The investigation assesses the significant contribution of the United States, with a general focus on the CIA, to Salvador Allende’s political downfall. To adequately evaluate the involvement of the United States and the CIA, this investigation emphasizes the multiple measures and operations taken through distinctive cases of economic plots, operations track 1 and 2, as well as the infiltration into Chilean political and military factions. This investigation strives to answer the question: How did the United States and the CIA significantly contribute to the political downfall of Salvador Allende? One of the sources named The Murder of Allende and the End of the Chilean Way to Socialism written by Rojas Robinson in 1976, is in the …show more content…
A common source of research is from the people involved; however, Allende was not available for input due to his suicide after the events of the coup and the majority of the United States government refuses to acknowledge involvement. Despite this, several accounts from people involved in the lower aspects of the plots were interviewed and gave some idea of the large plot the United States fabricated to combat Allende. Once this information was given, historians commonly used newspapers and other sources of media to incorporate into their argument. In recent years, the CIA has begun to release a few of the documents relating to the Cold War and some documenting events related to Allende. The few documents available to provide insight do not explain in the extent that would be expected. The primary issue of using the CIA documents is that almost all of the information is still classified, leaving little information available for use. These limitations demonstrate the difficulty of being a historian and the process of sorting through multiple sources in order to collect an accurate report of United States involvement in …show more content…
While I wished to provide an accurate testimony through media search, publications, and memoirs, I realized this method would not be time efficient and would restrict my view to a traditionalist interpretation since the events were seen firsthand. Utilizing solely primary sources would not have been beneficial to my investigation as a whole. In order to include more revisionist perspectives, which better portray my own, I used research collected by other historians to discover the different aspects of United States involvement. The most difficult aspect of history is that there is no correct or straightforward answer. All history is interpreted differently by the different people involved which leads to biases. For this reason, there is no guarantee that the information will ever be entirely objective. By looking at multiple sources, I was able to form an idea of the events that occurred while viewing different interpretations with similar themes. One of the most important aspects of my research was finding multiple sources that included similar information in order to verify the accuracy of these
5.Constable, Pamela, and Arturo Valenzuela. A Nation of Enemies Chile Under Pinochet. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. Print.
The CIA’s involvement in the killing of JFK is one of the popular theories put forward by conspiracy theorists. President Kennedy was said to have told an official in his administration, “I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds” (McGovern, 2013, para. 3). Many of the individuals who disliked Kennedy believed he was the reason for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. They also believed that he would reduce the size of the military industrial complex and that he was not going after communism hard enough. The CIA was involved
My dad was born in the small Central American nation of El Salvador, more specifically in Anamoros located on the east side of the country. He lived in the countryside so he often played with their animals, spent most of his childhood swimming in the rivers or playing soccer with his friends, and would frequently hang out with his grandparents in the afternoons. In 1980, when he was about 12 years old that all began to change, he and all those around him needed to be more cautious about their surroundings.
Not all is known and the facts passed down may not reveal the whole truth. History is biased and can easily be manipulated by those with more power, and it is a modern historian’s job to weed through the commonly accepted information, and try to find the truth. If the truth is not found, then they present alternative theories to broaden the world’s knowledge on the possible course of events in the
With our history, perspective is key. When reading about a certain speech or event it is important to make sure you have a reliable source. Sometimes primary sources are scarce, so secondary sources will be needed. Sometimes the sources can clash with each other, making it hard to tell what is true and not. Different perspectives of historic events can dampen understanding of the true message given when personal bias and dim perspectives are applied. Our history is being influenced by secondary sources rather than the real message of the primary source.
One of the most speculative experiences of conquest and dictatorship in the history of Latin America has been the socialist and dictatorial regimes in Chile. Chile has gone through multiple times of dictatorship, lead by the military, and also had lapses of a socialist government. The film “Machuca” by Andres Wood provided an insight of the series of social events in Chile in 1973, ranging from inter personal experiences to political issues and the Chilean nation. “Two dictators, Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet, both brought tremendous suffering upon the Chilean people -- one through his socialist policies and nationalization of
The US irrevocably changed the history of Chile through its intervention in the 1970’s. The intervention destroyed decade’s worth of potential development in Chile (not to mention the deaths of thousands due to installing a murderous dictator), to keep communism out of the Chile, and protect United States business interests. The United States’ interest in a potential intervention in Chile began in 1970, the year Salvador Allende was elected the Chilean President. Allende was a leftist candidate from the Socialist Party of Chile whom Nixon suspected of potentially turning communist. Allende made critical remarks about the United States’ involvement in Latin America, especially their failed invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs. This, combined with
The article “Paraguay’s Archive of Terror: International Cooperation and Operation Condor” by Katie Zoglin centers around the way in which the Southern Cone countries, with a specific focus on Paraguay, dealt with political opponents. The article was written in the period of winter-spring in 2001. This is significant because the article is also from the American Law Review at Miami University in a period just after the 9/11 attacks. This could affect some of the ideas about military governments and intelligence, being as the U.S. would likely be concerned with these ideas right after a terrorist attack. However, since the article is about Latin America, the influence of 9/11 might not be significant in this particular case.
Selbin identifies the most important part of a social revolution is the transformation of the society that is broken up into two parts consolidation and institutionalization of a country (Selbin 13). Augusto Pinochet and Fidel Castro both tried to succeed in these aspects, but both had success in areas but also failures in others. Their rise to power, reign and their political ideology separated them on a fundamental level, but they did have some similarities.
Chile’s economy was effectively owned by US corporation’s, and these corporation’s controlled the country's resources. When Allende nationalized copper the two main American corporation were financially hurt severely and lost a lot of profit. This concerned the US and Nixon worried that Chile was falling under soviet control and communism. One of Nixon’s fears was that the Soviets would have total control in Americas backyard. However, the major reason that the US instigated the overthrow was because the corporations did not want Chile to take over their own resources and use them for their own benefit. The corporations were able to exercise leverage over Allende because Chile was in the middle of an economic depression and Chile was receiving loans from American banks. Once Allende was in power these loans were stopped by US foreign policy and of course Chile suffered economically . At this point,
When it became apparent that Chile might soon have a Socialist President the fear of a communist domino effect caused Kissinger’s feeling of order in the Western Hemisphere to be broken. Therefore he supported Pinochet, who despite his terror driven domestic policy, created stability systemically by eradicating communism (Starr 477).
The term “Covert Action” brings with it a connotation of shadowy figures wrapped in secrecy and intrigue. It also brings with it a substantial amount of moral questions as to “what is right.” The use of covert action has been widely publicized since the early seventies, but trying to find out the truth to these events has been difficult to say the least. What is even more difficult, is historically recording these events into categories of successes or failures. These operations are difficult to dissect because of their secrecy and although events have been recorded, some facts simply aren’t apparent. This paper will seek to identify the complex issues associated with covert operations.
“Victory has a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan,” remarked John F. Kennedy. The Bay of Pigs invasion code named operation Zapata began in March of 1960 one month and a year before the famed invasion took place. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin a covert operation to bring down the pro-communist Cuban government. Nonetheless Fidel Castro’s potential pro-communist beliefs, the seizure of American owned companies and land lead to extreme concern from United States policy makers and officials. The mission, however would become possibly one of the greatest intelligence failures in the history of the United States. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion lead to a new era in the military and intelligence fields that continues to affect foreign policy
Throughout the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union spread their influence by either invading or inciting regime change in countries that refused to cooperate with them. In Chile and Iran, among other countries, the United States helped stage a coup d’état to prevent the country from adopting communism, but the CIA conducted the
The lectures in class this week and the article “10 of the Most Lethal CIA Interventions in Latin America” by Olivier Acuña has opened my eyes to the U.S.’s international political connections. The U.S. has proved throughout history to be self serving and has proven to intervene in nations that will lead to its own economic and political advantages. I find it unfortunate that the CIA and American government tries to pride itself on our democratic system, but will support corrupt dictators and absolute rulers