Occasionally, the voices of ghosts emerge, revealing dark chapters in American political history.

the

US

The State Department last week, along with the CIA, released two 50-year-old documents that had been withheld from the public

other

That

now

barn

new

light on the military coup in Chile that overthrew the country’s elected president.

One is then president

Richard

Nixon’s intelligence briefing notes from the day of the coup, September 11, 1973, listed top secret as “For the President Only.” The National Security Archive, a non-governmental research organization, described the papers as some of “the most historically iconic missing documents” about the coup.

“[T]hey contained information that went to President Nixon as a military takeover that he and his top adviser Henry Kissinger had encouraged for three years

are we missing a word here? NO. NIXON GOT THE INFO LIKE A MILITARY TAKEOVER ((which he and HK had encouraged))… CAME OUT.

blossomed”, the

National security

Archives, which study and store vast amounts of previously classified official documents, a statement said.

The coup led to the death of the Chilean president,

leftist leader Salvador Allende,

and installed years of brutal right-wing military rule

,

led by General Augusto Pinochet

,

in what until then had been a promising young democracy.

while

the recently released documents

don’t change the story substantially, the

newly released documents

reveal the considerable amount of detail Nixon knew about the steps leading up to the coup. In addition to the briefing papers from the day of the coup, a second document recounts Nixon’s briefing from two days before the military takeover.

Thousands of Chilean civilians were killed, imprisoned or tortured

of

some were rounded up by the army and held in a stadium where they died.

Within a few years, neighboring Argentina also fell under a brutal military dictatorship, as did other countries

includinglike

Bolivia and Paraguay followed suit. It was a difficult and torturous era in Latin America, slowly moving towards more progressive democracies,

–

despite the political dynamics

have continued to change, with the return of the right and authoritarians in some countries. recent years passed and advanced.

The full extent of the role of the CIA and other US players in the Chilean coup has long been debated. While the Nixon administration was not believed to have had a direct hand in carrying out the coup, it did

appeared anyway

fit the pattern of many

so called

regime changes

that the US has developed clandestinely in recent decades

to inform

Latin America,

Unpleasant

Iran and beyond.

As Chile prepares for the

50th50th

anniversary of the coup that changed its course forever

and that still counts as one of the most important events in the history of the continent

,

officials there are eager to learn as much as they can about the backstory to those events.

Thousands of documents related to the coup in Chile have been declassified over the years. The State Department said Friday it is now releasing the new batch “to enable a deeper understanding of our shared history” and in the spirit of strengthening good relations between Washington and Santiago, where a moderate leftist president took office.

(

The Biden administration

has searched

Unpleasant

being upbringing

friendly

relationships

with moderate leftists in Latin America counterbalancing more radical leaders

in the area

.

)

Chilean officials have said so

the

the release of the documents came in response to their petition ahead of the

50th 50th

birthday.

The release of the files furthers the search for the truth and reinforces our country’s commitment to democratic values, Chilean Foreign Minister Gloria de la Fuente said in his gratitude to the Biden administration.

Democracy is memory and also future, she said.

The coup in Chile saw smoke rise from the defeated presidential palace,

Lathe

Moneda, as military planes bombed it, an indelible image for many in Latin America.

Nixon and Kissinger, Secretary of State during Nixon’s last year in office, were not fans of the Allende administration and its leftist leanings, and had tried to block it

s from

take office in the first place. The US government of the time favored Pinochet, who

for the most part of him

Seventeen years of rule had good economic and military ties with Washington, as he oppressed many of his own people, but also built the Chilean economy.

In Pinochet’s later years, several countries attempted to prosecute him for crimes against humanity, but he died in 2006 before those attempts.

progressed well

.

Peter Kornbluh, a researcher for the National Security Archive who has specialized in Chile for years, welcomed the new declassification but questioned why it had taken so long for the information not to pose a threat to national security. to hold

the document theme

all this time secret was a “mockery,” he said.

“Key Collections of US Documents Remaining Secret

Kornbluh said,

would be invaluable for an informed debate on the coup and the CIA’s ties to the Chilean secret police

,

”

Kornbluh said, also noting that there’s more to learn about it

Pinochets

staff

role when ordering the

1976

assassination of an Allende-era diplomat, Orlando Letelier, in Washington

in 1976

.

Letelier, an outspoken critic of Pinochet, was killed in a car bombing that the US intelligence community believes was ordered by Pinochet.

In the recently declassified documents, Nixon is briefed

vinegar

intelligence briefing

,

three days before the coup

,

that it is brewing.

“Navy men who have plans to overthrow the government are now demanding support from the Army and Air Force,” Nixon said

Wow

That is being told, according to the declassified briefing document.

nixon

Wow

s then

wrongly

told

wrongly,

that the coup does not have broad military support.

“If naval hotheads act in the belief that they will automatically receive support from the other services, they can become isolated,” the CIA briefer said.

tells

nixon

Then, on the day of the coup, the CIA told

tells

Nixon that Chilean military officers were determined to restore political and economic order to the country, an attractive patina on the insurgency.

The Chilean Ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel

ValdsValdes

said the recently released documents further demonstrate the US

intervention interference

years in Chile’s internal affairs.

The documents “show a very painful history for both our countries”

Valds said in a telephone interview from the Chilean Embassy in Washington. US efforts to block the left in Chile began in the 1960s and 1970s, then under Nixon and Kissinger took on a “global dimension,” he said, “causing a steady weakening of our institutions and democracy.” Valds said the bright side has been an eventual series of US investigations into excesses by the CIA and other intelligence organizations, and the rise of human rights activism that has put abuses in the spotlight and at the center of some US policies. “That has transformed things in Chile,” he said. “It is clear…that the United States had a very great responsibility in the steady destruction of our institutions and in the weakening of faith in democracy,” Valds told CNN en Espaol. The documents “depict a very painful scenario and history for both our countries … and a permanent US intervention in Chilean political life” before and during the Allende years, he said.