Chilean presidential election, 1970

Chile

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A presidential election was held in Chile on 4 September 1970. A narrow plurality (36.6 percent of the total vote) was secured by Salvador Allende, the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition of leftist parties. Because he did not obtain an absolute majority, his election required a further vote by the National Congress of Chile which resulted in Allende assuming the presidency in accordance with the Chilean Constitution of 1925.

Campaign

Both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the KGB spent significant amount of money to influence the outcome of the election.^[1]

The CIA did not provide direct assistance to any candidate, as they had in 1964, but rather focused on anti-Allende propaganda, ultimately spending $425,000. The money was used in a "scare campaign" of posters and pamphlets linking an Allende victory with the violence and repression associated with the Soviet Union.^[1] Editorials and news stories reinforcing this message were also written with CIA guidance, especially in the newspaper El Mercurio, and disseminated throughout the national media. The goal was to contribute to and exploit the political polarization and financial panic of the period. Besides propaganda, the CIA also funded an attempt to splinter the Radical Party away from the Popular Unity coalition.^{[2] [3]} This CIA campaign was very inefficient. CIA director Richard Helms complained that he was ordered by the White House to "beat somebody with nothing".^[1]

KGB money was more precisely targeted. Allende made a personal request for Soviet money through his personal contact, KGB officer Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, who urgently came to Chile from Mexico City to help Allende. The original allocation of money for these elections through the KGB was $400,000, and additional personal subsidy of $50,000 directly to Allende.^[1] It is believed that help from KGB was a decisive factor, because Allende won by a narrow margin of 39,000 votes of a total of the 3 million cast. After the elections, the KGB director Yuri Andropov obtained a permission for additional money and other resources from the Central Committee of the CPSU to ensure Allende victory in Congress. In his request on 24 October, he stated that KGB "will carry out measures designed to promote the consolidation of Allende's victory and his election to the post of President of the country".^[1]

US president Richard Nixon was enraged by the victory of Allende and by the failure of CIA covert actions.^[1]

Results

Election results.^[4]

Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
Salvador Allende Gossens	Popular Unity (UP)	1,075,616	36.63	Congressional confirmation
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez	National Party	1,036,278	35.29	Congressional confirmation
Radomiro Tomic	Christian Democratic Party	824,849	28.09
Total valid votes		2,936,743	100.00
Blank votes		7,861	0.27
Null votes		18,139	0.61
Total votes		2,962,743	100.00
Registered voters		3,539,747	83.70% turnout

Congressional confirmation

None of the candidates received an absolute majority of votes; according to the 1925 Constitution, the National Congress had to decide between the two candidates who had received the most votes, Allende and Alessandri. The precedent set on the three previous occasions this situation had arisen since 1932 was for Congress simply to choose the candidate with the highest number of votes; indeed, former president Alessandri had been elected in 1958 with 31.6% of the popular vote, defeating the same Allende.

In this case, however, there was an active campaign against Allende's confirmation by Congress, including an intensification of the CIA propaganda campaign to create concerns about Chile's future. During this period the CIA generated over 726 articles, broadcasts and similar items. The CIA also encouraged international economic pressure against Chile during this period. The United States also began to lay the groundwork for a military coup in this stage, authorizing the Ambassador to Chile to encourage this outcome with his contacts in the Chilean military.^[5]

Allende's presidency was eventually ratified, after he agreed to sign a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees", promising not to undermine the Chilean Constitution.

Two days before the confirmation, Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider, was shot resisting a kidnap attempt by a group led by General Roberto Viaux. Hospitalized, he died of his wounds three days later. Viaux's kidnapping plan had been supported by the CIA, although it seems that then-US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had ordered the plans turned off.^[6] Schneider was a known defender of the "constitutionalist" doctrine that the army's role is exclusively professional, its mission being to protect the country's sovereignty and not to interfere in politics, and had expressed his deep opposition to organizing a coup d'état in case Salvador Allende's was finally chosen by Parliament as president.

René Schneider's death was disapproved by a lot of people, and helped citizens and military support Allende, whom the Parliament finally chose on 24 October. On 26 October, President Eduardo Frei named General Carlos Prats as commander in chief of the army in replacement of René Schneider.

Election results.^[4]

Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
Salvador Allende	Popular Unity (UP)	153	78.46	President
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez	Independent conservative	35	17.95
Blank votes		7	3.59
Total votes		195	100.00
Absent		5	2.50
Eligible voters		200	97.50% turnout

See also

• History of Chile
• U.S. intervention in Chile
• Chilean coup of 1973

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages ISBN 0-465-00311-7, pages 69-88.
2. ^ Church Report (Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973), United States Senate Church Committee, 1975
3. ^ CIA Activities in Chile
4. ^ ^{a b} "El Partido Socialista de Chile Tomo II" (in Spanish). Julio César Jobet. Archived from the original on 2009-10-25. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://es.geocities.com/omerocl/partidosoc2.pdf&date=2009-10-25+03:25:06. Retrieved 2009-06-05. 
5. ^ Church Report, ibid
6. ^ CIA Reveals Covert Acts In Chile, CBS News, September 19, 2000. Accessed 2 August 2006.

External links

• Archivos Internet Salvador Allende - A pro-Allende Spanish-language source, provides enormous day-by-day detail on the events between the election and Allende's inauguration as president. (Spanish)