Chile Forum

admin wrote:I take this all with a grain of salt.

Any competent military, with the resources, keeps a set of plans on the shelf for everything imaginable (wars tend to start over what they forgot to plan for). I bet the Pentagon has a dusty set of counter plans to these plans and the soviets had a counter set to those plans.

Of course they have plans. And they aren't dusty. The are called OPLANs. For dealing with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, there was USCINCCENT OPLAN 1002-90, which had been updated in April of 1990.

But I am trying to figure out how this comment string relates to this thread covering aspects of the history of Chile-Soviet relations post-coup?

greg~judy wrote:

"If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

Off topic, of course...

Very off topic. And mostly statistical rubbish. You can go back many months in that Australian magazine and find no such entry.

joru wrote:I'm not familiar with the plan being discussed, but I'm not aware of any reason to question its authenticity or the earnest effort put into its preparation.

But I would question any need to immediately dismiss the existence of such plans as unbelievable silly stuff. This speaks of the trap that most people fall into, when they become comfortable in their 9 to 5, traverse long periods of time (perhaps their entire time) without thinking of killing anybody, and then assume that every other person (or most people of consequence), do not spend any time planning such things, that such things are the stuff of movies. My theory (probably not unique) is that every successful civilization reaches a point when there are far more people enjoying the fruits of labor than securing those fruits, and then when barbarians start burning hamlets in the countryside, there are too few people who remember that the universe is a violent place to believe that the barbarians will soon be at the gates.

I would label as un-serious any leadership that did not plan for such things and execute such plans as were necessary.

Thank you. Your observations concerning the barbarians at the gates remind me of something variously attributed to Winston Churchill, George Orwell (Eric Blair), Rudyard Kipling, and Anonymous, which went something like this: "We sleep soundly in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf."

There has been a good deal of derision on this forum for even bringing these Soviet-Chile topics up, though they are important elements of Chile's recent history, and I see no reason to sweep such discussions under the rugs. In fact, the expressed desire to avoid such topics speaks volumes.

There has also been criticism of the sources selected, and I presume that at least some of that relates to the social and political orientations of the forum's participants. For that reason I would expand some of the earlier cites with an article from what some regard as a Left-leaning organisation in the US, called National Public Radio, with which many are familiar. The following NPR article was prepared by Robert Siegel of NPR, someone who I understand is a widely respected staff member. The article is entitled "The KGB in the Third World." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4948068

In reading these materials, we have to ask ourselves why the Left, including former Soviet officials, would reveal or allow to be revealed so much potentially negative material concerning the operations, whether fancifully planned or undeniably committed, that involved the Soviets in Latin America. If the Soviets never did consider a raid to rescue Chilean Communist Party Chairman Corvalán, what possible explanation could there be for such an invention by a highly regarded former general within their intelligence agency? It is doubtful that anyone is seeking book or movie rights. I have never seen a responsible, open-press comment that General Leonov's assertions were false, and I would certainly be interested if such a denial, a legitimate and responsible and authoritative denial, were published. Simply to say that General Leonov's testimony does not suit one's world-view does not satisfy these criteria. In some of General Leonov's writings I take issue with his being not entirely forthcoming on certain aspects, but these are largely crimes of omission.

The Centro de Estudios Públicos in Santiago is a respected organisation in Chile and throughout the world. The CEP publishes a well regarded scholarly review called Estudios Públicos and I would recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in Chile that may extend beyond the comparatively shallow chatter of the dailies. It was this same Centro de Estudios Públicos that invited former Soviet general Nikolai Leonov to speak on a variety of topics surrounding Soviet activities in Latin America during the Cold War. General Leonov's lecture at the CEP in 1999 was delivered in Spanish (he is an excellent Spanish speaker and served as interpreter when Latin American communist leaders visited the former Soviet Union). The CEP arranged for an English translation of the lecture transcription. It is located here http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1140 ... ct.ing.pdf

Any observations of published authoritative denials of General Leonov's assertions concerning Soviet relationships with Chile should be welcome on this forum thread.

joru wrote:.... the links between the Soviets and the early environmentalist movement are disturbing, all the more so considering the advance and direction that movement has made in influencing the Western world.

Probably off-topic here but an interesting point. It is almost axiomatic that empires seek harm through economic disadvantage to their adversaries, so sub rosa support for economic hobbling of competitors is not inconceivable. Or it could be that radical environmentalism is sufficiently a home-grown cultural effect that external support by economic rivals isn't even required.

I haven't seen anything reliable to support your suspicions but if you find something please to pass it along. We might be viewed as hijacking a thread and have to move the discussion, though.

joru wrote:I'm pretty sure that I read the review in a original copy gray lit journal. I base this on my recollection of the paper weight, which I find useful for categorizing sources I have read. The review was in English but if you read German you may be able to find reference to the book online. I looked online for anything obvious related to this and there are the usual conspiracy theories, too many for a general search to be useful in the time I'm allotting this, but it was interesting to learn that Gorbachev founded Green Cross International. One day the house will sell and I'll be reunited with my library and the review, and I will hook you up.

I read the lecture last night and that was interesting. Do you know if Leonov had seen the questions before his lecture, or if he had spoken extemporaneously? I wonder if he would have responded differently with advance notice, if he had spoken thus. Do you have a copy of his memoirs?

I don't know if Leonov might have received the conference questions before arriving. Perhaps someone at CEP could answer that.

As far as Leonov's memoirs, the book doesn't seem to be available in Chile (surprise). So I don't have a copy, and have only read selected excerpts. But there does seem to be a lot of enlightening material there.

I seem to recall reading that current Russian Federation prime minister Putin was a subordinate of Leonov at one time but I don't know the details, and perhaps the Leonov memoirs will cast some light. Leonov has not been kind in his assessment of Putin's successes in Russia so their relationship must be a curious one. Still, Leonov seems to be quite popular in Russia and won election to the Duma not long ago.

Whatever the past Soviet-Chile issues might have been, there seem to be constructive relations emerging now. Bachelet went to Russia last year and fruit exports to Russia have been growing at a good rate, and there are evidently some additional markets for Chilean fruit in the works for Russia. Chile has ordered five Russian MI-17 helicopters which are considered to have desirable high-altitude capability for rescue and logistical support in cordilllera operations. Twenty years ago the idea of buying any Russian/bloc military equipment would have been unthinkable in Chile.