William
Cummings, "New York Times Reactions to the
Election of Salvador Allende"
11
The Times also presented UP fears of U.S. hostility as irrational. After a right-wing group shot General René Schnieder Chereau, the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, the New York Times reported that the left-wing Chilean press had been accusing the CIA of plotting against Allende and of masterminding the Schneider assassination. This was followed by a paragraph summary of a statement by Edward A. Korry, the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, denying such charges and another paragraph stating that "United States officials were concerned that the attack on General Schnieder would be used by anti-American elements to step up a campaign that seeks to link United States diplomats here with right-wing extremist groups."33 The day after Schneider died the paper quoted Aniceto Rodriguez, the secretary-general of "Dr. Allende's Socialist party," as identifying, "in a vaguely worded" statement, "`the CIA as the moral author'" of the Schnieder assassination.34 This was not followed by any official U.S. denials, but an editorial printed the same day asserted that U.S. relations with Allende were already being made difficult by his "Communist allies" and their accusations of CIA complicity in the assassination. Worse still, "the very forces that used Fidel Castro in their own television campaign" were accusing the U.S., "which had remained scrupulously aloof, of intervention in the election."35
Future declassified documents would reveal that the U.S. had been anything but aloof during the election, and that Aniceto Rodriguez was entirely accurate in his accusations. The CIA spent between $800,000 and $1,000,000 during the 1970 Chilean presidential campaign trying to prevent an Allende victory and helped the Internationa