| Number 394 | December 23, 2007 |
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This Week: Venezuela, Part I
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Greetings, What do we need to know in order to protect ourselves from the manipulation that leads us to consent—actively or passively—to the maintenance of the American Empire? That's what I'll be looking at in the next few issues of the Notes, using Venezuela as a sort of case study on how this process works. In this first installment I offer some history of U.S. secret operations. Next week will be a little more history, then a look at some recent news out of Venezuela. In the issue or two after that I'll give some facts and figures about current conditions in Venezuela—the economy, political conditions inside Venezuela, foreign affairs, and so forth. (I'll no doubt take a break in the middle to do the traditional "Nygaard Notes Year In Review" issue.) I'll look forward to your comments and questions as we go along. Until next week, Nygaard |
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In the December 10 edition of the weekly magazine US News and World Report there was an article about the U.S. military's use of academics—anthropologists, in this case—to help with the occupation of Iraq. The Headline: "The Culture Warriors: The Pentagon Deploys Social Scientists to Help Understand Iraq's ‘Human Terrain.'" It included these words: "Since the teams [of anthropologists] began working in Iraq in September, their missions have ranged far and wide. In one neighborhood, a U.S. company commander was struggling with persistent violence coming from a low-income housing area filled with squatters. He was considering demolishing a couple of blocks and asked the team for advice: What would be the effects on the surrounding community's social fabric, he wondered, if he did that?" |
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There has been no shortage of news lately about Venezuela and its president, Hugo Chavez, and most of it has the effect of making the situation in that country sound downright terrifying for lovers of democracy. Sample headlines from the past month include this one from The New York Daily News: "Chavez on Path to Be Venezuela's ‘Elected Dictator.'" (December 3rd) A Baltimore Sun story was headed, "Comeback for Communism in Venezuela." (November 26th) USA Today chimed in with this headline: "Chavez's Power Play Has Echoes of Castro; Venezuelan Vote on Sunday Could Lead to ‘Big Headache' for U.S." (November 29th) An LA Times headline read: "As Venezuela Veers; President Hugo Chavez Is Trying to Steer Voters into Granting Him a Dictatorship—and He May Succeed." (November 28th) The basic idea conveyed by such stories is clear: There's a Communist in power in Venezuela, and he wants to be a dictator. Can't somebody DO something?! Such demonizing of Chavez and the "threat" of an independent Venezuela is hardly new in our nation's media. Back in 2005 the headlines said "Venezuela Seeks Nuke." On June 26, 2006 my local paper, the Star Tribune, ran a headline saying "Venezuelan Partnership With Iran Questioned: U.S. Officials Worry Iran May Be Exporting Terrorists into the South American Country, Giving it a Base Closer to U.S. Shores." Back in December 2003, when Chavez was re-elected President by a large majority, the Star Trib celebrated this Venezuelan expression of democracy with the headline: "It's Six More Years for Anti-U.S. Chavez." So Chavez is not only a Communist, but a Terrorist, and one who seeks Nuclear Weapons. And he hates us, to boot! This week's issue of Nygaard notes is Part I of a short series about Venezuela and U.S. relations with that country. As you might expect, the reality is somewhat different from the impression left by the headlines. The first thing we need is a little knowledge of history, so let's go back to 1954 for starters. |
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The United States Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947. In 1948, NSC Directive 10/2 created an "Office of Special Projects" within the CIA to carry out secret, or "covert," activities. That order, entitled "National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects," stated that the NSC, "taking cognizance of the vicious covert activities of the USSR, its satellite countries and Communist groups... has determined that, in the interests of world peace and U.S. national security, the overt foreign activities of the U.S. Government must be supplemented by covert operations." In 1952 Dwight Eisenhower was elected to the presidency "on a strident anti-Communist platform." Soon he appointed Allen Dulles—"the government's most enthusiastic proponent of covert operations"—as director of the CIA. The CIA by this time already had a history of covert interventions around the world, and soon the Congress was sufficiently upset that they were threatening to tighten the oversight of this secret CIA world. In this context, Eisenhower appointed a commission to "investigate" the CIA clandestine service. It's hard to say why this commission—called the "Doolittle Commission," after its chairman, Air Force Lt. General James Doolittle—ever came into existence, as it was so secret that hardly anyone saw, or ever will see, what the commission learned. "At the end of the investigation," according to historian William M. Leary, "commission working papers were either destroyed or returned to their sources, and the [commission members] left no archives." Still, the public did have access to a report left by the Commission, and it included some comments that resonate today. The Doolittle Report said:
Since the U.S. was already intervening, in secret, all over the world, the creation of an "Office of Special Projects" did not mark any dramatic change in policy. But the Doolittle Commission is noteworthy because it was the first time that the federal government put forth the idea that, when the U.S. declares that there is an "implacable enemy" for whom "hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply," then the U.S. is justified in doing the same things that the enemy does. In fact, said the Commission, we are obligated to do so, and to do it in "more clever, more sophisticated" ways than the "bad guys" do. And the Doolittle Commission was unusually frank in saying that "the American people" might have to be told about it so we could get used to it. Later in this series I will take a look at what the secret operators said when the "implacable enemy" ceased to exist in 1989. But first I'll take a moment to talk about a single one of the many covert interventions in which the U.S. engaged during the Cold War. I choose this one—Chile—because it sounds so eerily familiar right now, at the end of 2007. |
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People who are aware of the fact that the U.S. secretly intervened in the internal affairs of Chile many years ago usually talk about a certain period, the period of 1970-1973. During that period the U.S. attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent the election of the socialist Salvador Allende Gossens as President of Chile, and followed that attempt with three years of covert destabilization that culminated in a coup d'etat in 1973 that resulted in Allende's death and the rise to power of the dictator General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. But U.S. intervention started long before that, going back at least to 1963. After Allende lost his bid for the presidency in 1958 by only three percentage points, the U.S. was determined that he would not be successful in his second try, in the election of 1964. There is much literature on U.S. intervention in Chile between 1963 and 1973 (all one need do is Google "Chile 1963-1973"), but for now I will focus specifically on U.S. subversion of the 1964 presidential election in Chile, and will quote exclusively from the official website of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, specifically from the CIA's "Center for the Study of Intelligence." In 1992 the Center published a document called "Guideposts from Just War Theory: Managing Covert Political Action" by James A. Barry, the Director of the Center, which included a section on Chile called "The 1964 Election Operation." Try to remember a couple of things as you read Barry's words: 1. As is often the case with such official documents, the clinical language and matter-of-fact tone make it hard to remember that everything about this "operation" is antithetical to the idea of national sovereignty and democracy. If you're not outraged when you read this stuff, read it again; 2. Note the passing reference to the "worldwide buildup of covert action capabilities," and the specific reference to U.S. subversion of the Italian elections of 1948 (referred to here, typically, as "supporting democratic parties"). More outrage requested here. Here we go, and bear in mind that every word from here on is taken verbatim from this document): "The 1964 Election Operation" "As part of its worldwide buildup of covert action capabilities in the early 1950s, the CIA established a capacity to conduct covert propaganda and political influence operations in Chile... "During 1961, the CIA established relationships with key political parties in Chile, as well as propaganda and organizational mechanisms. In 1962, the Special Group (the interagency body charged with reviewing covert actions) approved two CIA proposals to provide support to the Christian Democrats [Ed note: They opposed Allende]. The program was modeled on that conducted in Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s, and it was intended to strengthen center-democratic forces against the leftist challenge from Salvador Allende, who was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba. When President Johnson succeeded Kennedy, he continued the covert subsidies, with the objective of making Chile a model of democracy, as well as preventing the nationalization by a leftist government of the Chilean components of American multinational corporations. "The New York Times compared it to the Italian election of 1948, when the communists had threatened to take over the country through the ballot box and the U.S. had intervened covertly to support democratic parties. "All expenditures of covert funds for the 1964 operation (some $3 million in all) were approved by the Group. (There is no indication that the Congress approved these expenditures, or was even informed in detail of the operation.) [Ed note: $3 million dollars in 1964 would be worth over $20 million in today's dollars.] "...the covert action was decided upon at the highest levels of government. "...funding to support the candidacy [of Allende's opponent, Eduardo Frei] was funneled overtly through the Agency for International Development, as well as secretly through the CIA. Frei also received covert aid from a group of American corporations known as the Business Group for Latin America. Thus, the U.S. used a variety of mechanisms to assist Frei. Covert support apparently was justified by the U.S. Government on the grounds that Frei would be discredited if it were known that even more substantial support was flowing from the U.S.." "That the 1964 covert action had a reasonable probability of success is evident from the outcome—Frei won a clear majority (56 percent) of the vote. According to Church Committee [a 1975 U.S. Senate committee that investigated the CIA] records, a CIA post mortem concluded that the covert campaign had a decisive impact. "...by the mid-1960s the Agency had managed to penetrate all significant elements of the Chilean Government and political parties." "In the 1964 operation, the CIA used virtually its entire arsenal
of nonlethal methods:
Postscript to 1964 All of the quotations above were about the CIA's "1964 Election Operation." Allende lost that election, but ran again in 1970, which prompted the CIA to initiate the so-called "Track I." Track I was the "official" covert operation against Allende, and "included funding to bribe Chilean congressmen, propaganda and economic activities, and contacts with Frei and elements of the military to foster opposition to Allende." The unofficial plot that was undertaken at the same time was so secret that even the "40 Committee" (the successor to the "Special Group") was not informed about it. This was the so-called "Track II," which "was more direct, stressing active CIA involvement in and support for a coup without Frei's knowledge." As we now know, the U.S. government, aided by various U.S. corporate interests, eventually prevailed. Although it took a full ten years of trying, the destabilization effort culminated in the military coup of September 11, 1973—"The Other 9/11"—that killed Allende and brought to power the dictator Pinochet, whose reign of terror lasted for 17 years. There are many differences between Chile in the 1960s/70s, and Venezuela in the current period. One of the main differences is that many of the top secret documents about Chile have now become public, which is why you can read what you just read. Knowing what we now know about Chile can help us to interpret the news of today about Venezuela. We'll get to that next week. |
