Stephen M. Streeter, “Uncool and Incorrect” in Chile: The Nixon Administration and the Downfall of Salvador Allende. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2023, 320 pages, US$55.
“Uncool and Incorrect” in Chile: The Nixon Administration and the Downfall of Salvador Allende by Stephen M. Streeter is an apt volume and perhaps a premonition of the challenges to idealism in politics. The book extensively uses newly declassified records that were previously unavailable. No doubt there exists voluminous research on this particular episode in Chilean history, the 1973 coup against the democratically elected government and its president, Salvador Allende, and what followed as the aftermath of the event, a brutal three decades of military rule under Augusto Pinochet. However, what makes this book particularly unique is the utilization of newly declassified records and transcripts that provide a more nuanced interpretation of events leading up to the fateful last days of Allende. What follows in the book is a digression from the usual black or white narrative by presenting a more complex set of events, involving numerous state and private actors, working covertly and overtly quite independently of each other in the plotting and the eventual collapse of Allende’s Unidad Popular (UP) government. It would be erroneous to resort to the conventional, reductionist interpretations of this fateful event, given that we now have this book that brings under one volume material such as Kissinger’s telephone conversations relating to Chile that were released in 2004, as well as employing the 2015 declassified files released under the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) special series on Chile.
Indeed, the subject of this book is far from the glories of Simon Bolivar, El Libertador, who led the independence movement by liberating Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Panama, and the revolutions of Che Guevara in Latin America. Rather, it is about the inglorious episode of how foreign interference marked the beginning, to paraphrase Hayek, of the long march to serfdom in a country that was just perhaps finding its own way of defining progress and development for the common people. The effects are still being felt even to this day.
In a twist of fate, the issues that were most urgent to Chileans during the 2025 presidential election in Chile are an illustration of the aftermath of the coup, and the neo-liberal economic regime that pervaded Chileans for three decades. In December 2025, two candidates (Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party, and Jose Antonio Kast of the Republican Party of Chile, a far-right party) representing the extreme ends of the political spectrum, faced off in a presidential run-off. Such would have been unthinkable during Allende’s time. Perhaps the same covert forces may play out if the Communist candidate wins.
The book is dense with nine chapters. The chapters are arranged thematically and in rough chronological order. This is perhaps understandable, as readers will realize, given the convolutions and varied confounding factors coloring the events leading up to the coup. Chapter 1 discusses U.S.-Chile relations prior to 1970 and how Allende was perceived to have been posing a great threat to U.S. interests in Chile. More concerning to the Nixon Administration was the fear that Allende might export the Chilean revolution to other parts of Latin America.
“Making Chile Scream”
The focus of Chapter 2 is on the Nixon Administration’s attempts, using various means and subterfuge, to influence the 1970 presidential election in an effort to thwart Allende’s presidential bid. It segues into Chapter 3, describing how Allende’s UP government tried to normalize relations with Washington by following a practical foreign policy, such as its policy of “ideological pluralism,” peaceful coexistence with countries with differing ideologies, and “compliance with international treaties” (p. 45). Yet, despite such attempts, Allende and his leftist policies were too much of an aberration for Washington.
In Chapter 4, the author dwells on the clash between the Nixon administration and Allende’s government over the nationalization of the copper industry and the International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) Company. The story, then, progresses to Chapter 5, evaluating the contentious issues of the “invisible blockade” against Chile, which UP officials were confident that Washington was set, to use Nixon’s words, to “make the [Chilean] economy scream,” i.e., to derail the economy in an effort to dislodge Allende. Here, Nixon seemed to be taking a cue from U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay who had suggested that rather than negotiating with Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the United States should “bomb them back to the stone age” (Cullather 2006).
The author examines the policies of the UP government in Chapter 6—such as constitutional gridlock, polarization, and suspicions among the military of Allende’s intent to establish communism in Chile—and how that might have contributed to the unmaking of Allende and his UP government. It leads logically to Chapter 7, describing the U.S. destabilizing campaign in order to create a coup climate by subsidizing opposition media outlets, as well as U.S. efforts to influence local elections, covert support for private sector organizations, and constant aid to the Chilean military. In Chapter 8, the author explains the Nixon Administration’s efforts in the promotion of a coup climate, at which they were more or less successful, with Chapter 9 describing the final events leading up to the coup and its aftermath. The concluding chapter assesses the role of the United States in the tragic downfall of Allende and evaluates counterfactual scenarios.
In the Shadow of U.S. Interventions
The book perhaps is an illustration of the good and the bad of Latin America’s place as a neighbor in the backyard of a superpower to its north, the United States. On the one hand, it is good for the continent as a whole in the sense that its close vicinity to the United States serves as an ideal source of market and accessibility to much of the economic and political benefit that it begets. On the other hand, it is bad in the sense that its close proximity affords the superpower to intervene in the region whenever it senses a threat to its interests, from outright military intervention to covert operations to topple even democratically elected governments.
It is hardly surprising that in the span of a little less than a hundred years, from 1898 to 1994, the United States successfully intervened to change governments in Latin America forty-one times (Coatesworth 2005). On average, it intervened once every twenty-eight months. If we, then, account for the years from 1994 to the present, the figure is not pretty either. From implicit intervention through allocation, or cutting off, of economic and military aid such as in Argentine, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, to explicit penalties such as in Venezuela and Cuba (VFP 2019). Though the Cold War years are now long gone, the region continues to face the consequences of being in the backyard of its more affluent and powerful neighbor to the north.
The picture is bleak owing to the effects of such interventions in Latin American politics, economics, and civil society. Indeed, this region is not known for its stellar democratic and economic performance. In fact, much of this region continues to cope, even to this day, with poor economic development and inchoate democracies, vacillating somewhere between autocracies and competitive authoritarianism. One recent study (Absher et al. 2023) on the implications of the United States’ intervention in Latin America has shown a decline not only in real per-capita income but also in civil liberties, rule of law, and freedom of speech, i.e., a regression of democracy in the affected state.
It was not foreseen that when President James Monroe in 1823 signed the Monroe Doctrine—essentially assigning the entire Western hemisphere as Washington’s sphere of influence—its neighbors to the south would have to bear the brunt of keeping the foreign influence out. Rigging elections, assassinating political figures, supporting military regimes friendly to Washington, and toppling democratically elected governments were just some of the maneuvers the United States employed to keep the entire hemisphere clear of communism and protect its economic interests (Field 2019). Certainly, in such a context, when one state has overwhelming, lopsided power, almost anything can be construed as its “interest.” The all too familiar trope of the “Banana Republic” came to serve as an emblem of this entire continent, and its people and culture.
The Lessons of “Uncool and Incorrect”
The value of this book lies in the historical context. Though it concerns one of the most consequential events in Chilean history, the military coup of 1973, where a democratically elected president was overthrown with the aid of the most powerful democratic country, the United States, the lessons to be drawn from this event are universal. There are wider lessons concerning geopolitics, ideology, and above all, “power,” encompassing events and circumstances where we find ourselves at this present moment in time when a clash between China and the United States is likely. In such a scenario, who is to say that Washington will not invoke its two-century-old doctrine (with a Monroe Doctrine “plus” or a kind of a “neo-Monroe doctrine”) to intercede in Latin America, to counter or contain China’s heavy investment in this region, and in continents across the globe? We can never say never. Déjà vu seems all too plausible.
More importantly, the book is implicitly a premonition and a cautionary account of how events are interpreted, and how they unfold in a highly charged and uncertain environment, such as during the Cold War period. Consider, for instance, U.S. officials’ rigid perception of Salvador Allende as a threat to Washington’s interests. This one factor threads the entire book, recurring in every chapter where the author describes how U.S. officials were essentially unwilling to consider working with him, with the sole aim of dislodging him from the seat of power. U.S. officials conducted a multi-frontal “cool but correct” policy (p. 42) with the sole aim to “overthrow his government” (p. 111). The whole focus was on how to make Allende pay for his views; his leftist policies such as nationalizing industries, banks, public utilities, mining, and introducing land reforms; as well as the imperiling of U.S. private investments, seen as an attack on the United States’ sacred ideology of private enterprise and liberalism (Chapters 4 and 6). By hook or crook, the Nixon Administration was set on a single-minded goal of destabilizing and bringing down Allende through economic depression, financial debts (Chapter 5), media propaganda and disinformation (Chapter 3), strikes, and causing resentment among the military against Allende (Chapter 7), all in an effort to ferment divisive political polarization (Chapter 8), create a coup climate (Chapter 8), and dislodge him. This would simultaneously also serve as lessons for other countries in the region to toe the line of Washington, and dissuade them from embracing communism of any kind or form (p. 45). In essence, Allende was bound to fail regardless of what he did, could have done, did not do, or could not have done. The Nixon Administration found all too willing accomplices in the shape of disgruntled opposition parties, the elites, and the military, who flamed and supercharged the already volatile political and socio-economic environment to the peril of Allende and his Unidad Popular government.
Streeter’s book, based on an extensive evaluation of newly declassified materials, makes clear that there was nothing that Allende could have done to prevent his fall. His fate was sealed the moment he won the presidential election in 1970. Take, for instance, Allende’s UP government’s foreign policy of “ideological pluralism” of “peaceful coexistence with all countries regardless of differing ideologies” (p. 45). Though pragmatic, the UP government “faced the especially difficult challenge to try to overcome the biases of the Nixon administration, the U.S. Congress, and the American mass media” (p. 45), even though Allende emphasized that “Chile was not going to be socialist, Marxist, or communist country” (p. 46). The author explains that Allende went so far as to stress that he “eschewed violence and emphasized the uniqueness of the Chilean road to socialism” (p. 148-149). Yet, all his efforts fell on deaf ears. Alas, toward the end, even he knew that a coup was imminent.
This perhaps is the most telling and relevant lesson for our times, applicable not just for Latin American states but also concerning the tussle between China and the United States. China too, like Chile under Allende, has been emphasizing the “uniqueness of the Chinese road to socialism,” and the United States, just as it did in Chile, is not buying what the Chinese are claiming. Washington has already made up its mind about how it perceives Beijing, just as it had about Allende’s Chile. If this continues, the Chilean tragedy is bound to repeat itself on a much larger scale and with wider implications.
The point here is not so much about whether the United States is trying to create its hegemony in Asia, and that China is rejecting such efforts, or that China is building its own version of the Monroe Doctrine with its 9-dash line. Rather, the point here is about how States, and their leaders and governments, perceive one another. Allende’s tragedy reveals a core challenge of international politics, that perceptions, once established, create a durable reality that is exceedingly difficult to alter, regardless of contrary evidence or diplomatic effort.
Salikyu Sangtam is a Fellow, Geopolitics and International Relations, at the Logdrum Foundation in Dimapur, India. He is also concurrently an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tetso College in Chumoukedima, India. His research focuses on Indian and Chinese strategic traditions, political theory, and non-western political thought. He is a regular contributor for the Rising Asia Journal.
Absher, Samuel, Robin Grier, Kevin Grier. “The Consequences of CIA-sponsored Regime Change in Latin America.” European Journal of Political Economy 80 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102452
Cullather, Nick. “Back to the Stone Age: Origins of a Cliché.” Asia-Pacific Journal, Japan Focus, October 2, 2006, https://apjjf.org/nick-cullather/2245/article
Coatesworth, John H. “United States Interventions: What For?” Revista 4, no. 2 (2005), https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/united-states-interventions/
Field, Thomas. “US and the Cold War in Latin America.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Latin American History (2019), https://commons.erau.edu/publication/1404
VFP, “US Acts of Aggression in Latin America Timeline.” Veterans for Peace, February 27, 2019, https://www.veteransforpeace.org/files/7815/5130/4069/US_Acts_of_Aggression_in_Latin_America_Timeline.pdf
