A ‘Marginal Input’

“The whole point of this is that covert action provides a 1 per cent impetus for something that the people want anyway,” he said. “In a civilized country; the C.I.A. can only make a marginal input. It takes a lot of money and—this is most important—you don't do it unless you're told to [by higher authority in Washington].”

Some financial support for newpaper and radio stations was needed in Chile, the official explained, because “it wouldn't have been good to have strikes if nobody knows about it.”

Most of the funds invested for propaganda purposes, the official said, went to El Mercurio, the main opposition newspaper in Chile. “It was the only serious political force among the newspapers and television stations there,” he said.

“As long as you don't make it sound like we were trying to start a coup, it'll be all right,” the official added. “You've got to understand that he [Allende] was taxing them [the middle‐class] to death.”

The official noted that the policy toward Chile, authorized by the 40 Committee, had been the subject of intense debate in the Nixon Administration. One concern, he said, was that intervention would serve to polarize further the classes in Chile. “And if Allende decided to bear down and destroy the middle class,” the official added, “some of us thought it might result in dictatorship of the left or the right—and that wasn't such a good idea.”

The official described the Administration's policy in Chile as a failure. “We were not looking for a military takeover,” he declared.

A different opinion about the ultimate goals of the Administration's policy was provided in an interview by a source who served a number of years in Chile.