2 weeks before a military junta, with the knowledge of America, overthrew the popularly elected, left wing President, Salvador Allende (see {640618}). America was very supportive of the new military junta. However, whereas the coup itself was not very bloody as all the military forces were on one side. However, General Pinochet and the other coup leaders, under the guise of “cleanup operations” murdered thousands of supporters of the deposed President, including many academics and writers. The total number will never be known, but this CIA cable was the harbinger of things to come in the new Chilean regime where any dissident or critic of the government under the military could lead to arrest, torture and often murder or “disappearance”. Years later Pinochet and others were convicted for crimes against humanity. The American silence during this period has always been a very controversial moral and political policy. It was in the midst of the Cold War and the Chilean Junta was strongly anti-Communist. The Junta kept denying the accusations crimes against political opponents and claimed that the reports were communist inspired to discredit them. The CIA knew much of the truth and never shared it with all of the Congress or the public. It is not clear which politicians knew and remained silent and which never knew nor knew that the CIA knew much of the criminal activity.
