1.
GV EXT. (NIGHT) White House.
0.11

2.
SV INT. Ford at rostrum faces press.
0.16

3.
CU AND SV Ford speaks.
1.47


FORD: "Our Government, like other Government, does take certain actions in the intelligence field to help implement foreign policy and protect national security. I am informed reliably that Communist nations spend vastly more money that we do for the same kind of purposes. In this particular case, as I understand it, there's no doubt in my mind our Government had no involvement whatsoever in the Allende coup. To my knowledge nobody has charged that...the facts are we had no involvement in any way whatsoever in the coup itself. In a period of time, three or four years ago, there was an effort being made by the Allende Government to destroy opposition news media -- both the writing press as well as the electronic press ....to destroy opposition political parties.



And the effort that was made in this case was to help and assist the preservation of opposition newspapers and electronic media and to preserve opposition political parties. I think that this is in the best interests of the people in Chile and certainly in our best interests."




Initials VS 1.23 VS 1.28


TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: President Ford said on Monday (16 September) night the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had no part in the overthrow of Chile's Marxist President Salvadore Allende, although it did help Chilean opposition newspapers and political parties.

He made the remark at a Press Conference when asked about reports that a "Committee of 40" -- led by Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger -- supervised a role by the CIA in President Allende's overthrow last year.

Mr. Ford told reporters that "our Government does take certain actions in the intelligence field to help implement foreign policy and protect national security".

"But", he added, "to my knowledge we had no involvement in the coup itself."
However, he continued that the United States had assisted the opposition press under Alllende which, he said, was being repressed.

But the furor over American involvement in Allende's overthrow looks like continuing. On Tuesday (17 September) the influential Washington Post reported that a Senate Sub-Committee report has called for a perjury investigation into testimony on United States political involvement in Chilean political affairs by former CIA Director Richard Helms and three other senior former CIA Director Richard Helms and three other senior former government officials.

The paper also accused Dr. Kissinger of deceiving the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee in sworn testimony.