Project FUBELT

Project FUBELT, known within the government as Track II, was the CIA's attempt between September 15 and October 24, 1970, to instigate a military coup in Chile to keep Salvador Allende from the presidency. President Richard Nixon ordered it to be run without the knowledge of the State Department, the Defense Department, the ambassador in Santiago, or the 40 Committee, which was simultaneously supervising a separate program of bribery and propaganda called Track I. The agency's contacts centered on officers who planned to abduct the army commander, General Rene Schneider, who opposed a coup. Schneider was shot on October 22 and died on October 25. The Church Committee published the cable traffic in 1975.¹

Before the Election

The CIA spent three million dollars on the 1964 Chilean election in support of Eduardo Frei, and the 303 Committee and its successor approved 125,000 dollars and then 300,000 dollars for a "spoiling operation" against Allende's coalition in 1970. That July John McCone, a former director of central intelligence who was a director of ITT and, by his own testimony, still "a consultant to the Agency," telephoned Director Richard Helms. A meeting followed between ITT's chairman, Harold Geneen, and William Broe, chief of the agency's Western Hemisphere Division. Geneen offered up to one million dollars. The agency declined the money and advised the company on secure channels, through which ITT passed at least 350,000 dollars to the campaign of Jorge Alessandri. Other American companies gave about as much.²³

On September 4, 1970, Allende won 36.3 percent of the vote to Alessandri's 35.3 percent, a margin of 39,000 votes in three million, which sent the choice to the Chilean Congress on October 24. On September 9 the 40 Committee gave Ambassador Edward Korry 250,000 dollars to influence that vote.²

September 15

On the morning of September 15, Henry Kissinger and Attorney General John Mitchell had breakfast with Donald Kendall, the president of Pepsi-Cola, and Agustin Edwards, the publisher of the Santiago daily El Mercurio, who had come to Washington at Kendall's arrangement. Helms testified that he was asked to see Edwards at a Washington hotel, and added: "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."¹⁴

That afternoon Nixon met Helms, Kissinger, and Mitchell. The committee's report states: "President Richard Nixon informed CIA Director Richard Helms that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States. The CIA was instructed by President Nixon to play a direct role in organizing a military coup d'etat." Helms's handwritten notes of the meeting record ten million dollars available and the instruction to "make the economy scream." A task force was formed under the deputy director for plans, Thomas Karamessines. Headquarters cabled the Santiago station on September 21: "Purpose of exercise is to prevent Allende assumption of power. Parliamentary legerdemain has been discarded. Military solution is objective."¹⁵

Viaux and Valenzuela

The station dealt with two groups. The retired General Roberto Viaux was approached first through a foreign military attache and then by agency officers "who posed as third country nationals." On October 6 Viaux asked for several hundred paralyzing gas grenades for a coup on the 9th, and headquarters refused. On October 10 it cabled: "We wish to encourage Viaux to expand and refine his coup planning. Gain some influence over his actions." On October 13 it authorized 20,000 dollars in cash and a promise of 250,000 dollars in life insurance for Viaux and his associates, and asked: "What is to keep Schneider from making statement in early hours which will freeze those military leaders who might otherwise join Viaux?" The station replied the same day that Viaux intended to kidnap Schneider within 48 hours. The agency also passed 38,500 dollars through a third party to the rightist group Patria y Libertad "in an effort to create tension and a possible pretext for intervention by the Chilean military."¹²

Kissinger and his deputy, Alexander Haig, testified that at a meeting with Karamessines on October 15 they ended the agency's coup efforts. Karamessines and Helms testified that the agency continued with White House knowledge. The committee left the conflict unresolved. On October 16 Karamessines cabled the station chief: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup."¹

The second group was led by General Camilo Valenzuela, who told the American army attache on October 18 that he and three other senior officers would begin a coup by seizing Schneider after a dinner the next evening and flying him to Argentina, after which Frei would resign and a junta would dissolve Congress. The station gave the attache six tear gas grenades for the officers. Headquarters sent three submachine guns by diplomatic pouch and cabled: "Will continue make effort provide them but find our credulity stretched by Navy officer leading his troops with sterile guns. What is special purpose for these guns? We will try send them whether you can provide explanation or not." The attempts of October 19 and 20 failed. The attache was authorized to pay Valenzuela 50,000 dollars, "the price agreed upon between the plotters and the unidentified team of abductors." He delivered the guns to an army officer at two in the morning on October 22.¹

October 22

Six hours later Schneider's car was stopped on his way to work. He drew his pistol and was shot. A Chilean military court found that he was killed with handguns; an unloaded machine gun was found at the scene, and the committee could not determine whether it was one of the three. The station's first cables reported that he had been machine-gunned and instructed the attache to "hand over $50,000 if Gen. Valenzuela requests." Later that day it cabled: "Station unaware if assassination was premeditated or whether it constituted bungled abduction attempt. All we can say is that attempt against Schneider is affording Armed Forces one last opportunity to prevent Allende's election if they are willing to follow Valenzuela's scenario." Martial law was declared and Valenzuela was given command of Santiago province. The task force log recorded: "The attack on General Schneider has produced developments which closely follow Valenzuela's plan. Consequently the plotters' positions have been enhanced."¹

Helms reviewed the operation on October 23. "It was agreed," the log states, "that a maximum effort has been achieved, and that now only the Chileans themselves can manage a successful coup. The Chileans have been guided to a point where a military solution is at least open to them." Congress confirmed Allende the next day. The agency later paid 35,000 dollars to members of the group that had attacked Schneider, and the attache disposed of the weapons in the Pacific.¹⁵

After 1970

A National Intelligence Estimate of August 1971 found that El Mercurio had kept its independence. The 40 Committee authorized 700,000 dollars for the paper on September 9, 1971, and a further 965,000 dollars on April 11, 1972. Covert spending in Chile between 1970 and the coup of September 11, 1973, came to eight million dollars. In November 1972 the agency learned that one of the business groups it funded had passed 2,800 dollars to striking truck owners against its rules, "rebuked the group but nevertheless passed it additional money the next month." The committee found no evidence of direct American involvement in the 1973 coup and recorded that the United States "remained in intelligence contact with the Chilean military, including officers who were participating in coup plotting." The President's Daily Brief of September 8, 1973, released in 2023, reported "no evidence of a coordinated tri-service coup plan."²⁶

Helms testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Chile and ITT on February 7 and March 6, 1973. He pleaded no contest in 1977 to two misdemeanor counts of failing to testify fully, was fined 2,000 dollars, and received a suspended sentence. On November 3, 1977, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the plea did not cost him his pension, because the hearings did not concern disloyalty. Schneider's family sued Kissinger, and the D.C. Circuit dismissed the suit in 2005 as a political question.⁷⁸