Kissinger and Haig Told General Viaux His Coup Had a 5 Percent Chance
By Harlan Pryce ·
To save assets for a future strike against Salvador Allende, the White House ordered the CIA to tell General Roberto Viaux his coup attempt was almost certain to fail.
General Roberto Viaux was told his ambitions were a mathematical impossibility. The cost of his failure would have been the total erasure of his power and the premature exposure of American interests in Santiago.
On October 15, 1970, a meeting took place at the White House. The attendees were Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Theodore Karamessines of the CIA. The record of this conversation, marked "Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only," begins with a gap—thirteen-and-a-half lines of text that remain classified. When the record resumes, the focus is immediate and cold: the viability of a coup in Chile.
"One Chance in Twenty"
Karamessines provided the run-down on Viaux and the general situation in Chile. The Agency had not been guessing. They had based their analysis on "good intelligence from a number of sources" to determine whether Viaux actually held the support he claimed within the Chilean military.
Their conclusion was a clinical execution of hope. The Agency assessed that Viaux did not have "more than one chance in twenty—perhaps less—to launch a successful coup."
In the clandestine service, a five percent probability is not a risk; it is a liability. Kissinger and Karamessines spent the meeting discussing the "unfortunate repercussions" of an unsuccessful attempt. They did not worry about the morality of the intervention, but rather the fallout. When a coup fails, it does not simply reset the board; it burns the players. It exposes the networks, kills the assets, and alerts the target to the exact nature of the threat.
"Preserve Your Assets"
The decision reached by the men in the room was not to abandon Viaux, but to mothball him. The Agency was instructed to send a message to the General warning him against "any precipitate action."
The wording of the message is a study in the management of ego and expectation:
“We have reviewed your plans, and based on your information and ours, we come to the conclusion that your plans for a coup at this time cannot succeed. Failing, they may reduce your capabilities for the future. Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch. The time will come when you with all your other friends can do something. You will continue to have our support.”
This is how a handler manages a volatile asset. You do not tell them they are unimportant; you tell them they are too valuable to waste on a losing hand. The goal was to "de-fuse" the plot temporarily. Kissinger's objective was clear: preserve the capability for "Agency operations against Allende in the future."
False Flag Officers
While the White House and the Agency were calculating odds, the diplomatic wing was leaking. Kissinger expressed a desire that the encouragement given to the Chilean military be kept "as secret as possible."
Karamessines responded emphatically, noting the use of "false flag officers, car meetings and every conceivable precaution." This is the necessary friction of tradecraft—the distance between the official word and the actual work. But the discipline was breaking. Karamessines noted that Ambassador Korry had engaged in "wide ranging discussions with numerous people urging a coup."
According to the memorandum, Korry's efforts "cannot be put back into the bottle." There is a brief redaction here—two-and-a-half lines of text that remain blacked out—before the record notes that Kissinger requested a copy of the warning message to Viaux the following day.
October 21
The urgency of the warning is clarified by a footnote in the record. An October 19 report on "Track II" indicates that a Station false flag officer had met with a leader of the Viaux group to discourage a premature move.
Despite the American warnings, the Viaux group had already met on October 16 and decided to attempt a coup on October 21 or 22. The Americans were racing against a calendar they had helped set in motion.
The meeting concluded with a directive from Kissinger. The Agency was told to continue "keeping the pressure on every Allende weak spot in sight," specifically targeting the windows of October 24 and November 5, and continuing into the future until new orders were issued.
Mr. Karamessines stated that the Agency would comply.