Nixon Called the Failed 1970 Plot to Stop Allende a 'Very Sad Record'
By Desmond Okafor ·
Marked "Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only," this memo shows how the White House plotted to overturn a democratic vote in Chile while fighting over which candidate to buy.
The voters of Chile cast their ballots in September 1970, believing they were choosing the direction of their own republic. In Washington, this democratic exercise was viewed not as a sovereign act, but as a failure of "energetic measures" to ensure the right man won.
A memorandum dated November 30, 1970, sent from Henry Kissinger to President Richard Nixon, frames the election of Salvador Allende as a tactical collapse. The record, which incorporates a "postmortem" by CIA Director Richard Helms, reads less like a diplomatic analysis and more like a corporate audit of a failed hostile takeover. The central frustration was not that the United States had attempted to subvert a foreign election, but that the internal friction between the State Department and the CIA had "neutralized" the effort.
"Neutralized"
The friction described in the memo was a clash of methodologies in the art of interference. According to the record, the CIA believed that "the odds for success of an expanded program would have been reasonably favorable" had they been allowed to move more aggressively. They wanted to tilt the scales toward Jorge Alessandri, the right-wing candidate who stood as the primary alternative to Allende's Popular Unity alliance.
However, the State Department acted as a brake. The record states that the Department had "reservations about any expansion of the covert action program" and was "completely opposed" to providing direct support for Alessandri. Their logic was not rooted in a respect for Chilean sovereignty, but in a desire to protect a different asset: the Christian Democratic Party. Ambassador Korry, the U.S. representative in Chile, feared that backing Alessandri would jeopardize ties with the Christian Democrats, whom he viewed as the only "viable non-Communist political force" in the country.
This created a paradox of interference. The State Department established a "restrictive criterion" that any anti-Allende operations must not benefit Alessandri. In a race that ultimately came down to a narrow gap between Allende and Alessandri, this restriction meant that the U.S. government could not support the only candidate capable of winning without simultaneously damaging its relationship with a third party. In Kissinger's words, the State Department's position "neutralized us."
A spoiling operation
The document details a timeline of interference that began long before the 1970 vote. The CIA had initiated a "limited covert action program" as early as 1968, aiming to influence the composition of the Chilean Congress. By April 1969, the 40 Committee—the high-level interagency group overseeing covert actions—was already debating the U.S. role in the presidential election, though they deferred a final decision until candidates were selected in December 1969.
Once Allende was nominated by his leftist coalition, the CIA shifted to what the memo calls a "spoiling" operation. This was not designed to help anyone win, but to ensure Allende lost. The goal was to weaken his coalition and encourage other candidates within that coalition to break away.
By mid-January 1970, the CIA Station Chief in Chile proposed underwriting more activities that would have provided "side political benefits" to Alessandri. Again, the State Department pushed back, questioning the need for involvement and insisting that any mechanism developing "strong pro-Alessandri overtones" would lose U.S. support. Even as late as June 1970, Assistant Secretary of State Meyer expressed "philosophic reservations about funding election interventions," warning that if the plot were exposed, it would "destroy any prospect of mitigating Allende post-election attitudes."
"Let’s watch the next one more closely!"
Despite the State Department's caveats, the CIA eventually decided that the risk of an Allende victory outweighed the risk of being caught. In the final two weeks before the election, the agency authorized a "substantial infusion of funds" for covert activities and arranged for money from U.S. business interests to be passed to the Alessandri camp. This was done, as the memo explicitly notes, "without reference to the State Department."
It was not enough. Salvador Allende won a narrow plurality, and the Chilean Congress confirmed his victory. To the men in the White House, this was not a reflection of the will of the Chilean people, but a failure of management.
On a blank sheet of paper separating the main memorandum from its summary, President Nixon wrote a four-point reaction. He called the account a "very sad record" and asserted that the State Department had "obviously blocked any meaningful positive move." He didn't blame the CIA for its failure to sway the electorate; he blamed the 40 Committee for not overruling the State Department or bringing the conflict directly to his attention.
Nixon ended his handwritten note with a directive for the future: "Let’s watch the next one more closely!"
While this specific file concludes with the post-election analysis, other archives—including the FRUS volumes on Chile from 1969–1973 and National Archives files on Augusto Pinochet—record what happened when the White House stopped watching and started acting to ensure the "next one" did not go the way of the voters.