Word: chiles
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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During his confirmation hearings prior to becoming secretary of state, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned Kissinger on the recent military coup in Chile. The following is the text of a portion of those hearings, held in executive session on September...
...never happened before that the man with the highest number of votes happens to represent a non-democratic party, which tends to make his election pretty irreversible. I have yet to meet somebody who firmly believes that if Allende wins there is likely to be another free election in Chile...
...this is the situation that is now confronted by Chile. By a constitutional habit, the Congress votes for the man with the highest number of votes. The man with the highest number of votes is the candidate backed by the Communists...
...both the internal structure of the Congress, plus constitutional habits, would argue that Allende is likely to win the Congressional election, barring something extraordinary. This problem is compounded by the fact that the non-Communist parties in Chile have been very divided among themselves, and you have the unusual phenomenon of people arguing, "Well, maybe Allende won't be so bad. Maybe he will run a democratic system." And it is the usual revolutionary dilemma that, with a revolutionary seeking power, those who represent the non-revolutionary side do not all at the same time clearly understand what is happening...
...think we should delude ourselves that an Allende take-over in Chile would not present massive problems for us, and for democratic forces and for pro-U.S. forces in Latin America, and indeed to the whole Western Hemisphere. What would happen to the Western Hemisphere Defense Board, or to the Organization of American States, and so forth is extremely problematical. So we are taking a close look at the situation. It is not one in which our capacity for influence is very great at this particular moment now that matters have reached this particular point...