: Moscow and the Italian Communist Party (London: IB Tauvis, 1986).
Veneros, D: Allende: Un Ensayo Psicobiografico (Santiago: Editorial Suamericana,
Senales, 2003).
Verdugo, P: lnterferencia Secreta: I I de Septiembre de 1973 (Santiaogo: Editorial
Sudamericana Chilena, 1998).
Wesson, R: The United States and Brazil: Limits o f Influence (New York: Praeger, 1981).
Westad, O.A: The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making o f Our
Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory, (London:
Frank Cass Publishers, 2000).
Winn, P: Americas: The Changing Face o f Latin America and the Caribbean, 3rd edition,
(Berkley: University of California Press, 2006).
266
http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/essavs/PDF/stephanson-14notes.pdf
Page 269
Unpublished:
Michael, D, Nixon, Chile and Shadows o f the Cold War: U.S-Chilean Relations During
the Government o f Salvador Allende, 1970-1973, PhD Thesis, George Washington
University, 2005.
Santoni, A, La via cilena al socialismo nella riflessione del Partito comunista italiano.
Un mito per una strategiapolitica (1960-1973), PhD Thesis, University of
Bologna, 2006.
Spektor, M, Equivocal Engagement: Kissinger, Silveira and the Politics o f U.S-Brazil
Relations (1969-1983) PhD, Oxford University, 2006.
267
