Shortly put, the Nixon-Kissinger duo believed, fervently that leftist Chile would be a geopolitical nightmare for the United States hegemony. Kissinger is on the record as saying:

There is a good chance that [Allende] will establish over a period of years some sort of Communist government…[causing] massive problems for us and for democratic forces and for pro-US forces in Latin America…

Furthermore he believed it would be an “infection” or “contagious example” that would cause the people of Latin America to go against their own best interest, America’s business interests, in favor of mindless programs favoring literacy, agrarian reform, the reduction of income disparities, and so on.

This conception of democracy, of the right of force to trump popular opinion, as popular opinion is not equal to best interests, is an elitist attitude as old as the Western political discourse which so readily espouses it.

For a detailed examination, check out Professor Noam Chomsky’s Force and Opinion essay published in 1991 (but still eerily true over 20 years later).

In reference to Bolivia, Connally was speaking of the right-wing dictator General Hugo Banzer, recently installed in a August 1971 coup supported by the United States. Hugo Banzer overthrew one of the few left-wing leaders remaining in Latin America, the dictator General Juan Jose Torrest, securing a web of right-wing, US friendly military dictatorships that would be resistant to the “infections” of democracy and cater to American interests.

A quick look at Banzer’s record will reveal that his true intelligence was never to be doubted. Trained at the infamous School of Americas in Panama, notorious for training the next generation of human rights violators, and the Armored Cav­alry School in Fort Hood, Texas. In addition, he received over $50 million in grants and aid from Nixon post-coup.

In 1973, Nixon made a “helluva case out of [Allende]”. In fact, the declassified record reveals that Allende was viewed as an “infection” whose left-wing policies and purported disregard for US power could spread to the rest of the Latin American region, a region very important to the United States due to “American interests” in the 1970s.

Obviously, Allende had to go. In 1973, a Chilean coup d'état, made possible by extensive US support of right-wing elements and economic sabotage, which ended in:

• Allende’s suicide
• The dissolution of the formal political process
• A brutal military dictatorship ruling from 1973 to 1990, guilty of harsh, to say the least, human rights violations and political oppression

John Connally served not only was the 39th Governor of Texas but the United States Secretary of the Navy under John F. Kennedy (also passenger of the car in which JFK was assassinated in) and the United States Secretary of the Treasury under Richard Nixon.

We have Connally to thank for the Bush dynasty: his insistence that Nixon provide George H.W. Bush with a federal appointment landed him the position of Ambassador to the UN and saved his political career, beginning Bush Sr.’s string of federal appointments in the 1970s.