The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/40 Committee.md

aliases	category	tags	summary	location	created	updated	relations
Forty Committee	U.S. Government	Organization 40Committee NationalSecurityCouncil CovertAction Chile HenryKissinger CIA	National Security Council subcommittee that approved CIA covert action under Nixon, chaired by Henry Kissinger, which voted funds to El Mercurio and was never told of the 1970 coup order in Chile.	Washington, D.C.	2026-09-21	2026-09-21	type with role start fn participant_in National Security Council Subcommittee of the Council from 1970 under NSDM 40, succeeding the 303 Committee 1970-02-17 2

The 40 Committee was the subcommittee of the National Security Council that reviewed and approved covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency during the administration of Richard Nixon. It succeeded the 5412 Panel of the 1950s, the Special Group, and the 303 Committee, and was chaired by the president's national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger.¹

Chile

The 303 Committee approved the campaign against Salvador Allende in the Chilean election of 1964 on April 2 of that year. National Security Decision Memorandum 40, signed February 17, 1970, converted the 303 Committee into the 40 Committee, updating NSC 5412/2. The Foreign Relations annotation on the memorandum reads "thus updating NSC 5412/2."² On October 18, 1969 Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms sent Kissinger a memorandum on the annual review of 303 Committee programs, which the Council's covert-action directive had put under committee review.³ In 1970 the 40 Committee approved 125,000 dollars for a "spoiling operation" against Allende's coalition and then 300,000 dollars more for propaganda. After Allende's plurality on September 4 it met on September 8, where Kissinger asked for a "cold blooded" assessment of the prospects of a military coup, and approved 250,000 dollars for Ambassador Edward Korry to use on the Chilean congress. It also approved 60,000 dollars for Korry to buy a radio station, which was never spent.¹⁴

On September 15 Nixon ordered the agency to organize a coup. The Senate's report states: "the 40 Committee was never informed of this direct CIA role." The operation, Project FUBELT, reported to Kissinger or his deputy, and the agency's instruction of September 16 was that it never be discussed at a committee meeting. Korry, who told the Senate "I even attended a 40 Committee meeting," was not told either.⁵

The committee authorized 700,000 dollars for the newspaper El Mercurio on September 9, 1971, and 965,000 dollars more on April 11, 1972. In September 1972 it gave 24,000 dollars to a "powerful businessmen's organization" and declined to fund others "because of their possible involvement in anti-government strikes." That October it approved 100,000 dollars for three private groups within a 1.5 million dollar program for the opposition. On the truckers' strikes the Senate staff wrote: "The 40 Committee did not approve any such support. However, the U.S. passed money to private sector groups which supported the strikers. And in at least one case, a small amount of CIA money was passed to the strikers by a private sector organization, contrary to CIA ground rules." On August 20, 1973, it approved a further million dollars. None of it had reached the private groups when the armed forces took power on September 11.¹

Footnotes

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1. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, staff report, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973, December 1975. https://archive.org/details/CovertActionInChile196373 ↩︎

2. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. XVII, doc. 30, annotation on National Security Decision Memorandum 40 of February 17, 1970. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d30 ↩︎

3. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. II, doc. 195, memorandum from Helms to Kissinger, October 18, 1969. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v02/d195 ↩︎

4. National Security Archive, "'Extreme Option: Overthrow Allende,'" Electronic Briefing Book, September 15, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-09-15/extreme-option-overthrow-allende ↩︎

5. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, interim report, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975. Testimony of Edward M. Korry, Hearings, vol. 7, Covert Action, 1975. ↩︎