El Mercurio
Santiago daily of the Edwards family, to which the 40 Committee voted 1.665 million dollars in CIA money in 1971 and 1972, a month after an intelligence estimate found that it had kept its independence.
El Mercurio is the principal conservative daily newspaper of Chile, owned by the family of Agustín Edwards. General René Schneider stated in an interview with it on May 8, 1970, that the army would not interfere in the election.1
Washington, September 1970
After Salvador Allende won a plurality on September 4, 1970, Edwards went to Washington. Donald Kendall, head of Pepsi-Cola, arranged for him to see Richard Helms at a hotel and to have breakfast on September 15 with Henry Kissinger and Attorney General John Mitchell, to discuss "the political situation in Chile and the plight of El Mercurio and other anti-Allende forces." Edwards told Helms that a coup required "neutralizing Schneider." That afternoon President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to organize one. Helms testified: "I have this impression that the President called this meeting where I have my handwritten notes because of Edwards' presence in Washington and what he heard from Kendall about what Edwards was saying about conditions in Chile."12
Two days later Hal Hendrix and Robert Berrellez of ITT recommended to their company that it and other American firms "pump some advertising into Mercurio," which had begun, that help be given to some twenty radio and television propagandists formerly supported by "the Matte and Edwards groups," and that the United States Information Service be pressed to circulate the paper's editorials in Latin America and Europe.3
The Subsidy
"The 40 Committee authorized $700,000 for El Mercurio on September 9, 1971, and added another $965,000 to that authorization on April 11, 1972," the Senate's staff reported. A National Intelligence Estimate of August 1971 had found that the paper "had managed to retain its independence" under the pressure of the Allende government, which the staff called "at some variance" with the case made for the money a month later.3
The agency's own records credit "the El Mercurio project" with "a significant role" in bringing about the coup of 1973. It had paid reporters and editors of the paper through the 1960s. In September 1971 a representative of the Edwards group asked for "covert support totaling $1 million." On September 14 President Nixon personally authorized 700,000 dollars, "and more if necessary," and Richard Helms told the Western Hemisphere Division it might "exceed the authorized $700,000 and go up to, and even over, $1,000,000 provided it was warranted to keep the paper going." A CIA officer, Jonathan Hanke, recorded on May 15, 1972, that Hal Hendrix of ITT had told him of deposits of 100,000 dollars that ITT was making secretly to Edwards: "He had told me money for the Edwards group went through a Swiss account."4
Sources
- Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination ↩
- Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, interim report, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975. Testimony of Richard Helms, July 15, 1975, pp. 4-5, as quoted there. ↩
- Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, staff report, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973, December 1975. https://archive.org/details/CovertActionInChile196373 ↩
- Kornbluh, Peter. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New Press, 2003, pp. 91-93. ↩
Hidden connections 1
Entities named in this page's prose without an explicit wikilink — surfaced by scanning for known titles and aliases.
Local network
El Mercurio's direct connections (the most-mentioned 250 on the densest entries). Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.
An interactive diagram of El Mercurio's connections, drawn on a canvas and explored with a pointer. The same connections are listed as links in the Connected and Mentioned-in sections below.
Legend — how to read this graph
- People
- Organizations
- Programs
- Events
- Concepts
- Places
Larger = more mentions across the vault.
Explicit link (wikilink between entries).
Inferred connection (name co-mention) — toggle with “Inferred”.
Gold ring — a bridge entity linking distant clusters.
Accent ring — your current selection.