NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - Assassinations
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - Assassinations
Host Paul Duke discusses the CIA's involvement in deposing the Socialist Party government in Chile. Duke mentions one of the victims of the effort to remove President Salvador Allende was Rene Schneider, Army Chief of Staff in Chile, who was a strong supporter of a constitutional government, and stood in the way of a military coup. He was killed in a kidnapping attempt in 1970, which raised questions about America’s role in Chile.
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - Assassinations
Scrolling text from U.S. Senate report detailing the CIA's operations against Chilean General Rene Schneider. Attempts at kidnapping him were carried out after U.S. President Richard Nixon called for the end of Chilean President Salvador Allende's government.
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - Assassinations
U.S. Senator Frank Church (D - Idaho) says, “In the Schneider case, we included it as we did the Diem case. Not because it was ever intended by any American official that either Diem or Schneider should be assassinated, but because they knew-- the officials that is-- that there would be a high risk of an assassination occurring. You mention Schneider. The problem with Schneider was that he was a constitutionalist. He must have been trained at West Point. He didn’t think that it was the right of the Chilean army to depose a government that had been elected by the Chilean people. And since he was Chief of Staff of the Chilean army, he had to be removed. He was an obstruction to an attempt ordered by President Nixon to overthrow the Allende regime or to prevent Mr. Allende from becoming President. It was known from the beginning-- this being the objective-- that Schneider had to be removed. An abduction was planned. You don’t plan a forcible abduction without understanding that one of the reactions to a kidnapping is to resist. And in the resistance, there is perilous danger that an assassination will occur and that of course happened.”
NPACT coverage of Church Committee Hearings - Assassinations
U.S. Senator Charles Mathias (R - Maryland) says, “I think if there’s any apology to be made for this report, it’s the fact that the committee has devoted so much time and so much effort on such a limited part of the whole problem. It isn’t just assassinations. It’s the whole area of activity of government covered by a cloak of excessive secrecy, in many fields. Some of them we are aware of, some of them we only suspect, some of them we still may be in ignorance of. And this is, I think, the one weakness of this report that it covers only a part of the area of government which I think has a corrosive effect on the constitutional process. And I hope the committee will have the fortitude and will have the time to finish the job that we’ve begun with this report.”