The "Invisible Blockade" and the Overthrow of Allende

A STRIKING aspect of the world reaction to the military coup that overthrew Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September 1973 has been the widespread assump tion that the ultimate responsibility for the tragic destruction of Chilean democracy lay with the United States. In a few quarters, the charge includes accusation of secret U.S. participation in the coup. However, a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, headed by Senator Gale McGee, has just investigated this accusation and concluded that there is no evi dence of any U.S. role whatever. More commonly, however, the bill of particulars relies on what President Allende himself, speaking before the United Na tions in December 1972, called the invisible financial and eco nomic blockade exercised by the United States against his gov ernment. Articles taking this line have appeared, for example, in The Post, the National Catholic Reporter and The New York Review of Books. On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal has been critical of what it calls a simplistic plot theory espoused by members of the academic community? that Washington by simply turning off the spigot of low-interest loans was able to bring down Allende. Was there in fact undeclared economic war between the Nixon administration and Salvador Allende?to use Allende's own words, an oblique underhanded indirect form of aggres sion ... virtually imperceptible activities usually disguised with words and statements that extol the sovereignty and dignity of my country? Did this warfare have a direct relationship to the bloody events in Santiago? A critical examination of the consid erable evidence on this subject available in this country and in Chile can help to answer these questions, and possibly suggest whether wider conclusions are in order about the relations be