The Other September 11: Chile, 1973
September 11 is now engraved on the consciousness of Americans. Yet for the South American country of Chile, the date has a different and much more tragic significance. It was on that day in 1973 that the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed military coup. Augusto Pinochet seized power. In the ensuing years, tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, jailed, tortured and driven into exile. The U.S. role, under Nixon and his National Security Advisor Kissinger, in first destabilizing and then overthrowing the Allende government was decisive. It will rank among the most grotesque interventions ever undertaken by the U.S. A few years after the coup, Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger visited Chile. He told General Pinochet, “In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here.”
Recorded at the Wellfleet Public Library as part of Ethel & Robert Levy’s speakers series Talking Together.
Speaker
Peter Kornbluh
Peter Kornbluh is senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. He is the author of Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report and The Pinochet File.
Ruth Strauss –
A riveting expose by Peter Kornbluh. He “blows the CIA and Henry Kissinger out of the water” (to use a harsh but appropriate analogy) regarding their coverup of the Chilean massacre and victims’ stories from that time of the assassination of Allende and Pinochet takeover. It is even more remarkable that Kornbluh is a National Security archivist and analyst, bravely willing to have made this important, superbly crafted and easily accessible talk about his findings. At the end of just that one hour, not only do you have a concise example of the horrors of Henry Kissinger’s and the CIA’s policies in action, but also the deception and coverup by both. Kornbluh also exposes how our “papers of record” act like stenographers at times instead of dong their own independent research. It is absolutely jaw-dropping that the Nobel Committee awarded Kissinger the Peace Prize (as with Barack Obama as well)–what were they smoking? Though the talk was given in September 2002, it is just as relevant and important in 2023 as it was then, perhaps even more so, as we can concentrate on that incident, rather than still be in the shadow of September 11,2001. This important talk is”Not to be missed”!