Will Cummings
HIST 319D
Dr. Weinstein
New York Times Reactions to the Election of
Salvador Allende
Cover picture by Luis Govenechea, New York Times, October 4, 1970, IV:3.
On September 4, 1907, Salvador Allende Gossens won a plurality in the Chilean
presidential election. Allende was the candidate of a coalition of leftist parties including
the Communists and Socialists called Unidad Popular (UP), and the first Mearxist headof-state to be freely elected anywhere in the world. The hostility of the United States
Government and several U.S. corporations toward the 1970 election of Salvador Allende
to the Chilean presidency has been well documented.1 Authors have paid much less
attention to the U.S. media’s reactions to Allende’s election. The relative absence of such
media analysis is surprising because the U.S. public relies so heavily on the mainstream
press for information, particularly regarding international issues.
An investigation of the mainstream U.S. media’s response to Allende’s election
could reveal a great deal about its ideological position at the time and the degree to which
that position influenced its representation of events. Scholars on the left have often
claimed that the mainstream U.S. media shares the interests and ideology of U.S.
businesses and the U.S. Government. A famous example of such scholarship is
Manufacturing Consent, in which Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky present a
“propaganda model” of U.S. media behavior. Within this model, "money and power are
able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and
1
The literature on the Allende years, all of which deals with U.S. policy to some extent, is too extensive to
list here. The first chapter in Edy Kaufman, Crisis in Allende’s Chile: New Perspectives (New York:
Praeger Publishers, 1988), 3-37, provides an excellent overview of official U.S. involvement in Chile,
broken down into various governmental organizations and the reactions of private groups such as
corporations, banks, and the media to the Allende government. Also see Paul E. Sigmund, The United
States and Democracy in Chile (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) 48-84;
William F. Sater, Chile and the United States: Empires in Conflict (Athens, GA and London: The
University of Georgia Press, 1990), 159-187. Also see Chile and the United States: Declassified
Documents Relating to the Military Coup 1970-1976, [National Security Archive]. Available [Online]:
<http://www.gwu.edu/~narchiv> and Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with
Respect to Intelligence Activities, Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 [Freedom of Information Electronic
Reading Room] (1975). Available [Online]: <http://foia.state.gov/ChruchReport.htm>.
2
dominant private interests to get their message across to the public.”2 Given this model’s
assertion that “the media giants, advertising agencies, and great multinational
corporations have a joint and close interest in a favorable climate of investment in the
Third World,”3 one would expect U.S. newspapers to be extremely critical of Salvador
Allende, a Marxist threatening to nationalize over $500-million worth of U.S.
corporations’ investment in Chile.4 Indeed, in perhaps the only essay to focus specifically
on U.S. media reactions to Allende’s election, John C. Pollock and David Eisenhower
assert that, “U.S. newspapers clearly reflect the hostility manifested by the U.S.
Government and some U.S. corporations toward the first elected socialist government in
our hemisphere.”5 This essay will explore the extent to which such hostility was reflected
in the New York Times, generally considered the U.S. paper of record, within articles and
editorials on events in Chile between the September 4 election and Allende's inauguration
on November 4, 1970.
The first New York Times editorial on Allende appeared on August 27, 1970, just
over a week before the election, titled “Chile on the Tightrope.” The editors wrote that
the effect of an Allende victory “on Chile and throughout the Americas—would be
cataclysmic. It would enhance immeasurably the standing and influence of Fidel Castro”
and “would plunge United States prestige in the Americas to its lowest point in the
modern history of the inter-American system.”6 In addition, the Times editorialized, it
would “administer a coup de grace” to the Alliance for Progress, and perceptively
2
Edwards S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass
Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 2.
3
Ibid., 13.
4
Juan de Onis, “Allende, Chilean Marxist, Wins Vote for Presidency,” New York Times, September 6,
1970, 16.
5
John C. Pollock and David Eisenhower, "The New Cold War in Latin America: The U.S. Press and Chile,"
in The Chilean Road to Socialism (Anchor Books: Garden City, NY, 1973), 71.
3
acknowledged that it “might even bring on a military coup, something unheard of in
Chile for forty years and an event that might create a worse crisis than an Allende
administration.”7 Finally, the editorial praised the fact that “the Nixon Administration has
emphatically—and wisely—ruled out any intervention,” and concluded, “only the
Chileans can walk this political tightrope.”8
This editorial establishes a pattern found in the majority of opinion pieces on
Allende. First, it describes him as a real and serious threat to U.S. security, highlighting
his connections to Fidel Castro and his commitment to Marxism. Second, the horrible
consequences of his victory are assumed; Chilean democracy will end, U.S. business will
be expropriated, the economy will collapse, and a coup, however unfortunate, may be
inevitable. Third, the Nixon Administration is applauded for its apparent commitment to
non-intervention and cautioned against a change in that policy. Not all three of these
themes are necessarily present in every editorial, but every editorial stresses at least one
of these themes.
For example, two days after Allende won the presidency on September 4, 1970,
the New York Times editorialized, “there is no point in trying to minimize the importance
of what has happened in Chile.” Which was that Allende won “without soft-pedaling the
Marxist revolutionary program he hopes to carry out.” Such an outcome “is a heavy blow
at liberal democracy” and “may mark the demise of the ailing Alliance for Progress.” 9
However, the editors added, “All the United States can do in this situation is to keep
hands off, behave correctly and hope for the best…The Monroe Doctrine has no
“Chile on the Tightrope,” New York Times, August 27, 1970, 34.
Ibid. Emphasis added.
8
Ibid.
9
“Marxist Victory in Chile,” New York Times, September 6, 1970, 4:10.
6
7
4
relevance here and neither does the Inter-American Defense Treaty.”10 Again we find the
Times editors highlighting the international gravity of Allende’s election, while
cautioning the Nixon administration to avoid intervention.
Three days later, a September 9 New York Times editorial, titled "Severe Tests for
Chile," cast another dreary picture of that country's future under Allende, warning that the
country likely faced “constitutional crisis or even civil war.”11 Unlike the two previous
editorials, "Severe Tests for Chile" goes beyond lamenting the inevitably fatal
consequences of a socialist infection in Chile, to speculating on possible preventitive
remedies. One prescription called for blocking Allende’s path to La Moneda, the Chilean
presidential palace, under the provisions of the Chilean Constitution. Allende had
received 36.3 percent of the vote, while the conservative Jorge Alessandri had received
34.9 percent, and Radomiro Tomic, the Christian Democrat whose platform closely
resembled Allende’s, had received 27.8 percent.12 Because no candidate had received
more than 50 percent of the ballots, the Chilean Chamber of Deputies and Senate, in joint
session, had the power to choose between the two leading candidates on October 24. The
Times found it “understandable” that Jorge Alessandri’s supporters would try to subvert
Chilean tradition and the plurality of the Chilean electorate by persuading the Congress to
elect Alessandri instead of Allende. The Times could not endorse “the only other means
10
Ibid.
“Severe Tests for Chile,” New York Times, September 9, 1970, 46.
12
Radomiro Tomic, "Some Clarification of Historical Facts," in Chile at the Turning Point: Lessons of the
Socialist Years, 1970-1973, ed. Federico G. Gil, Ricardo Lagos E., and Henry A. Lands Berger, trans. John
S. Gitlitz (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Inc., 1979), 188. According to Tomic, his
"agreement with the program of the Unidad Popular was manifest," and his platform called for the
“replacement of capitalism in Chile.” This is significant because while nearly 65% of Chileans had voted
against Allende, 65% had also voted to shift from a capitalist system.
11
5
for blocking Allende,” a military coup, because of “moral objections” and because the
“remedy might be worse than the illness.”13
On September 25 the Times printed an editorial by C.L. Sulzberger, a longtime
foreign-affairs correspondent for the New York Times, and the author of several books on
international politics during the Cold War. The editorial examined Allende’s election,
and the recent rumors that the Soviets were constructing of a submarine base at
Cienfuegos, Cuba. Sulzberger felt that the former “danger, although not military, could
ultimately prove far more important.” Sulzberger, echoing a common perspective among
Allende’s critics, saw Allende as a dictator in democratic disguise “who may well lie low,
stress his moderation, and international respectability,” but whose government “could
well be tempted to employ totalitarian methods to achieve its aims.” Like the Times’s
editors, Sulzberger predicted devastating international consequences following Allende’s
inauguration, writing that if Allende’s government “were even inferentially backed up by
any kind of Soviet military installation in Cuba, the entire effort to arrange a global
détente between Washington and Moscow could be jeopardized.” 14
Within these editorials we clearly see the anticommunism “filter” described by
Herman and Chomsky at work. Herman and Chomsky describe anticommunism as an
ideology that "helps mobilize the populace against an enemy and because the concept is
fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests
or support accommodation with Communist states and radicalism."15 The immediate
equation of Allende’s election to the establishment of a brutal, totalitarian regime in Chile
is more evidence of reflexive dogmatism than an informed opinion based upon the
13
14
"Severe Tests for Chile," 46. Emphasis added.
C.L. Sulzberger, “Ugly Clouds in the South,” New York Times, September 25, 1970, 43.
6
available facts. It was clear that Allende was committed to nationalizing U.S. corporate
holdings within Chile, and to a serious program of agrarian reform.16 The assumption that
such policies, and the prevalence of communists and socialists within the UP, necessarily
threatened the "survival of freedom and democracy elsewhere in the hemisphere-and
beyond,"17 is illustrative of powerful paranoia and an anticommunist bias incapable of
differentiating between reformers and revolutionaries, or democratic socialists and hardline communists. In this sense, the Cold War perspective of the New York Times was
identical to that of the U.S. Government. It is critical to note that the editorials cited
above were written months before Allende took office. The New York Times had
condemned Allende as a threat to global stability without him having committed a single
official act.
In addition to an editorial stance that treated Allende’s election as a catastrophe,
the Times’s ostensibly more objective news articles, through their emphases, tone,
omissions, and selection of sources, betrayed a perspective hostile to Allende. The sense
of alarm within the editorials is also conveyed, albeit more subtly, in New York Times
articles through, for example, the choice to introduce Allende to the reader as “a Marxist
who says he would like to see Chile follow the road of revolutionary Cuba.”18 A
15
Manufacturing Consent, 29.
Juan de Onis, “Allende, Chilean Marxist, Wins Vote for Presidency,” 16; Joseph Novitski, “Election
Affects Chile´s Economy,” New York Times, September 8, 1970, 8; Juan de Onis, “Chile’s Winning
Coalition,” New York Times, September 8, 1970, 3; and Tad Szulc, “U.S. Government and Business
Resigned to a Marxist Chile,” New York Times, September 21, 1970, are but a few examples of articles that
address the nationalization promised in Allende´s platform. For a translation of that platform see "Popular
Unity Program," in The Salvador Allende Reader: Chile's Voice of Democracy, ed. James D. Cockcroft
(Melbourne, New York: Ocean Press, 2000), 257-285.
17
"Severe Tests for Chile."
18
“Allende, Chilean Marxist, Wins Vote for Presidency,”1.
16
7
headline reading “Moscow Seems Quietly Pleased by the Allende Victory in Chile,”19 or
the view that the UP victory was “a triumph for the Popular Front approach that Moscow
has been supporting,”20 also served to portray the election as a triumph for the forces of
international communism.
Of twenty-eight articles written for the New York Times about events in Chile
between September 4, 1970 and November 4, 1970, twenty-six stress Allende’s
friendship with Fidel Castro, the presence of the Communist Party in the UP, or his
Marxist beliefs, while only eight mention Allende’s long political career. Because we can
assume that the average New York Times reader was as unable to differentiate between
socialism, communism, and Marxism as the New York Times editors, the repeated
references to Allende as “the Marxist candidate of a leftist coalition”21 were undoubtedly
as effective in instilling alarm as the reminders of his friendship to Castro, particularly in
the absence of information on his over thirty-five year commitment to constitutionalism.
In one of three articles to provide any substantial biographical information on
Allende, Juan de Onis concedes that “Allende does not believe in violence” and that “his
long political career...has been within Chile´s democratic system.” “However,” De Onis
cautions the reader, “Dr. Allende heads a leftist coalition that has at its core the strong
Chilean Communist Party.” De Onis does not elaborate here; presumably the reader
instinctively understands that Allende’s very affiliation with communists undermines any
of his democratic credentials. Later in the article De Onis tells the reader that Allende
pledged to be “gentle and cautious in bringing about changes” but follows this with a
“Moscow Seems Quietly Pleased by the Allende Victory in Chile,” New York Times, October 24, 1970,
15.
20
Juan de Onis, “Chile’s Winning Coalition,” New York Times, September 8, 1970, 3.
21
Joseph Novitski, “Election Affects Chile´s Economy,” New York Times, September 8, 1970, 8.
19
8
quote from an anonymous “critic” who says Allende “`will seem to be gentle, but it will
be the iron fist in the velvet glove. If he is elected it will just be a matter of time before
most of Latin America becomes Marxist.´”22 Even in an article that acknowledges
Allende’s long, democratic career the reader is left with the impression that his election
signals the end of Chilean democracy and a devastating setback for the United States in
the Cold War.
In addition to presenting Allende as the next Castro, New York Times reports
focused their perspective on Allende’s opposition, and for the most part neglected to
inform the reader that many Chileans were enthusiastic about his election. Out of twentyeight articles, seventeen relied heavily on either U.S. governmental sources or upper-class
Chileans opposed to Allende, while only two focused on Allende’s supporters. Despite
the fact that massive celebrations followed Allende’s election, the New York Times never
mentioned such festive reactions among Allende’s working and middle-class supporters.
Rather, we learn from Joseph Novistski that the members of the Prince of Wales Country
Club in Las Condes had adopted a “wait and see” approach and that “young rugby
players greeted each other jokingly as Comrade.”23
Several articles report massive bank withdrawals, rising black market exchange
rates, and booked flights out of the country in the weeks following the election.24 While
Chile did indeed face such problems during those months, the focus on, and repetition of
those themes, in the absence of articles addressing the very large section of the
population celebrating Allende´s victory, paints a disingenuous picture of a country at
22
23
Juan de Onis, “Chile’s Leading Marxist: Salvador Allende,” New York Times, September 7, 1970, 9.
Joseph Novitski, “Chilean Rightists Refuse to Concede Election,” New York Times, September 7, 1970,
8.
9
best resigned to a hard future, and at worst in a state of utter panic. In at least one case the
Times was guilty of outright distortion when it reported on October 18 that the cost of
living in Chile had risen another 2.7% in September, as further evidence of economic
trouble. What they failed to mention was that the cost of living rose more than 32% in the
first three quarters of 1970.25
“Chilean Coal Miners Await Allende’s Rule Hopefully” by Joseph Novitski, was
the only article to appear in the New York Times in the two months between the election
and Allende’s inauguration that focused on working-class support for the UP, despite the
fact that the majority of Allende’s votes had come from this demographic. Indeed,
Novitski writes that “the miners and the unemployed in the chronically depressed coalmining region...were a basic element in Dr. Allende’s victory at the polls,” and that “they
voted heavily for him and for the Marxist program that his coalition...has proposed.”26
Novitski points to a 37 percent pay increase won by the miners’ “Communist-led union,”
the long history of such communist leadership, and the workers’ faith in Allende’s
promises of increased production and full employment, as explanations for their support
of the UP. Yet, Novitski also writes that “unswerving support of Allende is not typical of
all organized labor,” and that the miners of the Chuquicamata copper mine “are perhaps
worried about their future under a government that has promised to nationalize Chile’s
largest copper mines.”27 While such concern likely did exist among many Chuquicamata
workers, by failing to tell the reader that Allende received well over half of the vote at
See for example, Joseph Novitski, “Election Affects Chile´s Economy,” New York Times, September 8,
1970, 8.
25
Lester A. Sobel, ed., Chile and Allende, (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1974), 33.
26
Joseph Novitski, “Chilean Coal Miners Await Allende Rule Hopefully,” New York Times, October 20,
1970, 12.
27
Ibid.
24
10
Chuquicamata, Novitski gives an inaccurate impression that the coal miners’ support of
Allende was not shared by workers in other sectors of Chilean industry.28
In the only other article to focus on the attitudes of Allende’s supporters, Juan de
Onis states that the “political choice...of a course toward a revolutionary change has been
made by an influential sector of the middle class, as well as by the labor base of the
Marxist parties.”29 De Onis seems largely unable to explain Allende’s middle class
support, as it undermines “the theory that a growing middle class guarantees capitalist
stability in Latin America,” the fundamental assumption of the Alliance for Progress. 30
Such thinking is based on the rather patronizing view that the attraction to Marxism
among Latin America’s popular classes is the product of “economic backwardness,”
ignorance, and political immaturity.31 De Onis provides an excellent summary of Chile’s
long history of governmental intervention in the economy, and of the growth of the left’s
political power during the twentieth century. He even quotes one member of the MIR
(Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria), Chile’s armed revolutionary party, as
saying that Chile’s economic inequality generated the leftist shift of the Chilean
electorate. Yet, it is clear that de Onis views middle class support for Allende as
fundamentally irrational: “Like Chile’s unstable geology, which causes her frequent
earthquakes, the middle class here contains ‘faults’ that produce constant political
tremors and sometimes upheavals.”32
For a breakdown of 1970 voting among the working-class see, James Petras, “The Working Class and
Chilean Socialism,” in The Chilean Road to Socialism (Anchor Books: Garden City, NY, 1973), 240-7.
29
Juan de Onis, “Chile’s Middle Class a Willing Force in Move to Left,” New York Times, October 26,
1970, 18.
30
Ibid.
31
“The Working Class and Chilean Socialism,” 240.
32
“Chile’s Middle Class a Willing Force in Move to Left.”
28
11
The Times also presented UP fears of U.S. hostility as irrational. After a rightwing group shot General René Schnieder Chereau, the Commander in Chief of the
Chilean Army, the New York Times reported that the left-wing Chilean press had been
accusing the CIA of plotting against Allende and of masterminding the Schneider
assassination. This was followed by a paragraph summary of a statement by Edward A.
Korry, the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, denying such charges and another paragraph
stating that “United States officials were concerned that the attack on General Schnieder
would be used by anti-American elements to step up a campaign that seeks to link United
States diplomats here with right-wing extremist groups.”33 The day after Schneider died
the paper quoted Aniceto Rodriguez, the secretary-general of “Dr. Allende’s Socialist
party,” as identifying, “in a vaguely worded” statement, “`the CIA as the moral author’”
of the Schnieder assassination.34 This was not followed by any official U.S. denials, but
an editorial printed the same day asserted that U.S. relations with Allende were already
being made difficult by his “Communist allies” and their accusations of CIA complicity
in the assassination. Worse still, “the very forces that used Fidel Castro in their own
television campaign” were accusing the U.S., “which had remained scrupulously aloof, of
intervention in the election.”35
Future declassified documents would reveal that the U.S. had been anything but
aloof during the election, and that Aniceto Rodriguez was entirely accurate in his
accusations. The CIA spent between $800,000 and $1,000,000 during the 1970 Chilean
presidential campaign trying to prevent an Allende victory and helped the International
Juan de Onis, “Army Commander in Chile is Shot; Alert is Decreed,” New York Times, October 23,
1970, 2.
34
Joseph Novitski, “Military Leader Dies in Santiago,” New York Times, October 26, 1970, 17.
35
“The Only Course for Chile,” New York Times, October 26, 1970, 36.
33
12
Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) and other U.S. businesses channel over
$700,000 to the Alessandri campaign.36 After Allende won the election the CIA adopted
a “firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup.”37 Schneider was
seen as an obstacle to a successful coup because of his commitment to honor the Chilean
Constitution and the election results.38 Therefore the CIA worked with two groups led by
right-wing officers, and even provided arms to one group, planning on kidnapping
Schneider in the hope that this would provoke a military coup.39
Of course the New York Times did not have knowledge of such clandestine
activities. Yet, the blind faith placed in the Nixon Administration’s claims of neutrality
was at best naive given the U.S. Government’s extensive legacy of intervention in the
region. In a September 20, 1970, editorial Tad Szulc acknowledged that “the history of
United States military intervention in Latin America...has raised the inevitable question
of whether the Marines and the Central Intelligence Agency play any part in current
‘contingency planning’ in regard to Chile.”40 Szulc, basing his assertion on interviews
with State Department officials, excluded the possibility of any such action on the
grounds that Washington had little influence on Chilean politics, the U.S. had little
leverage against Chile, that CIA action could make matters worse, and that Nixon was
36
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities,
Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 [Freedom of Information Electronic Reading Room] (1975). Available
[Online]: < http://www.foia.state.gov/ChurchReport.htm >
37
CIA, “Operating Guidance Cable on Coup Plotting, October 16, 1970,” p. 1, in Chile and the United
States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup 1970-1976, [National Security Archive].
Available [Online]: <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch05-01.htm>.
38
CIA, “Report on Chilean CIA Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970,” p. 17, in Chile
and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup 1970-1976, [National
Security Archive]. Available [Online]:
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm>
39
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.
40
Tad Szulc, “Trying to Read the Meaning of Allende Victory,” New York Times, September 20, 1970, 4:3.
13
“unlikely to add Chile to his list of insoluble problems.”41 To his credit, Szulc included
the strongest caution against U.S. action found in any Times editorial or report. He wrote,
“The United States would be in a peculiar moral position if caught plotting against Dr.
Allende, especially after decades of trying to make Latin America accept free elections.”
42
Eight years later, after U.S. covert activities in Chile came to light, Szulc would
express some bitterness at the Nixon administration’s deception. In his book The Illusion
of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years, so titled because “what Nixon gave
America and the world was only the illusion of peace,” Szulc wrote about “the public as
well as the secret aspects,” of Nixon’s foreign policy and “the contradiction between
these two.” 43 “Chile,” Szulc concludes, “was one of the shadowy sides of Richard
Nixon’s ‘structure of peace.’ He and Kissinger, through secrecy, deceit, and
manipulation, helped to bring internecine war and awesome terror to a small, peaceful
country.”44
Unfortunately, the cooperation of journalists such as Szulc was part of that
manipulation. According to a CIA report, in an effort to create hostile international
opinion toward Allende, by the end of September the CIA had “15 journalist agents from
10 different countries” and “8 more journalists from countries under the direction of
high-level agents” in Chile “for on-the-scene reporting.”45 The CIA boasted that the
success of this campaign was apparent from the fact that in the European and Latin
41
Ibid.
Ibid.
43
Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years (New York: The Viking Press,
1978), v.
44
Ibid., 336.
45
CIA, “Report on Chilean CIA Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970,” 8.
42
14
American media “only partial returns show 726 articles, broadcasts, editorials, and
similar items as a direct result of agency activity,” and that the “multiplier effect” of such
items must have been “substantial and significant.”46 “Special intelligence and ‘inside’
briefings were given to U.S. journalists,” the report continued, “in deference to the
international influence of the U.S. media.” According to the CIA, the chief correspondent
for a cover article on the Allende election for Time, initially took “Allende’s protestations
of moderation and constitutionality at face value,” but “CIA briefings in Washington
changed the basic thrust of the story.”47 Indeed, the October 19, 1970, edition of Time,
whose cover featured a leftward looking Allende under the banner “Marxist Threat in the
Americas,” presented a very pessimistic picture of Chile’s future under Allende and
relied heavily on U.S. government information sources. For example, the article stated
that “two months ago the National Security Council received a report that if Allende won
a Communist takeover would inevitably follow,” and “Washington intelligence sources
believe that [Allende] can gain effective control of the military within six months.”48
The most often cited example of such “inside briefings” was given by then
National Security Council chief, Henry Kissinger, on September 16, 1970, in Chicago.
Kissinger stated:
I have yet to meet somebody who firmly believes that if Allende wins, there is likely to be another
free election in Chile... Now it is fairly easy for one to predict that if Allende wins, there is a good
chance that he will establish over a period of years some sort of communist government. In that
case, we would have one not on an island off the coast (Cuba) which has not a traditional
relationship and impact on Latin America, but in a major Latin American country you would have
a communist government, joining, for example, Argentine... Peru... and Bolivia... So I don't think
we should delude ourselves that an Allende takeover in Chile would not present massive problems
for us, and for democratic forces and for pro-U.S. forces in Latin America, and indeed to the
whole Western Hemisphere.49
46
Ibid., 10.
Ibid., 10-11. The correspondent referred to by the CIA was probably David Lee.
48
“Chile: The Expanding Left,” Time, October 19, 1970, 19-24.
49
Henry Kissinger, as quoted in Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect
to Intelligence Activities.
47
15
As we have seen, Kissinger was saying little the editors of the New York Times did not
already believe, but the speech was successful in generating alarming headlines such as
“Administration Fears Red Rule in Chile May Lead to Takeovers Elsewhere.”50 The
briefing did produce some negative reaction from “Latin American diplomats” in a later
article, such as one who said that the claim that Bolivia, Peru, or Argentine could fall to
communism, “‘shows a lack of understanding of the real political situation.’”51 This
backlash was minimized by the fact that the last five paragraphs of the article covering
their reaction described the seriousness of the left-wing threats within South America.
The CIA was also very successful in generating negative press for Allende around
accusations that “freedom of the press is being jeopardized in Chile as a result of a
concerted campaign of harassment and intimidation ‘by the Communists and their
Marxist allies.’”52 No solid evidence was ever offered within the New York Times, or
other journals, to support these claims, except that “Dr. Allende’s coalition sent a
Communist deputy, Jorge Insunza, to visit some radio stations that had not supported his
candidacy.”53 The CIA clearly believed that Allende was trying to intimidate the press in
order “to smother any opposition to his election by Congress and to take advantage of
that peculiarly Latin, and pronounced Chilean, propensity to jump on an accelerating
bandwagon.”54 “Covert actions resources were used to launch” a propaganda campaign
that produced letters of protest from several Latin American papers, and “a protest
Carroll Kirkpatrick, “Administration Fears Red Rule in Chile May Lead to Takeovers Elsewhere,”
Washington Post, September 20, 1970, A17. According to the New York Times Index: 1970 A-L (New
York: New York Times Co., 1971), 354, the New York Times ran a similar story on September 20, but the
author was unable to locate the story in University of Maryland microfilm version of the paper.
51
Tad Szulc, “Briefing on Chile Disturbs Latins,” New York Times, September 23, 1970, 13.
52
“A Threat to the Press is Seen,” New York Times, September 21, 1970, 3.
53
Joseph Novitski, “Chile’s Papers Exercise Caution Following Election,” New York Times, September 21,
1970, 3.
50
16
statement from the International Press Organization.”55 The CIA lamented the lack of
opposition to Allende in the Chilean press, and “had to rely increasingly on its own
resources” in order to keep the “voice of public opposition alive inside Chile for coup
purposes.”56 Whether or not the CIA’s accusations were true, the critical point is its
ability to produce desired articles within the New York Times, and other papers around
the world, solely through the evidence it supplied.
According to Tad Szulc, the September 25 editorial by C.L. Sulzberger referred to
earlier was another example of a piece influenced by inside Washington sources. Szulc,
based on sources within the State Department, claims that Kissinger had known about the
possibility of a Soviet submarine base at Cienfuegos, Cuba, as early as July 1970.
Kissinger chose to release the story to Sulzberger in September “for the benefit of
American public opinion, to relate the dangers inherent in Communist Cuba to the
dangers in Chile if Allende were confirmed as president.”57
Whether or not we accept Szulc’s interpretation of the events, it is clear that
Sulzberger received information from government sources in Washington and duly
repeated what he was told, and did so in an alarmist manner, dripping with
anticommunist paranoia. At a time when the U.S. Government was intentionally trying to
manipulate press coverage of an event, and in a region in which that government had a
long history of both overt and covert intervention, Sulzberger and his peers dutifully,
unhesitatingly, and unquestioningly repeated that which their government fed them as
fact. Such examples certainly support Herman and Chomsky’s claim that “the magnitude
CIA, “Report on Chilean CIA Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970,” 6-7.
Ibid., 7.
56
Ibid., 9.
57
Illusion of Peace, 366.
54
55
17
of the public-information operations of large governments and corporate bureaucracies
that constitute the primary news sources is vast and ensures special access to the
media.”58
Yet, not everything printed in the New York Times shared the U.S. Government’s
hostility to Allende. For example, a noticeably more moderate editorial stance was
adopted following Schneider’s assassination when the Times wrote that “there are
grounds for hope that democracy can survive in Chile, despite its sharp turn to the left.”59
Three letters to the editor were also printed, calling for less impassioned reactions to
Allende’s election. The first such letter, by David S. Luft, criticized the Times September
6 editorial, stating that “it is unimaginable that such a disquieted editorial would have
greeted a conservative victory in Chile...you offer nothing of substance to justify your
fears for Chile.” “Most troubling though,” he added, “is the implication not only that a
violent take-over by the left...might have justified intervention, but that in the case of this
legal election, the wisdom of our intervention is even a debatable issue.”60 On September
28, 1970, a letter from Robert J. Alexander, author of Communism in Latin America, said,
“Much of what has been written and said about the recent victory of Salvador
Allende...has seemed more the product of emotion than cold analysis of the facts.”61 The
third letter decried the message given by Kissinger at the Chicago press briefing. The
author called for the U.S. to “respect the decision made by Chileans in an honest
election.”62 Additionally, the New York Times printed one article that consisted almost
entirely of direct quotes from Allende, in which he was able to point to Chile’s levels of
58
Manufacturing Consent, 19.
Ibid.
60
David S. Luft, “Marxist in Chile,” New York Times, September 20, 1970, 4:17.
61
Robert J. Alexander, “What Future for Chile,” New York Times, September 28, 1970, 40.
59
18
malnutrition, unemployment, and inflation as explanations for the need to shift to
socialism, and to address claims that he was a totalitarian: “We start from different
ideological positions. For you to be a Communist or a Socialist is to be totalitarian; for
me no...On the contrary, I think Socialism frees man.”63
The existence of such exceptions, however, does not change the fact that the New
York Times provided a markedly unbalanced perspective on events in Chile between
September 4 and November 4, 1970. As Pollock and Eisenhower point out, “to note that
the U.S. press provides evidence contradicting the themes [that present Allende in a
negative light], is not to suggest that the press denies its own point of emphasis.
Contradictory information is given less space or attention...and when mentioned, is often
put in contexts that minimize, or encourage skepticism about, its significance.”64 As we
have seen, the bulk of the space and attention within New York Times articles focused on
the negative or alarming aspects of Allende’s election. The few column inches dealing
with his support among the Chilean electorate presented it as fragmented and irrational,
while Juan de Onis’s article, “Chile’s Leading Marxist: Salvador Allende,” hinted that
Allende’s long political career merely disguised his totalitarian nature. Three letters in the
back pages of the op/ed section, one article featuring lengthy Allende quotes, and one
editorial stating that Allende’s election might not necessarily signal the establishment of a
Soviet state in Chile, could not begin to balance the Times’s general presentation of
Allende as a threat to democracy and international stability.
John H. Sinclair, “Decision in Chile,” New York Times, October 4, 1970, 4:16.
Salvador Allende as quoted in Joseph Novitski, “Allende Sees Chile Finding Her Own Way to
Socialism,” New York Times, October 4, 1970, 1.
64
“The New Cold War in Latin America,” 76.
62
63
19
The New York Times coverage of Allende’s election revealed a profound
ideological bias against anyone professing socialist beliefs, and such bias obviously
influenced the focus, tone, and framework of analysis within the paper’s articles and
editorials. This bias was profoundly reinforced by the paper’s reliance on, and trust in,
sources opposed to an Allende presidency, particularly sources provided by the U.S.
Government. It is beyond the scope of this essay to determine whether such bias was the
inevitable result of “a culturally derived perception of common interests”65 between the
media, corporations, and the U.S. Government, or the efforts of the “powerful...to
‘manage’ public opinion”66 Yet, it is clear that the New York Times reacted to the election
of Salvador Allende in a manner very similar to that of the U.S. Government and
corporations with investments in Chile.
65
66
Ibid., 85.
Manufacturing Consent, xi.
20
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Chile: The Expanding Left.” Time, October 19, 1970, 19-24.
Cockcroft, James D. ed. Salvador Allende Reader: Chile's Voice of Democracy. Trans.
Moisés Espinoza and Nancy Nuñez. Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press,
2000.
Collier, Simon and William F. Slater. A History of Chile, 1808-1904. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Johnson, Dale L. Ed. The Chilean Road to Socialism. Garden City, New York: Anchor
Books, 1973.
Kaufman, Edy. Crisis in Allende´s Chile: New Perspectives. New York: Praeger
Publishers, 1988.
Kirkpatrick, Carroll. “Administration Fears Red Rule in Chile May Lead to Takeovers
Elsewhere.” Washington Post, September 20, 1970, A17.
National Security Archive. Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating
to the Military Coup 1970-1976. Available Online:
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm>
The New York Times. New York, August 27, 1970-November 5, 1970; September 11,
1973-September 14, 1973.
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities. Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973. Freedom of Information Electronic
Reading Room. Available Online: <http://www.foia.state.gov/ChurchReport.htm>
Sobel, Lester A. Ed. Chile and Allende. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1974.
Szulc, Tad. The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years. New York: The
Viking Press, 1978.
Winn, Peter. Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile’s Road to Socialism.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
21