--- alias: - Paul M. Wimert - Paul M. Wimert Jr. - Colonel Wimert category: Military created: 2026-09-21 location: Santiago, Chile summary: American army attaché in Santiago who in October 1970 carried the CIA's guns and money to the Chilean officers plotting against General Schneider, and afterward threw the weapons into the sea. tags: - Person - PaulWimert - Chile - ProjectFUBELT - ReneSchneider - DefenseIntelligenceAgency - AugustoPinochet updated: 2026-09-21 --- Paul Wimert was the United States Army attaché at the embassy in [Santiago](/places/santiago/) in 1970. When President [Richard Nixon](/people/richard-nixon/) ordered the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) that September to keep [Salvador Allende](/people/salvador-allende/) from office, the agency used him, outside the knowledge of Ambassador [Edward Korry](/people/edward-korry/), as its channel to serving Chilean officers, among them General [Camilo Valenzuela](/people/camilo-valenzuela/). The operation was [Project FUBELT](/programs/project-fubelt/).[^1] ### October 1970 The station was told on October 5 that the attaché should not deal with General [Roberto Viaux](/people/roberto-viaux/) himself "because of the high risk involved." On October 18 it gave him tear gas grenades for Valenzuela's officers, since it was "important that the attache credibility with Armed Forces officers be strengthened," and asked headquarters for "three .45 calibre machine guns (grease guns)," which came by diplomatic pouch. He delivered them in the early hours of October 22. General [René Schneider](/people/rene-schneider/) was shot a few hours later by Viaux's men, with other weapons. Wimert recovered the guns and the 50,000 dollars paid to Valenzuela's group.[^1] "I gave the CIA everything," he told a television interviewer. "I gave them the money, I took the 12 grease guns that had the serial numbers filed off, the ammunition, the tear gas, the gas masks, went to Valparaíso, which is supposed to be the deepest harbor in that part of the world and I dumped it all into there." The cables speak of three guns.[^2] A task force report said that Wimert "enjoyed unusually close, frank, and confidential relationships" with the likely plotters. The acting director of the [Defense Intelligence Agency](/organizations/defense-intelligence-agency/), Lieutenant General Jamie Philpott, ordered him to "work closely with the CIA chief" in "contacting and advising the principal military figures who might play a decisive role in any move which might, eventually, deny the presidency to Allende. Do not, repeat not, advise the Ambassador." On October 17 Valenzuela's deputies asked him for tear gas grenades and "three 45-caliber machine guns (grease guns) with 500 rounds ammo each," and Valenzuela said the plotters would need 50,000 dollars for a team of abductors, which the station authorized. Six submachine guns arrived by diplomatic pouch, "specially wrapped and falsely labeled to disguise what they were from [State Department](/organizations/state-department/) officials." "At 2:00 a.m. on October 22, Colonel Wimert drove to a desolate spot in Santiago to deliver the weapons to a Chilean army officer waiting in his vehicle." On October 29 headquarters asked that he "manage to regain possession of material." He told [Seymour Hersh](/people/seymour-hersh/) that when Valenzuela refused to return the money he drew his pistol and "just hit him once and he went and got it."[^3] Colonel Paul M. Wimert Jr. "had served in intelligence in Latin America since the 1950s." He "had been granted the privilege of stabling his horses at the Chilean Military Academy," and "his access to and influence with the military in Chile were unmatched by that of any CIA operative." Of General Viaux he said: "I always operated on the assumption that there's no substitute for brains and Viaux didn't have any." He asked for and was shown a cable from the Defense Intelligence Agency confirming the arrangement, which "was so secure, Wimert was told, that he could not keep it in his files," and another from [Richard Helms](/people/richard-helms/) assuring him "that his family and horses would be provided for in case he was killed while at work for the Agency." "Nothing I sent went to the DIA; it went to Haig and Kissinger directly," he said. "I was filing for three months and I thought everything I sent over there was going to the DIA and it wasn't, it was going over to the White House." He was authorized to pay out 100,000 dollars. "I kept it in my riding boots in the trunk of my car." He gave 50,000 each to Valenzuela and to an admiral. The admiral returned his share without comment. In 1971 he obtained a post at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington, and in 1973 he retired, "a disappointed colonel, to a horse farm in Virginia."[^4] ### His Account Asked whether he had seen evidence of Cuban involvement with Allende before the election, Wimert answered: "No." Of the operation he said: "it was simply screwed up to start with and why I let myself get into it I really couldn't figure out, because it wasn't run with brains." An officer to whom he offered money told him: "I love my country I do this for my country not because of the [United States](/places/united-states/), you keep the money I don't want it." He said he was glad the kidnapping had failed and "ashamed of myself that I was dumb to get roped into something like that because it was stupid from the word go." On his return he went to the chaplain at Fort Myer, who advised him to work with young people in a pony club, "and I did." Of [Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/) and Haig he said "they just didn't ever want to hear the word [Chile](/places/chile/) mentioned again."[^2] He had known [Augusto Pinochet](/people/augusto-pinochet/), then at the military college, who had written a geography of Chile's roads, railways, and shipping lanes. Wimert helped him to have it printed: "we went to CIA old Henry Hecksler and he just had 100 copies made." [Henry Hecksher](/people/henry-hecksher/) was the agency's station chief. Wimert said Pinochet had no part in the Schneider plot.[^2] The journalist Seymour Hersh reported in 1982 that Wimert told him he had supposed the CIA officers sent to Santiago in 1970 were there "to arrange for Allende's death," which was "always something everybody hoped would happen."[^5] [^1]: 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, where he is referred to only as the attaché; Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. [^2]: "Interview with Paul Wimert," *Cold War,* episode 18, "Backyard," Cable News Network, transcript at the National Security Archive. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/interviews/episode-18/wimert2.html [^3]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, pp. 15, 27-28, 30, and note 40 at p. 512. [^4]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House*. Summit Books, 1983, pp. 280-282, 289. [^5]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House*. Summit Books, 1983, as reported by United Press International, November 22, 1982.