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After the West had pushed Chile in 1973 in a brutal dictatorship people write now a new constitution

Analysis. The vote to choose the Constituent Assembly overcomes repression: ‘It is the first Constitution in the world that will be written by an assembly with an equal number of men and women and with a strong representation of the original peoples.’ The communist Irací Hassler is the new mayor of Santiago.










In Chile, the left beats expectations and has a chance to write the future

written by Andrea Cegna

The elections to determine the composition of the Constituent Assembly and the holders of many local offices on May 15-16, 2021 turned into a rout over the country’s right wing, and over the traditional parties in general. The atmosphere before the polls closed was very different, as the low turnout figures (42.5%) were worrying the left, convinced that only a repeat of the high turnout of the October referendum could have guaranteed them control of the Constituent Assembly. Instead, the right, united in a single list, won only 37 seats out of 155.

“No one expected such an outcome — those who are claiming that now are lying. Certainly, many of us dreamed of it,” Tomás Hirsch told us from Santiago. Hirsch is a deputy from Acción Humanista del Cile and among the coordinators of the Apruebo Dignidad list, a coalition formed with the Frente Amplio and the Communist Party.

The goal of the “Vamos por Chile” coalition, which brought together everyone from the Pinochetists to President Piñera, was to take more than one-third of the constituent assembly, at least 52 deputies, in order to be able to have veto power during the process of writing the new Constitution.

“The traditional parties, the so-called duopoly, had a very bad result overall. The Christian Democrats practically disappeared, electing only one representative out of 155,” Hirsch said. “Furthermore, the most important municipalities in the country, starting with Santiago de Chile, were won by candidates from the left wing of the Frente Amplio or the Communist Party. In short, it was much more than we had hoped for.”

There were 28 elected from the Apruebo Dignidad coalition, 25 from Lista del Apruebo (center-left) and 48 seats won by independent candidates, most of whom represent the movements that have been marching in the streets with a great proportion of feminist representation since October 2019. Then, there were the 17 seats allocated to the original peoples.

“Clearly, getting more than the two-thirds needed to control the Constituent Assembly should allow us to do more than just erase the most undemocratic parts of the current constitutional charter, but also to convert it into a modern Constitution with a vision of the future,” Hirsch said. “It is the first Constitution in the world that will be written by an assembly with an equal number of men and women and with a strong representation of the original peoples.”

The forces of the struggle have defeated the repression—that can be said to be the verdict on the result. It was no different in the local elections, where the right wing collapsed, the opposition candidates won outright in three regions and will go to the runoff having won more votes in the first round in another 10.

The Valparaiso region, the second most important in the country, will be governed by Rodrigo Mundaca, the candidate of the Frente Amplio. Irací Hassler, of the Communist Party, is the new mayor of Santiago, the country’s capital, beating Felipe Alessandri, the incumbent mayor. No mayor of Santiago in the last 24 years has managed to get elected twice, and the tradition has been maintained, but now the winner is a woman and a communist, a novelty for the capital of a country that must still reckon with male chauvinism as one of its weak points.

As soon as she was elected, the new mayor said: “We hope that what is happening today in Santiago is the prelude to what will happen at the national level. Today we have a historic opportunity, in this very important moment, we will have a new Constitution and we will also have a transformation starting from the neighborhoods of the municipality of Santiago to reconquer our dignity and buen vivir, in this historic moment of transformation. We are going to build a municipality for the people. We are going strong.”

President Sebastián Piñera had to once again acknowledge defeat, as he did in October: “A strong and clear message has been sent to the government, and also to all the traditional political forces. We are not responding adequately to the demands and wishes of the citizens.”

https://global.ilmanifesto.it/in-chile-the-left-beats-expectations-and-has-a-chance-to-write-the-future/






WILLIAM BLUM / KILLING HOPE

when Salvador Allende, a committed Marxist, came

within three percent “of winning the Chilean

presidency in 1958,the United States decided that

the next election, in 1964, could not be left in the

hands of providence, or democracy.

Washington took it all very gravely. At the outset of the Kennedy administration

in 1961, an electoral committee was established, composed of top-level officials from the State Department, the CIA and the White House. In Santiago, a parallel

committee of embassy and CIA people was set up.

“U.S. government intervention in Chile in 1964 was blatant and almost obscene,”

said one intelligence officer strategically placed at the time. “We were shipping

people off right and left, mainly State Dept. but also CIA, with all sorts of covers.” continuing after the introduction of William Blum:

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William Blum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in 2007BornMarch 6, 1933 Brooklyn, New York CityDiedDecember 9, 2018 (aged 85) Arlington, Virginia, U.S.OccupationJournalist, author, U.S. foreign policy criticGenrePolitical journalism, historyNotable works

williamblum.orgWilliam Henry Blum (/bluːm/;[1] March 6, 1933 – December 9, 2018) was an American author and critic of United States foreign policy. He lived in Washington, DC.[2] In 1969, Blum wrote and published an exposé of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in which were revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 CIA employees. He worked as freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. In 1972–1973, Blum worked as a journalist in Chile where he reported on the Allende government's "socialist experiment". In the mid-1970s, he worked in London with ex-CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates "on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds".[5] He supported himself with his writing and speaking engagements on college campuses.[2] One of Blum's stories on Iraq was listed by Project Censored as one of "The Top Ten Censored Stories of 1998"[6] In his books and online columns, Blum devoted substantial attention to CIA interventions and assassination plots. Noam Chomsky has called Blum's book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, "far and away the best book on the topic."[7] Blum supported Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns.[8] He circulated a monthly newsletter by email called "The Anti-Empire Report".[9][10] Blum described his life's mission as: "If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It's causing so much suffering around the world."[2] In an interview with C-SPAN in 2006, Blum stated: "Speaking about U.S. foreign policy, which is my specialty, the authors I would most recommend would be Michael Parenti and Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman and Howard Zinn and Alexander Cockburn."[11] Osama bin Laden statement In early 2006, Blum briefly became the subject of widespread media attention when Osama bin Laden issued a public statement in which he quoted Blum and recommended that all Americans read Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. As a result of the mention, sales of his book greatly increased.[4] "I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum commented. "I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from. If he shares with me a deep dislike for certain aspects of US foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."[12] On the Bin Laden endorsement, Blum stated, "This is almost as good as being an Oprah book."[2] In an interview on MSNBC Countdown, he said: "Basically it's US foreign policy which creates anti-American terrorists. It's the things we do to the world. It's not, as the White House tells us, that they hate our freedom and democracy. That's just propaganda."[13] In a May 22, 2006 article entitled "Come Out of the White House With Your Hands Up", Blum wrote: "Since the bin Laden recommendation, January 19, I have not been offered a single speaking engagement on any campus. . . . This despite January–May normally being the most active period for me and other campus speakers."[14]

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continuation

All in all, as many as 100 American operatives were dedicated to the operation.

They began laying the groundwork for the election years ahead, a Senate

investigating committee has disclosed, “by establishing operational relationships

with key political parties and by creating propaganda and organizational

mechanisms capable of influencing key sectors of the population.” Projects were

undertaken “to help train and organize ‘anti-communists’’’ among peasants, slum

dwellers, organized labor, students,the media, etc.

After channeling funds to several non-leftist parties,the electoral team eventually

settled on a man of the center, Eduardo Frei, the candidate of the Christian

Democratic Party, as the one most likely to block Allende’s rise to power. The CIA

underwrote more than half the party’s total campaign costs,one of the reasons that

the Agency’s overall electoral operation reduced the U.S.Treasury by an estimated

$20 million – much more per voter than that spent by the Johnson and Goldwater

campaigns combined in the same year in the United States. The bulk of the

expenditures went toward propaganda. As the Senate committee described it:

In addition to support for political parties, the CIA mounted a massive anticommunist propaganda campaign. Extensive use was made of the press, radio, films, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, direct mailings, paper streamers, and wall

painting. It was a “scare campaign”, which relied heavily on images of Soviet tanks

and Cuban firing squads and was directed especially to women. Hundreds of

thousands of copies of the anti-communist pastoral letter of Pope Pius XI were

distributed by Christian Democratic organizations. They carried the designation,

“printed privately by citizens without political affiliation, in order more broadly to

disseminate its content.” “Disinformation” and “black propaganda” – material

which purported to originate from another source, such as the Chilean Communist

Party – were used as well.

The scare campaign played up to the fact that women in Chile, as elsewhere in

Latin America, are traditionally more religious than men,more susceptible to being

alarmed by the specter of “godless, atheist communism”. One radio spot featured

the sound of a machine gun,followed by a woman’s cry: “They have killed my child

– the communists.” The announcer then added in impassioned tones: “Communism

offers only blood and pain. For this not to happen in Chile,we must elect Eduardo

Frei president.”

Other scare tactics centered around warnings of Russian control, and that the left

would confiscate everything near, dear and holy.

The committee report continued:

The propaganda campaign was enormous. During the first week of intensive

propaganda activity (the third week of June 1964), a CIA-funded propaganda group

produced twenty radio spots per day in Santiago and on 44 provincial stations;

twelve-minute news broadcasts five times daily on three Santiago stations and 24

provincial outlets; thousands of cartoons, and much paid press advertising. By the

end of June, the group produced 24 daily newscasts in Santiago and the provinces,

26 weekly “commentary” programs, and distributed 3,000 posters daily.

One poster which appeared in the thousands showed children with a hammer

and sickle stamped on their foreheads.

Newspaper articles from elsewhere in Latin America which supported the


political lines of the CIA campaign were collected and reprinted in Chile.

Undoubtedly, many of these articles had been written in the first place by CIA

stations in the particular countries. There were also endorsements of Frei solicited

from famous personages abroad, advertisements such as a “message from the

women of Venezuela”, and a vitriolic anti-communist radio broadcast by Juanita

Castro, sister of Fidel,who was on a CIA-organized speaking tour of South America:

“If the Reds win in Chile,” she said, “no type of religious activity will be possible ...

Chilean mother,I know you will not allow your children to be taken from you and

sent to the Communist bloc, as in the case of Cuba.”

The Senate committee also revealed that:

In addition to buying propaganda piecemeal,the [CIA] Station often purchased

it wholesale by subsidizing Chilean media organizations friendly to the United

States.Doing so was propaganda writ large.Instead of placing individual items,

the CIA supported – or even founded – friendly media outlets which might not

have existed in the absence of Agency support.

From 1953 through 1970 in Chile,the Station subsidized wire services, magazines

written for intellectual circles, and a right-wing weekly newspaper.

Of one subsidized newspaper,a State Department veteran of the campaign recalls

that “The layout was magnificent.The photographs were superb.It was a Madison

Avenue product far above the standards of Chilean publications.”

The same could be said about the electioneering itself. Besides running political

action projects on its own in a number of important voting blocks,the CIA directed

the Christian Democrats’ campaign along American-style lines, with voter

registration, get-out-the-vote drives, and professional management firms to carry

out public opinion surveys. To top it all off, they sent for a ringer – an election

specialist from the staff of that eminent connoisseur and guardian of free elections,

Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. What the function of Daley’s man in Chile was,

can only be guessed at.

Several of the grassroots programs funded by the CIA were those run by Roger

Vekemans, a Belgian Jesuit priest who arrived in Chile in 1957 and founded a

network of social-action organizations, one of which grew to have 100 employees

and a $30 million annual budget.By his own declaration in 1963,Vekemans received

$5 million from the CIA as well as a like amount from AID to guide his

organizations’ resources in support of the Christian Democrats and Eduardo Frei,

with whom Vekemans had close relations. The Jesuit’s programs served the classic

function of channeling revolutionary zeal along safe reformist paths.Church people

working for the CIA in the Third World have typically been involved in gathering

information about the activities and attitudes of individual peasants and workers,

spotting the troublemakers, recruiting likely agents, preaching the gospel of anticommunism, acting as funding conduits, and serving as a religious “cover” for

various Agency operations.An extreme anti-communist,Vekemans was a front-line

soldier in the struggle of the Christian Democrats and the Catholic Church against

the “liberation theology” then gaining momentum amongst the more liberal clergy

in Latin America and which would lead to the historic dialogue between

Christianity and Marxism.

The operation worked. It worked beyond expectations. Frei received 56 percent

of the vote to Allende’s 39 percent. The CIA regarded “the anti-communist scare

campaign as the most effective activity undertaken”, noted the Senate committee.

This was the tactic directed toward Chilean women in particular. As things turned

out,Allende won the men’s vote by 67,000 over Frei (in Chile men and women vote

separately), but amongst the women Frei came out ahead by 469,000 ...testimony,

once again, to the remarkable ease with which the minds of the masses of people

can be manipulated, in any and all societies.

What was there about Salvador Allende that warranted all this feverish activity?

What threat did he represent, this man against whom the great technical and

economic resources of the world’s most powerful nation were brought to bear?

Allende was a man whose political program, as described by the Senate committee

report, was to:

Redistribute income [two percent of the population received 46 percent of the

income] and reshape the Chilean economy, beginning with the nationalization of

major industries, especially the copper companies; greatly expanded agrarian


reform; and expanded relations with socialist and communist countries.

A man committed to such a program could be expected by American policy

makers to lead his country along a path independent of the priorities of US foreign

policy and the multinationals. (As his later term as president confirmed, he was

independent of any other country as well.)

The CIA is an ongoing organization. Its covert activities are ongoing, each day, in

each country. Between the 1964 and 1970 presidential elections many of the

programs designed to foster an anti-leftist mentality in different sections of the

population continued; much of the propaganda and electioneering mechanisms

remained in place to support candidates of the 1965 and 1969 congressional

elections; in the latter election, financial support was given to a splinter socialist

party in order to attract votes away from Allende’s Socialist Party; this reportedly

deprived the party of a minimum of seven congressional seats.

The Senate committee described some of the other individual covert projects

undertaken by the CIA during this period:

● Wresting control of Chilean university student organizations from the

communists;

● Supporting a women’s group active in Chilean political and intellectual life;

● Combatting the communist-dominated Central Unica de Trabajadores Chilenos

(CUTCh) and supporting democratic [i.e., anti-communist] labor groups; and,

● Exploiting a civic action front group to combat communist influence within

cultural and intellectual circles.

In 1968, at the same time the CIA was occupied in subverting unions dominated

by the Chilean Communist Party, a US Senate committee was concluding that the

Latin American labor movement had largely abandoned its revolutionary outlook:

“Even the Communist-dominated unions, especially those which follow the

Moscow line, now generally accept the peaceful road as a viable alternative.”


“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because

of the irresponsibility of its own people.” Thus spoke Henry Kissinger, principal

adviser to the President of the United States on matters of national security. The

date was 27 June 1970, a meeting of the National Security Council’s 40 Committee,

and the people Kissinger suspected of imminent irresponsibility were the Chileans

whom he feared might finally elect Salvador Allende as their president.

The United States did not stand by idly. At this meeting approval was given to

a $300,000 increase in the anti-Allende “spoiling” operation which was already

underway. The CIA trained its disinformation heavy artillery on the Chilean

electorate, firing shells marked: “An Allende victory means violence and Stalinist

repression.” Black propaganda was employed to undermine Allende’s coalition and

support by sowing dissent between the Communist Party and the Socialist Party,

the main members of the coalition, and between the Communist Party and the

CUTCh.

Nonetheless,on 4 September Allende won a plurality of the votes.On 24 October,

the Chilean Congress would meet to choose between him and the runnerup, Jorge

Alessandri of the conservative National Party. By tradition, Allende was certain to

become president.

The United States had seven weeks to prevent him from taking office. On 15

September, President Nixon met with Kissinger, CIA Director Richard Helms, and

Attorney General John Mitchell. Helms’ handwritten notes of the meeting have

become famous:

One in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile! ... not concerned with risks involved ...

$10,000,000 available, more if necessary ... make the economy scream ...

Funds were authorized by the 40 Committee to bribe Chilean congressmen to

vote for Alessandri, but this was soon abandoned as infeasible, and under intense

pressure from Richard Nixon, American efforts were concentrated on inducing the

Chilean military to stage a coup and then cancel the congressional vote altogether.

At the same time, Nixon and Kissinger made it clear to the CIA that an

assassination of Allende would not be unwelcome.One White House options-paper discussed various ways this could be carried out.

A fresh propaganda campaign was initiated in Chile to impress upon the military,

amongst others, the catastrophe which would befall the nation with Allende as

president.In addition to the standard communist horror stories,it was made known

that there would be a cutoff of American and other foreign assistance; this was

accompanied by predictions/rumors of the nationalization of everything down to

small shops, and of economic collapse.The campaign actually affected the Chilean

economy adversely and a major financial panic ensued.

In private, Chilean military officers were warned that American military aid

would come to a halt if Allende were seated.

During this interim period, according to the CIA, over 700 articles, broadcasts,

editorials and similar items were generated in the Latin American and European

media as a direct result of Agency activity.This is apart from the “real” media stories

inspired by the planted ones. Moreover, journalists in the pay of the CIA arrived in

Chile from at least ten different countries to enhance their material with on-thespot credibility.

The following portion of a CIA cable of 25 September 1970 offers some indication

of the scope of such media operations:

Sao Paulo, Tegucigalpa, Buenos Aires, Lima, Montevideo, Bogota, Mexico City

report continued replay of Chile theme materials. Items also carried in New York

Times and Washington Post. Propaganda activities continue to generate good

coverage of Chile developments along our theme guidance.

The CIA also gave “inside” briefings to American journalists about the situation

in Chile. One such briefing provided to Time enlightened the magazine as to

Allende’s intention to support violence and destroy Chile’s free press.This,observed

the Senate report, “resulted in a change in the basic thrust” of the Time story.

When Allende criticized the leading conservative newspaper El Mercurio (heavily

funded by the CIA), the Agency “orchestrated cables of support and protest from

foreign newspapers, a protest statement from an international press association,

and world press coverage of the association’s protest.”

A cable sent from CIA headquarters to Santiago on 19 October expressed concern

that the coup still had no pretext or justification that it can offer to make it

acceptable in Chile or Latin America. It therefore would seem necessary to create

one to bolster what will probably be [the military’s] claim to a coup to save Chile

from communism.

One of headquarters’ suggestions was the fabrication of:

Firm intel[ligence] that Cubans planned to reorganize all intelligence services

along Soviet/Cuban mold thus creating structure for police state ... With

appropriate military contact can determine how to “discover” intel[ligence] report

which could even be planted during raids planned by Carabineros [the police].

Meanwhile,the Agency was in active consultation with several Chilean military

officers who were receptive to the suggestion of a coup. (The difficulty in finding

such officers was described by the CIA as a problem in overcoming “the apolitical,

constitutional-oriented inertia of the Chilean military”.) They were assured that

the United States would give them full support short of direct military involvement.

The immediate obstacle faced by the officers was the determined opposition of the

Commander-in-Chief of the Army, René Schneider, who insisted that the

constitutional process be followed. He would have to be “removed”.

In the early morn of 22 October the CIA passed “sterilized” machine guns and

ammunition to some of the conspirators. (Earlier they had passed tear gas.) That

same day, Schneider was mortally wounded in an attempted kidnap (or “kidnap”)

on his way to work. The CIA station in Santiago cabled its headquarters that the

general had been shot with the same kind of weapons it had delivered to the

military plotters, although the Agency later claimed to the Senate that the actual

assassins were not the same ones it had passed the weapons to.

The assassination did not avail the conspirators’ purpose. It only served to rally

the army around the flag of constitutionalism; and time was running out.Two days

later,Salvador Allende was confirmed by the Chilean Congress. On 3 November he

took office as president.

The stage was set for a clash of two experiments. One was Allende’s “socialist”

experiment aimed at lifting Chile from the mire of underdevelopment and

dependency and the poor from deprivation.The other was, as CIA Director William

Colby later put it, a “prototype or laboratory experiment to test the techniques of

heavy financial investment in an effort to discredit and bring down a government.”

Although there were few individual features of this experiment which were

unique for the CIA, in sum total it was perhaps the most multifarious intervention

ever undertaken by the United States. In the process it brought a new word into

the language: destabilization.

“Not a nut or bolt [will] be allowed to reach Chile under Allende”,warned thenAmerican Ambassador Edward Korry before the confirmation. The Chilean

economy, so extraordinarily dependent upon the United States, was the country’s

soft underbelly, easy to pound. Over the next three years, new US government

assistance programs for Chile plummeted almost to the vanishing point; similarly

with loans from the US Export-Import Bank and the Inter-American Development

Bank, in which the United States held what amounted to a veto; and the World

Bank made no new loans at all to Chile during 1971-73. US government financial

assistance or guarantees to American private investment in Chile were cut back

sharply and American businesses were given the word to tighten the economic

noose.

What this boycott translated into were things like the many buses and taxis out

of commission in Chile due to a lack of replacement parts; and similar difficulties

in the copper, steel, electricity and petroleum industries.American suppliers refused

to sell needed parts despite Chile’s offer to pay cash in advance.

Multinational ITT, which didn’t need to be told what to do, stated in a 1970

memorandum: “A more realistic hope among those who want to block Allende is

that a swiftly-deteriorating economy will touch off a wave of violence leading to a

military coup.”

In the midst of the near disappearance of economic aid, and contrary to its

warning,the United States increased its military assistance to Chile during 1972 and

1973 as well as training Chilean military personnel in the United States and Panama.

The Allende government, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, was

reluctant to refuse this “assistance” for fear of antagonizing its military leaders.

Perhaps nothing produced more discontent in the population than the shortages,

the little daily annoyances when one couldn’t get a favorite food,or flour or cooking

oil, or toilet paper, bed sheets or soap, or the one part needed to make the TV set

or the car run; or,worst of all,when a nicotine addict couldn’t get a cigarette. Some

of the scarcity resulted from Chile being a society in transition: various changeovers

to state ownership, experiments in workers’ control, etc. But this was minor

compared to the effect of the aid squeeze and the practices of the omnipresent

American corporations. Equally telling were the extended strikes in Chile, which

relied heavily on CIA financial support for their prolongation.

In October 1972, for example, an association of private truck owners instituted a

work-stoppage aimed at disrupting the flow of food and other important

commodities, including in their embargo even newspapers which supported the

government (subtlety was not the order of the day in this ultra-polarized country).

On the heels of this came store closures, countless petit-bourgeois doing their bit

to turn the screws of public inconvenience – and when they were open, many held

back on certain goods,like cigarettes,to sell them on the black market to those who

could afford the higher prices. Then most private bus companies stopped running;

on top of this, various professional and white-collar workers,largely unsympathetic

to the government, walked out, with or without CIA help.

Much of this campaign was aimed at wearing down the patience of the public,

convincing them that “socialism can’t work in Chile”. Yet there had been worse

shortages for most of the people before the Allende government – shortages of food,

housing, health care, and education, for example. At least half the population had

suffered from malnutrition. Allende, who was a medical doctor, explained his free

milk program by pointing out that “Today in Chile there are over 600,000 children

mentally retarded because they were not adequately nourished during the first eight

months of their lives, because they did not receive the necessary proteins.”

Financial aid was not the CIA’s only input into the strike scene. More than 100

members of Chilean professional associations and employers’ guilds were graduates

of the school run by the American Institute for Free Labor Development in Front

Royal, Virginia – “The Little Anti-Red Schoolhouse”. AIFLD, the CIA’s principal

Latin America labor organization, also assisted in the formation of a new

professional association in May 1971: the Confederation of Chilean Professionals.

The labor specialists of AIFLD had more than a decade’s experience in the art of

fomenting economic turmoil (or keeping workers quiescent when the occasion

called for it).

CIA propaganda merchants had a field day with the disorder and the shortages,

exacerbating both by instigating panic buying. All the techniques,the whole of the

media saturation, the handy organizations created for each and every purpose, so

efficiently employed in 1964 and 1970, were facilitated by the virtually unlimited

license granted the press: headlines and stories which spread rumors about

everything from nationalizations to bad meat and undrinkable water ... “Economic

Chaos! Chile on Brink of Doom!” in the largest type one could ever expect to see in

a newspaper ... raising the specter of civil war, when not actually calling for it,

literally ... alarmist stories which anywhere else in the world would have been

branded seditious ...the worst of London’s daily tabloids or the National Enquirer

of the United States appear as staid as a journal of dentistry by comparison.

In response,on a few occasions,the government briefly closed down a newspaper

or magazine, on the left as well as on the right, for endangering security.

The Agency’s routine support of the political opposition was extended to include

the extreme rightist organization Patria y Libertad,which the CIA reportedly helped