Fractious Allies: Chile, the United States, and the Cold War, 1973–76
Abstract
The Nixon and Ford administrations celebrated the 1973 Chilean coup and did everything they could to help the dictatorship that followed. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in particular, supported General Augusto Pinochet’s regime and turned a blind eye to its human rights abuses. But how did the Chilean dictatorship view the United States and how did the relationship play out in practice? Drawing on Chilean and U.S. documents, this article argues that in spite of Kissinger’s efforts, bilateral relations were actually rather tense. Not only did the Chilean dictatorship continually request more than the Ford administration could offer but Santiago’s military leaders also had different conceptions of the Cold War and how to fight it. This, in turn, sheds light on the problems U.S. policy makers faced when dealing with anti-communist Third World allies. It also points to the fragmentation of the global Cold War struggle in the mid-1970s.
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