In the first of two episodes on the subject, we investigate the United States’s role in undermining the left wing in Chilean politics throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing extensively from the Senate Church Committee’s 1975 report, “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,” we show just how much money, time, and effort the United States spent on Chile in order to not just incapacitate the country’s left but to bolster its right wing.

While the US’s covert actions were not enough to prevent socialist Salvador Allende’s ascension to the presidency in 1970, their work over the previous decade was not all for naught. We dig into the US’s involvement in the 1964 and 1970 presidential elections and begin to make links between US action in that time period and how it set up their role in the 1973 coup, which we will discuss at length in our next episode.

Show Notes

Allende’s final address to the people of Chile:

* Audio/video

* English transcript

The Church Committee’s report: “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973”

Credits

Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Arthur Santoro.

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