Project FUBELT
| Project FUBELT | |
|---|---|
| Part of United States intervention in Chile | |
 | |
| Type | Attempted military coup d'état |
| Location | |
| Planned | 1970 |
| Planned by | Central Intelligence Agency |
| Commanded by | |
| Objective | Prevent the inauguration of socialist president-elect Salvador Allende |
| Date | September 15, 1970 – November 9, 1970 |
| Executed by |
|
| Outcome | Failure |
| Casualties | 1 killed (René Schneider) |
Project FUBELT (also known as Track II) is the codename for the secret Central Intelligence Agency operations that were to prevent Salvador Allende's rise to power before his confirmation and to promote a military coup in Chile. This project came after the circumstantial failure of Track I, which involved making president Eduardo Frei Montalva interfere with the 1970 national election in opposition to Allende.
The highlights of Project FUBELT are cited in declassified US government documents released by the National Security Archive on September 11, 1998, 25 years after the coup, as well as in papers uncovered by a 1975 congressional inquiry.
Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive and the director of the Chile Documentation Project, reveals in his book The Pinochet File the participation of the US in fomenting the military coup in Chile in the covert CIA Project FUBELT.
CIA memoranda and reports on Project FUBELT include meetings between United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of secret action in 1970, detailing decisions and operations to undermine the election of Salvador Allende in September 1970 and to promote a military coup.
In November 1970, after the failure of the operation with the killing of general René Schneider, the US National Security Council issued National Security Decision Memorandum 93, which replaced FUBELT.