Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

there to prevent Chile from getting that fair shake it would have gotten except for the omnipresence of the American economic gnome. What is your comment to that? KORRY: I may back up. The United States had three policy choices that it laid out at the time that we considered this seriously just before Allende was confirmed by the Chilean Congress in October, 1970. These three choices were to seek to have a modus vivendi with them. Gel along with them as best we could and try to accommodate them. Two, to have what was called a correc!, but minimal relationship with them. And third, was to seek, isolate, and hamper. Now the President of the United States and the entire foreign policy– making process in the United States came down on numbertwo, correct but minima!. But in point of fact we carried out role three and to the surprise of Mr. Nixon and others we began with number one that is, to seek an accommodAtion BUCKlEY: ,Under your supervision? KORRY: I did this on my own and in a sense I was doing what the President would not wish me lo do. I had spoken to him about il in October of 1970; il came aboul almost accidentally and il began lo pick up momenlum and Ihen Ihe governmenl of Ihe Uniled States began lO support it. Now people came, particularly Americans, to wanl these things in nice, neal compartments. Or in nice sharp colors, black or white. The facl of the matter is tha! in foreign policy as in politics or in love, mechanistic constancy and consistency do not guide actions. It's a series of interactions of all kinds. At one time in Washington they may be making a policy based on a scenario that they believe in, but they recognize that there are intervening, unexpected happenings. BUCKlEY: And improvisations. KORRY: Improvisations. And that is why you have an Ambassador in the field and not a computer. BUCKl:EY: Yeah. KORRY: Because if you went on the mechanistic constance line, that is sefup as a' standard hindsight, Ihen you would certainly need no one there. You would only need a machine. In fact all you would need is a postman. And many of our embassies are run for all practical purpóses as a mailbox. Immediately after Ihe inauguration in early November of Mr. Allende,! decided that even if our analysis is airtight, even if every1hing we said that Allende was going to do would in fact be carried out, that we had an obligation to the American public and to history to demonstrate that we did not operate to fulfill our own prophecies, that we had to test our assumptions. BUCKlEY: So therefore, you tilt it in the direction of helping il? KORRY: I didn't tilt. I walked out to their foreign minister who described himself in tha! period as an all-out Maoist and lhis is in the period of the Red Guard, Clodomiro Almeyda, and not only had described himselfto me !ha! way but to ínterviewers later and before and I said you know my view of wha! I think Dr. Allende and you represent in the way of political forces, in this country, in the hemisphere, and in this world; you know that I was opposed to you bu! you are now the representative of a sovereign power. And I am a representative of a sovereign power. And we are both mature in the individuals. Our job, therefore, is to seek to avoid problems if we possibly can and that I would suggest that I bríef youon where our relationship was as of the day that Dr. Allende was inaugurated and that what I view as the unavoidable problems that will arise between our two countries and a process by which we may seek tO'8(1oid conflict and confrontation. And I explained the rationale as to why 1 thought this would be in their interest and in ours. I said that Marx had never said thal you had to go to socialism by tying your legs and your hands and crawl on your belly to it, that it could be done in a comfortable way, that the United States was nol opposed to socialism. We were opposed to somebody exercising irrationality or hostilily lo everything we stood foro Now this process began verv tentatively but it suddenly began to gel in January-Fe– bruary of 1971 and it really started to take off in April and early May and suddenly it was stopped. Now we learned and it was confirmed to us by Dr Allende's closest advisors that 291