On September 11, 1973 the Chilean military led by General Augusto Pinochet slapped Fidel Castro so smartly that his Stalinist regime (and its dutiful U.S. Media minions) are still sniveling and sniffling and wiping away tears of shock, pain and humiliation.
True to form, The New York Times leads the sniveling. They just published an article decrying the Chilean “tragedy” (i.e. Chile saving itself from Castroism with a military coup and today the richest and freest nation in Latin America.) The article’s author Ariel Dorfman is a former advisor to Chile’s Marxist president and Castro acolyte Salvador Allende. This same “columnist,” by the way, proclaimed Che Guevara as “Hero and Icon of the Century!” for Time magazine back in 1999.
“To our American friend Herbert Matthews with gratitude,” beamed Fidel Castro during a visit to the New York Times offices in April 1959 to decorate their star Latin America reporter with a newly-minted Cuban medal. “Without the help of the New York Times, the Revolution in Cuba would never have been,” Castro congratulated.
For once, Fidel Castro wasn’t lying. In fact, our crackerjack State Department’s Latin America “experts” were in such thrall to the New York Times’ Herbert Matthews that a pre-requisite for U.S. ambassadors posted to Cuba in the late 50’s was a “briefing” by him!”
“One can’t get much closer to communism without becoming one” J. Edgar Hoover wrote in July of 1959 to Vice President Nixon about Herbert Matthews, who he was closely monitoring.
"We’re following the example of the Cuban Revolution and counting on the support of her militant internationalism represented by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara!” boasted Chilean president Salvador Allende’s minister Carlos Altamirano in January 1971. “Armed conflict in continental terms remains as relevant today as ever!" he declared.
And he wasn’t bluffing. By the time of Pinochet’s coup, an estimated 31,000 Cuban and Soviet bloc operatives and terrorists infested Chile, including Castro’s top KGB-trained terrorist spymasters, Antonio De La Guardia and Manuel "Barbarroja" Pineiro." Among the hundreds of Soviet personnel were KGB luminaries Viktor Efremov, Vasili Stepanov and Nikolai Kotchanov.
By 1973, 60% of Chile’s arable land had been stolen by Allende’s Marxist regime, often with the aid of Cuba-trained death squads. "In the final analysis only armed conflict will decide who is the victor!" added Allende’s governmental ally, Oscar Guillermo Garreton. “The class struggle always entails armed conflict. Understand me, the global strategy is always accomplished through arms!"
Allende’s deputy economic minister, Sergio Ramos, didn’t mince words either: "It’s evident," he proclaimed in mid-1973, "that the transition to socialism will first require a dictatorship of the proletariat!"
"Stalin was a banner of creativity, of humanism and an edifying picture of peace and heroism!" declared Salvador Allende during a eulogy in 1953 to the Soviet mass-murderer whose crimes left Hitler’s in the dust. "Everything he did, he did in service of the people. Our father Stalin has died but in remembering his example our affection for him will cause our arms to grow strong towards building a grand tomorrow—to insure a future in memory of his grand example!"
In September 1973 General Augusto Pinochet, his military colleagues and a majority of the Chilean people (Allende had won in 1970 with a slight plurality not a majority of the Chilean vote) failed to recognize Stalin’s Great Terror as a “grand example.” The Chilean legislature and Supreme Court had already declared Allende’s Marxism unconstitutional.
So with the clock tickling ominously toward irreversible Castroism, Chile’s traditionally un-political military made a (genuine) pinprick strike against Allende and his Stalinist minions.
Allende and Castro’s media minions claim 3000 people were “disappeared” during this anti-Communist coup and its aftermath, collateral damage and all. Well, even if we accept the Castroite figure, compared to the death-toll from our interventions/ bombing- campaigns in the Mid-East (that have yet to create a single free, peaceful and prosperous nation) Pinochet’s coup should be enshrined and studied at West Point, Georgetown and John Hopkins as the paradigm for effective “regime–change” and “nation-building.” Granted, Pinochet had much better raw-material to work with.
But the Castroite –MSM figure is mostly bogus, as many of those “disappeared” kept appearing, usually behind the iron curtain.
More importantly, Pinochet and his plotters were scrupulous in keeping U.S. State Dept. and CIA “nation-builders” and other such egghead busybodies out of their plotting loop. (This probably explains Pinochet’s success.) Then two years after the coup they invited Milton Freidman and his “Chicago Boys” over for some economic tutelage. And as mentioned: today Chile is the freest and richest nation in Latin America.
Oh, I know, I know, whenever you read about Pinochet’s coup in the media you read how it was “U.S.-backed,” and by the diabolical Richard Nixon, no less. Unrepentant apologist for Communism Christopher Hitchens did much to perpetuate the worldwide leftist whine-fest over Castro and Brezhnev’s humiliation in Chile. “1968 actually began in 1967 with the murder of Che,” recounted Christopher Hitchens in A New York Times article on the 30th Anniversary of Che Guevara’s death. “His death meant a lot to me. He was a role model.”
Hitchens’ book turned BBC documentary titled “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” remains the international Left’s “Nixon and Pinochet for Dummies.” But long- declassified U.S. documents publicized by Marc Falcoff in Frontpage Magazine expose the Castro-Hitchens-MSM version for the fairy-tale anti-Communist Chileans recognized from the get-go.
"We had nothing to do with it," Kissinger told Nixon over the phone on June 1973 after an earlier (and botched) coup attempt against Allende. “It came as a complete surprise to us." Added Assistant Sec. of State Jack Rush. “My firm instructions to everybody on the staff are that we are not to involve ourselves in any way,” reported U.S. ambassador Nathaniel Davis, who kept hearing coup rumors from his Chilean contacts.
Then on September 16, five days after Pinochet’s successful coup Nixon asked Kissinger: "Well, we didn't--as you know--our hand doesn't show on this one though?"
"We didn't do it,” replied Kissinger. “I mean …we helped create the conditions."