the u.s. paid money to support hugo banzer’s 1971 coup in bolivia

ROBERT P. BAIRD

For nearly four decades, there’s been an open ques tion about the 1971 coup that brought dic ta tor Hugo Banzer Suárez to power in Bolivia: was the U.S. gov­ern ment involved? Thanks to newly declas si fied doc u ments, we now have an answer.

Banzer was a dic ta tor of Bolivia from 1971-8 and a demo c ra t i cally elected pres i­dent from 1997-2001. His three-​day coup in August 1971 was sig nif i cant not only for the fight ing that accom pa nied it, which left 110 dead and 600 wounded, but for the seven-​year regime that fol lowed, one of the most repres sive in Bolivia’s his tory. Under Banzer’s rule, more than 14,000 Boli vians were arrested with out a judi cial order, more than 8,000 were tortured—with elec tric ity, water, beatings—and more than 200 were exe cuted or dis ap peared. (I’m writ ing a long arti cle about the legacy of the regime for Nar ra tive Mag a zine. It will hope­fully be out by the end of the year.)

Amer i can sup port for Banzer before and after the coup was never in doubt. He had trained at the School of the Amer i cas in Panama and the Armored Cav alry School in Texas, and in the late 60s served as mil i tary attaché in Wash ing ton. In the five months after he ousted left-​wing dic ta tor Gen eral Juan José Torres, Banzer was rewarded with $50 mil lion in grants and aid from the Nixon Administration.

But while U.S. sup port for Banzer during the coup has been widely assumed among Boli vians and Latin Amer i can his to ri ans, the only proof (until now) was been a Wash ing ton Post report pub lished a week after the event, which said that U.S. Air Force Major Robert J. Lundin had advised the plot ters and lent them a long-​range radio. The report was never sub stan ti ated, how ever, and the State Depart ment denied it imme di ately, assert ing unequiv o cally that the U.S. played no part in the over throw of Torres.

A col lec tion of declas si fied doc u ments recently released* by the same State Depart ment proves that this denial was not only incor rect, but a lie: the Nixon Admin is tra tion, acting with the full knowl edge of the State Depart ment, autho­rized nearly half a mil lion dollars—”coup money,” accord ing to the ambas sador in La Paz—for the politi cians and mil i tary offi cers plot ting against Torres. The CIA handed at least some of this money over to the coup’s lead ers in the days lead ing up to Banzer’s seizure of power.

Min utes from a July 8, 1971 meet ing of the 40 Com mit tee (an executive-​branch group chaired by Henry Kissinger and tasked with over sight of covert oper a tions) included dis cus sion of a CIA pro posal to give $410,000 to a group of oppo si tion politi cians and mil i tary lead ers, money that they knew would be used to over throw Torres. (Under Sec re tary of State U. Alexis John son: “what we are actu ally orga niz ing is a coup in itself, isn’t it?”) Though the com mit tee decided to wait to hear from Ambas sador Ernest Sir a cusa (he opposed the mea sure) the plan was ulti mately approved. The same day that the coup began in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, an NSC staffer reported to Kissinger that the CIA had trans ferred money to two high-​ranking mem bers of the opposition.

The CIA pro posal had its roots in a June con ver sa tion between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, when they decided that Torres’s over tures to the Boli vian left wing had gone too far:

Kissinger: We are having a major prob lem in Bolivia, too. And—

Nixon: I got that. Con nally men tioned that. What do you want to do about that?

Kissinger: I’ve told [CIA Deputy Direc tor of Plans Thomas] Karamessines to crank up an oper a tion, post-​haste. Even the Ambas sador there, who’s been a softy, is now saying that we must start play ing with the mil i tary there or the thing is going to go down the drain.

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: That’s due in on Monday.

Nixon: What does Karamessines think we need? A coup?

Kissinger: We’ll see what we can, whether—in what con text. They’re going to squeeze us out in another two months. They’ve already gotten rid of the Peace Corps, which is an asset, but now they want to get rid of USIA and mil i tary people. And I don’t know whether we can even think of a coup, but we have to find out what the lay of the land is there.

The CIA was almost cer tainly cor rect that regard less of U.S. involve ment “an attempt to oust Torres in the next few months, if not sooner, [was] inevitable.” But even though they rec og nized that sup port ing the coup was “a high risk operation,” they decided they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb:

The U.S. Gov ern ment will be the log i cal cul prit in the minds of Boli­vians. More over, we fully expect the CIA to come under fire and accu­sa tions of CIA involve ment seem inevitable. Since the CIA has been accused reg u larly (and falsely) of innu mer able plots and activ i ties in Bolivia, one more accu sa tion should not cause exces sive public reaction.

On August 26, three days after Banzer claimed power, Kissinger and Nixon spoke on the tele phone. Kissinger briefed the Pres i dent on his recent meet ing with Viet nam POW wives and the Pres i dent told Kissinger that “the trou ble with Reagan is quite clear. He really is simplistic.” At the end of the con ver sa tion, Kissinger noted, “In Bolivia there has been a coup. It has brought on a right-​wing government.”

Nixon’s response? “What about Chile.”

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*In July 2009 the State Depart ment Office of the His to rian released volume E-10 of For eign Rela tions of the United States 1968-1972, edited by Dou glas Kraft and James F. Siek meier, but with held the Bolivia chap ter until declas si fi ca tion could be com pleted. The Bolivia doc u ments were released some time between March 1 of this year and now. I believe this is the first notice of the sig nif i cance of the Bolivia documents.