ABSTRACT
The I.T.T. documents and memoranda which Jack Anderson has published raise a number of critical issues in assessing the true nature of U.S. policy toward economic nationalists. In the Chilean case covert political action was an element of U.S. foreign policy— although there were substantial tactical differences between the C.I.Α., the State Department, and the White House over the measures to be adopted and over the timing of events. Nixon's position and the measures, speeches, and behavior of the lame-duck Frei administration were intended to create economic collapse over a protracted period of time— while the C.I.A. and I.T.T. seemed to see that as their immediate goal. The political assessment in Washington of the relationship of forces in Chile appears to have been more realistic than the C.LA.'s. The prudent course chosen—limited to economic pressure—was based on a long term strategy of political and economic attrition. Key U.S. policy-makers were and are firmly opposed to the Allende government. However they firmly rejected the "adventurist" proposals to upend Allende because they felt that a coup was premature and its failure would trigger a move to the left. This assessment was essentially correct: the abortive rightist coup leading to the assassination of the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army, General Schneider, contributed to the increase of leftist support from 36 percent in September 1970, to 50 percent in April 1971.
