Kissinger Orders Secret Cash Stockpile to Target Salvador Allende
By Harlan Pryce ·
Five and a half lines remain blacked out from a meeting where the US stockpiled Chilean escudos to fund operations against a president the public believed was safe.
Washington, November 13, 1970. The room held the primary architects of American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger, Mr. Nutter, Mr. Johnson, Lt. Gen. Richard T. Knowles, and CIA Director Richard Helms. They were joined by a cadre of staff, including Thomas Karamessines and William Broe. The subject was Chile. Specifically, the 40 Committee was weighing the presence of Salvador Allende, the socialist who had recently been elected president—the first Marxist to lead a liberal democracy in Latin America, according to the public record.
Among the attendees was Charles Meyer, who had just returned from Santiago after attending Allende's inauguration. Meyer had spent his time in conversation with Allende, former President Eduardo Frei, and various other Chilean and Latin American figures. His report to the committee was not one of optimism, nor was it a call for patience based on the strength of the local opposition. Instead, it was a warning about the delusions of the Chilean people.
"Chilean Character"
Meyer expressed a conviction to the committee that very few Chileans were accurately evaluating the "Allende threat to Chile." The prevailing belief in Santiago, Meyer reported, was that the "Chilean character" would "miraculously preclude a Marxist take-over of the country."
In the world of clandestine service, believing that the inherent nature of a population can stop a disciplined ideology is a dangerous gamble. Ideology does not respect national temperament, and Marxism, in particular, is designed to dismantle the very "character" that its opponents rely upon for protection. Meyer noted that this misplaced confidence made the prospect of a forced removal of Allende unlikely, as there was a deep "abhorrence of Chileans fighting Chileans."
Furthermore, the political opposition was in shambles. Meyer described the CDU as "so badly split its factions cannot get together," concluding that any hope for a unified political front against Allende at that moment was "virtually hopeless."
A 100-Day Honeymoon
Despite the internal collapse of the Chilean right, Meyer provided a tactical warning. He stated that every Chilean and Latin American he spoke with believed the United States should refrain from "taking any hostile action against Allende for at least the traditional 100-day honeymoon period." If the U.S. moved too early, Meyer warned, Allende would "immediately receive at least double the support he now has among Chileans."
Kissinger, acting as Chairman, saw a different angle. He observed that if the U.S. waited, it might actually benefit Allende. Kissinger suggested it would then be "advantageous to Allende to take steps designed to provoke a U.S. reaction against him," a move he noted Allende had "carefully avoided doing so" up to that point. It was a classic assessment of a provocateur’s playbook: invite the blow to secure the mandate.
Stockpiling Escudos
Tradecraft is rarely about grand strategies alone; it is usually about the availability of cash. Meyer informed the committee that after roughly 70 days, the exchange of foreign funds for escudos—the Chilean currency—would become nearly impossible as government controls tightened.
Kissinger responded with the pragmatism of a man who knows that operations cannot run on promises. He suggested that "prompt steps be taken to procure escudos for possible future expenditures in Chile." Mr. Broe confirmed that the acquisition of the currency had already commenced. This logistical detail is the most honest part of the record; it confirms that the U.S. was not merely observing a "honeymoon," but was preparing the treasury for an active presence.
Following this, the record contains a gap—five and a half lines that remain not declassified. What follows that silence is the Chairman’s conclusion. Kissinger observed that while the current scope for covert operations in Chile did not seem "very broad," he wanted results. He directed the CIA to produce a paper for the next meeting offering "specific proposals" based on the general Covert Annex dated 27 October 1970 to the NSC Options Paper on Chile.
This memorandum is one piece of a larger puzzle. The State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes for 1969–1973 contain further cables and contents lists regarding Chile, and the US National Archives hold further "Classified Salvador Allende Files" (NAID 4530036) and "Records Relating to Chile" (NAID 978210). Other references, such as those held by the NSArchive, touch on later reports, but they do not provide the immediate context of that November afternoon in Washington.
The record leaves us with the image of the 40 Committee waiting for the CIA to turn a "general Covert Annex" into specific, actionable proposals.