Brazil played role in U.S.-backed overthrow of Chile's Allende, document shows

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil played role in U.S.-backed overthrow of Chile's Allende, document shows
Nixon's offer in 1971 to help undermine Allende's government came after Brazil's president said his military officers were working with counterparts in Chile, a newly declassified document says.
By Andrew Zajac

August 16, 2009

Reporting from Washington

President Nixon's determination to eliminate the socialist government of Salvador Allende led him to offer financial support to efforts by the Brazilian military to undermine the Chilean leader, according to a newly declassified summary of a White House meeting between Nixon and the president of Brazil.

"The president said that it was very important that Brazil and the United States work closely in this field. . . . If money were required or other discreet aid, we might be able to make it available," stated the synopsis of Nixon's December 1971 conversation with President Emilio Medici.

The offer of U.S. help came after Medici told Nixon that Brazilian military officers were working with counterparts in Chile and that he thought Chilean armed forces were capable of overthrowing Allende.

The Chilean leader died during a U.S.-backed overthrow of his elected government in September 1973.

The summary was among a batch of records concerning U.S.-Brazil collaboration in opposing left-leaning governments in Latin America in the early 1970s posted Saturday on the National Security Archive website.

"The documents open the door on a new, untold history of efforts to overthrow Allende," said Peter Kornbluh, director of the archive's Cuba and Chile documentation projects. "Very few details about Brazil's role have surfaced."

Medici, a former general, headed a dictatorial, military-backed government in Brasilia from 1969 to '74. He and Nixon also discussed the need to pressure Cuba's Fidel Castro.

More:
www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-us-latin16-2009aug16,0,7736857.story

[Judi Lynn]

1. Allende Seeks Brazil Documents on '73 Chile Coup

Allende Seeks Brazil Documents on '73 Chile Coup
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 18, 2009
Filed at 6:39 p.m. ET

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- The daughter of overthrown Chilean President Salvador Allende requested via Twitter on Tuesday that Brazil open any secret archives that could shed light on any role it played in the 1973 coup that killed her father.

The request by Isabel Allende, a deputy in Chile's Congress, follows publication in the U.S. of a declassified document about a 1971 meeting between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Brazilian military regime-era President Emilio Medici.

The two discussed coordinating intervention in Chile to overthrow the leftist Allende and also possible intervention in Cuba.

''I reiterate my request to President Lula to declassify documents and know the true history of intervention in A. Latina in the 1970s,'' Isabel Allende wrote on her Twitter page, referring to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

~snip~
''There is also the possibility that any archives about it were destroyed. No one is going to say that dictators don't destroy archives -- obviously they do,'' Vannuchi said in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended an event officially recognizing the deaths of 500 Brazilians at the hands of the nation's 1964-85 military regime.

In 2002, then-Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso -- a leftist who fled into political exile during the dictatorship -- signed a decree to keep military intelligence files classified for 50 years.

But in 2005, Silva ordered the release of 13 steel archives and 1,259 boxes with photos, films, pamphlets and 220,000 microchips relating to the military regime.

Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive who directs the group's Chile and Cuba documentation project, called on Brazil to release all its archives.

''It seems to me Brazil owes an explanation, if not an apology, to Chile in the form of a full historical reckoning of its role in the overthrow of Allende and the advent of Pinochet,'' he said.

In another Twitter entry, Allende called the most recent revelations ''another one of Nixon's nefarious interventions, this time using Brazil.''

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/18/world/AP-LT-Brazil-Nixon-Allende.html?scp=1&sq=Allende&st=cse

Her Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Allende_(politician)