Office of the Historian

192. Memorandum From Stephen Low of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

Washington, June 30, 1975.

SUBJECT

  • Chile NIE

Attached is an NIE on Chile recently completed by the Intelligence community. You may wish to glance at the two-page précis.

In summary, the NIE concludes that:

—the military is well entrenched and will remain in power for the foreseeable future;

—it will gradually loosen its authoritarian controls and lessen its repressive nature;

—it retains substantial popular support;

—the economic deterioration resulting from serious balance of payments deficits will continue until the price of copper recovers;

—this economic deterioration will lead to widespread dissatisfaction with the military government, including limited manifestations of discontent and the possibility (one in four) of massive unrest;

—Chile will continue to be made an international target of protest groups;

—Peru will remain the Chilean Government’s overriding foreign policy concern.

The major issue which emerged from preparation of the NIE was over the economic situation and its effects on political stability. The Embassy and Treasury are somewhat less pessimistic than the NIE.

ARA, however, is somewhat more so, believing that a second year of inflation of over three hundred percent will create conditions which will pose a serious threat to the regime.

  1. Summary: Low summarized a National Intelligence Estimate on Chile, which concluded that even as the economic situation there continued to deteriorate, the military would remain in power for the foreseeable future. The NIE also concluded that the Chilean Government would gradually loosen its authoritarian controls and lessen its repression.

    Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs Staff Files, Box 1, Chile, Political, Military 1. Secret. A notation in an unknown hand at the top of the memorandum reads: “7/29 [July 29]—no comeback rec’d [received]—F.” Attached but not published is NIE 94–1–75, “Prospects for Chile,” June 6. An attached note indicates that Ratliff sent Kissinger’s copy of the estimate to Low on June 13.

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