Office of the Historian

102. Memorandum From the Deputy Director for Coordination, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (McAfee) to the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Cline)1

Washington, February 3, 1972.

SUBJECT

  • ARA–CIA Meeting, 3 February

PARTICIPANTS

  • ARA—Messrs Meyer, Crimmins, Fisher (Chile), Broderick (Guyana), Pringle (Panama) and Little (Venezuela); CIA—[2 names not declassified]; INR—James R. Gardner

Chile

[2 paragraphs (27½ lines) not declassified]

Mr. Crimmins asked for a run-down of how we stood on our current disbursements in Chile. [name not declassified] briefly reviewed these, noting that some [dollar amount not declassified] of the [dollar amount not declassified] authorized by the Committee in November for general opposition activity had been disbursed, and that all of the [dollar amount not declassified] authorized for the two January by-elections had all been used.

Mr. Crimmins then asked if we were in danger of overploughing the ground, if we were not running the risk, in other words, of putting in money in sufficient quantities to arouse the suspicions of the Allende Government. [name not declassified] said the Agency was sensitive to this problem, but that in fact the situation was better now than it had been. The growing confidence of the opposition, coupled with the successes it had won in the January by-elections, could be assumed to bring out money for the opposition that hitherto had been “kept in mattresses”; such an assumption, whether justified or not, could cover the introduction of considerable amounts.

Introducing a new subject, [name not declassified] surmised that if debt renegotiations with Chile did not go well from that country’s point of view we might expect a vigorous Chilean propaganda campaign against the United States. Should we perhaps now start preparing, or even pushing, a propaganda campaign of our own to fore [Page 532] stall such a development? Mr. Crimmins said this deserved thought, but we should be careful lest moving onto the offensive here would create the very problem we were hoping to correct. The consensus was that we leave this one for the future.

[Omitted here is discussion of unrelated matters.]

  1. Summary: This memorandum provided an overview of the discussion of the February 3 ARA–CIA meeting. The discussion focused on the disbursements of funds in Chile for opposition activity.

    Source: Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, INR/IL Historical Files, Box 1, Chile, Jan–June 1972. Secret. This copy of the memorandum, which is dated February 9, was not initialed.

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