Project FUBELT

Revelations from declassified documents

• Handwritten notes, taken by CIA director Richard Helms, record the orders of President Richard Nixon, to foster a coup in Chile
• In the first meeting between Helms and high agency officials on the secret operations codenamed "FUBELT", a special task force under the supervision of CIA Deputy Director for Plans, Thomas Karamessines, is established, headed by veteran agent David Atlee Phillips. The memorandum notes that the CIA must prepare an action plan for National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger within 48 hours.
• Henry Kissinger, Thomas Karamessines and Alexander Haig, in a meeting on October 15, 1970, discuss promoting a coup in Chile, known as "Track II" of covert operations. Kissinger orders the CIA to "continue keeping the pressure on every Allende weak spot in sight.
• In a secret cable, Thomas Karamessines conveyed Kissinger's orders to CIA station chief in Santiago, Henry Hecksher: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup."
• The CIA ran a series of secret operations intended to push President Eduardo Frei Montalva to support "a military coup which would prevent Allende from taking office on 3 November."
• After Salvador Allende's election, the United States considered trying to get Chile expelled from the Organization of American States.
• Embassy officers and the State Department Policy Planning office called for the cutting off of economic and military assistance to Pinochet's government on human rights grounds, but were overruled by the Ambassador and officials of The Pentagon and Treasury Department.