Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende : U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile

Detailing the heavy involvement of the Nixon administration in the 1973 coup against the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende of Chile, Qureshi provides the reasons for the coup including the threat Allende posed to the United States' notions of hegemony in Latin America.

In the thirty-five years since the violent overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has vehemently denied U.S. involvement. Almost with the same breath, Kissinger suggests that the democratically elected Allende represented Soviet aggression in Latin America, therefore posing a threat to the United States'' physical security. Newly released documents reveal the Nixon administration''s efforts to undermine Allende, while indicating that Nixon and Kissinger did not believe the socialist regime in Santiago endangered the United States or even had close ties to Moscow. The White House feared that the Chilean experiment would encourage other Latin American countries to challenge U.S. hegemony. Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende explores the president''s cultural and intellectual prejudices against Latin America and the economic pressures that induced action against Allende.