Office of the Historian

67. Central Intelligence Agency Intelligence Information Cable1

Washington, September 8, 1970, 2144Z.

COUNTRY

  • Chile

DOI

  • 6 September 1970

SUBJECT

  • InCg Inconclusive Meeting of High Ranking Chilean Military Officers to Discuss the Possibility of a Military Coup Against the Government.

ACQ

  • Chile, Santiago (7 September 70) Field no. [less than 1 line not declassified]

SOURCE

  • [5 lines not declassified]

TDCS 314/09473–70. 1. (Source Comment: The following information was made available to Senator Julio Duran, a strong supporter of defeated Presidential candidate Jorge Alessandri, by General Carlos Guerraty, Air Force Commander-in-Chief (CINC). General Guerraty commented that he was making this information available in order to keep the Alessandri forces apprised of developments within the military.)

2. During the afternoon or early evening of 6 September 1970 high ranking Chilean military officers, including General Rene Schneider, Army CINC; Admiral Fernando Porta, Navy CINC; General Carlos Prats, Chief of the General Staff of National Defense; and General Vicente Huerta, Director General of the Corps of Carabineros; met at Guerraty’s home to discuss the possibility of a military coup against the Chilean Government in order to prevent the inauguration of Socialist Senator Salvador Allende as President of Chile. The discussion centered around the possibility of flying President Eduardo Frei to another country, naming a military junta, and then convoking new Presidential elections as soon as possible.

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3. Although most of those present at the meeting were of the opinion that something should be done to prevent Allende’s ascendancy to the Presidency, the meeting ended on an inconclusive note. General Schneider was opposed to a military coup. General Prats did not openly support those who favored a coup and, indeed, kept strangely quiet throughout the meeting.

4. Field dissem: State, Army, Navy, Air, CINCSO. [less than 1 line not declassified]

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 774, Country Files, Latin America, Chile, Vol. II. Secret; Priority; No Foreign Dissem. Transmitted to the White House, Department of State, Defense Intelligence Agency, Army, Navy, Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Intelligence Council, National Security Agency, and Office of Current Intelligence. Attached to a September 9 memorandum from Vaky to Kissinger, which Kissinger saw and initialed. The memorandum summarized the Intelligence Information Cable, noting the “meeting was inconclusive,” Schneider “was apparently opposed to a coup, and Chief of the General Staff, General Prats, was ‘strangely quiet.’” (Ibid.)↩