 |
|
| Kissinger Watch #1 - 03 |
|
|
|
|
| The murder of General Rene Schneider / Lawsuit against Kissinger in the US |
|
| by ICAI |
|
Last September, the family of Chile's former Army Commander-in-Chief Rene Schneider filed suit against Henry Kissinger, Richard Helms et al. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accusing them of plotting the general's 1970 kidnap and assassination. The night before the lawsuit was filed, CBS broadcasted a special "60 minutes" programme, including interviews with former U.S. Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry and Chile expert Peter Kornbluh from the National Security Archives, both confirming Kissinger's responsibility. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the suit on various grounds, including absolute immunity and the political question doctrine. The lawyers of the Schneider family filed an opposition to the defendants' motion to dismiss last December, and the defendants filed a reply to that opposition at the end of January 2002.
General René Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, was killed in 1970 by Chilean military coup-plotters with the full support of Henry Kissinger and other high-level officials of the intelligence community.
The background was the 1970 presidential elections in Chile. The context was the Cold War. At the time, Henry Kissinger was President Nixon's National Security Advisor and Chairman of the National Security Council's 40 Committee in charge of Clandestine Operations.
Afraid of the consequences of a democratically elected Marxist in the region, the United States intelligence community, headed by Kissinger, organized covert operations to prevent the victory of Salvador Allende. The first "Track" of these covert operations became known as the political/constitutional solution. It consisted of continuing propaganda efforts that had been used in previous Chilean presidential and congressional elections. The U.S. thus infiltrated political parties and published newspaper and magazine articles, both in Chile and abroad, containing anti-communist and anti-Allende rhetoric. The U.S. also exerted political pressure against the Chilean Congress. According to the Chilean Constitution, if no presidential candidate wins a majority of the vote, the legislature must elect one of the two front runners. Since the Chilean elections were close, the U.S. wanted to make sure the Chilean legislature was influenced in the "right" direction.
Nevertheless, the political/constitutional solution did not work, and Allende was elected President. Despite strong propaganda efforts, the Chilean people and its legislature did not want to interfere with the democratic process. General Schneider, as Commander-in-Chief of the largest section of the Chilean military, publicly announced the Army's desire to abide by the Constitution and to recognize whomever the Chilean people and/or legislature elected democratically. Due to his enormous influence among the military, Gen. Schneider became the main impediment to a military solution for the Allende problem.
Frustrated by failure, Kissinger uttered a famous statement best characterized as an expression of his disregard and disdain of the Chilean democratic will: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." Faced with the collapse of the propaganda activities and the frustration of their plans to prevent an Allende victory, Kissinger and the heads of the U.S. intelligence community decide to implement "Track II", also known as Operation FUBELT. The purpose of Track II was to promote a coup in Chile.
One of the methods used to promote this coup, besides threatening the military with ending U.S./Chile Military Assistance Programs, was to provide different groups of coup-plotters with weapons in order to remove Gen. Schneider. All of this, of course, had to be done in great secrecy in order to hide U.S. involvement, not only from Chileans and from other nations, but from the U.S. government as well. Thus, Kissinger authorized Track II without informing the relevant authorities in the Department of Defense and the State Department, including the Chilean Ambassador.
As a part of Track II, the U.S. supported, encouraged, and financed various coup efforts led by Chilean General Valenzuela and retired General Viaux. Both of these groups emphasized that a successful coup required removing Gen. Schneider. In order to do so, the coup plotters requested machine guns, gas grenades, radios, hand grenades, and ammunition. The U.S. consistently expressed its willingness to either provide for an air drop of the requested equipment, or to at least finance their purchase elsewhere. Despite certain logistical differences between the U.S. and the Valenzuela and Viaux groups, Kissinger reaffirmed his support for the coup efforts and reminded all the parties involved that "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The U.S. thus sent sub machine guns, ammunition and gas grenades to the coup plotters in order to remove Schneider, whose firm pro-constitutional stance remained the biggest "stumbling block for a successful coup" against Allende.
According to declassified information, the plan was as follows: Gen. Schneider had been invited to an army party.
"When arriving at VIP house, Schneider will be abducted. Schneider will be taken to waiting airplane and flown to [blacked out]. Valenzuela will announce to assembled generals that Schneider had disappeared and that General Carlos Prats to succeed Schneider [...] Military will not admit involvement in Schneider's abduction which is to be blamed on leftists. Almost immediately, Carabineros [Chilean police] will institute search for Schneider in all of Chile, using this search as pretext to raid Communist-controlled poblaciones. Extreme leftist and rightist leadership will be picked up and dispatched across border. [...] If Schneider's abduction successful, [the coup-plotters are] to be paid $50,000, price agreed upon between plotters and unidentified team of abductors."
The first two attempts to kidnap Gen. Schneider failed. After each attempt, the U.S. not only encouraged the coup-plotters to keep trying, but also provided more gas masks and gas grenades. On October 22, 1970, six hours after the U.S. had delivered sub machine guns to one of the groups, Gen. René Schneider was shot on his way to work. The bullets perforated his liver and he had to undergo open heart surgery. After three days of agonizing, he died on October 25, 1970. He and his wife had five young children.
In the aftermath of the assassination, U.S. Army Attaché Paul Wimert retrieved the guns with the serial numbers filed off (so they couldn't be traced), the ammunition, the tear gas, and the gas masks, and went to the port town of Valparaiso and dumped them all in the ocean.
The U.S. considered resuming military sales and Military Assistance Programs to the Chilean military, depending on the consequences of the attempt against Schneider. According to declassified documents, "It could be construed as bonus for job well done."
Despite Kissinger's desire for secrecy from the U.S. government, the operation leaked and a Congressional investigation followed. In 1975 the Church Report (named after Congressman Frank Church) was published, but by its own admission, the Church report is incomplete and provides little detail of the Schneider assassination. On September 2000, twenty five years later and in the wake of the Pinochet detention in London, Congressman Maurice Hinchey published a second Congressional investigation concerning U.S. activities in Chile. The Hinchey Report, although shorter than the Church Report, contains more details about the Schneider assassination. Among the most striking details, the Report states that "in an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons, $35,000 was passed" to the kidnappers/assassins.
The Hinchey Report and the 1999 and 2000 declassification of thousands of documents that were previously unavailable finally provided the Schneider family with the documentation necessary to file a civil lawsuit against Henry Kissinger, Richard Helms (ex-CIA Director) and the U.S. Government. The suit is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Chilean courts have already found that the death of General Schneider involved both the group led by General Viaux and the group led by General Valenzuela. General Viaux was convicted by a Chilean military court on charges of kidnapping and conspiring to cause a coup. General Valenzuela was convicted of conspiring to cause a coup. Henry Kissinger is still at large.
Sources:
- http://WWW.FOIA.STATE.GOV (Chile Collection)
- CHURCH CONGRESSIONAL REPORT (1975)
- HINCHEY CONGRESSIONAL REPORT (2000)
|
|
| OVERVIEW - Kissinger Watch #1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| FAIR USE NOTICE |
|
|
|
| This bulletin contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We distribute this material without profit and believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C ¤ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|
| back to top |
|
|
|
