Today is a good day to remember Salvador Allende, the democratically-elected President of Chile, who died in September 1973. Allende most likely shot himself in the La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago when he could no longer fight off the forces of General Augusto Pinochet as they executed a violent coup heavily supported by the United States and Henry Kissinger. Pinochet then ruled Chile as an American-supported "anti-communist" military dictator for nearly two decades in which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, jailed, or simply disappeared.

Allende, a socialist, was popularly elected as Chile's President with promises to strengthen democracy in Latin America and institute significant economic, education, and health reforms in order to dramatically improve the social welfare of the Chilean people. Some American leaders, like Henry Kissinger, saw him as a potential threat -- a South American version of Fidel Castro -- and the CIA begin laying the groundwork for eventual regime change.

The biggest problem with Allende, in Kissinger's mind, was the very fact that he was freely and democratically elected. In a memo to President Nixon that is still somewhat shocking to read, Kissinger wrote that "Allende was elected legally...He has legitimacy in the eyes of Chileans and most of the world; there is nothing we can do to deny him that legitimacy or claim he does not have it." Kissinger then reminds Nixon that "We are strongly on record in support of self-determination and respect for free election; you are firmly on record for non-intervention in the internal affairs of this hemisphere and of accepting nations 'as they are.'" Then he spends several pages outlining ways in which to undermine, delegitimize, and potentially eliminate "the Problem." After all, as Kissinger wrote shortly before Allende was elected, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday in Chile that it was imperative for the United States to declassify documents that could shed light on Washington’s involvement in the South American country’s 1973 coup.

“The transparency of the United States could present an opportunity for a new phase in our relationship between the United States and Chile,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Spanish in a video posted on Instagram alongside Camila Vallejo, the spokesperson for the left-leaning government of President Gabriel Boric.

The Democratic congresswoman from New York is part of a delegation of lawmakers who traveled to the capital of Santiago ahead of the 50th anniversary of the coup against President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973.

The delegation had first traveled to Brazil and will now go to Colombia, both of which are also ruled by left-leaning governments.

The goal of the trip was to “start to change … the relationships between the United States and Chile and the region, Latin America as a whole,” Ocasio-Cortez said outside the Museum of Memory and Human Rights that remembers the victims of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.

“It’s very important to frame the history of what happened here in Chile with Pinochet’s dictatorship. And also to acknowledge and reflect on the role of the United States in those events,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez said she has introduced legislation to declassify documents related to Chile’s coup and Vallejo said a similar request had been made by the Chilean government.

“In Chile as well, a similar request was made … that aims to declassify documents from the Nixon administration, particularly certain testimonies from the CIA director. This is to attain a clearer understanding of what transpired and how the United States was involved in the planning of the civil and military coup, and the subsequent years that followed,” Vallejo said. “This is very important for our history.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, said after the delegation’s approximately hourlong visit to the museum in Santiago that it was important to recognize the “truth” that “the United States was involved with the dictatorship and the coup.”

“So that’s why we’re here,” Casar said in Spanish to journalists, “to acknowledge the truth, to begin a new future.”

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro from Texas said the visit to the museum was a reminder that it was important “to make sure that a tragedy and a horror like this never, ever happens again in Chile or in Latin America or anywhere else around the world.”

Earlier in the day, the delegation also met with Santiago Mayor Irací Hassler.

Reps. Nydia Velázquez of New York and Maxwell Frost of Florida also traveled to South America as part of the delegation sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based think tank.

Henry Kissinger

President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon with Actresses Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, on February 25, 1973. 

Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration)

Series: Nixon White House Photographs

Image description: In a reception area of the White House, the Nixons, Debbie Reynolds, and Carrie Fisher stand and smile for a photo. Ms. Reynolds is wearing a dark plaid trench coat over a dark skirt or dress; President Nixon is wearing a dark suit with a rosette-patterned necktie. He has his arm around Ms. Reynolds. Ms. Fisher is wearing a dark dress with a white lace collar and cuffs. Mrs. Nixon is wearing a light striped skirt suit.

“We’ve got to break the back of this generation of Democratic leaders,” Kissinger told Nixon, plotting to use foreign policy for domestic advantage. Nixon agreed: "We’ve got to destroy the confidence of the people in the American establishment.”

[Joan Walsh :: The Nation]

SAVAK’s ability to ruin young Iranians’ professional and personal lives (known as “living death”) was all-pervasive. Fearing not only for himself but for the Shah’s survival, the Associated Press’ Tehran bureau chief confided to a U.S. spy that Iran’s merciless police state could backfire badly.  

The Mossadegh Project

Nixon Family Dogs with Christmas Presents in Front of a Dog House

This item was produced or created on December 9, 1970.

The creator compiled or maintained the parent series, Nixon White House Photographs, between January 20, 1969–August 9, 1974.

Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration)

National Archives Catalog

[Free Audiobooks] Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers & You Can't Say That!: Writers For Young People Talk About Censorship etc. [Award-Winning 1970s History Drama & YA Storyteller Interviews]

The annual SYNC Summer of Listening program encouraging literacy among teens by giving away a themed weekly pair of audiobooks—1 modern or non-fiction, 1 classic or drama—returns for another year, courtesy of sponsor AudioFile Magazine and participating publishers.

This 1st week's theme is “Freedom to Know”, with works focusing on the importance of access to information and freedom of expression, and obstacles placed in their way, available from Thursday April 27th through Wednesday May 3rd:

Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers by Geoffrey Cowan, a professor at the University of Southern California, & the late Leroy Aarons, a journalist at the Washington Post who reported on the original story, read by a full cast from L. A. Theatre Works. This is an historical docudrama, recorded from a performance in front of a live audience, about The Washington Post newspaper's struggle with U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration over the publication of the Pentagon Papers, documents detailing the extent of the government's actions in the Vietnam War, previously unknown to the public. The audiobook recording for this was a winner of the Earphones Award, and the play itself won the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold Award.

You Can't Say That!!: Writers for Young People Talk about Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell compiled and edited by Leonard S. Marcus, read by an assorted cast from Brilliance Audio/Candlewick. This audiobook uses actors to reenact interviews between the editor and 13 writers of controversial books for kids and young adults, including notable authors of prize-winning vintage and modern YA classics like Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia) and Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give) and bestsellers such as David Levithan.

The freebies are available via Overdrive's Sora service (listenable via browser on their website, or via their mobile app for iOS & Android devices).

To claim them, you'll need to register on the SYNC website with a valid email address to use in a Sora account, using the setup code and directions in the instructions in SYNC's FAQ (no need to re-register if you've participated in previous years' giveaways), clicking “Borrow” to add them to your Sora library as a permanent loan. NB: if you need to free up space on your device later, follow the instructions in the FAQ to only “delete files” and DO NOT “Return” the title, which would remove your future access.

Offered worldwide through Wednesday May 3rd until just before midnight Eastern Time, available via the Sora website and app. You can also browse AudioFile Magazine's planned season list to see what will be offered in the weeks ahead and if there's anything you'd especially like to get.

Full Footage of UFO Landing with Alien Entities Walking Out Exists, Filmmaker James Fox Reveals

The controversy surrounding UFO sightings has been a topic of interest for many years, with numerous alleged incidents taking place around the world. One such incident occurred at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico in May 1971, where three UFOs were said to have landed. According to filmmaker James Fox, who recently discussed the incident, the full video footage of the UFO landing exists,…

View On WordPress

At a time when success in the Presidency was defined by not being Richard Nixon, journalists put their usual skepticism on hold to celebrate "Grand Rapids homespun...a man who toasted his own English muffins for breakfast" -- a custom, it must be said, born less of Trumanesque simplicity than of Betty Ford's lifelong aversion to rising early ("I can't imagine anything worse than starting off the day with conversation"). "An unabashed lowbrow," according to Newsweek, [Gerald] Ford read the sports page before the rest of the paper. His personal tastes ran to double-knit suits, the Dallas Cowboys, Edgeworth pipe tobacco and bourbon and water. He addressed visitors as "sir" and took copious notes while conversing with Oval Office visitors. A reporter trailing Ford watched as Marines standing outside the West Wing snapped to attention at his approach. One of them opened the door and stood wordlessly by the threshold.

"Hi, I am Jerry Ford," said the President, extending his hand in friendly greeting. "I am going to be living here. What is your name?"

-- Richard Norton Smith, on the dramatic differences in the personalities of Presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon and immediate change of atmosphere around the White House following Nixon's resignation, as recounted in Smith's An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Republicans co-opting Martin Luther King Jr.’s quotes while pushing policy and supporting legislation directly in opposition to the Civil Rights leader’s wishes is just one example of the party attempting to rewrite history.

In fact, there are so many examples of revisionist history happening these days, particularly among conservatives, that historian and University of Princeton professor Kevin M. Kruse felt the need to publish a book alongside fellow historians, and join this episode of The New Abnormal politics podcast, to set the record straight.

Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast.

He talks about his book Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, which is a compilation of historian-written chapters that crush those myths, and shares proof that contrary to Republicans’ denials, the party actively engages in “Southern Strategy,” which is, as New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy explains, the “idea that as the Democratic Party moved away from being the party of slavery and segregation, the GOP sort of consciously moved to fill that void and to become the champion of white Southerners.”

From speaking in coded racial language to antagonizing white voters through fear and taking starkly pro-police stances, they’re absolutely following the knowingly racist playbook of conservatives past, says Kruse.

“This is not some wishful thinking theory that we’ve imposed in the past. The people we’re talking about in documents at the time, in interviews at the time, in books, talk about this,” says Kruse. “[Richard] Nixon talks about this in his memoirs. Harry Dent, his adviser, talks about it in his memoirs. Lee Atwater gives an interview where he talks about the old coded racism of the Nixon-era Southern Strategy. This has long been conventional wisdom. Heads of the Republican National Committee apologized for this. The thought that suddenly people are saying, ‘Oh, this never happened. This is all a myth,’ was just kind of insane and frustrating.”

He also explains Nixon’s role in solidifying this strategy for the GOP and also why we still are taught basic historical lies, including one that Andy is particularly invested in: George Washington never telling a lie.

Also on this episode: TNA co-host Danielle Moodie interviews Jim Freeman, a civil rights lawyer and author of the book, Rich Thanks to Racism: How the Ultra-Wealthy Profit from Racial Injustice, to talk about the Defund the Police movement and the role police unions are playing in stopping it from happening.

Henry Kissinger

Secretary of State William Rogers signs the Vietnam Peace Agreements on January 27, 1973. 

Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration)

Series: Nixon White House Photographs

Image description: American diplomats sit at a large table as other men in the background look on. Secretary Rogers is signing a document. In front of him is a pen holder with twelve pens in it.

I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE ALSO AWARE OF THE HALDEMAN PERSON, I FEEL INSANE WHENEVER I BRING THEM UP

IT WAS SO FUCKING BIZARRE I was like oh haha funny tweet who's the dude in the image? Go their profile. Find out it's a Rockefeller. Okay! Scroll down. I keep scrolling down. I have fallen into quicksand and am struggling to get out. But no yeah they were saying they listen to the Nixon tapes because Haldeman's voice is soothing and I went hm I think I should leave. Then I found someone who seems to be genuinely very in love with Oppenheimer? At that point I was like yeah I'm gonna close Twitter for a bit

FUCK YEAH MARY PELTOLA