Rigged

Moscow hoped Chile would enter its orbit. Kalugin explained, “We were trying just to widen and strengthen the pro-Cuban left-wing—any movement in Latin America or Central America which would be friendly toward Fidel Castro, and thus be a pro-Soviet regime.”26 The CIA was convinced that both the Soviet Union and Cuba were supporting Allende covertly. In March 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s daily intelligence briefing conveyed that Cuba had “agreed to provide funds” for Allende’s campaign. The next month, the CIA relayed that Che Guevara, a revolutionary in Cuba, “obviously believes that Allende, who has visited Cuba often and is being bankrolled in part by Havana, will win the presidential election in the fall.”27

With Allende again on the ballot in September 1964, and with America’s adversaries backing him, the stage was set for a massive operation of CIA-led electoral interference.

The CIA enjoyed considerable autonomy in its early years. The agency could approve internally covert action programs it deemed “low risk” and “low cost.” For more sensitive operations, the CIA director would deliver classified proposals to a committee, or Special Group, of senior government officials. Members included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the deputy secretary of defense, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and the national security adviser. The Special Group acted as judge and jury. It could authorize covert operations without alerting Congress or even the president. Richard Helms, CIA director from 1966 to 1973, later explained that this arrangement provided plausible deniability. “The mechanism … was set up,” he said, “to use as a circuit breaker so that these things did not explode in the president’s face and that he was not held responsible for them.”28

Covert electoral interference requires advance planning. The CIA laid the groundwork for operations in Chile in 1961, when it established relationships with select political parties, as well as networks through which to distribute propaganda. By March 1964, with the election seven months away, McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, was under pressure to formulate an actual strategy.29 The election had effectively become a two-way contest between Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat, and Allende’s Popular Action Front, a coalition of Socialists, Communists, and smaller left-wing parties. Allende was campaigning on a policy gambit that Frei had rejected as risky and provocative: nationalizing U.S.-controlled copper mines.30

For Washington, the path forward was clear: Support Frei, and keep Julio Durán of the Radical Party in the race as a third-party candidate. Durán stood no chance of victory, and the CIA believed his candidacy would benefit Frei more than it would Allende.31 “Generally speaking, we should simply do what we can to get people to back Frei,” Gordon Chase, a White House aide, told Bundy, lest Allende win the presidency, nationalize the copper mines, and, in the process, increase Moscow’s influence over Chile.32

In the Christian Democratic Party, America found a willing partner, as it had in Italy. In late March, Frei’s advisers visited the U.S. embassy in Santiago, where they painted a grim portrait: His political operation was struggling to cover its $100,000 monthly expenditures but needed to spend three times that to run a winning campaign. The Chileans then requested $1 million in assistance. Embassy officials left the meeting with two impressions: first, that Washington could and should provide the funds but, second, that this assistance should be delivered covertly and through third-party cutouts. Direct contact would invite unnecessary risks. The embassy urged the Special Group to ensure that funding for Frei’s campaign “not seem to come from U.S. sources.”33

At 3:30 p.m. on April 2, the members of the Special Group gathered in the White House Situation Room to consider a CIA proposal to interfere in Chile’s election. The plan, budgeted at $750,000, included eight specific steps. Some concerned high politics, such as bribing certain politicians to back Frei. Others involved financing specific organizations—such as women’s, peasant, youth, and labor groups—and executing “specialized propaganda operations, some of which will be black, to denigrate Allende.” Both of these tactics revolved around manipulating voters’ minds. More aggressively still, the proposal authorized a more direct form of interference: “in the latter stages of the campaign to buy some votes outright if required.”34

The Special Group approved the CIA’s plan. Its members also settled a contentious question: whether to keep the agency’s hand hidden from Frei himself. Embassy officials in Santiago had advocated non-attributability; the CIA felt otherwise. The agency’s top priority was to secure a Frei victory. Its secondary priority, though, was to develop influence over his government. Achieving victory was thus a means to a still further end: for Frei to know to whom he owed his power. “An effort should be made to achieve greater influence over [Frei] by modifying the Special Group restriction on non-attributability,” Joseph King, a senior CIA official, had urged. “Funds could be provided in a fashion causing Frei to infer United States origin of funds and yet permitting plausible denial.”35

The Special Group sided with the CIA. “Attribution of U.S. support would be inferred but there should be no evidence of proof,” the committee decided.36 In this operation, the CIA would attempt to manipulate the masses and the benefiting candidate.

To oversee the operation, the CIA, White House, and State Department formed an interagency electoral interference committee. Its members included Thomas Mann, an assistant secretary of state; McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser; Ralph Dungan, his special assistant; and Desmond Fitzgerald, a CIA official. A parallel committee worked out of the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Its members included the CIA station chief, the U.S. ambassador, and senior embassy officials.37

The chain of command reached the very top. On April 29, the CIA director, John McCone, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk spoke twice about Chile’s election. A few weeks later, Bundy forwarded a memorandum about the CIA’s operation to Lyndon B. Johnson, along with a brief cover note. “In essence, the problem we face is that a very popular and attractive candidate, named Allende, who has thrown in his lot with the Communists, has more than a fighting chance to win,” Bundy wrote. “We have a coordinated Government-wide program of action to strengthen his opponent… . [W]e will be watching it very closely, but I do think you ought to know about it yourself.”38 On a subsequent call with Mann, Johnson sought more information, evidently balancing a desire for plausible deniability with the need to manage his own intelligence services. “What are our problems now?” the president asked. “What are the hot ones? You got an election in Chile.” Mann asserted back, “We’re going to win this election in Chile, things look good, we’ve done a hell of a lot of work on that.”39

The CIA’s covert operation ran on two tracks: directly supporting Frei’s campaign, and disseminating propaganda among the masses. For Frei’s campaign, the agency provided money and helped conduct polls, register voters, and get out the vote. It was an American-like campaign, exported to Chile. As for propaganda, the CIA circulated films, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, and mailings. Some of the information spread was standard fare; some, less so. “ ‘Disinformation’ and ‘black propaganda’—material which purported to originate from another source, such as the Chilean Communist Party—were used,” the U.S. Congress has acknowledged.40

Taking a page out of its Italy playbook, the CIA invested heavily in another scare campaign, spreading depictions of Soviet tanks and the Cuban armed forces. This fearmongering especially targeted women, who had overwhelmingly opposed Allende in the last presidential election. One poster warned, “Chilean Mother: Fidel Castro sent 15,000 children to Russia, tearing them from their mothers’ arms. If you don’t want to lose your children, vote for Durán.”41

The CIA also corrupted Chile’s media, recruiting reporters, columnists, and editors. Some planted anti-Allende stories, while others suppressed anti-American articles. The CIA financed wire services, magazines, and a weekly newspaper. By the end of June, a single CIA-funded propaganda group was producing twenty radio spots, issuing five news broadcasts, and distributing three thousand posters per day—all to persuade Chilean voters to oppose Allende.42 This wide-ranging effort was not cheap. Between May and July, the Special Group—renamed the 303 Committee—approved another $1.75 million for the operation. The CIA also transferred three more officers to its Santiago station.43

Targeting voters’ minds was, as always, a gamble. Frei might win; he might lose. Still, Bundy left as little as possible to chance. One of his advisers put it well: “We can’t afford to lose this one, so I don’t think there should be any economy shaving in this instance. We assume the Commies are pouring in dough; we have no proofs. They must assume we are pouring in dough; they have no proofs. Let’s pour it on and in.”44

All told, the CIA spent $3 million (roughly $25 million in 2020 values) on its operation, a remarkable amount, given that fewer than three million Chileans would actually vote in the election. More remarkably still, the United States funded over half of Frei’s campaign.45 In the pre-digital era, manipulating an election at scale required substantial investment.

Washington remained publicly silent as the CIA carried out its covert operation. In August, Chile severed its diplomatic ties with Cuba. Bundy promptly informed Johnson that “our friends in Santiago” hoped the White House would provide no comment. “If we look as if we are interfering in any way,” Bundy explained, “it will be bad for our friend Frei.”46 The CIA had forecast in various memoranda that Allende would lose the election, and that his supporters might “resort to violence” in defeat. At a National Security Council meeting, Dean Rusk predicted that Frei would triumph “partly as a result of the good work of CIA.”47

Then came September 4: Election Day. The Santiago embassy sent hourly updates to the State Department, which forwarded them to the White House. The CIA’s projections proved prescient. At 9:10 p.m., Allende conceded. He then urged his followers to accept the outcome. Fears of violence abated.48

Frei had not just won; he had won in a landslide, receiving 56 percent of the vote compared with Allende’s 39 percent and Durán’s 5 percent. For the first time in decades, a Chilean presidential candidate had secured an outright majority. “Frei, Victor in Chile, Vows Cooperation with the U.S.,” read a front-page New York Times headline. In his inaugural address, Frei called for renewed commitment to the Alliance for Progress.49 America’s man indeed.

In Washington, the credit for Frei’s performance went to the CIA, in what appeared to be yet another success for covert electoral interference. The agency bragged internally about Frei’s “smashing” victory. The CIA had secured Frei’s majority, John McCone told the 303 Committee, and this outcome had delighted certain American businessmen. Today, the CIA’s best assessment, according to David Robarge, is that “Chile ’64 and Italy ’48 are somewhat analogous” in that the CIA had “provided a cushion for Frei.”50

Regardless of the effectiveness of the CIA’s operation, Johnson—himself competing in an election—reaped political benefits from Frei’s victory. In a news conference, he declared the outcome a victory for democracy. Johnson also made sure to specify that the contest “was an internal matter in which the people of Chile were the only judges of the issues.” In private, Frei thanked the U.S. ambassador in Santiago for Johnson’s comments and for the American embassy’s “discretion and cooperation” during the campaign.51

The new leader of Chile was indebted to a foreign nation. He hoped this debt would remain hidden. John McLaughlin, a Cold War–era CIA officer who later directed the agency, explained, “You always had to weigh the question of whether by interfering in an election you would be exposed and that would play to the disadvantage of the side you were favoring, because you’d make them appear like puppets.”52

Such was the case with Frei. The scale and scope of the CIA’s operation in Chile proved too significant to go unnoticed. Time and The New York Times had both reported that it was “no secret” that America favored Frei. And just before the election, Radio Moscow had alleged that Chile was “swamped with agents of the CIA.”53 Rumors that Frei was an American puppet dogged his presidency and tarnished his electoral legitimacy. “In Chile in 1964, there was simply too much unexplained money, too many leaflets, too many broadcasts,” Congress later found. “That the United States was involved in the election has been taken for granted in Latin America for many years.”54

In defeat, Allende remained a political force, ready and waiting to pursue the presidency after Frei’s six-year term. In those intervening years, however, Washington changed, as Lyndon B. Johnson deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Vietnam. In 1968 alone, nearly seventeen thousand American soldiers died there—prompting major protests at home—and a beleaguered Johnson decided not to seek reelection.55

Amid this instability, Chile’s politics seemed relatively stable. To manipulate Chile’s 1965 congressional election, the 303 Committee sanctioned just $175,000. For the 1967 municipal election, it approved no funds at all. America was still directing overt aid into Chile, but money for covert electoral interference had dried up just as conditions in Chile were deteriorating.56 The CIA reported in a series of memoranda that Frei was enduring an “upsurge of strikes for higher wages,” “serious inflation,” “economic stagnation,” and political isolation.57 Frei had moved to “Chileanize,” or partially control, copper mines, but many voters remained unsatisfied, and most of his other reforms had failed. In March 1968, the CIA warned that Chile’s struggling economy could catapult leftist parties into power.58

Even still, the CIA spent just $200,000 interfering in Chile’s 1969 congressional election. For this operation, the agency worked to undermine the left rather than promote a specific party. After Frei’s victory in 1964, Mann, the assistant secretary of state, had told CIA representatives that America was not in the business of helping one “non-Marxist” group defeat another, because that would amount to intervention. The CIA abided by this line. In 1969, its officers supported candidates of varying party affiliations competing against members of Allende’s coalition in swing districts. “The basic concept is to undertake a district by district analysis of the voting patterns and electoral trends in each district so that we can determine where covert leverage can be most effectively applied,” explained William Broe, a senior CIA official, prior to the election. Of 180 races, the CIA identified just twelve candidates worth backing. Even for such a limited effort, the CIA noted internally, “the risk of exposure is always present in an election operation.”59

Ultimately, ten of the twelve U.S.-backed candidates won. But Richard Helms, the CIA director, was not feeling celebratory; Frei now predicted that Allende would make a “very strong bid” in the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 1970. Helms urged advance planning. “CIA has learned through experience that an election operation will not be effective unless an early enough start is made,” he told the 303 Committee in April 1969. “A great deal of preliminary work is necessary.” Helms’s argument fell on deaf ears, as the newly inaugurated Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, focused on other issues.60 In January 1970, a Popular Unity coalition chose Allende as its nominee for the election, to compete against Radomiro Tomic of the increasingly unpopular Christian Democratic Party and Jorge Alessandri, a right-wing candidate and former president.61

Unlike in 1964, little momentum existed in Washington for covert electoral interference. Neither of Allende’s competitors held obvious appeal. Tomic was “running a distant third,” the CIA reported, while Alessandri was of “advanced age” and boasted an “undistinguished record.”62 Washington had also evolved: New personalities held positions of power. Many were reluctant to act. At an interagency meeting, John Crimmins, a senior State Department official, said he was skeptical that the United States should involve itself in the election at all. Edward Korry, the U.S. ambassador to Chile, said that he, too, “would not be unhappy if we decided to do nothing,” although he did worry about the political risks of inaction, since an Allende victory would reflect poorly on the Nixon administration.63

Perhaps seeking to protect themselves, the officials settled on a half measure: an operation to undermine Allende’s candidacy. The 40 Committee (the 303 Committee, renamed) approved this plan. The budget: a mere $125,000. “If Allende is the threat the paper posits, should we not do more than we propose to insure his defeat?” Viron Vaky, an adviser to Kissinger, asked in response.64

For its operation, the CIA adopted familiar tactics: disseminating black propaganda, spreading posters and leaflets, and planting articles in outlets like the influential El Mercurio newspaper. “The difference with El Mercurio was it was not a rag,” said Jack Devine, who was stationed in Chile as a CIA officer from 1971 to 1974. But the agency was working with limited funds and had abandoned several key tools: polling, grassroots organizing, and direct support for a specific candidate.65 The CIA had also become a “potent … political target” in Chile, according to The New York Times, as Allende’s allies alleged that Frei had won the presidency with the agency’s help. This fraught environment, the CIA cautioned internally, was “not conducive to the mounting of a large-scale election operation.”66

The CIA’s restrained mandate made some of Nixon’s advisers nervous. In June, Helms told Kissinger that the agency was in “a quandary as to what action” to take in Chile. That same month, the 40 Committee approved an additional $300,000 for the CIA’s operation, largely at Kissinger’s urging. “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” he told his colleagues. Vaky, still skeptical of the plan, had told Kissinger that “there is no guarantee it would have any real effect.”67 The $425,000 that the 40 Committee had approved was far less than the $3 million spent in 1964, and no money was going directly to Allende’s opponents. “If the funds approved in March were much too little, those reluctantly voted at the end of June were far too late. (They were also too little),” Kissinger later wrote.68 (Kissinger, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this book.)

Washington was bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. Allende had his own benefactors. Cuba had transferred roughly $350,000 into his campaign, and the Soviets were supporting him as well.69 In early 1970, the KGB sent Kuznetsov, Allende’s contact, back to Chile. “He was tasked with establishing a business relationship with Allende, receiving political information and conducting active operations to benefit Popular Unity,” according to the KGB’s archives.70 In addition to a $400,000 annual subsidy for the Chilean Communist Party, the KGB delivered $50,000 to Allende personally and paid a lawmaker $18,000 to remain in his coalition. In July, the Soviet Politburo sanctioned even more funds for Chile’s Communists.71 The KGB also tried to strengthen its hold over Allende. “KGB focused on deepening Allende’s anti-American sentiments,” the agency’s archives read, through a “serious and focused” effort to provide Allende with “information gathered by the KGB residency in Chile about the actions of American agents.”72 For years, the CIA had been manipulating Chilean politics. The KGB now turned this hidden history to its advantage.

While the KGB assisted Allende, the White House hesitated. In July, Kissinger requested a report on how the United States should react to an Allende victory.73 National Security Study Memorandum 97 (NSSM 97), submitted in response on August 18, had a two-pronged argument. On the one hand, Allende would seek to establish an “authoritarian Marxist state,” and his victory “would undoubtedly provide Marxists everywhere with an enormous boost in morale and in propaganda.” But on the other, Chile mattered little in the broad sweep of American foreign policy. In 1964, Washington had judged Allende a major threat. But at this critical moment, NSSM 97 concluded that “the U.S. has no vital national interests within Chile.”74

Allende was, evidently, not such a threat after all. And regardless, the CIA believed that he would lose. In the president’s daily briefings, Allende was portrayed as overexposed and faltering, while Alessandri was said to have a “slight lead.”75

But Allende actually won the election, receiving 36.6 percent of the vote, next to Alessandri’s 35.3 percent and Tomic’s 28.1 percent.76 The scenario that Johnson’s administration had worked so hard to prevent in 1964 had come to fruition six years later. The CIA, changing its tune, described Allende’s victory as a “political watershed” but did not reflect upon the failure of its operation.77 David Robarge said the agency now assesses that it came up short because of a dearth of resources and preparation, as well as the decision not to assist a specific campaign. “They didn’t bite the bullet on it,” commented Jack Devine, the former CIA officer. “What they authorized was stupid, a denigration campaign against the Socialists, but not support for either candidate.”78

It is, of course, possible that Allende would have triumphed even if the CIA had acted more aggressively. But his margin of victory was just thirty-nine thousand votes, and the CIA’s operation was, as the Senate put it, “much smaller” than it had been in 1964. Kissinger, for his part, was filled with regret. “Had I believed in the spring and summer of 1970 that there was a significant likelihood of an Allende victory,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I would have had an obligation to the President to give him an opportunity to consider a covert program of 1964 proportions, including the backing of a single candidate.”79

The Nixon administration had forgotten a key lesson of Italy: Covert electoral interference succeeds when it is sustained. The 1964 operation, as extensive as it was, only helped to delay Allende’s victory. While Frei’s election marked a triumph from the perspective of the CIA, the 1970 election marked an unforced error.

And in its aftermath, the White House entered into crisis.

Richard Nixon now faced a question that Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson had avoided: what to do when covert electoral interference fails. Because Allende had achieved only a plurality of support, the Chilean Congress would vote on whether to elect him or Alessandri, the second-place finisher. If Nixon hoped to prevent an Allende presidency, he had to act before October 24, when this vote would take place. The choice was stark: further subvert Chile’s democracy, or allow Allende—whom American analysts had so recently deemed an inconsequential threat—to take office.

For Nixon, it was not much of a dilemma at all. Ahead of October 24, the CIA assaulted Chile’s political system to an extraordinary degree, all to keep Allende out of power.80

One of the CIA’s tactics involved rigging the congressional vote through a concentrated operation of covert electoral interference. Back in August, Kissinger had authorized planning for vote buying, in case Allende won a plurality.81 Altering ballots was the backup option for a reason. “The buying of congressional votes is a far more sensitive operation than a propaganda campaign, and would have penalties for disclosure far more heavy and wide-ranging,” warned Charles Meyer, an assistant secretary of state.82 But manipulating the masses had failed. The contingency plan was to purchase a congressional majority for Alessandri, who could then resign and call for a new election. The result would, in effect, be an electoral do-over. At least one step in this sequence of events actually happened. On September 9, Alessandri announced that he would step down if he won the vote, triggering a second election. And on September 14, the 40 Committee authorized $250,000 for vote buying.83