The Economist has spent the past week blaming the left for the coup in Chile, and insisting that everybody move on from it.
Remember that The Economist helped to prepare the ground for Salvador Allende's removal, and welcomed the Augusto Pinochet regime.
Thread:
During the 1970s, The Economist's Latin American editor was a man named Robert Moss.
Declassified UK files show that Moss was "an IRD contact". In other words, he was an asset of the Foreign Office's secret propaganda unit, the Information Research Department.
In 1972, Moss travelled to Chile to write a CIA-funded book about Allende's Popular Unity government.
Moss had been recommended to the CIA by Brian Crozier, an MI6 "alongsider" whose Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) was being secretly funded by the IRD.
From Chile, Moss wrote "negative stories on Allende almost every week" for The Economist, attacking his embrace of "Cuban terrorists" and economic record.
Moss also lectured at CIA think tanks and rubbed shoulders with Chilean military officials.
columnblog.com/p/the-economis…
The Economist's hit jobs against Allende carried no byline, meaning nobody knew who was actually writing them.
Worse still, the IRD was probably providing Moss with propaganda material which could be used to attack Allende.
In April 1972, Salvador Allende personally intervened by writing a series of letters to the Chilean press.
He complained that newspapers like "La Tercera de la Hora" were uncritically regurgitating The Economist's reports.
"Your newspaper has been publishing articles... that present a warped image of Chile's reality, and which are not signed by any responsible journalist, but a 'special correspondent' of The Economist", Allende wrote.
"Imposters like this cause considerable harm to our nation".
Allende, of course, was correct.
Robert Moss (pictured below) operated within a shady network of US and British intelligence officials, and his work was actively contributing to the destabilisation of the Chilean government.
Moss' campaign did not end here.
Following the brutal 1973 coup in Chile, Moss transformed his CIA-funded book on Allende into an apologia for the Pinochet regime.
The military's "decision to intervene had nothing to do with Washington", he declared.
Moss' book was so favourable to the Pinochet regime that the Chilean junta bought 9,750 copies of it for distribution through its embassies.
The Economist also helped to usher in the Pinochet regime. From 15 September 1973:
"The blame lies clearly with Dr. Allende... Their coup was homegrown, and attempts to make out that the Americans were involved are absurd".
As historian Alexander Zevin wrote, upon hearing the news of Chile's coup, Moss danced down the corridors of The Economist chanting: "My enemy is dead!".
versobooks.com/products/28-li…
Pablo Sepúlveda Allende is the grandson of Salvador Allende. He recently spoke about Moss' reaction:
"The unfortunate thing is that certain parts of the press are not independent – they’re financed or form part of major economic interest groups".
declassifieduk.org/50-years-after…
Moss would go on to become a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, whose friendship with Augusto Pinochet is now infamous.
Brian Crozier also went on to advise Thatcher, and helped Pinochet to write the 1980 Chilean constitution.
This vignette, and many others, will feature in our forthcoming documentary "Britain and the Other 9/11".
It's about the UK's secret campaign against Allende, and subsequent support for the Pinochet regime.
If you can, please help us tell this story:
crowdfunder.co.uk/p/britain-othe…
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