What Really Happened in Chile: The CIA, the Coup against Allende, and the Rise of Pinochet
![handle is hein.journals/fora93 and id is 758 raw text is: What Really
Happened in Chile
The CIA, the Coup
Against Allende, and the
Rise of Pinochet
Jack Devine
On September 9,1973, 1 was eating lunch
at Da Carla, an Italian restaurant in
Santiago, Chile, when a colleague joined
my table and whispered in my ear: Call
home immediately; it's urgent. At the
time, I was serving as a clandestine
CIA officer. Chile was my first overseas
assignment, and for an eager young
spymaster, it was a plum job. Rumors
of a military coup against the socialist
Chilean president, Salvador Allende,
had been swirling for months. There
had already been one attempt. Allende's
opponents were taking to the streets.
Labor strikes and economic disarray
made basic necessities difficult to find.
Occasionally, bombs rocked the capital.
The whole country seemed exhausted
and tense. In other words, it was exactly
the kind of place that every newly minted
CIA operative wants to be.
I ducked out of the restaurant as
discreetly as I could and headed to the
CIA station to place a secure call to my
JACK DEVINE is Founding Partner and
President of the Arkin Group. During a 32-year
career at the CIA, he served as both Acting
Director and Associate Director of the agency's
operations outside the United States. This
essay is adapted from Good Hunting: An
American Spymaster's Story (Sarah Crichton
Books, 2014), which he wrote with Vernon Loeb.
wife. She was caring for our five young
children, and it was our first time living
abroad as a family, so she could have been
calling about any number of things.
But I had a hunch that her call was very
important and related to my work, and
it was.
Your friend called from the airport,
my wife said. He's leaving the country.
He told me to tell you, 'The military
has decided to move. It's going to happen
on September 11. The navy will lead
it off.'
This call from my friend-a
businessman and former officer in the
Chilean navy who was also a source for
the CIA-was the first indication the
agency's station in Santiago had received
that the Chilean military had set a coup
in motion. Not long after, a second source
of mine, another prominent business-
man connected to the Chilean military,
called for an emergency meeting; he
and I agreed to meet at his house just
after dark. He confirmed the earlier
report and added one key detail: the
coup would begin at 7 AM. Citing my
two sources, I sent CIA headquarters
in Langley a special type of top-secret
cable known as a CRITIC, which takes
priority over all other cables and goes
directly to the highest levels of govern-
ment. President Richard Nixon and
other top U.S. policymakers received
it immediately. A coup attempt will
be initiated on 11 September, the cable
read. All three branches of the armed
forces and the carabineros [Chile's
national police] are involved in this
action. A declaration will be read on
Radio Agricultura at 7 a.m. on 11
September. . . . The carabineros have
the responsibility for seizing President
Salvador Allende.
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What Really Happened in Chile: The CIA, the Coup against Allende, and the Rise of Pinochet
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