Allende’s Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (21 page)

The ideological scope of these journeys seemed to match the times. In July 1971 President Nixon sent shock waves around the world by announcing that he planned to visit Beijing the following year. Indeed, crossing ideological divides through summit diplomacy would be such a part of the United States’ pursuit of détente that two historians have described “the frequency with which he negotiated with communists” as Nixon’s “signature achievement.”
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But, of course, the way that Nixon and Kissinger dealt with their enemies (and their allies) depended on who they were and where they were. True, they were preparing to initiate “triangular diplomacy” through high-level summit meetings in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. But when it came to smaller, less powerful countries in the Third World, the White House was unprepared to put ideology aside, focusing instead on fighting the Cold War rather than negotiating a modus vivendi with governments it considered to be ideologically repellent.

In an ever more interconnected world, the manner in which nations confronted each other nonetheless continued to be highly important. As far as Kissinger was concerned, image, prestige, and reputation were not only adjuncts to balance-of-power politics but also integral components of a country’s efforts to protect its national interests. His interlocutors and enemies agreed. Nixon, Allende, and Castro all certainly operated on a world stage, for domestic and world audiences and in search of approval. Fidel Castro would state that he hoped Nixon was watching the impressive welcome he received in Chile, that the United States seized on Chile’s nationalization program as a convenient pretext for the deterioration of U.S.-Chilean relations, and that the Chileans accused the United States of pursuing precisely the type of outdated ideological hostility toward Allende that U.S. officials professed to have abandoned.
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Indeed, while Washington and Santiago tried to project a fashionable nonideological image of themselves—emphasizing international law, economic imperatives, and pragmatism as the determinants of foreign relations—they pointed the finger at each other as being the one that threatened stability and mutual understanding.

It was for this reason that the Nixon administration was on the defensive in late 1971. U.S. officials were particularly worried that the UP might be able to blame its domestic difficulties on “U.S. imperialism” and undermine Washington’s already diminishing influence throughout Latin America and the Third World. At the same time, analysts were concerned that the Soviet Union might come to Allende’s aid, as it had for Castro a decade before. For the Nixon administration, then, Chile appeared to embody the fusion of snowballing Third World nationalism and falling Cold War dominoes. The big question was how the United States could undermine Allende’s presidency without doing so too obviously and alienating world opinion. As evidence of U.S. intervention in Chile surfaced and circumscribed Washington’s room for maneuver, the U.S. government therefore opted for tempering a more instinctual desire for confrontation, and Kissinger engaged in ever more skillful dialogue with the Chileans to distract them from the continuing U.S. destabilization measures against Allende. However, these tactics evolved gradually, responding as they did to the changing character of Chilean diplomacy and domestic politics, U.S. foreign policy priorities, inter-American affairs, global superpower relations, and the North-South divide in international politics.

In his own rose-colored view of the world, Salvador Allende hoped reason and the power of Chile’s democratic example would persuade outsiders to accept La Vía Chilena. At the beginning of September 1971, he consequently wrote a three-page letter to Richard Nixon appealing for understanding. The timing of his letter was important, seeing as it was sent amid growing evidence of the United States’ hostility toward his country and on the eve of Chile’s ruling on the compensation it owed to recently expropriated U.S. copper companies. Essentially, the letter appealed to Nixon’s moral conscience by underlining Chile’s legalistic and constitutional tradition and asking the president to stop interfering in Chilean affairs by means of “economic and financial coercion.” Allende wrote that “the greatest defense of the legitimate rights and aspirations of small countries such as mine lies in the moral strength of their convictions and actions…. The harsh reality of our country—the hunger, the poverty, and the almost complete hopelessness—has convinced our people that we are in need of profound changes. We have chosen to carry these changes out by means of democracy, pluralism, and freedom; with friendship toward all peoples of the world. Such an internal process is only possible if its external aspects are based on the sound principles of non-intervention, self-determination, and an open dialogue among nations. We have adhered strictly to this line.”
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No amount of democracy and “friendship toward all peoples,” however, could hide the fact that the UP’s nationalization of Chilean copper mines in July 1971 had been a direct attack on U.S. economic interests in Chile. Rather than shying away from or apologizing for such a move, Allende had called it a “definitive” moment in Chile’s quest for “economic independence.”
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Responding to U.S. calls for “just” compensation for expropriated U.S. companies, Chile’s foreign minister also replied that it depended on what one understood to be “just.”
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As one Cuban intelligence officer put it years later, Allende’s nationalization of Chile’s copper mines was “a kick in the United States’ balls.”
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Even so, the Chileans were acutely aware that the prospect of deducting “excess profits” from the compensation it offered U.S. companies—the “Allende Doctrine” as it was later known—was an act of rebellion that carried substantial risks. The move was riskier still considering the Chileans’ growing recognition that the Nixon administration was not adhering to its own promises of nonintervention and open dialogue. Santiago’s
leaders had begun to acknowledge that U.S. reassurances masked a deeper hostility toward them in mid-1971. In May, the UP had applied for an Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) loan to purchase three Boeing airplanes for Chile’s state airline, LAN-Chile, worth $21 million. When Santiago received no response to its application after two months, Santiago’s leaders became suspicious. Allende was “personally preoccupied” about the issue from the start, instructing Chile’s ambassador in Washington, Orlando Letelier, to raise Chile’s “restlessness” with U.S. government and Eximbank officials. Yet no progress was made, despite State Department reassurances that this was not a “political issue.”
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Then, on 7 July, four days before the Chilean Congress passed Allende’s copper nationalization bill, Eximbank’s president, Henry Kearns, informed Chilean representatives that a decision depended on Chile’s future nationalization program. As the Chileans noted, this tied the Nixon administration irrefutably to protecting business interests.
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What is more, Letelier had concluded there was “no doubt … Eximbank was backed at a high political level” after his meetings with the bank’s officials—Kearns was “evidently nervous, repeatedly consulting a document … by his side.”
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On the basis of these observations, Letelier warned Kissinger that if the U.S. government continued to hold its position on this issue, it would harm U.S.-Chilean relations.
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In private, the ambassador was less assertive and more concerned that the UP’s nationalization program had “clouded” Chile’s position in Washington.
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Allende was also personally nervous about the repercussions a deterioration of relations with the United States could have on Chile’s armed forces. Indeed, to counteract the possibility of a U.S. embargo on military assistance and equipment, he dispatched an ultrasecret military mission—one that was to have no contact with Chilean embassies abroad—to the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and France to reconnoiter the prospect of arms supplies from these countries in the form of either aid or purchases. The idea behind the mission was not to discuss details—that would be done later. Rather, as Allende told Poland’s ambassador when he summoned him to La Moneda to discuss the visit, Chile had to “take into account all eventualities” and plan for U.S. sources drying up despite doing everything possible to avoid this happening.
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In early August and September, the Chileans had also launched an impressive international campaign to clarify and justify the UP’s nationalization program.
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As Letelier wrote to Foreign Minister Almeyda, Chile’s strategy was to promote “the most support possible for Chile, not only
in Latin America, but also among important sectors of this country [the United States], for the most difficult moment in our relations with the U.S., which will be without doubt President Allende’s decision regarding … excess profits.”
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As Chilean diplomats in Washington reminded their superiors back home, their country was now receiving new attention in the United States—second only to Cuba in Latin America—and, as such, the Chilean Embassy was in a good position to publicize its cause. It had therefore begun holding press briefings and sending information to influential journalists and Democrats about underlying U.S.-Chilean tensions. And Letelier had proposed that by leaking information about Eximbank, in particular, the Chileans could prove the United States had thrown the “first stone” and could use it to “cushion” announcements regarding compensation.
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Would it not have been easier to abandon the “Allende Doctrine”? Perhaps, but only if the Chileans’ goal was simply to get on with the United States, which, of course, it was not. Challenging “U.S. imperialism” and asserting Chilean economic sovereignty were fundamental pillars of Allende’s mandate. It was on this platform, rather than capitulation to U.S. pressure, that he had fought and won the presidential election. Being defiant was also politically useful as it ensured support from the far Left members of his ruling coalition whom he both needed and admired. Parts of the Socialist Party—and Allende’s daughter Beatriz, in particular—had strongly encouraged him not to offer the U.S. companies compensation—so much so, that Beatriz and the president had made a deal whereby she promised Allende a painting of hers that he had often admired by the Cuban artist René Portocarrero on the condition he found a way to nationalize copper without paying “a
centavo
.” When he announced his “excess profits” ruling, he happily collected the painting.
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Publicly, at least, “Decree 92,” which created the UP’s constitutional amendment on excess profits, underlined Chile’s right to “rebel” against an “unjust” system that benefited hegemonic powers and contributed to “underdevelopment and backwardness.”
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Eventually enshrined on 28 September, this decree classified “excess profits” as those above 12 percent of a company’s book value between 1955 and 1970. And this obviously affected two U.S. mining companies, Kennecott and Anaconda, which had reaped average annual profits of 56.8 percent and 21.5 percent respectively.
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Then, on 11 October 1971, as widely expected, Chile’s controller general confirmed that when “excess profits” were deducted from compensation
deemed payable, these companies
owed
his country money rather than the other way round.
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By the time the “Allende Doctrine” came into force, Chile’s diplomatic campaign outside the United States to attract support and sympathy in the Americas, the Third World, and the international communist movement was already well under way. The UP still lacked financial means to confront the United States and had not yet secured alternative sources of credits or supplies. Even so, it did have legalistic armor to legitimize its actions and was able to identify with a broader Third World struggle for economic justice. In fact, to many leaders in the global South, the Chileans were valiantly putting widespread demands for compensation of past exploitation into practice.

When it came to attracting support, Santiago had focused first and foremost on the inter-American community. In August and September, Allende had toured Andean Pact countries, depicting Chile’s struggle for “economic independence” as an example to follow. When he described his message as “rebellious but reasoned” in Ecuador, he received understanding from a government already at odds with Washington over the sovereignty of territorial waters.
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Foreign Minister Almeyda also recalled that Colombia’s conservative foreign minister, Alfredo Vásquez Carrisoza, showed surprising comprehension, interest, and sympathy.
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Indeed, formal communiqués at the end of all of Allende’s visits also underlined every country’s rightful sovereignty over its natural resources and included public denunciations of foreign intervention.
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Subsequently, days after Allende’s return to Chile, Fidel Castro sent him enthusiastic praise. “We were very pleased with the extraordinary success you had in your trip,” Castro wrote. As he observed, the Chilean president had encountered “heartfelt emotion and the warmth” in all three countries he visited.
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Beyond purely defensive aims, the trip had also been a good opportunity for Allende to advance his more ambitious goal of challenging U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Promoting the need for a “second Latin American independence,” he had repeatedly called on Latin Americans to unite and speak with “one voice.” In Quito, he had told the press he believed in socialism and that if others did not, Chile would “convince them” through its example.
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At a presidential banquet to welcome him to Colombia, Allende then urged Latin Americans to reject U.S. “diktats” on how to conduct their economic affairs. In his words, Latin America was “a dynamic reality,” edging along a predetermined historical road of “liberation—social,
political and economic.”
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As the U.S. ambassador in Bogotá noted, even if Allende professed Chile’s revolutionary road was “not exportable,” his speeches suggested otherwise.
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Certainly, Allende was convinced that Chile’s experience was highly significant for Latin America and the Third World. As he later explained to one Chilean journalist, “The exploited peoples of the world are conscious of their right to life. And this is why the confrontation [between revolution and counterrevolution] goes beyond our own frontiers and acquires universal meaning. Latin America will one day be free from subjugation and have its rightful voice, the voice of a free continent.”
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