Chile Forum

PanAmerican wrote: .

The link you quoted is Wikipedia? Didn't you just say that you edited that link? Must be true.

No, different page. My question to you is do you have some insight that the US embassy in Chile was in fact not involved in the prisoner exchange involving Russian dissident Bukovsky and Chilean communist party chief Luis Corvalán? Forum-wise, we are trying to shed some light on Chilean history here and if you have some evidence that this exchange did not take place and that it did not involve US cooperation, then please give us some idea of what your sources would be for that belief.

How about the Time magazine report on the issue that described the US role in this? Is that all a pack of lies in your mind?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 64,00.html

Whether or not one is disposed to believe in continued Soviet participation in post-1973 Chile may well be a matter or personal orientation and interest. Following the 1973 golpe, the Left unsurprisingly denied that there was covert Soviet and Cuban aid to pro-Marxist guerrillas operating in Chile. However, details of Soviet support for Chilean Marxists has been publically admitted by former officials of the former Soviet Union. So let us simply say that a substantial amount of open source material has been published, including transcripts of relevant Politburo proceedings. For those who may wish to decide for themselves, here is another title that covers both pre- and post-golpe Soviet relations with Chile.

The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World Author Christopher Andrew is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History and Chair of the Faculty of History at Cambridge University. Vasili Mitrokhin was a former senior officer of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence service whose career spanned the period between 1948 and 1984. He defected to the United Kingdom in 1992.

fraggle092 wrote:Stoph
Here's an article from the London Times archive you may find interesting.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article568154.ece

That article provides an interesting segue into some other aspects of the history of those times. The article cites thus:


The first attempt to overthrow the regime was made by activists of the extreme right-wing Patria y Libertad movement. The Santiago residency informed the centre that it had obtained intelligence on plans for the coup and warned Allende. On June 28, however, three combat groups of tanks and armoured cars with about 100 troops left their barracks and headed for the centre of Santiago. The coup petered out in farce.

This early attempt that is mentioned is known to chilenos as the Tanquetazo. There is an English-language summary here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanquetazo

The summary mentions LTC Souper (Roberto Federico Souper Onfray) as the leader of the Tanquetazo.

For anyone interested in sources there is an early US report on this in U.S. Embassy Santiago Cable 4728 to State Department, "Attempt Coup," 29 June 1973, (declassified - previously Confidential)

El pescado wrote:Corvalan bought the farm yesterday, age 94.

Good catch. He was actually 93 when he died, but that is a nit. And El Mercurio is giving him a lot of coverage.

http://diario.elmercurio.cl/2010/07/22/ ... 193763.htm

The articles note that Corvalán, who was traded to the Soviets in 1976 for Russian dissident Bukovsky, decided to return to Chile secretly in 1983 (CNN seems to think it was 1988; wikipedia likewise is in error on this point). His return was facilitated by plastic surgery, and his new face was on a falsified passport arranged by the Soviets.

Corvalán was an important communist figure in the Soviet Union and its satellites, and considerable efforts were made to free him from prison in Chile during the military regime. The Soviets awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize. The Carter administration assisted the Soviets in arranging his release. Corvalán even appeared on an East German postage stamp. Here:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... C3%A1n.jpg

The dissident Bukovsky, for whom Corvalán was exchanged, was given access to archives of the former Soviet union after the USSR was dissolved. Boris Yeltsin personally approved Bukovsky's access to the Soviet-era archives in 1992. The material discovered by Bukovsky has provided valuable insights into Soviet-Chile relationships. Some of this material has substantiated the earlier claims that the Soviets and Soviet bloc provided aid and support for the MIR and other Marxist guerrilla operations in Chile after the September 1973 golpe that brought the military regime to Chile. Unfortunately, the window into former Soviet/bloc participation in Chilean internal affairs was abruptly closed when Vladimir Putin came to power.

Bukovsky's books are available in English. They shed light on recent Chilean and Soviet history. One of his books is To Build a Castle-My Life As a Dissenter and The Peace Movement and the Soviet Union . Bukovsky also co-authored a book, Allegations, with Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was then murdered in London in 2006 as a result of what is believed to be an order from Vladimir Putin. The death of Litvinenko received worldwide coverage after British authorities revealed that the cause was poisoning by radioactive polonium-210.